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The e frohter Tierney, a pioneer in the program, one of the first to volunteer Our numbers have been depleted by the Germans, the Japanese, and now the Godless Russians Of the A only 12 are fertile But we are not Coate, wasteful, decadent We must maintain our e from the world your mothers knew—at least on the surface And with time, what appears on the surface will penetrate to the core, and all will be restored We will not sacrifice our way of life

A minister with a withered arm read that Pseudo-M

atthew passage Tierney had dredged up out of apocrypha to the apocrypha, about the rods and the flowers and Sylvie had never felt it was one of the Gospel’s more subtle moments Thefor the Dove

The doctors omen One was Mrs Drexler, who lived on their cul-de-sac and always e She was kind She warloves for her, white gloves for le She turned her head to one side and focused on a stained-glass la their frosted breasts with their beaks She went somewhere else in her mind until it was over Not a happy place, just a place Somewhere precise and clean without any Spotless Corp products where Sylvie could test soil samples methodically Rows of black vials, each labeled, dated, sealed

They took her blood A butterfly of panic fluttered in her—will they know? Would the test show her lish until her accent ca froh there was no one left to shoot at her? Only half, white enough to pass, curling her hair like it would save her? Sylvie shut her eyes She said her mother’s na that only they together knew Hidaka Hanako Hidaka Hanako Hidaka Hanako Don’t be silly Japan isn’t a virus they can see wiggling in your cells Moo off in the centrifuge

And none did

She whizzed through the intelligence exaiven the following variables Please Other girls milled around her in their identical lace dresses The flowers in their hair were different Their sashes all red Red on white, like first aid kits floating through her peripheral vision They went fro They nodded shyly to each other In five years, Sylvie would know all their nae They would plan block parties They would have telephone trees Some of them would share a Husband with her, but she would never knohich That hat let the whole civilized fiction roll along You never knew, you never asked Men had a different surnahborhood knew it all, the knots and snags of the vital genetics Would she share with the frosted blonde who loved botany or the redheaded enius who made her own cheese? Or maybe none of theirls would score low in their academics or have soreat forking family trees pruned by Mrs Drexler and the rest of theet Husbands in overalls, with limited allowances They would live in houses with old paint and lead shielding instead of Gamma Glass Some of theet Husbands in grey suits and silk ties, ent to offices in the city during the day, who gave them compression chamber diae

Results were quick these days Every year faster But not so quick that they did not have luncheon provided while the experts performed their tabulations Chicken salad sandwiches—how the skinny ones gasped at the taste of mayonnaise! Assam tea, watercress, lemon curd and biscuits An impossible fairy feast

“I hope I get a Businesslittered with illegal setting spray “I couldn’t bear it if I had to live on Daisy Drive”

“Who cares?” said Sylvie, and shoved a whole chicken salad triangle into herHer silence bent for one second and out coet her remembered

“Well, I care, you cow,” snapped Bouffant Her friends s their teeth In priht idly She flashed theirls, drink it in

“I think it’s clear what roo in,” Bouffant sneered, oblivious to Sylvie’s prinals

But Sylvie couldn’t stop “At best, you’ll spend 25 of your tiet your rations the sa in the program and access to top ? You know this is just pretend, right? A very big, very lush, very elaborate dog breeding program”

Bouffant narrowed her eyes Her lips went utterly pale “I hope you turn out to be barren as a rock Just rotted away inside,” she hissed The group of them stood up in a huff and took their tea to another table Sylvie shrugged and ate her biscuit “Well, that’s no way to think if you want to restore America,” she said to no one at all What was the matter with her? Shut up, Sylvie

Mrs Drexler put a war out of nowhere The doctor who loved rureen chip on the white tablecloth Bouffant saw it across the rooh her skull at forty yards