He almost missed the notation from Mr. Davidson, a quite important man in these parts, and a member of the second-highest Castes in the country, which was the highest that a person born into a lower caste could possibly attain. Mr. Davidson, it turned out, was a ruthless businessman, having been selected for advancement when 14 years old, after he managed to organize a school-wide homework-for-pay scheme that netted him hundreds of credits during his 8th grade of school.
According to the note, the lad, if found guilty of homosexuality, was to be enrolled at a nearby Group Home for such children. The GovMan was suprised; this region was particularly lacking in genetic women for the last five years; most good-looking, cute gay kids, he thought, would go directly for gender re-assignment. This one espcially, he though, looking over the note at the girlish faced and slender limbed Jeremy. However, being outranked by Caste, the man did as per the instructions, and informed an obviously shaken and nervous Jeremy that he was to go home with his father for a last night with his family and report at Governmental Childrens Group Home A-16 on Rupert street by 8:00 am the next morning. The boy sniffed back his tears while his father came back in to collect him. “I aint gonna cry, I aint gonna cry, I AINT gonna fuckin’ CRY….” Jeremy repeated over and over in his head, holding his head up as he walked home with his father for perhaps the very last time. His only consolation was that from what he understood, having had it explained by the GovMan before his dad returned, his sadness and shame would not last for too much longer.
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He asked his dad, that night, why he reported him so quickly. The response made him really start to wonder about his world. Dad seemed to think that the GovMen would know, soon, about Jeremy whether he reported him or not; what kind of surveilance did the Government have, anyway, he wondered? What, were there cameras set up in homes? That could be, of course; he knew his dad didn’t own their house; no low-Caste family did. They were all Government Housing units, all houses were, except the ones lived in by members of the highest three Castes. Who knew what kind of cameras and sound-pickups were around. Pity, he thought, that he never wondered about this before. Strange, he thought, how none of his friends thought about these kinds of questions. But then, society was too peacefull, to ordered, to really worry about such things; that is, as long as you were not some kind of criminal. Which, apparently, Jeremy was.
But didn’t everyone profess that everybody, crime- and moral- law-breakers included, were allowed their life, their right to pursue happiness, their freedom? Didn’t everyone say that it is OK to be gay, that queers, just like thieves, were free to be themselves, just… not in public, not where they could ‘infect’ family members? What kind of tolerance was one where they allowed you to ‘be yourself’, but squirrelled you and all other Non Standard Humans, the NSH’s of the country, into neat and tidy boxes, places where their strangeness could be used as a strength, places where only some lucky ones could see their families again?
He tried not to thing of what the kids at school figured the murders got to do. Army, most of them, but perhaps some were made into hit-men, or executioners, or… yuck.
The simple thieves, the stupid ones, ones that caused more monetary cost in their damage than they got from their robbery or dumbly stole from their friends mothers purse and get caught too many times, were simply castrated, taken from school immediately or upon completion of 7th grade, and put in training for menial labour.
However, the lucky ones could indeed be lucky. If, by the 9th grade, some student was found to have snookered the system, to have inventively got around the checks and balances to do some particularly risky crime or prank, they would find themselves in a similar situation to Jeremy, but these kids got further, specialized education; some became international lawyers, for Heavens’ sake, boosted in Caste to the point they could buy their own mansions and have multiple children, and a real, actual, genetic woman for a wife!
Also, some anti-religious nuts, the ones who skipped the twice-weekly Church services and got caught, if intelligent enough, were the ONLY people allowed to pursue certain scientific studies. Most common scientists, allowed to graduate a full 13 years of childhood study and go on to University studies, were involved with the Church, and therefor unable to study certain areas of science. That only made sense, Jeremy figured, but it seemed unfair to him, facing a rather different future as he was.
Not that he had any idea what his future might be, beyond the possibilities which he had already encountered; Chuck, now obviously living with a different name, being Possibility Number One; Jeremy shuddered at the idea of being turned into a girl. He was a BOY, damnit, a real BOY who was tough, strong, and showed just the right amount of strong-arm behavior and rebelliousness to get his teachers eyes; they respected such things in the kids, a touch of rebellion being a sign of intellectual strength.
Of the other ways his life could go after tonight, he had less knowledge. Everybody, the teachers, the police, the GovMen during their monthly school meetings, said that even gay kids got to be themselves, that there was a good life for them under the direction of the Government; those particular talks had started in the last year or two, sometime around when Jeremy turned ten. At first, he had no idea why they seemed to talk about queers. Until then, the only crimes the GovMen really discussed were the childhood basics; behaving, not stealing, keeping yourself clean. None of the kids wanted to be assigned as garbage men for the rest of their lives just because they were filthy all the time. Few felt a desire to be Army men, soldiers being in high demand but mortality being equally high. Ever since the Americans had nullified the power of nuclear bombs with their cheap, radiotope-neutralizing fibernet that was kept suspended over their territory, conventional war was the rule of the day and Canada had long since abandond its roll as simply a peacekeeper; the Canadian military was now known as perhaps the fiercest on earth, thanks in no small part to what happend to little boys who bullied their classmates too much.
Jeremy knew at least four boys who had simply been at school one day, and gone the next; the teachers always told them why, that Billy or Johnny had been diagnosed as hyper-aggressive. Those kids, if picked in early grade-school, stopped normal schooling immediately to start their genetically-boosted life, learning to handle weaponry and combat skills from that day forward. Some of them obviously wanted it; some of them not, but it didn’t matter. Within a week, the teachers assured the remaining students, every one of those boys would be eagerly participating, relishing the idea of being big, strong Army Men soon. And amazingly unconcerned about the typical 50% mortality rate for low-ranking cannon-fodder infantry within their first ten years of service.