Hadrian's Rage (5 page)

“You worry too much, Dean,” Cantara chastises. “Politis promised not to share her name. I think it's great. I mean, someone is willing to share our story and actually hopes to open the hearts and minds of our fellow students.”

“Yes, I just…” Dean pauses; he can't help but fear the worst, having experienced a lifetime of prejudice. “I just hope no one discovers Tara's the one who wrote it.”

“They won't; there's no way.”

“Well, if you say so.” Rubbing his forehead to ease some tension, Dean politely asks Cantara to leave. “Anyway, I've got to get to work and try to do something with this.”

“And then you have to study your ass off for your anatomy test!”

“Yes,” Dean admits, “so, if you don't mind…”

Before he can finish, Cantara acquiesces. “Okay, I will leave you alone.” But Cantara doesn't want to leave. She likes being in close proximity to Dean. When they first met, he couldn't be in the same room with her unless his grandmother was with him.
His mimi sure has done wonders with him,
Cantara muses. Now she can be alone in the same room with Dean and he hardly has any negative reaction at all. She stands there by the door for a time, quietly watching Dean work, fantasizing about the day when he will hold her in his arms and kiss her.

Thinking Cantara has left the room, Dean begins musing out loud. “Humanity's sun—humanity's sun—rays shooting forth—” Blinking, Dean opens a new design doc. He begins with a circle to represent the sun. Using the eyedropper, he colors in the circle with a creamy yellow. Picking up the holographic pencil tool, he begins drawing thick rays shooting forth from the sun. He paints each sunray a color of the rainbow. Above the image, he types the title “Humanity's Sun,” and beneath it, he types in the
haiku. “It's not great,” he mutters, “but it'll do.” He prints a copy of the design and then goes through the arduous process of deleting, retrieving, and destroying the image. He will share this image with the group next time they meet, and if it meets with everyone's approval, he will create a new one and spread it over the wall screens at the uni using an ad virus. Dean smiles; he hasn't shared all of Mike Fulton's secrets with these kids. Assuming Mike is right, Dean should be able to encrypt his poster design with enough security that it will take even the best of Hadrian's hackers to decode it prior to the 4 a.m. deadline. All he has to do is make sure to trash the viral doc every day at the same time and then reload it with Fulton's modulating security program. The plan is simple: create, blast, trash, erase—recreate, blast, trash, erase for as long as he can get away with it.

Finally, Dean opens his anatomy files and begins to study. He is having trouble focusing, though. The stress of exams, running low on credits, and having to hide everything they do as a GSA is starting to wear on Dean. With pain shooting up the sides of his neck and down the front of his collarbone, he stops studying to attempt self-massage. Fortunately, he doesn't have to struggle to reach his back shoulder muscles because Cantara enters the room and takes over for him. “Here,” she says soothingly. “Let me do that for you.”

“I thought you'd left.” After a few moments of her hands rubbing into his neck muscles, he smiles. “I'm glad you didn't.”

Cantara gently chides, “Hadrian's Lover, Dean, your neck and shoulder muscles are tight. It's like trying to soften rocks.” Then worried, she adds, “I'm not the cause of that, am I?”

“No.” Dean does not want her to stop. Her hands may not be as strong as Geoffrey's, but the digging into his muscles is exactly what he needs right now. “No, I'm fine. I'm just stressed about getting our logo done. I want to flood the campus screens with our image to start spreading awareness.”

“Yes, but you can't do everything. And, you have midterms coming up. You don't want to fail your anatomy class, do you?”

“No, you're right.” Dean moans. “By all that's gay and glorious, that feels good.”
But not good enough,
Dean winces as he realizes the hands he really wants massaging his neck are Geoffrey's. “Could you press a little harder?”

“I'll try, but I don't want to hurt you.”

“Trust me; you're not hurting me at all.”

Cantara smiles. “Does it feel good?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Suddenly, Cantara is in front of him, settling down on his lap. “Dean,” she whispers.

The room starts to feel close. Dean's throat tightens. Cantara smells good. Her breathing enhances her breasts. She leans in for a kiss. Dean's lips reach for her mouth as his heart pounds against his chest. Try as he might, his body begins to rebel and he pushes her away. “I can't; no, Cantara.” He gets up from his chair and begins pacing the room, trying all the while to control his breathing and hold back the ensuing nausea. “Mind over matter. Mind over matter,” he whispers over and over.

