There’s a short informational paragraph about what’s to come if Iri doesn’t conceive within the next three months. Tips on how to divide our household. How to begin separating our lives. There’s a phone number to talk to a therapist who will guide us through the emotional toll of the separation process.
I ball it up and toss it in the fireplace. It’s not a cold day, but I start a fire anyway. Just to see it burn. No one will take my breedable. Fuck that. Fuck them. I’ll burn the entire fucking city down to keep him.
Pulling out my phone, I give the guys a quick text.
Me
I received the three-month notice today.
Immediately, three small circle avatars drop below the message as they read it. Dots dance as they respond.
Hakan
We’re almost finished with the paperwork.
Rhydian
You’ll be long gone before your three-month deadline.
Daunt
Have you told Iri yet?
Rhydian:
Take a breath, Luken. It’s going to work out exactly as it should.
Hakan, Rhydian, and Daunt live almost 800 miles away in Imari. A city very different from Alyra, where Iri and I live.
All over the world, the cities are different. They’re run very differently, giving their citizens different freedoms and different lifestyles. I know it sounds as if Alyra has far too much control over its citizens, and maybe they do. It’s the price you pay for absolute safety.
Iri is safe here. He can live a life with a job and friends, and wander around the streets at night. He’s a commodity in the world, so in most places, the freedoms he has here aren’t an option. The underground trafficking markets for breedables are something that’ve endured for centuries. It doesn’t matter what wars are fought or what militias try to interfere, nothing has been able to wipe them out.
In fact, I think they’ve gotten stronger, more prevalent now than they were a decade ago.
There’s a reason cities like Alyra exist. For whatever reason, the trafficking markets don’t touch us. They can’t penetrate our borders. There’s no way in or out of the city without going through security. Not in the air, not on the ground, not underground.
We’re protected. Iri and the breedables like him are safe. That’s why the city’s population expands constantly with the migration of other breedables and breeders alike.
This city is also unique in that we’re a single-gendered city. There are only men here. Twenty miles to our east is our sister city, Aryla, where all the female breeders and breedables live.
This isn’t segregation by force. It’s by choice. To the east, we also have a mother city with all genders, Yrlaa.
These cities were set up as an experiment. Because the population is so skewed in breeders and breedables, there’s been a concentrated effort to bring more breedables into the world. Not just as a means to preserve our species, but also, if they weren’t so uncommon, they wouldn’t be such a target for the trafficking trade.
That’s where the genetics labs come in. They determined which markers promise the best results for a successful breed. The breedable is presented with half a dozen options upon maturity, and they’re allowed to choose their first attempt.
But if that attempt fails, they have to choose someone else and try again.
If a breedable doesn’t want to be part of this program, they’re allowed to leave Alyra. Same goes for the breeders. No one is forced to stay. Neither Iri nor I want to leave. Our families and friends are here. We love our life. We love Alyra. We don’t take the safety Iri has for granted, either.
But we love each other more.
Alyra has a relatively slow population growth rate as far as births are concerned. Even with all the genetic testing and compatibility, it’s still not an exact science. There are some male breedables who never conceive.
Female breedables conceive readily and with very few obstacles in their way. The problem—and it’s not really a problem—is that they’re able to conceive breedablesandbreeders, and it’s far more likely that they’re going to conceive a breeder.
Arguably, their genes are stronger.