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They came to our cells to let us each choose our fate. By law, they had to give us the choice between the project or the rut. It was rumored they had to send women to the rut if they chose it, no matter what they were in for.
One of them approached with a smirk on his face, as if he already knew what we’d pick. He asked Julie first and when she picked the rut, he lost it on her, screaming and yelling at her for being “a stupid slut.” He raised a hand to hit her, but another officer stopped him.
“They’ll dock our pay if the sluts go in injured. You know those motherfuckers get upset when we send them bruised women.”
“The bitch fucked us over. You know we don’t get extra for sending them to those monsters, and we are so close to that bonus.”
A bonus? These assholes got extra pay if they sent us to Utopia? Something about that had warning flags waving all over my head.
Before I could speak, a young man in the next cell interrupted. “You’ve got the wrong person! I still have time to get the money. The guy at the bank said I had two more days. My uncle is going to help me pay it.”
The officer in front of me rolled his eyes as if he heard things like this every day. “Not according to your file.” He waved a folder in the air. “Just go to Utopia. The system is put in place tohelppeople like you. You’ll never have to worry about paying your bills again.Join the Utopia Project. It’s paradise.”
Because he’d have no bills to pay and no say about anything. But most importantly, this asshole here got paid a hefty kickback.
“What’s my other choice?” said the man, who looked ready to run out of the cell, shocking chip or not.
“Someone can post bail. You said you have an uncle.”
“How much is bail?”
“Fifty thousand.”
“That’s four times more than what I owe!”
The man in the next cell started freaking out, and one of the other officers subdued him and pulled him into another room.
Jesus! If this system was really here to help people, then why make the bail so high? That was more than for a violent crime. What was wrong with this colony?
There was only one person in my life who would bail me out—Chris, my brother. He was the only family I had left, but he worked hard to keep himself afloat, living credit payment to credit payment, much like I did when I still had a job. Springing for my bail might end us both in this same predicament a few months down the line, especially at that price.
I couldn’t do that to him. Chris could be annoying when he wanted to be, as all brothers were, but he was family. He wouldn’t hesitate to spend his entire life savings to get me out, ruining his own life. I couldn’t let that happen, especially since Chris wouldn’t have the choice between the rut and the Utopia Project. They’d take him straight to the project, and I’d never see him again. He wouldn’t even have the chance to come back afterward.
All this because we’d been born into the outskirts of the colony, meaning our grandparents, our family’s original settlers to Nova Vita, had been laborers.
Suddenly angry at the colony and the situation they’d put us all in, I was no longer stuck between a rock and a hard place. I made my decision. It made the words that came out next easier.
“I’ll take the rut,” I blurted out before the officer could ask me.
The man’s face turned red, and he looked ready to punch my face in, but he didn’t do anything. He couldn’t unless he wanted the Kadrixan angry with him. Those aliens were terrifying, and they’d made it plenty clear that any female who asked to join the rut must be treated well.
“Go stand with her,” he gritted through clenched teeth. “They’ll pick you up for processing in two days.”
Those who chose the rut at any other time during the year were kept locked up until the spring. We were lucky we only had two days.
Our jailors move to the next cell to talk to the two young men left inside. The two men didn’t get the same choice we did, and the officers took their information to join the project. The women in the next cell both chose Utopia as well.
The woman in the last cell chose the rut, and the guards threw her in with us, disgust plain on their faces. “Maybe you sluts want to be rutted on, but I hope you all die, split in half with alien dicks.”
I wasn’t sure I’d made the right choice, but looking at the man’s red face, I sure felt like I had. When the truck came for those heading off to join their precious project, my suspicions were confirmed. The guards gave them numbers instead of names and treated them no better than animals.
One of the women changed her mind and asked to be put in with us, but she’d already signed her life away. Julie and I exchanged a glance as they dragged her off, screaming and kicking.
“Thanks for convincing me to join you,” I whispered.
“Don’t mention it.”
When the guards left, we introduced ourselves to the new girl. Her name was Michelle, and she was in here because she’d defaulted on her instruction advance. Together, we sat in the cold, damp cell and awaited our fate.
