Free The Other Side of Nowhere by JN Chaney Page B

came to the contractors and soldiers, who spent the bulk of their time in Central. But with the annual repairs came potential contracts. The season didn’t last very long, so if a mother didn’t pick a sponsor now, it meant she’d have to file for one later through the official channels, and nobody wanted to do that. It might take anywhere from three to six months, all with the possibility of a rejection letter. If a mother met a sponsor in person, it became much easier to persuade him to sign his seed away.
    If a mother got lucky enough to land one of the level-9 contractors, a high ranking soldier, or (God-willing) a council member, it could change everything. A contract like that meant prestige and higher living, but more importantly, it meant a seed with a future, not just some other worker in the factories.
    Mara always had a knack for the job, picking and choosing the right sponsor for the best contract. All of her children came from the highest quality donors—officers, scientists, and even a council member or two—something many of the other, more inexperienced mothers aspired toward.
    But then, everyone had always called her special.
    When she was still new to motherhood, the doctors told her about a new birthing standard called Archer’s Genetic Profile . The AGP worked like a points system, ranking genetic traits and compiling them into an overall score. This score not only determined the candidate’s eligibility to become a mother, but also how many children they were allowed to produce. Depending on a woman’s genes, the AGP could give them everything—decent pay and housing, access to Central, and above all, respect. The system functioned solely to keep humanity alive, and the mothers were its lifeblood. They were the only ones allowed to reproduce—a harsh but necessary rule, given the need for genetic diversity.
    Mara became a mother when she was fifteen. She still remembered her first time with a sponsor, before she had a grasp on the fundamentals—the expressions of sex and the grinding rhythm of warmth and flesh. The instructors simply told her to lie there because the veteran sponsor would know exactly how it needed to be done. It was his job, after all.
    She remembered pain, forceful and unpleasant—nothing like it is now. And there were people watching—scientists with clipboards who claimed it was for the betterment of mankind, rather than what she suspected all along: they wanted a show to re-imagine later when the lights went out.
    But now she and the world were both a bit older, and the circumstances had changed for each of them. That scared little girl on the table had since vanished, replaced by someone else—a veteran mother who raised twelve children.
    Most of Mara’s boys had gone on to be contractors, while a few others were selected for the medical field. After graduating the academy, the boys underwent an additional four years of schooling, covering anything from engineering, medicine, agriculture, military science, and construction. Afterwards, they were placed into positions that reflected their personal abilities and aptitudes. Each of Mara’s males had displayed impressive results. Her daughters, on the other hand, had all become mothers—the cost of having such wonderful genes.
    There was never a choice, not for any of them. Nothing in this world revolved around choice. If the government said a boy would be a contractor, that was the way it went. If the administration wanted a girl to be a mother, she became one. There was no getting around it.
    The train arrived, clearing the tunnel of dust as it sent gusts of wind through the platform. Mara climbed aboard, taking a seat near the back. Her apartment would be so empty now that her son was gone. Gone forever, she thought. I doubt I’ll ever see him again . She scoffed at her own arrogance. Why would he even want to see me? I’m horrible.
    But maybe it was all for the best. The program was in full effect now, and the