“Dean, I'm so sorry.”

“It's okay, Cantara. I'm the one who's sorry.” Trying now to ease her hurt, he says, “It's not a good idea for us anyway. You are much too young—”

Angered, Cantara counters, “That's absurd!”

“I'm forty-four, forty-five next month, while you're only—”

“I'm twenty-two years old. That makes me a consenting adult. I can sleep with a ninety year old if I want.”

Dean can't help but laugh. “Yeah, I suppose you could. I just,” he says, wiping the sweat off his brow, “I can't. I've tried. I want to be with you, but every time we try, I feel residual shocks, and then the nausea sets in.” Breathing more slowly now, he adds, “I'm sorry, Cantara; it's just not going to happen. Not now. Maybe not for a long, long while. Re-ed has taken its toll on me.” Turning now to face Cantara, hoping to discourage her, Dean concludes, “Don't wait for me. Find someone you can be with, someone who can make you happy.”

Ignoring his advice, Cantara changes the subject. “Show me what you've come up with.” Dean readily acquiesces; it is easier to be around Cantara when their focus is business. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulls out the print out of the logo he has created.

Cantara unfolds his work and immediately expresses pleasure. “I love it!”

“Really?” Dean remains unsure.

“Absolutely. It's perfect. It's just what you said you wanted. Humanity's sun!”

The two smile. The tension between them has subsided. For now.

“Viewers, it is both an honor and a pleasure to introduce to you today’s guest, Hadrian’s Founding Mother, Destiny Stuttgart. Mother, thank you so much for joining us today.”

“Call me Destiny.”

“Oh, I don’t think I can. Forgive me, Mother, but it doesn’t feel right referring to you on such an informal level. You have done so much to help make our country great.”

“And that’s why I agreed to come here today. I want to keep our country great and not let it fall deeper into the hands of hatred.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You know why. You reported about the many abuses committed against our heterosexual brothers and sisters—not just through reeducation but in the series of hate crimes polluting our culture of love and peace.”

“Oh, I know, those violent hateful crimes. Mother, how can we stop them?”

“By educating our citizens. Letting them know heterosexuals are not evil people—Why are you pulling at your ear?—And now you’re wincing. Explain yourself, dear.”

“But—there is the Heterosexual Agenda that we must be aware of. You must agree, being a founding member and having helped write the four cornerstones. The first cornerstone is very explicit about Hadrian’s chosen sexual identity.”

“Yes, I am fully aware of that wording, but I argued ardently against it. Which is why I am fighting so hard for its revision, back to its original wording when I first drafted the constitution for Hadrian.”

“But why?”

“It saddens me that you have to ask that, dear. Look at me when I talk
to you. Sexual identity is not a choice. No one chooses to be gay. No one chooses to be bisexual. No one chooses to be straight. No one chooses to be intersex. And no one chooses to suffer from gender dysphoria.”

“Yes, but our scientists have done wonders with the human genome, eradicating the heterosexual gene—”

“And what right do we have to do that?”

“To avoid procreation.”

“We don’t want to avoid procreation. All we want to do is reduce human population in the most peaceful, loving, and humane manner possible.”

“I think we’ve done that here in Hadrian; don’t you?”

“Do you call the list of hate crimes you shared with us on your last
Salve!
peaceful? Do you call the murder of a four-year-old boy loving? Do you call the numerous beatings of our heterosexual citizens humane?”

“No, of course not, but—”

“There you go, grabbing at your ear again. What does that mean anyway?”

“No, hate crimes are not peaceful, but…heterosexuals shouldn’t flaunt themselves in public, giving our children the message that it is okay to be straight.”

“It is okay.”

“No, Mother, it isn’t—Mother, why did you sign the constitution? Why did you agree to its wording?”

“I was outvoted. Oh, dear, you are going to pull that earlobe off if you’re not careful.”

“And now—you are using the current political climate and your power as the last founding family member to—to—”

“Just say what you have to say, dear.”

“—to corrupt our constitution.”

“The word corrupt does not fit this context. No, dear, not corrupt—amend.”

