"Thank you, your majesty," the paramedic muttered quietly as Shu Kian pressed a thousand NSD note into his palm. He bowed with the grace of a jaguar; it was an oft-practiced maneuver that she had observed many times. He smiled faintly, refusing to make eye contact, and then shuffled out of the royal suite hastily. He ever-so-slightly violated a rule of decorum, however, as he stopped at the door and spoke a few more words to her.
"Uh, your majesty, will you be seeing any other company this afternoon?"
"I rather doubt my calendar ought to be simply confessed to you, my friend. Surely you have forgotten your place?" A stern but clever smile crept across her face. He knew better.
"Well, yes, of course. But, eh... your majesty... should you be accepting further guests today, you... well... you might be advised that there's a speck of... something on your cheek."
She reached for the small mirror she kept on her nightstand, but all she found was the television remote for the flat screen against the far wall. Uttering a hushed curse and leaping to her feet, she crossed the room and found the thing on the floor in front of her walk-in closet. She picked it up and held it up to her face.
Her makeup, as always, had been applied flawlessly by her personal assistant. She felt a great sense of pride in the fact that she could walk out onto the street and be envied, not just for her social status but for her beauty. The whitish foundation and subtle blush on her cheek was immaculate, but there, below her eye, she saw what he'd warned her of: a small speck of blood.
"Blast," she cursed again, just as quietly, wiping it away with a cloth. "Thank you for telling me," she said to him. He bowed once again, and left at once.
It wasn't his place to know, but she did have an appointment. In not but ten minutes, the Deputy Prime Minister and Czar of Genomic Management Jiu Ling Sa would be her guest in her private chambers. The cleaning crew had done fast work, happily. He was a beloved friend as well as a fellow elite-level politician in the Celestial Empire, but she only had a half hour or so to speak with him. She adjusted her undergarments, which still felt in disarray under her black and red dress.
A knock on the door startled her. "Your majesty," her personal assistant called out through the shut chamber door, "your guest has arrived a tad early."
"That's quite all right, tell him to come in!"
Sa poked his head into the room, and gave her a big, fatherly smile. His comparatively dark skin was beautiful, and every wrinkle in his face seemed to be the product of unending joy. That this was a former militant leftist who wandered the highlands of Yuezhou fighting against the symbols of state power (like her) was far from Shu Kian's mind. He was much older than her - he was hardly of her generation - but had always encouraged her to find herself and because it was well-known that he was gay, she had always felt completely safe with him.
"Shu Kian!" he cried out. "How are you, my love?"
She threw her arms around him. "Jiu Ling! Hello! It's good to see you!"
"I'm so early, I apologize."
"No, no, it's all right. Please don't apologize. I desperately need to cut things short with you in 40 minutes, anyway."
"Ah, the life of an empress. So many duties of state to attend to, I'm sure. I know my schedule is full."
"Yes... yes. Actually, don't tell anyone, but I don't really have an appointment, there's... well, there's something on television I am hoping to watch."
"Mmmmm," he said, staring dubiously at her large flatscreen on the wall. "Can't say I strongly advise spending too much time watching the grim content that pours out of those boxes. That's the mouthpiece of the capitalist class telling you what to think. Or so I used to say, before we nationalized the media. Now I don't know what exactly it's a mouthpiece of. You and the other Councilors, I suppose."
"Today's grim propaganda is neither grim nor propaganda, Jiu Ling. Well, I suppose it is grim. Some would call it grim, I guess." She bit her lip and shifted in her seat, crossing her legs.
"Oh?" He asked with a laugh, arching his eyebrows. "What's on the tube? Come on, let's hear it."
"I need to watch the caning of Fred Irving."
"Ugh, bloody hell," he sat back in his chair, disgusted. "I forgot that was today. I'm totally against this, for the record. This is all Lai. She insisted that this whole thing be held in a public square in Qiawutian, and televised to boot. During the fucking Copa Rushmori that we are hosting! For the love of all that his holy, why are we doing this? It's barbaric. What will the rest of the region think?"
"So, it's likely to be bloody, then?" Shu Kian's trembling lip stayed between her teeth as she asked the question, varnishing it as best she could with a naïve blush.
"It's a caning, love. It'll be bloody and then some. Unbelievable that the moron voters in this country cheer for such a practice."
"Yes," she said airily as a rush of blood went to her head. "Say," Shu Kian said, eager to change the subject, "how's the NGP going?"
He shook his head again... evidently this topic was no greener a pasture than the caning. "It's... going. The progress that's been made in the last twelve months is genuinely astounding. I'm proud of our achievements. But as the Project picks up steam, and more and more people are hired on to move us into the final phase, and more and more oversight limits my ability to direct the thing... I don't know, Shu Kian. It's feeling discouraging at the moment."
