Epitaph Road Page 3

  According to everyone I’d talked to, the main thing to do when I underwent my trials — the oral parts anyway — was to impress the examiners with my knowledge and sensitivity, to look sincere when I was doing it, and to exhibit my awareness of how EVERYTHING (almost) HAD IMPROVED SINCE WOMEN TOOK OVER THE WORLD . And that didn’t seem too hard. I was a guy, but it would have been foolish to deny pre-PAC history. It would have been silly to deny the improved condition of society under PAC governance. And I didn’t want to.

  Could anyone in his right mind have made a case for going back to a world of poverty and hunger and crime and disease and greed and dishonesty and prejudice and war and genocide and religious bigotry and runaway population growth and abuse of the environment and immigration strife and you-get-the-leftovers educational policies and a hundred other horrors?

  Not me. But a little less regimentation would have been good.

  “What’s the instructor like?” Tia whispered at me.

  The bitchy girl in front of her — Dawn was her name — turned and made a face. “Anderson?” she said before I could reply. “Booorrring.”

  “Not really,” I said. “She lost her dad and two brothers to the Bear. Her words have barbs; they dig in and stay.”

  Tia nodded, but Dawn gave me a look, like What do you know? You’re a GUY. She held her tongue, though, because she knew I’d call her a fish and she’d call me a bastard and I’d tell her at least my dad’s not a glass tube full of frozen semen waiting to swim upstream and I’d have the last word.

  I’d have the last word because in this culture a bastard with an identifiable living, breathing father had slightly higher standing than a fish, whose dad was most often some well-selected but mysterious donor.

  Dawn flashed me a final eye roll and turned away to face the front of the room. Anderson still hadn’t appeared. Instead of readying myself for her arrival and what she might have in store for us, I stared out at the water and thought about Dad and his life. I wondered for the millionth time how our lives would be different if Elisha’s Bear hadn’t come.

  According to my lessons and all the other stuff I’d heard and read, it took only a couple of years for women to figure out how much better off they — and the world — were without men around to keep things in a downward spiral .

  Wars ceased. Crime, especially crime against women and children, dropped dramatically. Illegal-drug demand plummeted. Gangs disappeared. Prostitution and pornography all but evaporated; females low on self-esteem, high on drugs, or attached to the end of some creep’s short leash had to make other choices. Prisons emptied.

  Once political leadership — all women — was reestablished, priorities changed. Money no longer used for fighting wars and lobbying for wars and profiting from wars got routed to health care, medical research, education, social programs, the environment, alternative transportation, and renewable fuels.

  The United Nations gained power. Countries merged. Within a decade, North America, with its capital in San Diego, had become one nation; South America one; Africa one; Europe and Asia (Eurussia, Indochina, Mediterranea) three; Australia, New Zealand, and their neighbors (Oceania) one. In all these new countries, UN and national laws prohibited men from holding positions of power or influence in the public or private sector. The women in control decided that men had had their opportunities.

  So now, even if a guy passed his trials, the best he could hope for was a chance at a nonthreatening profession (teacher, salesman, therapist, engineer, actor, architect, doctor, dentist, baritone, etc.) with one tentative toe in the shallows of mainstream society. If he passed major scrutiny, he could be a sperm donor. If he jumped through more hoops, he could be an official dad.

  One of the first things the newly powerful United Nations did was establish PAC. It was staffed by female representatives — political leaders and scientists — from every country. Its job: population control and restriction of male births. The Council decided that no more than five percent of the population should be male. The surviving men of the world had little voice and no choice in the decision.

  The science existed to make the apportionment mandates work. It involved parent selection and test tubes, artificial insemination, gender-determining implants, and sterilization. Lured by the promise of money from PAC, many males volunteered to be sterilized. If they’d failed to take or pass their trials, they had no choice. Others fled to the boondocks, backwoods, and mountains, where colonies of men — throwbacks and loners — were pretty much left alone.

