It was an ordinary Monday morning in Marcus Hook, PA on Nine, 13, 75 , though my Speech Detector seemed unusually tight. Maybe my neck had grown. Not that being so would make me less worthy, but I must say, I don’t wish to be weight-challenged. Oh, well. It was time for a nice hot breakfast, which was once made by my unit of maternity until te was taken away about ten years ago by the Meeting Against Offensiveness. I was very age deficient at the time. Though we were forbidden to keep track of how age deficient we are, I believed this happened roughly seven years since I was birthed. Anyway, my unit of paternity was now charged with making breakfast, and I must say, much as I love tym, te’s more culinarily impaired than my UM was (not that I would ever have been able to utter such a thought without MAO putting a bullet through my head). Offending a fellow kinship member garnered both the penalty of death and attendance at a public humiliation where people could offend you without penalty. It was said that before the Fairness Movement 75 years ago, people were offended by their own kinship so much that they committed suicide. This challenge had been exacerbated ever since my sibling moved out last year, though it’s not as if I could ever say that out loud.
Anyway, I ate the pancakes my UP made rather quickly, despite the fact that my Speech Detector was so goshdarn tight. Still, I made my way out the door and got on my bike up to my school in Media Subdistrict. When I was about three-quarters of the way there (so I would have gone about six miles), I saw something I hadn’t seen in almost five years: a car. The only people who could use them were Emergency Medical Services and MAO, as it is most offensive to animals to pollute their environment with greenhouse gases. As I was unprepared, the car nearly hit me as it came whizzing behind me at a speed which is probably five times the fastest I’ve ever gone on my bike, if not more. Fortunately, I managed to jump into a ditch, carrying the bike with me. After a very brief general inspection of cuts and bruises, I dashed back up as I only just made out the insigne on the back of the car: Meeting Against Offensiveness, just above a red star that had “Keeping personhood intact” inscribed into it. Great, I thought. Somebody else from our district (which apparently used to be called a county, but that allegedly had a royal etymology, so its name was changed as it was offensive) was getting sent to the Decapitation Center. There were no fewer than twenty such instances in the past week, in a district of no more than 800,000 people! At the rate we were going, I thought, the Sylvania, or gosh forbid, Federal MAO would take us over. The Sylvania MAO were said to be so ruthless that they would kill anyone who was merely suspected of offensiveness, and the Federal ones even more so. I heard from one person that they would kill those who had offensive thoughts, which of course they could determine through their highly advanced profiling technology, though I suspect he was working for FMAO and was trying to instill fear into the population about them.
When I got to school, I found out that the MAO car was headed for the same place I was, and I wasn’t the only one it nearly ran over. A good friend of mine named Aquarius Chamberlain called my name.
“Kyle!” xe shouted. That’s my name, by the way, in case I forgot to mention it before. It’s a pretty unusual name, seeing as it mostly denoted being biologically male before the Fairness Movement came along, but, as it was occasionally used by females, my parental units were still allowed to give it to me. That was fitting, seeing as I’m actually named after someone who was biologically female and a good friend of my great-grandUP’s from high school. Anyway, my head did a 270° and I made eye contact with Aquarius.
“Did you also nearly get run over by the MAO car on the way to school?” te asked. I nodded. “You know, I heard a rumor. It was only a rumor, but….”
“Well, go on,” I said.
“Our world history teacher, Mx. Gorbachev,” te whispered in the softest voice te could, “was taken away by MAO for saying that the government was”, tir voice somehow dampening even further, “morally challenged”.
“Oh my gosh!” I replied. And to think, te was the teacher I most liked, too. Te seemed so articulate and intelligent, and I loved it when te would go on one of tir eloquent comparisons of now to the past. We learned about how much oppression there was in the past, though it seemed to me that oppression now simply stemmed from the governments (more specifically MAO) than individual people like it did in the past. I couldn’t bear the thought of Mx. Gorbachev in the Pre-Decapitation Chamber, begging for mercy from the MAO officers who surely would be torturing him. Xe was age-rich and very strength-challenged, and te was also the first teacher in Sylvania to be arrested in my lifetime. This was just what we needed for the SMAO or FMAO to take us over: we make the goshdarn state news about how OUR district had a TEACHER arrested.
