2004-06-16 13:29![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
digitaldiscipline
digitaldiscipline[originally penned some time ago, still incomplete, as something ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anditron and I mused about on the subject of population control, IIRC, and inspired by critus' recent bits of fiction]
“Well?” Mark had thrown himself into the chair in the corner of our apartment, a scavenged taupe thing half a shade lighter than the quarter-inch of his hair that had grown back.
Standing at the window, looking out at a bright overcast that threatened another spate of late-season flurries and sleet, I could feel the chill emanate through the single-hung pane despite two layers of carelessly-applied plastic film. At least that balanced out the loving/hating glow Mark was putting off. “I’m still thinking.”
“You still wanna be a breeder? I’m not enough for you, is that it?”
“That’s not helping your chances right now, you know.” We'd been over it. A lot. And I still didn't have any answers.
The chair creaked as he stood up and stalked into the bedroom and the half-bath beyond. After he slammed the door, I could hear the now-familiar sounds of him prepping a dose in the sink. That also wasn’t helping his chances, but he was usually too pissed off to give a damn by the time he started cooking.
Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t join him with his needles and tubes right now. I had about nine thousand tests that might need to be run if I went Clark-positive, and just as many different ones if I stayed Off, the only difference being what the right answers to hope for were; but either way, having extra junk in the pipes probably wasn’t the right answer on either side, as far as the Meds were concerned.
I’d been over it from every angle I could think of. Positive? Off? Yes? No? Life? Kids?
For Mark, going Pos had practically been a no-brainer. Everything he’d done since then. . . well, he was never long on introspection to begin with, but the Process hadn’t helped. He was determined to be straight queer, hated kids (well, more than he hated everyone else), and treated himself like shit. The religious types were all adamantly Off, mostly crying foul in that strident “It’s an Abomination In God’s Sight” tone they’d used in front of abortion clinics around the turn of the century. I took a small amount of wry comfort from the idea that they were intentionally dying off to make their preferred deity happy.
The Clark Process, named for Dick Clark, who presided over a seemingly infinite progression of New Year’s Eve broadcasts, and was, for a time, the oldest human being on record. I’d seen a couple of them when I was a kid, his pomade and artificial tan somehow more grotesque against the backdrop of New York winter than the fact that he was a hundred and forty-three going on fifty eight. Again. They might have been dubbing him in the last couple years he was alive, or using a sim, but, by that point, the Process was public, even though it wasn’t mandatory.
That happened after it got approval to prevent a couple of particularly nasty strains of engineered bug that got loose. The downside is that it makes you sterile, and isn’t all that kind to certain higher brain function.
Everybody gets one chance to choose, when they turn 21.
anditron and I mused about on the subject of population control, IIRC, and inspired by critus' recent bits of fiction]“Well?” Mark had thrown himself into the chair in the corner of our apartment, a scavenged taupe thing half a shade lighter than the quarter-inch of his hair that had grown back.
Standing at the window, looking out at a bright overcast that threatened another spate of late-season flurries and sleet, I could feel the chill emanate through the single-hung pane despite two layers of carelessly-applied plastic film. At least that balanced out the loving/hating glow Mark was putting off. “I’m still thinking.”
“You still wanna be a breeder? I’m not enough for you, is that it?”
“That’s not helping your chances right now, you know.” We'd been over it. A lot. And I still didn't have any answers.
The chair creaked as he stood up and stalked into the bedroom and the half-bath beyond. After he slammed the door, I could hear the now-familiar sounds of him prepping a dose in the sink. That also wasn’t helping his chances, but he was usually too pissed off to give a damn by the time he started cooking.
Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t join him with his needles and tubes right now. I had about nine thousand tests that might need to be run if I went Clark-positive, and just as many different ones if I stayed Off, the only difference being what the right answers to hope for were; but either way, having extra junk in the pipes probably wasn’t the right answer on either side, as far as the Meds were concerned.
I’d been over it from every angle I could think of. Positive? Off? Yes? No? Life? Kids?
For Mark, going Pos had practically been a no-brainer. Everything he’d done since then. . . well, he was never long on introspection to begin with, but the Process hadn’t helped. He was determined to be straight queer, hated kids (well, more than he hated everyone else), and treated himself like shit. The religious types were all adamantly Off, mostly crying foul in that strident “It’s an Abomination In God’s Sight” tone they’d used in front of abortion clinics around the turn of the century. I took a small amount of wry comfort from the idea that they were intentionally dying off to make their preferred deity happy.
The Clark Process, named for Dick Clark, who presided over a seemingly infinite progression of New Year’s Eve broadcasts, and was, for a time, the oldest human being on record. I’d seen a couple of them when I was a kid, his pomade and artificial tan somehow more grotesque against the backdrop of New York winter than the fact that he was a hundred and forty-three going on fifty eight. Again. They might have been dubbing him in the last couple years he was alive, or using a sim, but, by that point, the Process was public, even though it wasn’t mandatory.
That happened after it got approval to prevent a couple of particularly nasty strains of engineered bug that got loose. The downside is that it makes you sterile, and isn’t all that kind to certain higher brain function.
Everybody gets one chance to choose, when they turn 21.
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Still have the other that you e-mailed, and will read it eventually. Life intervened, but I haven't forgotten about it.
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