  Anderson finally walked in. The chatter ended abruptly. Her reddish cottony hair was a mess, as usual. She tossed her bike helmet on her desk and faced us. “New victims?” she said, spotting Tia and Sunday. She clicked on the overhead screen and scrolled through the class roster. At the bottom, Septiembre’s and Sunday’s names showed as additions.

  “We just moved here,” Sunday announced. “We’re nearly fifth-levels. We already have our Provisional Minders’ credentials. We’ll be ahead in this class.”

  “You’ll be behind,” Anderson said matter-of-factly. “I don’t dawdle.”

  Sunday opened her mouth and shut it again. Tia smiled. Sunday sat taller. “We ain’t gonna be behind,” she said.

  “Aren’t,” Anderson replied.

  “That’s what I said.”

  Anderson shook her head and muttered something about constrained educational focus while I thought about Sunday telling me a little earlier in the day that she was only interested in stuff that would be on our tests.

  “Let’s get moving,” Anderson added energetically, and the class roster disappeared from the screen, replaced by a video of a peaceful vista — a bay city filmed from the water, from a distance. A graceful suspension bridge angled from left to right.

  I sat up and leaned forward. I recognized this place from old photos. An ageless bridge, tall buildings, hills in the background. It was San Francisco.

  I knew what was coming.

  Without warning, the sky erupted in a giant flash of light. The buildings — all of them — seemed to lean for a moment. Then they instantly disintegrated. Some simply vaporized, others shed debris like scales, and pieces flew toward the camera and in every other direction. The sound was thunderous, then gone. Waves rolled out across the water, sprinting unnaturally. The bridge bucked and heaved and ripped apart, whipping vehicles into the air and bay. And behind the destruction of the skyline, an eerie column of energy rushed skyward. As the camera drew back, the column slowed, and a cloud mushroomed out of its crown.

  Anderson clicked off the screen. “A date we must never forget,” she said. “On July 4, 2054, just over thirteen years before Elisha’s Bear struck, a powerful nuclear device — a bomb — was detonated in the heart of San Francisco, destroying that city along with parts of Oakland and smaller nearby communities. Its immediate effects were felt as far away as San Jose, and its cloud drifted east, dropping poisonous fallout on populations across the United States and eventually around the world.”

  Across the room, Ernie cleared his throat timidly. He hunched down and began tapping his e-spond furiously. I felt sorry for him.

  “A minister named Clyde Long,” Anderson continued, “an advisor to President Napper, said it was God’s retaliation for the sinfulness of that city. He predicted the end of the world was near.

  “On July 6, based on secret intelligence, the United States launched a submarine missile attack on Beijing, wiping out that city and most of its thirty million inhabitants. Within two hours, China attacked with its own missiles and destroyed Los Angeles.

  “On July 7, a Taiwanese group claimed responsibility for the San Francisco assault.

  “On July 8, U.S. bombers dropped two nuclear bombs on Taiwan. Later that day, a group in the Philippines said they were in fact the terrorists behind the initial attack, that neither Taiwan nor any other country had anything to do with it.

  “With half of California destroyed, the world on the edge of all-out nuclear war, T
aiwan and China at last united against a common foe, and ninety percent of the U.S. population demanding his ouster, faulty intelligence or not, President Napper was impeached and removed from office in a single day. His vice president, James Corson, took over.

  “The world held its breath, began cleaning up after the destruction, and started burying what remained of the seventy million dead and caring for the dying. Everyone waited for the next move. Others joined in Clyde Long’s prediction.

  “But the countries involved teetered back from the precipice. The United States promised China and Taiwan financial compensation. An effort was made to track down the terrorists.

  “Life hobbled on, but painstakingly. The United States, Taiwan, and China were deeply wounded, and the healing that took place formed ugly scars. Despite all that has happened in the interim — Elisha, most notably — small but undeniable remnants of the 2054 terrorism, incompetence, and sheer buffoonery are with us today. Men are no longer in charge, but the distrust and wariness they spawned lingers in places around the globe. To this day, there are women who are unwilling to sit around a campfire holding hands with certain strangers and singing ‘We Are All Sisters Under the Skin.’”

