Human After All by Connie Bailey Read Free Book Online Page B

lie.
    “This is far too apt,” Brandel murmured. He had no illusions about his popularity, but being liked was not high on his list of priorities. The Deputy President’s ambitions were few and he devoted himself to them with monastic fervor, seeming not to need food or sleep or any other of life’s basic comforts. He wanted stability and order in the everyday lives of the population he was responsible for. He wanted the office of the President-General that would give him the power to govern The Cities properly. He wanted control over everything. Only then would the world be truly safe for the good Citizens.
    Brandel had never been tempted to hire a Companion and didn’t see the appeal they held for others. What attraction could there be in an orchestrated Scenario? What real pleasure could be found in such artifice? He had never understood it, and if the ruling of the world were up to him, he’d do away with Bioware altogether. On that point, the D.P. and Cade Londean were agreed.
    However, their policy diverged when it came to the matter of what to do with a surplus population that hadn’t the means to support themselves without the convention of indentured servitude. Londean proposed that the ultra-wealthy owners of the metacorps donate a portion of their vast land holdings to be turned into an agrarian colony on the greenbelt that already existed between the Inner and Outer Cities. It would require time and enormous expenditure, but in a decade or so, everyone would benefit in the form of employment and cheaper, fresher, more plentiful produce. The Deputy President’s plan was much simpler: enforced sterilization for those who fell below a government-determined economic level, and conception licenses for everyone else. Perhaps when all people learned to control their urges, such restrictions could be lifted, but for now, extreme measures were necessary, and the Deep intended to see that they were implemented.
    “You’re a Thoroughbred,” Brandel said. “You’ve never known life outside the Cloister, is that right?”
    “I was conceived in the Outers.” An odd calm had come over Jaymes as he accepted that he had no control. He breathed in and out and answered with absolute candor.
    “But you were delivered in the Cloister by a Gentren obgine and raised by Gentren staff, yes?”
    “Yes.”
    The D.P. shook his head in disapproval. “They might as well start breeding your sort. Or do they already? It wouldn’t surprise me to find that Gentren is manipulating the more attractive Outties to rut and reproduce.”
    “That’s against the law.”
    “I’m guessing you haven’t had much contact with criminals. In fact, I’ve heard that it isn’t possible for a Thoroughbred Class Companion to have a duplicitous thought.”
    “Not quite true. We can have the thoughts, but are inhibited from acting on them.”
    “That’s inhuman,” Ampery said as his desires warred with his common sense. Not once in the quarter of a century since he’d first held a public office had he given in to his cravings. He brought himself off manually each night at the same time, only in the shower, in a joyless release of tension and seed. The temptation represented by this flawless, acquiescent piece of Bioware was so great that that he knew he’d been right to avoid contact until now. His pulse rate was elevated, and he found he was short of breath when he spoke again.
    “This is a very interesting situation.” The D.P. walked a circuit around Jaymes until he faced the T-bred again. “I’m certain you have a jack-beacon implanted somewhere under your skin, but that isn’t much use in this room. You’re not even officially here. I believe I may do as I wish with impunity, if I’m clever enough to dispose of you in a way that cannot be connected to me. Fortunately, Speaker Londean has provided me with a very plausible scapegoat in the form of his well-known weakness for your type. And who will believe I had anything to do