“I’m sorry, Mother, but our time has run out. I hope you will join us again.”

“That’s not very likely, is it? And dear, see a doctor about that ear. Oh, oh, oh, let me say it. I’ve always wanted to…

Vale!”

Although the role of a detritus fisherman is a dangerous one, it is deemed as critical to Hadrian's existence as that of the military. Even so, it is a life seldom chosen out of want, or altruism; rather, such positions are filled out of desperation and need. Few willingly put their lives at daily risk, a risk, if statistics were ever revealed publically, that is actually greater than those known to the military. One need not fear having a bullet piercing his flesh; no, when one fishes out the refuse floating in the Bay, built up over centuries with human waste, one fears contamination. As well as radioactive materials, many dangerous chemicals and biohazards litter the world's oceans, and much of that litter has found its way into Hudson Bay via its estuaries stretching down from the Arctic Ocean and east from the Atlantic. The average life expectancy of the detritus fisherman, colloquially referred to as “DF,” is said to be anywhere between forty-five and fifty years of age. The oldest known DF died at the ripe old age of fifty-eight. This is why over 90 percent of all DFs are from the re-ed class—that unwanted class of Hadrian citizens that has been discovered experimenting with heterosexual behavior before the age of twenty-one; that unwanted member of society that has required reeducation.

The detritus fisherman is really nothing more than a glorified salvage-man, but no one working in this capacity feels any sense of glory in his or her work. It is simply a dangerous life, one compounded with difficult times and hard labor. Wolfgang Gaidosch, known by close friends as Wolf, is no stranger to hard times and backbreaking labor. Backing away from his post for a minute, Wolf presses his knuckles between his shoulder blades and cracks his back. Glancing about him circuitously to ensure no pier manager is looking his way, Wolf stealthily removes a half-smoked cigarette from his pocket and lights up quickly. After a few drags, he carefully
extinguishes it, hiding the remaining butt in his coverall pocket. He had been employed as a level one DF, first by Hunter Enterprises and now with Hadrian National, and never once has he been offered a promotion or even heard back from any of his applications.
So much for fifteen years of service!
Bitterness is a hard pill to swallow, and Wolf no longer even tries. He just chews on it and spits when his mouth gets that all too familiar foul metallic taste. Unfortunately, he has been doing this for quite some time.
I'd change jobs
, he muses,
but to do what?
This is the only low-end job out there that actually offers benefits thanks to Geoffrey Hunter's intervention when the fisheries was still a family-owned company.
And sadly,
he ruminates,
things have only gotten worse since they legalized heterosexuality.
No one is forced to go to reeducation camps any longer, but parents still have the authority to send anyone under twenty-one, so the camps still run at full capacity since no one wants a child who acts on strai tendencies. With a harrumph, Wolf spits.
No one wants to believe that someone in Hadrian might actually be born straight! Irony,
he thinks with a grim chuckle,
when nobody in the outside world wants to believe people are born gay.
Shaking his head in disbelief, Wolf mutters, “I hate irony.” Walking back to the edge of his pier, Wolf resumes hauling in more of the refuse within depth and reach of his pole.

Wolf's pier is the third one out on the northern water border of Hadrian. The border is lined with detritus piers to which DFs are assigned. Every ten minutes, a kilometer or two into international waters, the water patrol boats pass by. Occasionally, one passes close enough to allow male guards to toss a few taunts Wolf's way. Today is one of those days.

“Hey, sexy fisherman,” one of the older guards calls out. It may sound like an admiring catcall, but Wolf knows better. There is nothing sexy about a DF in uniform. Muddy fishing boots, with chest high waders, jacket, and hat are all baggy and designed to protect one from the contaminated waters of the Bay. In actuality, a DF looks like little more than a big, yellow, slimy lump covered in grime.