  Dawn made a fake snoring noise but kept her eyes wide open, trying to look innocent.

  Anderson wasn’t fooled. “I’m boring you again, Dawn?”

  “That wasn’t me.” She looked in my direction.

  Anderson ignored the implication. Unlike many women, she liked boys. She liked me. She liked men. Ernie, who lived with his mom in the same rooming house as Anderson, told me she often rode her bike to the hinterlands to meet up with a loner boyfriend. Rumors swirled that she was a bit of a loner herself, not exactly in step with the party line. I’d seen evidence of the rumors in her teaching and attitudes. I recalled Mom’s word: unconventional. At the time, it didn’t sound like a compliment. “Why don’t you come on up, Dawn?” Anderson said. “Since you know it all, we’ll have you answer any questions the class has.”

  She waited while Dawn, red-faced, pushed herself out of her desk and headed for the front of the room as someone snickered and I hummed the funeral dirge under my breath but loud enough for her to hear it. She gave me a look, but I stared guiltlessly ahead.

  Dawn turned and faced the class, keeping her distance from Anderson, but Anderson sidled over and put her arm around Dawn’s shoulders like they were old buddies.

  “Fire away, boys and girls,” Anderson said. What would she have said if Ernie or I hadn’t been here? Boy and girls?

  I raised my hand, and Dawn reluctantly nodded at me. She had no choice. No one else had a hand in the air. “Did they ever figure out who really set off the bomb?” It was a legitimate question and one I was certain Dawn couldn’t answer.

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “That wasn’t covered.”

  Tia waved her arm and attracted a pointed finger from Anderson’s free hand. “New girl?” Anderson said, amusement warming her eyes.

  “It’s in the study guide for this lesson,” Tia said, standing. “You were supposed to read it.”

  “Yeah, we already had it,” Sunday blurted out.

  “So what’s the answer?” Anderson asked Tia, trying to ignore Sunday. “I’m sure Kellen — and the rest of the students — would appreciate knowing.”

  “At least fifty-seven nations, and possibly as many as ten radical groups, had nuclear weapons by 2054,” Tia said as if she’d memorized the words. I had a feeling she’d have no trouble with her trials. “Thirteen different groups ended up claiming responsibility. No one ever determined for sure which one of those was the culprit. Or even if it was one of those.”

  “Thank you…,” Anderson said. She touched her remote and the class roster reappeared on the overhead. “Septiembre.”

  “Tia,” Tia said, sitting down.

  Ernie raised his hand. “What happened to ’em?” he said.

  “Who?” Dawn said.

  “Not who. What. The bombs. What happened to ’em?”

  Dawn stared at Ernie’s long and curious face. She looked at the floor. She gazed at the ceiling. She glanced at Anderson, who let her stew.

  Sunday raised her hand, observing classroom etiquette this time. Dawn nodded. Sunday stood. “After the California and Asia disasters, nothing happened to stop the production and proliferation of bombs,” she recited mechanically.

  “But after Elisha’s Bear came, nuclear weapons were sought out, dismantled, and piecemealed. Components were destroyed. Raw materials were collected and neutralized. Effective monitoring agencies were established. Nuclear reactors were torn down and outlawed. The last atomic weapon was found and demolished in 2072. Chemical and biological weapons had long since been eradicated.”

  Sunday sat down. Tia bumped fists with her.

  “Now who’s the junior professor?” I said under my breath.

  Sunday frowned. “There ain’t no more bombs,” she broadcast in her loud Sunday voice, departing from the script in her head, showing me she was no junior professor after all.

  Anderson lifted her eyebrows. A small grin lit up her serious instructor face. She glanced at the attendance list. “I apologize, Sunday. Your grammar is crap, but you and Tia are ahead of us. And you’re willing to speak your minds. Thank you both for your answers.”

  Grin gone, she looked at Dawn. “The bar has just been raised in this class, young woman. Continue to snore your way along, and you’ll fail to get over it. You’ll be qualified to pick up cigarette butts at the bus depot.”

