The Colony Box Set

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Every One had an Other. We were crafted together, birthed at the same time, two halves of one Whole. Everything I was not, she was. Everything she lacked, I had. Others assured we would never be alone. Since the first Colony, Others had worked together to create everything we held dear.

Including the pills, of course.

Brin was my Other. Each year, the Birthing Committee selected twenty-six embryos from stasis to be born. Thirteen boys, thirteen girls, twinned and tweaked to perfection. The entire Colony celebrated the births, and more couples applied to become parents than would be able to receive the children. The babies were born in the Birthing Center and nurtured there for three months by Birthers, workers whose sole purpose was to raise and feed and clothe the newborns. After this initial period, the babies were given new homes. Families could only receive a total of two children—one of each gender. This allowed everyone in the Colony the opportunity to become parents.

The year I turned eleven, my mother and father petitioned the Committee for another child. They received a daughter, my sister Evie, a year later. She would be the last child my parents were allowed to raise.

There was no such thing as natural birth in the Colony.

We learned about it in class, and why it had been such a dangerous practice. Too many children born too quickly, to parents unable or unwilling to care for them. Diseases spread through s****l interactions. Mothers dying in childbirth, children born with defects, a whole gamut of reasons our system was better.

In the Colony, women and men donated their genes to future generations. The best traits were passed on, and families created through blending the Whole. Everyone who wanted a child could petition to receive one, and those who would rather focus on other talents didn’t have to be burdened with parenthood. It was all coded in our genes. If someone wanted a child, then his or her Other would want to raise a family, as well. If someone was better suited for long hours working for the Whole, the Other was, too.

Everyone was happy in the Colony. They had to be.

We took pills for it.

* * * *

The morning after the incident with my blue pill, I woke on my own, feeling refreshed. Usually the screen above my door clicked on with a soft chime that sounded every few seconds, growing louder as the light in the room brightened, drawing me from sleep.

But I was up before the chime began, my eyes open a full minute before the light brightened in response. I snuggled in the sheets for a moment, remembering the feel of Kyer’s hand on my knee, my thigh. If I’d stayed asleep a little longer, where exactly would his hand have ended up?

A delicious shiver tickled through me at the thought. I couldn’t wait to tell him about the dream.

No, I couldn’t. No one could know. Then they would know I didn’t take the blue pill, and it’d get back to the Health Center, and I’d be detained.

The dream was my little secret.

I had another minute to myself before the screen clicked to life. Someone stared into my room, a woman older than me but not quite as old as my mother. A Monitor, someone whose job it was to watch over everyone through the consoles in the Monitor Center.

“Good morning, A-4602,” she said, her voice pleasant but neutral. It was just another morning at work for her. She tapped the headset holding back strawberry-colored curls and I heard the sound loudly through the speakers built into the wall. “Did you sleep well?”

She knows. I threw back the covers and draped my legs over the side of the bed, sitting up. My left foot covered the spot where I thought I had smashed the blue pill the night before.

“Monitor, I’m fine,” I assured her.

The look on her face suggested otherwise. If I were fine, I’d still be asleep, and the chimes would have to wake me up.

She typed on a keyboard just out of sight, then nodded. “Please stand with your arms out so I can run a bioscan.”

I did as she asked. Would a bioscan show I hadn’t taken all my pills? Would I be found out before I even had a chance to savor this new freedom? Would I be detained after all?

The bioscan was painless. A thin slit in the wall lit up with a red light that circled my bedroom, then a laser scanned me from head to toe. I kept my face blank and held my breath. Please, I thought, not sure exactly who I might be pleading with. The Monitor, maybe? The Colony itself?

The memory of Kyer’s hand on my leg seared into my mind. Please. Don’t notice. Let me keep this.

After a moment, the laser disappeared and the red light flicked off. When it was gone, I couldn’t even see the slit where it had been.

The Monitor nodded again. “The bioscan is within normal range. Please report to the Health Center for further testing as soon as possible.”

My heart stuttered. “I have class this morning,” I pointed out.

“After class is over will be fine,” she assured me.

“The bioscan was normal,” I argued.

She gave me an uncharacteristic grin. “It’s a preliminary test, checking all your vitals. The Health Center will be a bit more thorough, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.”

But I was worried. In fact, for the first time in my life, I was terrified.