When I went to my world history class, Aquarius turned out to be right. I found the principal of our school, Mx. Liddy, sitting right in Title Gorbachev’s seat.
“Due to recent events,” te said. “I will be substitute teaching for this class indefinitely. Have you any questions!?”, came the harsh voice. To no one’s surprise, there were none. Over the course of the class, Mx. Liddy got about 50 phone calls from the MAO, SMAO and FMAO regarding Title Gorbachev’s arrest.
“CLASS DISMISSED!” xe roared. “My reputation is ruined, I’m probably getting terminated from my job, and it’s all the fault of these morally-challenged offensive people! From this day forward, I will redouble my efforts to turn such people over to MAO!”
Well, after that, my day wasn’t that far out of the ordinary. We didn’t run as many laps in P.E., nor did we do as many problems in Pre-calculus. The whole school seemed to be on alert, and an atmosphere of suspicion seemed ubiquitous. I noticed the cafeteria food was unusually bland, so I just disposed of it when no one was looking and talked with some ofmy friends. Everyone seemed a bit shaken about Gorbachev’s arrest, but even in these dark times, Alex Newman seemed to lighten things up a bit. He got on his chair and started talking about how Title Gorbachev would bore the officers to death before they could decapitate him (saying an offensive thing about an offensive person was technically forbidden, but MAO didn’t give a darn about it). Jeez, did I wish he were right. I would have rather had those MAO officers dead than Gorbachev.
The ride home from school was pleasant, downhill, and car-free, though I was still very shaken. At last, I could talk to my UP in the afternoon. Te just wasn’t tirself at four in the morning when te was making me breakfast and leaving for work, which for tym was at five-thirty. Te’s been a little joy-challenged since his hours were cut and made earlier at his job at the convenience store. Business had been bad, but a few months ago, collateral damage from a MAO raid had killed one of their most loyal customers, Sam Crispus, and put tir life partner Gabrielle in a coma for at least five months. When the neighbors above them in their apartment complex were suspected of offensiveness and they refused to open the door, the MAO officers who were outside fired their grenade launchers at the apartment. As a result, part of the floor caved in on all the apartments below. Despite this, te resolved to keep going and te was indeed, quite lively and fun to talk to during the afternoon when I got home from school.
I told them about my day at school. Te had heard about Title Gorbachev’s arrest on the radio at work, and it seemed to be the only thing anyone was talking about in town. Te was a little bit shaken up because te wanted to make sure the SMAO or FMAO wasn’t going to come in to take the district over, but the rumors about their doing so had been confirmed false. We talked about what might be causing the increase in arrests around the district, whether it was the poor economy or just an overall moral challenge facing people in these times for whatever reason.
After a nice, quiet dinner of pasta with my UP, I went to bed at around nine, thinking of what school would be like with Liddy’s new crusade to eliminate any traces of dissent in the school. I mean, I thought things that would be considered offensive all the time, but are too many people really going to be suspicious of quiet, laid-back Kyle Winston? Sure, I can crack a joke pretty well, but never an offensive one. People would look more to the morally challenged students who everyone knew did offensive things in secret. Still, even though this defies their own rules about not offending based on socioeconomic status, I think MAO tends to be a little bit more suspicious of more wealth-challenged people such as myself who come from areas like Marcus Hook or Chester rather than people who live more comfortably up in Aston or Media.
When I went to school the next morning, I found out. The doors were locked, and my friend Aqaurius was again telling me about what was going on. Apparently, Liddy was going to announce the reforms over the loudspeaker before te let anyone in the building. Sure enough, tir voice came on in five minutes.
“EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, ALL STUDENTS ARE TO REPORT TO THE SIDE ENTRANCE FOR QUESTIONING BEFORE ATTENDING SCHOOL. AS A RESULT, EFFECTIVE TOMORROW, STUDENTS WILL BE REQUIRED TO REPORT TO SCHOOL TWO HOURS EARLIER AT FIVE A.M. THANK YOU AND HAVE A PLEASANT DAY FREE OF DISSENT.”
