Page 2

one

Lenora

The holo pager has been buzzing, gripped in my hand for so long that my palm is numb.

Tingling like it does when I sleep on it, shoved under my pillow at an odd angle.

My chest rising and plunging, but not as fast as I thought it would be.

They’d said there was a wait, a backlog of applicants ahead of me.

They said I had plenty of time. I even remember the building sense of dread I felt when the Oozarian woman and her husband had assured me as much.

It wasn’t even the slightest bit reassuring.

How long would it take? Months? Years? Weeks?

I needed a placement now ; my family needed the credits now .

How many more months would my sisters and I have to watch Mom scrape more food onto our plates than hers ?

I needed this, had even prayed for it despite not being a believer in anything or anyone in particular. I’d taken the shuttle back down to Terra2 with my hands wringing in my lap, eyes screwed shut, sending up shapeless pleas to the stars.

It had only been a few days later when the package had arrived, along with a note:

Human Lorena Morales of Terra2, congratulations on your entry to the Solar Breeding Agency!

Inside, you’ll find your uniform and fertility injections.

Once paged, you have twenty-four zentics to arrive at the Vortara Space Station office.

Come dressed, medicated, and clean. You will meet your match, sign your agreements, and be on your way.

Failure to arrive in a timely manner can result in penalties warded against you.

You may bring a small bag for personal effects, no clothing or personal care items are necessary as the matching party will provide anything you may require.

There was a stark bud of anticipation, fear, and… curiosity?

What species would I be paired with?

Would they be kind?

Are they advanced enough to use artificial insemination, or would I have to lie with them? Will it hurt? What if they are too large, if their reproductive organs are too, well, alien for me? Can I dissociate long enough to get the job done?

It is something the older Oozarian woman had seemed to emphasize a lot, reveled in, much to her husband’s annoyance. Those who do not agree to being bred the natural way often sit on the roster for years.

My family doesn’t have years.

Our credits are gone. My sisters are too young to work according to the Intergalactic Alliance. Mom already has two jobs where so many have none, and my shifts at the butcher pay close to nothing.

He left us with nothing.

My fist clenches the buzzing pager so hard my knuckles whiten, my eyes dead and on the unopened package as I absently lift it, answering the com.

I barely look when the lumpy humanoid holo message of the Oozarian man fills the space above the device. “Report to The Solar Breeding Agency office within the next twenty-four zentics. You’ve been matched.”

That’s it.

And it only took days , six days.

His unseeing black deep-set eyes stare back at me from their gelatinous pickle colored skin, lumpy and folded behind the oddly human-looking clothing they wear.

It’s a suit, one with a tasseled tie, but it’s the fabric that throws you off.

Where you expect softness, it looks closer to plastic.

From what I’ve heard, they use some kind of magnetic pulse to keep their…

bodies in the desired shape. I bite back a shudder at the idea of being matched to one of them, although I doubt we’ll be compatible.

It’s na?ve, wishful thinking.

That’s why everyone wants a human breeder.

We’re always compatible.

It takes a long time for me to move, to place one foot in front of the other on the dirt floor of my bedroom before I press my thumb to the biometric lock on the side of the package.

It opens with a soft click, a sterile wrapped injection gun and a neatly folded white dress sitting inside the box.

Two items, they seem so innocent, so normal, but they aren’t.

They represent everything. The hell of this past year, a lifetime of not having much and watching Mom and Dad stress about everything.

It’s a future for my family, one where they don’t have to ration food and can afford an actual floor in our home.

One where they won’t forgive me for this.

One where they’ll see it as another loss, another betrayal.

It’s a future I won’t be a part of, but one I’ll risk everything for.

Agency housing is nice enough, I think. As long as this paring goes well, I’ll be moved up in the roster for the next one and the one after that.

A career breeder isn’t exactly the life I saw for myself, but there are worse things than traveling the universe, living on other hopefully more comfortable planets.

It’s just a year.

One year before my match can send me back. If I don’t get pregnant, I can always come home. Sure, there will be shouting and silence, probably resentful glares, but I’ll be home.

My family gets paid either way.

But if I do get pregnant, and there’s zero reason why I wouldn’t…

I’ll never step foot on Terra2 again. My eyes dart to the door of my bedroom, keeping my breath trapped in my lungs as I wait for the sounds of home.

Mom shuffling around, my sisters fighting, and Dad pestering mom, smacking her ass before being shooed away. Happy sounds.

We don’t have those anymore.

But they could.

If they didn’t have to worry about money, maybe there would be more room for the happy sounds, even if they didn’t include me. Sure, we could meet on the space station from time to time, but my shuttle trips are funded by the agency, like all potential breeders; otherwise, the cost is… sickening.

According to intergalactic law, once a human is infected by alternative species’ DNA, we cannot set foot back on Terra2, so as to not risk damaging human genetics.

One pregnancy and my family will have enough credits to set them up for life.

Maybe two or four more alien babies, and my family and I will never have to worry again.

I can leave the agency and go…. Wherever I want. Do whatever I want.

All I have to do is break their hearts and mine, wear a pretty, long white dress with see through sleeves and a modest v neckline, take a shot, and get fucked by an alien.

“Seems simple enough,” I mutter out loud.

It's not so much a strategic choice to all but storm from my bedroom, holo message still on display hanging loosely from my hand. Nor is it well thought through when I loom behind Mom like a ghost in the small kitchen, willing the tears budding in my eyes to stay in place.

It's not probably the best way to make the woman you love more than anything resent you, to not give her a chance to turn around before you blurt out that you’ve been accepted to the Solar Breeding Agency and have less than ten hours before you have to board a shuttle and say goodbye forever.

None of it is tactically wise, but I don’t have it in me to do it another way.

It's too late now, regardless. The information hanging between us.

Mom doesn’t move, her tanned, worn hands frozen in the soapy sink, a dish in one and a cleansing bar in the other.

I blink my eyes rapidly, determined not to cry, all the while fully accepting I will and likely sooner than later.

When her voice comes, it’s like a whip, cold and tense. “So, it’s done then?”

“Yeah.” It leaves my lips as a whisper, disappearing within the silence as if it never came out at all.

She knew. She knew when that agency rep visited Terra2, only a few short weeks after Dad died, that I’d listened a little too closely, I’d asked too many questions.

The Oozarian looked at me like a juicy bit of meat hanging on a hook dangling inches from his not quite lips .

She’d gone into my room while I was at work, ripping up the holo brochure and leaving it in tatters around my desk.

She hadn’t said a word, but her meaning was clear.

Don’t you dare Lorena Morales.

I dared.

“I have only just lost your father, I can’t- “

“Mama, we need help .”

She whirls on me then, slinging water from the sink, her deep, warm brown eyes reddening with her tears.

She’s holding her breath, a thousand words and arguments, screams on the tip of her tongue.

My teeth dig into my inner cheek as my own tears stream down my face.

I’m pleading with her, begging her to do it.

To scream and yell and curse me, things have been so terribly quiet since Dad died.

“Then you will be the one to tell your sisters. Do it now. We will have dinner before you go.”

“You work tonight.” I remind her, my voice choked with emotion.

My damn lip trembles when the fire seems to fade from her eyes, the same broken type of acceptance I recognize settling in its place as she steps forward, barely bothering to wipe her hands dry before her hot palms land on either side of my face. “ Mijita , work can wait.”