“Ah, Leon,” the other guard cries out, “leave the little strai alone.” The other man's shout is just a little too loud to be construed as supportive. Ignoring them, as usual, Wolf plunges his pole as deep as it will go into the Bay before dragging it along the edge of the pier. As always, he snags something. At first, Wolf anticipates more illegal fishing nets—composed of strong synthetic polymer that Hadrian makes good use of by converting
it into spools to be later used in the weaving of shoes and clothing.
10
The feel of this catch is different, though. The net seems to be caught on something. Tugging, Wolf begins to pull upward on the pole in an attempt to free whatever intractable object this net has latched onto. Whatever it is, it is stuck hard. Wolf releases the pressure he has placed on the pole and dips it deeper, bending deep at the knees so he can place hands and arms deep into the rancid water. Feeling the net under the object, Wolf uses his legs to help him lift the item whilst pushing down with his right arm and pulling upward with the left. Wolf grunts as something silver dangles from a long chain knotted up inside his net. Sunlight sparkles off the water dripping from both chain and object. It is unimpressively small, tubular; it must be the chain in which it is entangled that bears the bulk of the weight. Mustering all of his strength, Wolf lifts his catch high enough to toss it and the chain up into the large bin next to him.
Ugh
. Whatever it is, it has a rancid stench. Of course, everything Wolf pulls out of the Bay has a reek, but whatever is in his net is particularly pungent. It speaks volumes when a stench can trigger disgust in the nostrils of a DF.
No doubt,
Wolf reasons,
this object must be extremely toxic.
“Damn,” he mutters. “I'll have to report that.” This spells disaster for Wolf: paperwork, detoxification showers, followed by numerous medical tests (the bulk of which are at his expense even with the addition of medical benefits). “Fuck,” Wolf mutters. “I hate this shit!” Before climbing the side of his bin to look inside at his newly acquired catch, Wolf's attention is averted to rasping, begging off in the distance. “Fuck!” Wolf spits. Nearing the edge of his pier is a small refugee boat.
How the fuck did they get past the water patrol guards?
he wonders.

“Please,” a voice begs. “Please let us in.”

Wolf's head drops in shame. He can't even bring himself to look up at this week's latest starved and desperate refugees begging for mercy and salvation inside Hadrian's borders.

“Please!” The voice is so desperate Wolf glances up momentarily, regretting instantly this fatal mistake. It is the rhetoric drilled into every detritus fisherman's brain from day one until the day he or she dies. (No one has ever lived long enough to retire.)
Never look at them; never engage them. If you do, you will fall prey to sympathy, and Hadrian can't afford to extend any aid to the outside world!

Wolf tries to warn them off. “The water patrol guard will be returning shortly.” The pleading voice, he notes, is that of a dark-skinned older man.
Probably African,
Wolf muses.
For the love of Hadrian,
Wolf spits,
he looks to be fifty or sixty.
Wolf suddenly considers as he shakes his head,
He's probably no older than me.
(Wolf is a mere thirty-three years old.)
Fuck, who am I to judge?
Wolf considers.
No doubt I look fifty years old or more myself
. The years have not been kind to men and women like Wolf. Age lines crease his face, his skin is tanned to thick leather; his work, however, has given him a very strong, muscular body. Even so, a small belly protrudes, from the overconsumption of beer and junk munch. The beer medicates the psychological pain, and the junk munch, well, junk munch is simply more affordable than healthy food. And although every home in Hadrian is built to accommodate home gardens, either in a yard or on the roof, the twelve-hour shift work, coupled with the long bus ride to the docks, followed by an even longer boat ride to the piers and back again, can make Wolf's work day anywhere from fourteen to eighteen hours, so Wolf has little, if any, time for gardening. And since his job is so low paying, Wolf, like many other detritus fishermen, fights for the luxury of working overtime on his days off in the hopes of a little extra pay.

“Dear God, please,” the older man's voice rasps. “Help us. We can't go home.”

Wolf quickly looks down at his rubber steel-toed boots. Sludge has stained the right toe. He spits on it and tries to rub it clean on the leg of his coveralls. “They'll kill you,” Wolf warns. “You're too close to the pier.”

“They'll kill us if we go home. We're gay,” the man begs.

They'll fire me if I help you!
Wolf reminds himself.
Who knows? It might even be punishable with expulsion. Would I drink Black Death?
He wonders. Squeezing his eyes tightly, Wolf desperately fights back painful memories. Every level one DF has a story like his, and every DF hates to talk about it. Wolf is aided in his attempts to forget by the return of the older man's raspy voice.

“We had to leave because the penalty for gay sex is death. They will stone us if we go back!”