* * * *

My given name was A-4602. The letter indicated the order of my birth and the numbers, the year. Within the Colony, I was known first as A-4602; every communication I received from any Colony department referenced me by that name. But my parents chose Aine from the list of pre-approved names issued the year I was born, and most people I knew called me that. Teachers, my family, my friends. My Other.

When Brin and I married, we would be known in the system as AB-4602. Two Halves becoming Whole. The beauty of the Colony’s philosophy at work.

I stayed in my room until I heard the soft chimes start down the hall, rousing my parents and sister. Then I ducked into the bathroom to freshen up. There was a cabinet inside the bathroom with four shelves in it, one for each member of the family. I showered quickly—my prescribed seven minutes, no more, no less—then dressed in a clean pair of linen pants and lightweight tunic that were a mirror image of the outfit I wore to bed. White—everything was white. I dried my hair with a towel and combed the dark, damp strands back from my face. I watched my reflection in the tempered glass, looking for anything out of place, anything different.

I looked the same to me. If I couldn’t see any outward signs I hadn’t taken the blue pill, maybe no one else would, either.

In the main living area, my mother had breakfast already on the table. Two slices of thin, buttered toast and a scrambled pile of protein. From what I had learned in class, the protein was made to resemble eggs, unfertilized genetic material of extinct birds. The darker bits were supposed to mimic sausage, meat from another animal long gone. In the Colony, the only living creatures were humans. Even the plants were synthetic, and no one I knew had ever seen an animal or bird or insect of any kind outside of pictures stored in the Colony Archives.

Humans had destroyed the planet, we were taught. They wiped out all other living beings and made the place uninhabitable. In a last-ditch effort to avoid our own extinction, the first Colonists set off to forge a new identity, controlled and contained. Everything we did was with an eye towards our future survival as a species. Which made it worthwhile, right?

Right?

As I sat down in my seat at the table, my father glanced up from his console and nodded. “Heard you woke up early this morning,” he said in greeting.

Before I could respond, my mother asked, “Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m fine,” I assured them. Inside, my stomach churned with dull fear, and the thought of choking down the fake protein scramble nauseated me. I bit into my toast instead. “They want to see me at the Health Center for a check-up, that’s all.”

“You’re a growing boy,” my father said. “Just need to adjust the pills a bit, I’m sure that’ll fix it. You’re what, sixteen?”

I nodded as I chewed on the toast. He didn’t glance up from the console to see.

“Another two years and you’ll be leaving us.” My mother sniffled the way she always did when she thought of my moving out.

At eighteen, my classes would be over and I’d have to decide on a career. Then Brin and I would marry and move into one of the homes that would become available that same year. I wasn’t yet sure exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, but Brin told me she might apply for a position in the Birthing Center. A small part of me was relieved—maybe working around the newborns every day would curb her desire to apply for a child of our own. I didn’t see myself being a father.

Though, to be honest, it must not have been very difficult. My own father spent most of his time at home with his console in front of his face, reading the news or playing that odd numbers game all the adults seemed to like. My own console was locked, limited to only class-related information and lesson-based ‘games’ that were, in reality, nothing more than snazzy teaching interfaces. When I wasn’t in class, I kept it turned off. I preferred rec time with my classmates and friends rather than impersonal face time with the console.

Speaking of, if I didn’t get moving, I would be late.

But when I tried to rise from the table, my mother stopped me with a stern look. “Are you sure you’re all right, Aine? You barely touched your food. Maybe you should head on over to the Health Center before class.”

“I’m fine,” I said again. I sat back down and shoveled food into my mouth, swallowing without chewing, trying not to think of eggs or sausage or extinct animals. Instead I focused my mind on the memory of Kyer’s hand on my leg—it had felt so real! Were all dreams like that?

If so, why keep them from us?

“All done.” I pushed back my plate and stood again. Before my mother could protest, I wiped my mouth with a cloth napkin and hurried around the table to give her a quick, one-armed hug. “Have a great day at work. Bye, you guys.”

My father’s response was a raised eyebrow to show he’d heard me. Evie sat in her booster seat and stared at her own console, her first—she received it a few days ago and hadn’t put it down since. Only my mother said anything as I hurried for the door. “Let me know what the Health Center says.”

“I will,” I called back, but it was perfunctory at best. Of course she’d find out. Whatever happened, they’d tell her about it instantly. How else did my father know I’d woken before everyone else?

And how long before everyone knew I hadn’t taken all my pills?