Chapter 28 Facade
Where Babies Come From
He relaxed in the warm soaking pool and looked around at the beautiful scenery. Girls in bikinis and girls in bikinis. At least six floated around the pool nearby, a few more sat at the edge dangling their feet in the water. Several others milled about on the outskirts, talking, laughing, eating.
Music played just loud enough to block out a few hundred conversations, but quiet enough to allow a couple to talk together. “This could be para, para, paradise…” from the latest 2133 Coldplay hit, was soothing the vibe of the place.
There she was, standing at the periphery of the pool area talking with two others girls, smiling. They were all wearing swim suits. She gazed around and saw him in the pool. She gave him a big smile and waved. He smiled back and thought, Oh ya! If she waved at him, it usually meant she wanted some company.
He’d been coming here for at least three months that he could remember. He’d only seen her around for two months. She probably had been a pregnant blimp before that, had a baby and then soon afterwards resurfaced. But you’d never have guessed she’d recently had a baby if that was the story. Or ever, wow!
He’d seen her many, many times here over the last two months. Usually they left together. It wasn’t long before he learned he had been right about the baby thing. Of course, that was a common story around this place. So were pretty girls.
One common misconception about the labor communes was that they got all their children from the outside through the various State incentive programs. It’s true that they got many, many children as a result of the incentive programs, but most of the children were made on the inside.
Marriage was not allowed inside the labor communes. But social interactions and baby making was welcome. Birth control products were illegal on the inside. On average at any given point, two thirds of the women aged sixteen to thirty eight were pregnant. And they generally had to keep working right up to delivery.
Upon delivery of the baby, the baby was immediately taken to a Baby Ward to be cared for and raised. As a reward for getting pregnant and having a baby, the mother was given a week off from work. This week vacation alone was a very successful incentive to keep women wanting to have babies. The labor commune made it easy in other ways too.
The labor communes had parties every night. Though a big misconception about the labor communes on the outside was that people worked their fingers to the bone, there was time for fun. They did indeed work hard, but there was ample time for socialization. People were not allowed to organize their own parties of more than six people. All social gatherings of more than six people, including the locations and activities allowed, were controlled by the labor communes. Yet people flocked to the commune-sponsored bashes.
For one, there was a free 4M treatment just for walking in the door. Then there was free food, good food. Alcohol was strictly forbidden in the labor communes. But marijuana was legal and was given out like candy at the bashes. There was music and dancing, lounging pools and hot tubs. The meeting halls had sex rooms too, and people were expected to use them nightly.
The sex rooms were not some dirty, dingy hovels either. They were like modern studio apartments, usually with a view. They were stocked with food and refreshments, music and Hologramic Image Display systems, bathrooms with a Jacuzzi tub, great lighting, and king sized beds. A trained group of commune workers cleaned the beds and rooms, and restocked supplies after every use. People could use them for an hour or spend the night. There was but one requirement for their use: Only one male and one female were allowed in them at a time.
The protocol for hooking up with someone at the communal bashes was similar to how it’s always been between the sexes. Physical attraction always played a primary role. But there was another incentive. Free time off from work.
SIN Chips monitored body vital functions. Orgasms had a distinct signature easily recognized by the Chips. The rooms had plenty of sensors to detect who was there and how close in proximity they were to each other.
Computer algorithms calculated whether or not a couple was having intercourse. The result was recorded on their SIN Chips. For every eight qualifying sexual experiences, people were given two free hours off from work. The qualifying experience had to be sexual intercourse. No other way counted, as the whole object of this expensive system was to get babies coming.
Obviously, for the time off reward there had to be some limits imposed, otherwise people would bang themselves out of a job. So, only two sexual intercourse encounters per day counted towards the prized time off.
Did people ever try to cheat the system by getting a room together and then somehow fake sex just to get the time off? Come on, why would anyone do that! These parties and the girls were way too gratifying to settle for anything less than the real deal.
With a mesmerized look on his face, he stared as a gorgeous pair of legs was suddenly in his field of view. He looked up to see a tall, lean, brunette with stunning blue eyes gazing at him from a few feet away.
“Hey Dar,” he heard a familiar voice say. “Want to be the father of my baby?”
Her name was Amy and he felt as if he’d known her much longer than just two months. Holding hands, they slowly wandered towards the sex rooms, happy as clams.
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That's All Folks!
Two Last Things For Your Consideration
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Thing #2: Other Books You Might Enjoy
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Silicon Facades, by Cory Richardson.
Topic: Depraved future society and twisted justice.
Description: How our online presence in the early 2000′s evolved into the government’s digital social tool of the 2130's to pigeonhole citizens into social classes and control their every activity, even where babies come from. In 2133, Darren and his pregnant wife, Amber, a smart, drop dead stunning, blue-eyed brunette, desperately seek ingenious and mostly criminal methods to raise their status, having dropped to the lowest social class because of circumstances affecting their government issued Score. Take the roller coaster ride with the exploits of Darren and Amber and their shocking nonconformist ways of playing against the system’s outrageous rules.