Signals

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Dear Dolores,

Great news! For your convenience and safety, we are offering no-fee priority treatments for all women aged 30-40. Simply present this notice and your government-issued health card at your nearest Revo-Spa location to receive your sixth generation Revolut upgrade, completely free of charge. No appointment necessary!

See you soon.

In tiny legal type at the bottom, so small I need to squint to see it:

Note, if you do not check-in at one of our conveniently located Revo-spa locations within 7 days of this offer, you will be required to abide by a mandatory stay-at-home order and submit to personal activity tracking per public health guidelines.

The absence of party emojis and free manicures on offer says it all. I shove the notice forcefully to the bottom of my bag.



THE STREETCAR PASSES over the intersection of Queen and Spadina, rumbling across the grooves of the old track system, sending vibrations up through the red, cloth-covered seats that translate to waves of warm, orange-y pulses in my belly. For the hundredth time since the news started filtering out, I am suspicious of the sensations that pass through my body. Are they mine? Are they a signal of something hostile and foreign, flicking on inside me?

My eyes pass over the females around me, wishing there was some outward reading of their implant status. A little blue light to say 'a-ok here.' A red light to warn the world she's been hacked: error code flashing. I have to stop myself from pulling my waistband down and looking for myself. Would my light be red or blue?

The blond woman beside me has an agitated energy. She fidgets her painted nails across her jacket sleeves. Red or blue? I peek at her sidelong. She looks worried about missing her stop, not like she's about to stab a fellow passenger with a nail file.

I move my attention to the seats across the aisle where there's a perfectly normal-looking woman watching the street through her window; her deep caramel skin lit up by the late fall sun, a wistful smile softening her face. She's dreaming of babies, I think to myself. Or she's enjoying the vibration of the tracks. Either way, she's completely blissed out on her internal journey.

There's a man on the seat beside her who is not blissed. His energy crackles with something strange. Caution? Alertness edging on fear. His eyes dart around, assessing danger. His broad fingers clutch the strap of his crossbody bag too tightly. His fight or flight instincts are up. I recognize his energy as distinctly unmasculine. As in, I haven't seen it in a man before. This is the female posture. Crouched, wary, ready. For a moment, I feel the fear of some great threat rise up in me — if he's fearful, shouldn't I be too?

Until I realize what he fears.

I look further down the car and see that most of the male faces are similarly tight-featured. Watchful. Cautious.

This is novel, this realization. Men have never feared us before. I wonder what it means. I'm possessed by an urge to stand and call the women's attention to it, to reveal it to them like an escape hatch that's been hidden behind a curtain. Ladies, look, I want to say — this changes everything.

I pull the bell and move into the aisle. A man jerks his knees back to avoid contact with my own, keeps his eyes on his lap. Bemused, I stride confidently toward the exit and wait for the streetcar to slow.

I catch the eye of another man, sitting in a single seat nearest the door. He doesn't mean to make eye contact, but there is a stutter in his instinctive leer at my standing body and his sudden remembering that there's a new world order. Caught between the two, his eyes lift to my face.

As the streetcar pulls to a slow halt and I hear the doors unlock, I hold his gaze, daring him to look away.

"Boo," I whisper to his alarmed face as I disembark into a changed world.


IT'S ANOTHER OFFICE day in a dreary series of office days and I'm itching for a reason to leave. I've been put on caution since my episode outside Charmaine's house. Sasha has restricted me from doing home visits on my own. Getting some distance, she calls it.

In the meantime, until I can prove that I'm of sound mind, Julian has taken the case file over.

We're sitting together in the tiny, sunlit kitchen area of the otherwise dismal social services office. At least in the kitchen, the walls are a sort of green (while still managing to be beige), and there's a window that can be cracked open to escape the hot wash of dust-dry air. I can breathe easier in here.

I search Julian's handsome, uncomplicated face for any trace of the new male fear. Does he think I'm capable of some unexpected atrocity? Is he worried I might lift the recently boiled kettle and throw it in his face? Take the fork from his hand and pluck his eyes out with it? Reach between his legs and threaten this career if he says anything?

Am I capable of such atrocities?

I scan myself. No, I don't think so.

I force myself to smile at him. He doesn't appear afraid, but if he reads the news, he must be at least a little worried.

"How's Charmaine?" I ask. Julian took my home visit this week and has met the uncle. "Did you ask her about—"

Julian nods. "I made sure she knew she could tell me if he's... making her uncomfortable. She genuinely doesn't show any signs of that being the case, Dolly. I know what you saw, but I don't think it's like that."

I lean forward, interrupting "—and him? The uncle? What do you make of him?"

Julian leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. "Oh, he's a real prick. You got that right. Asked me why I have a 'woman's job' and then asked me if I'm 'one of those homos.'"

We roll our eyes in concert, and both say, "Prick."

Julian laughs, and I'm glad that a little of the tension between us is rubbed away.

"My clinical assessment is that he's a big shot with a big house, a trophy wife and a prize baby on the way. He wants his messed-up sister and her messed-up kid out of his perfect life. But I don't think he's hurting Charmaine."

I must look doubtful because he adds, "I really don't, Dolly. She doesn't show any of the signs."

But Julian doesn't know how well girls keep secrets.


***

THE MAN FROM the mall is now the man from the ravine. He isn't there every day, but when he is, your small stomach constricts with anxiety. Once, on seeing him, you turned and walked the other way, seeking the safety of the field behind the school. He caught up with you and walked you back to the pathway, gently as a kind uncle taking you for a surprise ice cream.

There are days when you think you can sense him out there. Even as you sit at your school desk, worrying an eraser over an incorrect sum in your workbook, you feel him waiting out there like a fox outside a rabbit's burrow. Sometimes, you purposely get in trouble in class, so the teacher will make you stay late. This only delays the inevitable, though. Makes the path that much darker when you walk it. Makes it that much harder to see if he's really there, standing with his back casually against the fence, or if you're imagining him there.

He isn't there every day.

There are days when you enter the path, grimacing, braced for him, and, like a big, incredible gift (better even than a puppy wiggling inside a red wrapped box with a big gold bow), you realize today isn't one of those days. It's a safe day.

On these days, you are a little lighter when you get home. Your hands are clean. It's a little easier to chew and swallow your dinner, to accept a hug from your mother who is worried about you but doesn't know what she's worried about exactly.

But then, the next day is always just around the corner. Dinner leads to bedtime, which leads to the next morning and then it's no longer a safe day. It could be a danger day again. By breakfast, you have to start worrying about the walk home all over again.

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