Wolf shudders. These words, this very real threat to their existence, is one with which he can relate.
Leona
, he groans inwardly. The thought of Black Death followed so quickly by the mention of a death penalty made it impossible for Wolf not to remember her. Leona was thirty-one, he nineteen. Long black hair, hazel eyes, rich caramel-brown skin, lush
lips, and breasts he could hide his face in. They had met at the Midwest Gate where both were stationed. Wolf, like all eighteen-year-old citizens of Hadrian, had been conscripted into military service on the first Monday following the last day of high school. Hadrian's government dictates that all Hadrian's citizens serve in the army in order for all its citizens to gain a clear understanding of the dangers threatening them from the outside world.
Not everyone,
Wolf grimly reminds himself. A very lucky few win academic or sports scholarships, exempting them from military duty. These fortunate individuals are deemed Hadrian's intellectual and physical elite. Each of Hadrian's eight unis offers one full academic scholarship and one full sports scholarship per annum. The lucky recipient of such a prestigious award must maintain a 75 percent average if a sports beneficiary or 85 percent for the academic scholarship. Failure to maintain this standard means a loss of scholarship and immediate conscription into the army.

Wolf had not been so lucky as to win a scholarship. His 88 percent average was insufficient, though high enough to ensure entrance into the uni of his choice after his years of service. Wolf had planned to go on to college after the army, until he met Leona.

Leona de Bruijn. Wolf was still a virgin when they had met. They had fallen so deeply in love they had even plotted out how they might be able to escape Hadrian. In the end, they realized the only thing to do was wait until Wolf was twenty-one, and then they would simply have to walk up to the gate and ask for it to be opened. But that was still two years away and, although the couple had been circumspect, they had been found out—caught in the act. Leona was exiled instantly by her commanding officer. She chose Black Death. Wolf, being but nineteen, was shipped 100 kilometers east to the Midwest Reeducation Military Facility. All members of the military discovered as strai are sent there. The military feels it best that it run its own reeducation camp since all the strai sent there are trained soldiers, thus their potential to become dangerous foes is too great. Wolf had heard that the military reeducation camp was the least abusive of all the camps. This notion always causes Wolf to shake his head in wonder. Perhaps that was the reason why he was able to survive over two years inside that prison. Wolf had only succumbed to the denial of his sexual orientation a few days before his twenty-first birthday when he knew his only other choices would be exile or Black Henbane. The years spent inside a re-ed camp had taught him to give up on death, but they never helped
him deny who he was or made him choose to be gay.
It is hardly a choice to deny who one is,
Wolf thinks.
And these poor buggers can't do it any more than me.
Wolf looks up and holds the old man's eyes in his. For a brief moment, their spirits unite. “All right!” he shouts back. “I'll talk to my foreman. But you gotta move back a good ten kilometers, or they'll shoot you on sight.”

“How will we know? How will we know?” Their pleading becomes even more desperate.

Wolf spits. Taking a small knife out of his pocket (also fished out of the Bay), Wolf opens it and stabs it into the pier. “Back off ten kilometers from this point. That way, if they let you in, they'll know how to find you.”

“How long?”

Wolf grimaces, spitting once before lying. “Two days, three at most.”
More like hours
, he shouts inside his mind.

The small boat heeds Wolf's warning and begins to back away from the pier. Soon it is out of sight. Knowing what he is about to do is utter folly, Wolf feels obliged to try at least. He has, after all, given his word.

Matthew Molloy pulls his fingers through his dirty, matted red hair, ripping through a few knots in the process. Shaking what he is allowing to turn into dreadlocks, Matthew gets rid of most of the wet grime that had settled there from a long day of slugging through the slimy muck of the Bay. After zipping off his overcoat and kicking off thigh high water boots, Matthew steps out of his coveralls. Turning to toss them in the laundry bin, he spies a lone figure leaning against the pier railing, looking out towards the shore.

“Will that fucking boat ever get here?” Wolfgang mutters.

“Hey, Wolf,” Matthew observes, “you're cleaned up awful early; I hope it's not a medical appointment.” Matthew works the morning shift, which overlaps the evening shift by an hour. To see Wolf standing and waiting for the boat home when his team works nights is odd.