I Can't Say I'm in Love...

Katrina sighed as she cleaned out the last of the amniotic fluid from the final vat. One Hundred and fifty-seven today, she mused to herself as she returned the container and finished designating the serial numbers for each of the new citizens. I wonder how many they had over in the Lavender District. They always need more workers. Katrina scanned her wrist on the way out of the sterile room, officially finished for the day.

“Hey! Kat!” a familiar voice called out as she turned with a smile. “Finally off the clock? How many did you deliver?”

“Afternoon Asher! One fifty-seven!” Katrina replied cheerily. “Ninety-three going straight down to the Under-works, forty-eight to farming, twelve into higher education and four lucky cherubs up into the Twilight.”

“Nicely done!” Asher whistled in approval at the successful delivery rate. “A great day for the Carnation District! The Under-works and farmers have been desperate for extra workers since the outbreak. A few days in the acceleration and memory implantation vats and the pressure will be at least somewhat alleviated.” Katrina nodded in agreement.

“It’s funny to think women used to… you know… push them out,” Katrina looked down as a blush spread across her face. “I would never want to go through something like that.” She expected immediate agreement from Asher, but instead he had an odd look plastered on his face.

“I don’t know,” he attempted to sound nonchalant. “It could be kind of nice. Raising your own family with someone you lo...”

“Shut up you idiot!” Katrina hissed, looking around frantically, “You know talk like that is against the law. You could end up in prison. Or worse, loose your job!” She looked down and realized that in her panic, she had gripped Asher’s arm. She yanked it away, missing the disappointed look on the young man’s face.

“That law is ridiculous!” Asher argued. “They think that if people start pairing up again, productivity will cease to exist. I think that’s ridiculous. If anything, having a family and a person to l… care about,” he corrected with a pointed look at Katrina, “will give nothing but motivation. A cause to protect, a reason to go to work and come home every evening.”

“We have a cause to protect,” Katrina retorted, “The Conurbation is our cause. It protects us from the dangers outside its’ walls, and we protect it by keeping it running smoothly. Things are the way they are for a reason.” She fixed Asher with a steely gaze.

“Sometimes I wonder what reason,” Asher muttered, before saying a hasty farewell. Katrina tried to banish his words from her mind, but all through the night they swirled through her head like snowflakes over the city spires. Was there more to life than The Conurbation? A bigger goal than working in a room, ‘birthing’ babies who would never know who contributed their genetic material? Katrina knew these thoughts were dangerous. The Rose Guard took treason seriously, and could easily have her demoted to a lower citizen. The thought of living in The Bowels, fighting others for survival and subsisting off the leftovers of society, turned Katrina’s sleep into a night of fitful nightmares.

***

“In breaking news, another pair of citizens from Marigold District were apprehended today after being caught attempting the leave the city via the waterways. More on this tonight at nine. But first, are you tired at work? Is your work quality starting to get sloppy in the last few hours of that fifteen-hour day? Well, to avoid careless mistakes and keep our glorious Conurbation running like a well oiled machine, you need triple strength…” Katrina flicked off the viewer, threw on her coat, and headed out the door. Wind whipped furiously at her hair as she walked towards the transportation pod.

As always, clouds obscured the sun and chilled the air, leaving all but the highest levels in their constant dim, gloomy state. At least they hadn’t descended down to the middle levels today, and Katrina could still see the city outside the pod as it raced towards the lab building. Weather control devices could only do so much to keep the cloud cover higher than what would be its usual culmination point. Only the upper levels, The Twilight, had the luxury of sun. Those who lived in the highest sections of each districts’ towering buildings got to see the light, feel it on their skin. Katrina had heard stories of the upper crust being able to grow the flowers for which their district was named on their very balconies. She could only imagine the sight - the vibrant purple and beautiful fragrance of the Lavender District, a rainbow among the sky in the Tulip District, the brilliant mixture of pastel carnations above her very head.

Nobody Katrina had ever met had even seen a living flower. Some owned preserved flowers, dried and kept on mantelpieces as a badge of honour, or even preserved in an orb of resin - if they could afford it. The museum a few buildings across from Katrina even had an entire bouquet of roses, kept in a silicone solution that made them look almost alive. It was well guarded, and patrons had to pay an extra fee to view the display. Roses had long been extinct, and Katrina visited the display every year on her birthday to marvel at their beauty. She knew she would never be well off enough to afford even a dried flower on her salary as a humble birth pod clerk. What a status symbol it could be, the respect Katrina could gain from her colleagues and supervisors. She brushed the thought aside with a breathy sigh.