  Dawn slunk back to her desk. On the way, she managed to aim dark glares at Sunday, Tia, and even poor Ernie. She reserved her ugliest look for me. “Bastard,” she hissed, driven by humiliation to risk my comeback.

  Fish was on the tip of my tongue for an instant.

  “Throwback hag,” Sunday said. Tia smothered a laugh. Dawn turned her back on us and I let it go. Her shoulders already sagged with the twin burdens of being different and inferior, and I knew how that felt.

  Anderson continued on with the lesson. My mind strayed off course while I thought about what she’d discussed so far and the image of the bomb ripping San Francisco apart.

  My dad, Charlie Winters — Mr. Lucky, he called himself sometimes — dodged the near-holocaust when he was just a baby, and then survived Elisha when he was about my age. Later, he passed his trials, and he and Mom, once they got together, received authorization to have a baby. Dad, like most men who hadn’t been outright sterilized, was surgically implanted with a hormone-excreting gadget to drastically reduce the chances of him producing a male infant, but he managed to do it anyway. I showed up nine months later — an instant marvel, I’d been told.

  But Dad didn’t stay around for long.

  When I was five, he decided he was tired of living under the government’s constraints. And he no longer wanted to be in Seattle, the city where Elisha had sucked the breath out of his own dad — my grandfather Joshua.

  Dad had tasted life before the restrictions. And now that marine life had returned to the Olympic Peninsula waters, he yearned to be there. He moved to a place called Afterlight, a mostly male commune.

  Throwback was the term used for people living in the small loosely organized collectives scattered around the world who preferred living their lives closer to the way lives were lived PE. Dad, though, wasn’t under an illusion that things had been better in the old days. He mostly just wanted to be let alone. To be what some people called a loner. He restored an old commercial fishing boat and rechristened it — what else? —Mr. Lucky and began fishing the Strait of Juan de Fuca for salmon, halibut, and cod. The boat became his home.

  Sometimes I got to spend time with him when he came to the city to sell his fish. He’d call me, and I’d bike to the dock and meet him for lunch. Afterward we’d take a walk or he’d give me a ride on Mr. Lucky. He’d always let me drive from high on her flying bridge, and when the cool, salted wind hit my face, I’d dream about having my own boat someday, being
my own boss, and not being under someone’s — nearly everyone’s— thumb.

  I wondered — when Mom finally let me go see him and he took me out on the water again — would he still let me skipper Mr. Lucky? Or was that part of my life gone?

  If I had a son — or daughter — and I decided to leave the city, I’d take him or her with me. If I absolutely couldn’t take the crap, I’d try my hardest to take the kid.

  Mom seemed to have conveniently forgotten her promise that I could visit Dad for the first time this summer, but I wasn’t going to stop riding her about it. A promise was a promise. And I wanted to go soon, before I had to begin cramming for my trials. I’d have to travel with babysitters —Minders was what the government called them — but I was used to that, kind of.

  A soft buzzer sounded, marking the end of class, and I gazed across the room toward the windows as everyone began packing up. With the addition of Sunday and Tia, there were now two males and thirty-seven females in the history class, a close reflection of the population at large. The Council had done an efficient job of maintaining the nineteen-to-one ratio, even as the world’s population continued to shrink toward a goal of two billion. A smattering of the throwbacks and loners out in the hinterlands and the few fertile women they attracted had babies, including boy babies, but there weren’t enough fringe people to make a difference, especially with recurrences of Elisha keeping them in check.

  Anderson transmitted the next day’s take-home assignment — excerpts from a PE watchdog Web site — to our e-sponds, and we headed for the door. Sunday and Tia were surrounded by other girls, their newly formed fan club. Dawn hurried out by herself. In a classroom where it was cool to be smart, she’d made a curious choice.

  Ernie, in the center of his own group of girls, caught up to me at the elevator. “Good question, Ern,” I said, and he smiled a little. But he looked especially nervous. When we’d first gotten into Anderson’s history class together I tried to get him to hang out with me some, but he had way more excuses — the trials, his mother’s health, and, I was almost sure, my mother’s PAC connection — than he had time for me.