My skin crawls, and a prickle of dread creeps along the back of my head as we’re swept into the melee with everyone else.
“Stick together,” Ken calls out, wrapping his arm around my waist. Jinzo and Gus are right next to me too. “Something is going on.”
Something is definitely going on. Men pull signs from bags as we get closer to the town center square. They raise their voices and placards reading, ‘Bring Back Manpower!’ and ‘Stop the Cuckolding of the Duo Systems!’ and ‘End the Reign of Women!’
Panic builds as many of these men leer at me. Their gazes clearly communicate that I’m meat, a tasty meal, something to be possessed and ruled over. My heart pumps like a racing ship, and I can’t breathe. I try to seek out the faces of other women in the crowd, and there are none.
“Jin,” I squeak. He angles me so we walk out of the mass of people and towards an open convenience store.
This is the first time ever in my life I’ve been afraid of a crowd of men. The laws in the Duo Systems are strict. Violence against women hasn’t been tolerated for a hundred years or more. And men are tried for fewer crimes now that the relationship network system takes care of so many. I always figured I had the protection of society and the government.
But it appears not.
“F***ing Reformers.” Ken’s voice is thick with anger as he pulls me to him. All the guys have gathered in close now. “I had no idea they were so numerous.”
“So many men are forced to go without women because the Vir gene just can’t be stopped.” Gus steps up and moves us along the storefronts towards the Town Hall. “There are rumors that the Vir gene has surged again. Some recessive genes are mutating or something… I admit I only barely understood the white paper.”
A surge in the Vir population is suspicious if you ask me. There are easy ways to declare men Vir free even if they’re not. The only provided gene screening is a product of Athens Industries.
We round the last corner, and a bullhorn is blowing over a crowd of thousands. A man in his early forties, his hair streaked with gray, raises his fist. He looks familiar, but I can’t place him.
“… We’re tired of being second-class citizens! Women are weaker than men. They have been and always will be the weaker sex. Why are we letting them run our governments? Own all the land?”
A cheer rises from the crowd, and a cascade of shivers runs across my shoulders and arms.
“The Vir gene has kept us down, cowed, for centuries! This inequality must end!”
He raises both fists in the air, and the crowd cheers him on. Gus and Jinzo pull me away, while Ken stares in horror. The men raise their voices, and a chant of ‘No More Women!’ grows among the participants.
We skitter along the street to the Town Hall and make it inside before anyone else can spot us.
“Can you believe that?” Gus asks, his voice filled with wonder.
“That’s suicide. No more women? We’d all die out in a generation.” Ken is just as shocked as I am.
“They know they can’t get by without women,” Jinzo says, urging us away from the door. “That’s the whole point. I’ve heard rumors of underground tech that will turn women into gestating machines. Horrific stuff.”
I wet my dry lips and stare out the window at the crowd of men chanting and raising their fists in the air. Something tells me that beautiful women would get a pass, and plain women like me would be the first to be converted into baby-making machines. No wonder Tomu believed in this business so thoroughly.
And while Athens Industries is turning Vir boys into some kind of monsters, the rest of society is looking to revert to the Dark Ages.
I’m watching history repeat itself.
And there’s not a damned thing I can do to stop it.
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