Only a month until February 14^th, Katrina’s excitement bubbled within her as she thought, then I can check out the exhibit again. Maybe they will have some new hybrids on display this year, too. She smiled at the thought as the transportation pod glided silently over Carnation. Looking down between the concentric rings of towering buildings, Katrina’s mind began to wander back to her conversation with Asher the week before. He is being ridiculous, Katrina felt as though she was convincing herself of something. We don’t need the added stress of trying to navigate relationships. Dating. Families. Love… We need to focus on our duty to The Conurbation. Enough systems have already been slowed down by the outbreak. Without every single worker one hundred percent devoted to their duties, the whole thing could go down. Ice crawled up Katrina’s spine at the thought of buildings crumbling as their magnetic structural supports failed, plunging thousands of meters into the gloom below.

Work was much slower today, with only twenty-three pods showing the flashing green light to indicate the fetus inside had developed enough to be transferred for growth acceleration and basic skills implantation. Katrina spent most of her shift deep cleaning her section of the lab, catching up on paperwork and looking at the database to see where workers were needed most within Carnation. No matter how slow the day, workers were expected to keep busy for every minute of their shift, minus their thirty minute lunch break. From arrival at 4:00am until clocking out at 7:00pm, productivity was strictly monitored. Any employee caught shirking their duties could be written up, demoted or even fired and immediately sent to duke it out with the other disgraced denizens of The Bowels.

Scanning her wrist with an exhausted sigh, Katrina turned and rammed straight into a very disheveled Asher.

“Oh! Sorry Ash, it’s been a… draining day.”

“It isn’t right, working us to the bone like this,” Asher immediately spat out, a look of pure exhaustion on his face. “I barely met my quota today. It is near impossible to meet the new numbers. They keep inseminating more and more, asking for thousands of new pods. I can’t keep up! Sealing the tanks takes time and precision, and heavens forbid if the quality isn’t…”

“Asher!” Katrina placed a firm hand on his shoulder. She could see he was spiraling, succumbing to workers fatigue. Continuing this way was a one way ticket to The Bowels if a doctor deigned anyone medically unfit to continue to serve The Conurbation. “You just need some Amph. Come over to my place, I have a few capsules and a tin of that new drinkable stuff. I won’t subject you to the grape flavor, but the lime is actually not too bad.”

“Yeah.. yeah okay,” Asher mumbled as Katrina guided him to the pod docks.

***

Gently lowering Asher onto the small recliner, Katrina got straight to work on two cups of Amph. Placing them into the dispenser, she returned to the living room while the drink was infused. She expected to find him already asleep, but Asher was sitting up, a determined look in his eyes.

“Humans weren’t meant for this,” he stared straight into Katrina’s eyes. “We aren’t designed to work this much, sleep this little, surviving on Amph and the fear of The Bowels. Did you know that humans used to sleep eight hours? Every night. It was even recommended by doctors.”

Katrina was too shocked to speak, especially when Asher pulled a book from his satchel. With no other chairs in her cramped living quarters (denizens of the middle and lower levels didn’t have time for frivolous things like guests), she slumped down onto the floor in front of him. Katrina had never seen a book outside of the museum. Humankind had long since progressed beyond the use of books, storing all their data on their wrist chips or external hard drives. Most had been disposed of, with a few important texts kept simply for aesthetic or historical value.

“Look here,” Ashers’ voice was desperate as he flipped open the worn, faded book to a marked page. “To ensure optimal health and well being, the average adult should sleep between seven and nine hours per night. Lack of proper sleep has been scientifically proven to be linked to conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure and multitude of mental health conditions. And here! The scientific studies they conducted to back up their claims. Some people actually went completely crazy from sleep deprivation! And just imagine what Amph is doing to people. All those chemicals, forcing the brain to function when all it needs is sleep! The Top Tiers are lying to all of us, claiming that humans only need four hours three to five times a week.”

Katrina’s senses returned to her at the mention of the Top Tiers. “Asher, stop! If a Rose Guard hears you talking like that, they will drag you before the Top Tiers themselves! They will make an example out of you, torture you to find out where you got this book! You are committing TREASON in my apartment!”