The Naixese Genome Project was a program directed by the Naixese government. Its intent was to map the entirety of the human genome with the use of advanced biomedical technologies and machine learning, with a particular goal of mapping genetic characteristics linked to the "Naixese race." With the Project hurtling forward after success after success, the program's directors had reported to the state that it could begin a regime of limiting and then banning conventional sexual reproduction, as the Project can produce the perfect genetic code for all Naixese babies of the future, growing them in vats. Shu Kian's sister Nai Jian was famously a big supporter of the program.
"Is it my sister?" she asked, saying the quiet part loud.
"You ever pull a punch, honey?" he asked her admiringly.
"No," she answered with a broad grin. "Not that I can think of."
"Well," he said, "good. Look, I'll be honest, Nai Jian is a part of it. She's taken an extremely hands-on role. Her authority is significant. And she doesn't really listen to what any of the scientists have to say. She's an ideologue, through and through. I believe that she sincerely wants the NGP to succeed, but... it's been hard to work with her."
"If I'm honest, I've always felt the thing was a bit weird."
He bristled a bit at that. "Weird?"
"I mean, I understand in principle the idea that we want the state to relieve women of the responsibility to bear children and direct the genetic makeup of all our new fetuses, making sure they have the best genes, and all that. But, who decides what 'the best' gene is? Who decides what the most 'Naixese' genes are? Isn't it all political?"
"Ah," he said, understanding her line of reasoning. "Well, I think the claim is that protecting the Naixese race as a whole is important given our historical exploitation. But, yes, it's true that the Naixese came from many different regions within the Old Land. It is hard to concretely establish what a Naixese gene really is. It can be done, but it's hard. And I wouldn't necessarily say it's political, but... sometimes it's not always agreed upon where the lines are drawn. What's a Naixese gene, and what isn't. That's... an area of contestation, an area without clarity."
"But on the other hand there are clear ways to identify what's simply a good gene and what's not, right? Like, if someone is a carrier for a deadly disease. That's a bad gene, surely. That's what the NGP at least theoretically has the power to stop, right? And there are genes that make people more intelligent! That's a good gene! The NGP could be giving more fetuses those genes! Why bother with this weird racial purity thing?!"
He looked at her very intently. Did he dare trust her with what he knew? "Shu Kian... there are other genetically encoded sequences... that are disliked... by... ah, I shouldn't say too much. Suffice it to say that there are very good genes, genes that could make people live six hundred years... but they're not considered Naixese, and so they're omitted from the NGP's genetic coding algorithm."
Shu Kian's jaw dropped. "Six hundred? Have you spoken to my sister about this?"
"She refuses to meet with me directly. I only communicate with her through the various channels. Her assistants talk to my assistants, et cetera, et cetera."
"Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I wish the NGP would think about the power it really has. The power to do real good." Shu Kian said, glancing at the clock.
"Oh, yes, your television appointment. I'm sorry. Listen, I had no idea you were so interested in the Project. If you wouldn't mind, I would very much like to speak to you more about it, love. I think your ideas are important, and ought to be heard by the top brass over there. Maybe your sister would even listen if she heard it from you."
"I doubt it. The other Councilors don't really listen to me. I don't think they like me. I'm the youngest, and I'm the least... dignified, I suppose."
"Well, think about it. The world can change if we work together and fight for it."
"There's the old radical anarchist in you," she said with a grin.
"Oh, honey," he said with a flamboyant smile, "the old anarchist in me wouldn't have been telling you to go change the world... he would have been planting a bomb under your bed."
She laughed. "I suppose you're right."
"Well," he declared with finality, standing up, "I ought to leave you be. I know you probably have to watch this awful thing because of your role as a state official, but... Shu Kian, promise me you'll turn the broadcast of the caning off if you don't like what you see. It'll be a dreadful sight."
"I appreciate you thinking of me, Jiu Ling," she said.
"Okay. Well, I'll speak to you again, soon," he said, heading for the chamber door.
"All right. Goodbye!"
"See you later, love."
She heard the door close, then pulled her hair out of its tight bun. She too stood, walking over to the door he'd just shut behind him and locking the deadbolt. She quickly stepped back over to her bed, from which she planned to watch the terrible punishment of Mr. Irving. Stopping at her nightstand, she grabbed two objects, one, a remote for the flatscreen, and the other, a small pink vibrator.
(65’ Friðjón 
), Asbjørn, París; Rebekka 
(60’), Járngrímur 
(24’) 