“AT FIVE!” I mentally roared. This meant I was going to have to learn how to make breakfast for myself and buy a flipping headlight for my bike! Jeez, I was going to have to go to bed at seven-thirty tonight to get a decent amount of sleep!
Aquarius and I ran to the side doors of the school, where we found ourselves about thirtieth in line for questioning. When we finally walked in, we found five MAO officers in full black uniform with the black ski masks over their faces interrogating five students each. When my name was called, I stepped into one of the chairs where the officer put a black cuff around my arm.
“This is what we call a polygraph test. It can tell if you are being truth-challenged or not.”
“OK.”, I replied.
“Your name is Kyle Winston, is it not?”
“Indeed it is.”
“Funny name, isn’t it. Your first name was primarily used by biological males prior to the Fairness Movement. How were your units allowed to give it to you?”
“It was actually used occasionally by females in the years leading up to the FM,” I replied. “In fact, I’m named after a friend of my great-grandUP who was biologically female.”
“Ahh”, te replied, raising an eyebrow. “I see you live in Marcus Hook. Have you lived there all your life?”
“No,” I calmly stated. “I lived in Baltimore until I was six.” I noticed Aquarius about to take tir seat, looking more courage-deficient than I had ever seen tym, which was saying something for Aquarius.
“Do you ever think offensive thoughts?,” the officer asked casually, as if the tone of the conversation hadn’t changed at all. A moment of horror struck me like a swooping crow. To answer yes would mean I would be under a cloud of suspicion for the rest of my life, but if that darned polygraph test really could tell if you were lying, to answer no would be a one-way ticket to the Decapitation Chamber. Not wanting to have to fear MAO for the rest of my life, I took a gigantic leap of faith.
“No”, came my reply. I felt as if there were caterpillars crawling around in my stomach.
“Very well, then, you are free to go to the cafeteria until all the other students are through with questioning and class commences.” the officer said, although te sounded like something else had seized tir attention.
I wandered off to the cafeteria, more relieved than I had ever been about anything in my life because I somehow passed the polygraph test. I never thought I’d actually be in danger of being taken away by MAO just like my UM had until today.
A few minutes later, Aquarius came by looking as if a bullet had just missed tym by half a millimeter. “Nuhmuh! Dey go Nuhmuh!”, te said in a whisper. After a couple minutes of my calming him down, I was able to understand what te was trying to say. “Newman! They got Newman!”
“Who’s they?” I inquired. “The MAO officers? And do you mean Alex Newman?” Aquarius simply nodded. Oh my GOSH, I thought to myself. Te was really gone forever. No one had ever been known to escape from a Pre-Decapitation Center, nor had anyone ever been released. It was just like when they took my UM away, it meant that someone in my life was GONE, forever. It was so hard coming to such a realization that I just lay my head down and cried as softly as possible.
When classes finally did start after an hour and 45 minutes, I completely zoned out for the entire day. I paid absolutely no attention to anything until I got home and turned on the radio, expecting to hear all about Alex’s arrest. What I got was a little more than I bargained for.
“Taking the lead shown by principal Aubrey Liddy at Delaware District Secondary School, the Federal Meeting Against Offensiveness has ordered every secondary school in the Location to implement a daily interrogation system at every secondary school in the country similar to the one imposed at DDSS which captured a dissident by the name of Alex Newman.” I ran and unplugged the radio. I showed my UP the expression on my face, and te just patted me on the back.
The next few days went by fairly uneventfully. The guards were asking the usual background questions, with of course the same question at the end: “Do you think offensive thoughts”? Finally, on Friday, they asked the most unhappiness-inducing question of all.
“What happened to your mother ten years ago?”
“She was arrested by MAO for offensiveness”, I replied, struggling to keep my cool. The officer gave me a grave look. After he finished his interrogation, I went to the cafeteria and from class to class, deciding what I should do this weekend, and I decided to do something I haven’t done in a few weeks: go up to Philly.
The next day, I got up at 6:00 a.m. and told my UP of my plans to go to Philly, and that I would be home by six. After two tedious hours of cycling up to Independence Mall, I decided to look around
