Page 1 of Harbinger of Destiny

1

NO WOMAN, NO CRY

Los Angeles, Friday, July 13, 2085

Joshua Fletcher cast a look at the full-length mirror of his closet door. He wanted to look good tonight. After all, he’d made an important decision, and now it was time to execute it. His entire family depended on him. He was the only male descendent of the Fletcher family, the only one capable of continuing the family’s genes.

His female cousins, of which there were few to begin with, had all inherited the gene mutation that made them infertile. As a man, he wasn’t affected by the gene, but it didn’t make starting a family any easier. There were few women who could still bear children, even fewer who were even remotely in his age range. After all, as a twenty-two-year-old self-proclaimed stud, he didn’t want to marry a woman ten years his senior.

Joshua smirked at his image in the mirror. Luckily, he’d met the right girl six months earlier. Not only was she two years younger than him, Kelly was also drop-dead gorgeous and one of the very few women who didn’t carry the faulty gene and could therefore bear children.

His parents had been ecstatic when they’d met Kelly. They had encouraged him to take the next step quickly. After all, women like Kelly were a hot commodity, and despite his young age and the fact that he was still studying medicine, Joshua could offer her a good life. His parents were already eyeing a house to purchase for the young couple as a wedding present. And the subsidies a couple would receive when becoming parents would take care of the rest until Joshua was ready to enter the workforce as a medical doctor.

Kelly would never have to work a day in her life. Her purpose was to help repopulate the world. She was aware of her duty. Her parents had drilled it into her from the moment the gene test had determined that she was one of the lucky few. She was willing to fulfill her duty. Now all Joshua had to do was to make it official. Tonight, he would ask her to marry him.

It wasn’t at all unusual for people as young as Joshua to get married. Ever since basic necessities such as healthcare, food, and—in some cases—shelter, had been guaranteed to every citizen in the world, young people everywhere, freed from student loans, got married and started a family much earlier than their parents and grandparents.

Joshua touched the mirror, deactivating it, and it turned back into the door to his closet. He left his room and walked downstairs. He liked the home he shared with his parents. Even though it was made from the same composite material all houses were made of in the 2080s, a mixture of stone and biodegradable waste, and 3D-printed by one of the many 3D construction companies, the style was uniquely early twentieth century: a Victorian home, yet with all the modern trappings of the 2080s.

While dating, his parents had toured the Museum of San Francisco, a one-square-mile open-air complex that housed original Victorian homes that had been restored after the great Tsunami had lain waste to a large part of the northern California city in 2037. They’d fallen in love with the architecture.

“Mom?” Joshua called out toward the kitchen when he stepped into the first-floor hallway.

“Hello, Joshua. Your mother is in the garden. Do you want me to ask her to come inside?” the house robot asked from one of the speakers in the house.

“No, thanks, Jeeves. I’ll go outside myself.”

“As you wish.”

He rolled his eyes and walked into the kitchen. Sometimes Jeeves could be downright annoying, though the bodyless computer system that liked to be called by the name of a valet from the 1900s, did have its uses.

“Make yourself useful, and order me a car to pick up Kelly. I’ll be leaving in five minutes.”

“Yes, of course, Joshua.”

The French doors to the deck and garden were open, and he saw his mother pruning her roses. He walked outside onto the deck.

“Is that what you’re wearing for your date with Kelly?” The disapproval came from Jeeves.

“Zip it, Jeeves,” he said and flipped him the bird.

By walking outside onto the deck, one of the outside cameras that acted as a security system had captured him. There were no cameras in the interior of the house. Just as well. Joshua liked his privacy. And there was nothing wrong with what he was wearing: a vintage pair of jeans he’d found in a costume store. Pants like that were hard to come by. And he rather liked the way he looked in them.

“Hey, Mom. I’m leaving.”

His mother turned to him and smiled as she walked toward him. She was beautiful, her hair black as a raven’s, her eyes a bright grey, her skin dark brown. His mother was the product of a mixed-race union, while Joshua’s father was white. Marriages like his grandparents’ and his parents’ were very common. After the race riots in the early 2030s, wide-sweeping reforms had taken hold, and over the next two decades, racial equality was finally spreading to every corner of the world. In the world Joshua lived, race wasn’t of consequence anymore, because once economic inequalities were removed, all that was left was one race: the human race. Everybody was pulling in the same direction to take mankind off the endangered species list. And Joshua would do what was within his power to save humankind from extinction. Luckily, this task involved his favorite pastime: having sex with Kelly.

“You remind me of when your dad and I were dating,” his mother said, pointing at his pants. “You sure you want to wear that? I mean…” She hesitated and met his eyes. “This is an important night.”

“I know what I’m doing.” He chuckled. “Besides, Dad told me he was wearing jeans when he proposed to you. And it looks like that worked out fine.”

His mother laughed softly. “Because we both love history and everything retro. But Kelly is different… uhm… more, I don’t know… sophisticated?”

“It’ll be fine, Mom, trust me.” He leaned in and kissed his mother on the cheek. “Don’t wait up for me. I’ll stay over at Kelly’s tonight.” He winked at her. Celebrating their engagement in the only way he cared to: making love.

“Do you have the ring?” she asked.

“What ring?”