Asher fixed her with a hard stare. “You can’t tell me that you don’t see it. Ninety percent of workers don’t make it past the age of thirty-five, while those on the top levels make it well into their seventies. That’s half the life expectancy. HALF!” He slammed his fists on the arms of the chair.

Katrina’s protest died on her lips as she mulled it over. Asher was already thirty, and her twenty-eighth birthday was fast approaching. It hadn’t occurred to her that her just how frequently the colleagues at the lab were constantly changing. People just didn’t have time to socialize. Very few had what you would call ‘friends’. The only reason Katrina ever had time to talk to Asher was because they just so happened to work the same shift in the same wing of the lab.

She bit her lip as the memory of Deidre, the secretary who greeted her every morning with a cheery smile when Katrina first started her assignment in the birthing suite. She had always had a reassuring word, advice about managing the stresses of ‘the job’. Deidre had even left a small gift for Katrina on one of her birthdays, a small box of imitation chocolates that must have cost her at least a half days wages. The pieces slowly fell into place as she searched her memories, remembering the wrinkles that slowly spread across her face over the first five years of Katrina’s employment. She recalled the gray strands that multiplied through her jet black hair. Katrina wrapped her arms around herself as she remembered how that smile had slowly faded, replaced with the blank face of a person with nothing left to give. Katrina kicked herself for not noticing, not even when there was a new secretary sitting at that desk one morning as she clocked in. She had just assumed that Deidre has been relocated, or even promoted. She was only thirty-two.

“You’re right…” Katrina found herself saying, shocked at the words coming out of her own mouth. “I am feeling it too. I have been needing more and more Amph to keep me going. I… I just thought maybe it was the aftereffects of recovering from the sickness. But it has been two years. Surely I would be better… by now.”

“It isn’t the sickness,” Asher insisted. “it is because our society is broken. We are doing things the human body isn’t designed to do. We are literally working our selves to death.”

He gently took Katrinas’ hand in his. She jumped at the contact, but didn’t pull her hand away.

“I don’t want the same to happen to me. To you.” Asher pleaded, meeting Katrinas’ eyes with a look she couldn’t even begin to describe. He drew closer, clinging to her hand as if it were a lifeboat on the roughest sea. “We need to get out, Katrina. Before it’s too late.”

Katrina jerked her hand away. “Asher, we can’t! Didn’t you see the news? Those people from Marigold? It would be impossible, and we will both end up in The Bowels.”

“A few more years and I will be there anyway,” Asher’s voice was dark, his face turned to stone. “Atleast just think about it, please. We stand a better chance together. I won’t go without you.”

They sat in thoughtful silence for over an hour, the Amph diffuser beeping in the background. Katrina could feel Ashers’ determination almost as strongly as she could feel his arm wrapped around her shoulder. She hadn’t even argued when he slung it there, though she had the fleeting thought of the penalty for such a display of affection. Eventually, Asher stood with a sigh.

“I need to get home before the Rose Guard comes looking for me. They tend to do room checks when they know a citizen isn’t on shift. Will you… consider what we have talked about tonight?”

“I will,” was all Katrina could say as she walked him to the door, missing the reassuring weight of his arms around her. Silence surrounded her, the only sound the soft beeping of the Amph diffuser. Ashers’ words ringing in her ears, she upended both cups into the sink and fell into a deep sleep.

***

Katrina slumped to the floor of her living quarters, tears streaming down her face. It had been the most stressful month of her entire life. The Top Tiers had decreed that the birthing production rate needed to be doubled to fill in the ever growing gaps. Her department had been working double and triple shifts to keep up, swallowing the strongest doses of Amph allowed just to stay on their feet. Katrina spent the entirety of her birthday slaving over the vats, delivering over three hundred new citizens into the care of the growth team. Workers disappeared left and right, only increasing the demands on the labs production. Every day Asher looked more haggard, lines growing deeper along his face and his hair graying at an alarming rate. They spoke briefly, if at all. Katrina missed even the small presence he had in her life, the feeling a dull ache in the back of her mind that blossomed like a rose in spring. Her sobbing grew wild and uncontrollable as she curled up on the floor. Finally, she had nothing left. Her tears had dried on her face, the sobbing had stopped. Katrina left her quarters and headed straight to Ashers’. It took several minutes of knocking before Asher finally opened the door, his eyes blurry and moving like a zombie. His eyes cleared when he saw it was Katrina standing before him.

“Okay,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. “I’ll do it. Let’s go.”