I grit my teeth, hating that I’ve succumbed to these violent feelings again. I’ve had a lot of them lately—it wasn’t something I ever struggled with before.
Before the scores.
“I don’t know how you did on your exams, of course,” the nurse says, distracted as she writes more numbers on my chart. “But I suspect we’ll see you tomorrow for that ultrasound. Don’t fill up your schedule, just in case.” Her busybody hands sweep me out the office door, quickly but not unkindly, and I shift to the side as another girl from my class gives me a nervous smile and takes my place in the examination room.
The door closes and I’m alone in the foyer. “They’re quite high,” I whisper to no one.
But the nurse is right—they’re not high enough.
Last year I was fifteen, top quarter of my class, headed straight for the life of a Nurture. I had just finished a growth spurt that stretched me tall—five nine, with a slim, boyish figure I expected to keep. Everything was perfect.
But evidently my growth spurt was just the beginning, and I learned firsthand the definition of “late bloomer.” In the last six months I’d gone from flat and skinny to curvy. I didn’t think much about it until I couldn’t zip up my jeans and had to go to the clothing emporium for new pants for the second time in three months. I had to fill out a special form and get my nutrition and body fat analyzed. But my fat percentage had barely changed. I just had hips and breasts now.
With the new clothes came the realization that those hips could ruin everything.
It’s been almost a thousand years since the Bust, when birth rates in the more developed parts of the world dwindled to the point that societies could no longer support themselves and collapsed. The economic devastation that followed was nothing compared to the war for resources that wrecked the environment and ended with most of Africa turned into a nuclear wasteland. It was a whole new Dark Age, characterized by the rise—and subsequent fall—of several high-control autocracies, theocracies, plutocracies, and just plain crazies.
“Doomed to failure,” our government books say. And they were right. Human beings are too free-spirited to thrive under so much control. It’s a concept we learn from our youth. Besides, in such a government, the balance is so precarious, it only takes one strong rebel to topple everything.
That’s how New Horizon came to be. Founded by Stewart Richardson—a runaway from a totalitarian dictatorship—our community rejects the idea that a governing body should control our lives. But Richardson also knew that we had to avoid another Great Collapse (the proper name for what most people just call the Baby Bust). So, as a society, we give up a small part of our freedom for the benefits of a well-ordered community. In return, we have strict laws protecting the freedoms we most value.
It always made sense to me. How could it not?
Until five days ago.
One hundred and eight. My test score.
It’s black and white; one hundred and over become Nurture. Ninety and under become Labor.
Ninety-one to ninety-nine are Nature.
If my hips weren’t so big, I would have been Nurture for sure. Every inch over thirty drags down your score if you’re female. For males, it’s about chest circumference.
I saw the number the nurse marked down for my hip measurement. It brings my final score down to ninety-nine.
I scoop up a large spoonful of pudding and stuff the whole thing into my mouth, feeling the tingle of butterscotch on my tongue. For a moment—only a moment—it is me and my butterscotch in a world of pleasure that nothing and no one can touch.
Until I realize tears are streaming down my cheeks.
Natures are exactly average. I don’t want to be average. I understand why our society is built around the mathematical median. Extremes cannot sustain themselves. Everyone knows that. It’s the most basic principle, taught by Richardson to my ancestors two hundred and fifty years ago, when New Horizon was established. New Horizon has lasted longer than any country since the Bust, because we know that the answer to the age-old question of Nature versus Nurture is . . . neither.
And both.
Halfway. A median point. Median intelligence, median education. That’s what produces the most perfect human beings. The most balanced human beings. Cutting out the extremes keeps things stable.
But Richardson also understood that even the median can be taken to an extreme. Those are the more complicated philosophies, the ones they teach you when you’re a Nurture—the ways to maintain the balance that keeps our community alive. I was going to spend the rest of my life learning about those ways, but one of them I already know. Everyone knows; the physical markers of females who are likely to be healthy mothers and produce healthy babies.
Good hips.
Wide hips.
One inch. And my plans for the rest of my life are shattered.
There is no ceremony. No elaborate good-byes. No awards or medals of distinction. It’s just life. In the year we turn sixteen, at the end of March, we separate and go on to our assigned roles. It’s the one big freedom we’ve given up to our governors. For our own good.
It always made sense to me.
Until five days ago.
There are no tears or heartfelt partings; it’s not like we won’t see each other. Nature, Nurture, Labor, we all mingle freely—a freedom that’s heavily protected—but like those proverbial birds of a feather, each classification tends to flock together.
To be honest, I’ve never before given it a second thought. We all have different kinds of jobs. What Laborer wants their work interrupted by a chatty Nurture, anyway? Learning doesn’t come easily to them, and they’re often relieved to give it up. They are the pillars of support in New Horizon, and Richardson taught that we are never to look down on them. Their life is far from grueling—no one works more than forty hours a week and never in unsafe conditions. We have thousands of years of terrible history to teach us that breaching either of those standards is a sure road to societal dissolution.
New Horizon is better than that.
The Nurtures will head off to university. They’re the learned of our society, and their mission is twofold: to enhance our society for the next generation, and to raise the next generation to enhance society. Most will go on to teach, to nurture children into proper citizens. It’s the path I should be headed down.
Instead I’m following two other teenagers, one girl and one boy, to the tall, broad building where the Natures live. It’s their job—our job—my job—to simply produce the next generation.
Well, not simply. Natures are intelligent enough to work what I always called the “semiskilled” jobs, because, in my mind, those jobs weren’t as important as the Nurture jobs.
The job someone else is going to do now.
I’ll be given a career that won’t break down my body—a body that is now excessively precious to New Horizon as a whole—but that will require more skill than many of the Laborers possess. It won’t be something that requires sustained focus or consistent attendance; nothing will be allowed to interfere with the creation of a new generation. I won’t be assigned; I’ll rotate until I find something I like, and then I’ll get to choose. It’s not like we’re brood mares with no liberties.
But right now it kind of feels that way.
It’s early evening. Most of the day workers are home. Almost all of them are through with dinner at the cafeteria and are home with friends. It’s a time for socializing and enjoying life, a life that’s comfortable for everyone.
I had butterscotch pudding again—just butterscotch pudding.