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Dante chuckles, moving toward the main house. “I should think that’s obvious given your ability.”
“You said we were made,” I remind him. “They didn’t choose the original Spinsters for their skills—they had none!”
“But they chose our families based on a list of physical and mental requirements. Decisions were based on potential,” Dante says, as I trail beside him.
“And then they made them into Spinsters,” I finish. “But wait, my mother wasn’t a Spinster. Or my sister.”
“Most genetic abilities skip around in a family,” he explains. “Not everyone gets the same eye color or body build, for instance. Remember the footage of the injections and surgeries in the film? It was genetic manipulation.”
“So the scientists gave us the gene?” I ask.
“I’d be lying if I said I understood half of it. Weaving is a cultivated recessive gene. Once it was added to a person’s genetic composition, it might reveal itself but that wasn’t certain. The first crop of Spinsters was very small and very weak. Early on, while the scientists created serums that increased ability, they depended completely on the looms.”
Dante claims ignorance, but he’s full of information.
“And those that didn’t have ability?” I ask.
“They were put into the population to breed more Spinsters.”
“And Tailors,” I add. “So now the Guild is trying to isolate those genes so that they can replicate them?” I guess.
“It will be much easier for the Guild to have total control over Spinsters. You’re right, Adelice,” he says. “I think they plan to make a dominant gene that can be spliced into hand-picked specimens. Then they can decide which girls to grant the ability.”
Girls who are easier to manipulate, I think. Girls who are obedient.
“My grandmother told me families fought the retrieval squads,” I say out loud. “All those women in the film looked eager to join.”
Dante’s mouth thins into a tight line and he tilts his head thoughtfully. “You shouldn’t believe everything you see in a film, Adelice, but I suppose you’re right. The circumstances here were terrible during the war, but I think things changed in Arras.”
“Changed how?” I ask.
“Nations merged, and laws were adjusted to meet everyone’s expectations. Conflicting national identities merged to create a cohesive whole. Those changes, coupled with resentment over having daughters whisked off in the night with little to no expectation of seeing them again. There was an adjustment period,” he tells me.
“How do you know about this?”
“Our family,” he says after a pause. “They took care to chronicle things despite the laws against it.”
“Were they members of the Kairos Agenda?” I ask. My parents had never told me these stories, even though they knew what I was—they kept this information from me.
“Not really.” Pause. I can tell he’s holding something back. “They were pacifists. My parents wanted to live comfortably and easily.”
“Until you showed your abilities?” I ask.
“It wasn’t my parents who asked me to run. They should have,” he says. Pause. “With the increasing amount of propaganda thrown at them, like the film, for instance, most Arras citizens stopped seeing the danger of the Guild’s absolute control. Bombs weren’t being dropped, so people went along with it, even as the laws got stranger and more restrictive. The Guild required everyone to marry and have children, who could then be tested for the gene. It’s how Arras wound up with marriage laws and skills testing.”
“So this trait could reveal itself in a male child?”
“I’m living proof,” he says with a flourish.
“Then why not use men at the looms?” I ask. The Guild seemed eager to keep women in small boxes, carefully placed on specific shelves. If men could weave, why not give them the opportunity and keep women even more pressed under their thumbs?
“How powerful would a man with weaving abilities be?” This time he pauses for emphasis. “More powerful than an official without?”
I nod. “That makes sense.”
“And at first glance, there’s no problem. But the war the Guild escaped from was fought by men hungry for power. What if a government was put into place to act on behalf of citizens and a young man demanded power from them because of his ability? It would have been disastrous to the peace the Guild had cultivated.”
“They were no better than those other men,” I say.
