Free The Breeding Program by Aya Fukunishi

 
    Chapter One
     
    'I won't do it again,' Amanda whispered in the darkness. 'I won't. They can send me to a labor camp, but I won't do it again. Three times is enough.'
     
    Amanda couldn't see Sam, but she knew she was there. The sound of her breath echoed through the vent and into Amanda's room, and hers into Sam's. Each woman always knew when the other was there. Sometimes Sam wished they couldn't, and especially when she heard those quiet, strangled sobs.
     
    Sam sighed, fighting off sleep. 'Get some rest, Amanda. You'll feel different in the morning.'
     
    Her words felt all the more hollow for the echo through the vent. She knew Amanda would feel the same way tomorrow, and she knew she was serious. The poor woman had lost her husband in the war. A lot of them had, of course, Sam included, but Amanda had also lost two daughters in New York. It was all too much for her to bear.
     
    Like many of them Sam had petitioned for women like Amanda to be exempt from the program. They'd already sacrificed more than anyone could reasonably ask of them, she'd argued. They should be left in peace, left to mourn their crushing loss.
     
    She'd been refused, of course, as she knew she would. There were just too few of them left. They sat on a knife edge, one generation from extinction, and this was no time for pity. This was no time for mercy or kindness.
     
    If not now, she countered, when? What was the point in going on, if this was how they must do it? If the sacrifice of basic humanity was the only way to keep the race alive, she argued, it was already lost.
     
    Amanda had been spiraling for days now, and Sam could hear the fragility in her voice, much as she tried to hide it with bravado. Hers was the voice of despair. Sam knew she couldn't go on, and she knew she'd have to report her in the morning.
     
    Of course they weren't monsters, those in charge. If Amanda was as bad as Sam suspected she'd be taken from the program and give light duties for as long as it took to get her back on her feet. She'd work the farms deep down in the hydroponics levels. The labor camps were a myth to keep them in line, to remind them how good they had it and give them a little nudge when their sense of patriotism wasn't enough.
     
    And they did have it good. Better than most, anyway. Sam's room was much larger than average, and she got only the best of everything. Her water was clean, fresh, and nothing like the filtered crap everyone else had to drink. Sometimes she got fresh fruits and vegetables, regular vitamins and anti-radiation supplements, and when she was pregnant she even got meat. Real meat, not vat grown. God knows where they got it, but when she was carrying she lived like a queen.
     
    That was the draw, of course. That was what kept them going through the endless medical checkups, the breedings, the morning sickness and cramps. The little luxuries made it all tolerable, and made them feel as if they weren't simply baby factories; endless production lines for the manufacture of new versions of themselves.
     
    It wasn't just for the taste of steak, of course. Even the taste of that delicious T-bone wasn't enough to compensate for the trials and hardships of pregnancy. No, it was for the fact that for just a moment, as they cut into that perfect, succulent steak they could, if only for the blink of an eye, imagine that everything was OK again. The Chinese hadn't attacked. The US hadn't retaliated. Their parents were still alive. Their husbands were by their sides, and their children played in the yard under a warm yellow sun. Just for a moment, everything was perfect.
     
    It wasn't much, but it was just enough.
     
    Sam was approaching her second pregnancy now. She'd given birth three months ago, and since then she'd been given free reign over the complex. She'd spent a lot of time visiting the lower levels where the really tough jobs were done. The engineers running the power plant, the miners excavating raw materials and the