End of Women: Part Six

As It Ends

A new word had been coined in the past five years. Agynos, pronounced A-Guy-Knows. It referred to the generation of men who had been born after the Female Control Act was passed, who had never known a world in which women were accepted as members of society. They had lived their lives with females being nothing more than a footnote in the world, excluded from all but a few thousand acres of compound land on the fringes of cities. 

Kindra, who had been fished out of the water as a child from the dead arms of his father, who had never known his mother, and had not seen or heard of a woman until he was five years old, was without doubt an Agyno. Though he had known, worked with and befriended many men from the generation before his, time was replacing them with more and more men who knew nothing but this world.

Kindra straightened his tie in the mirror and smoothed out his shirt. He fixed his steely wristwatch around his wrist and pulled on his jacket.

He remembered the naysayers. They still spoke out, even years after the FCA was ratified. They said that this new world could not survive, that the economy would crumble, that democracy would quickly give way to dictators and demagogues. They predicted that the compound system would fail spectacularly. He smiled as he closed his hotel room door and made his way down the hall to the elevators, pressed a gloved thumb into the "down" button and crossed his arms behind his back.

They were wrong.

Not completely wrong, of course. The economy had suffered. The first elections after the FCA were a nightmare of radicals trying to turn the country this way and that; arrowheads, HERO candidates, even Nova-sympathisers running on a platform of turning things back to the way they had been. Kindra had not been born then, but he knew about it all the same. By now, boys would be taught about it in history class. Just boys.

Decades had gone by. The Female Control Act was now history in all senses of the word. There were now fewer than twenty compounds operating in the country, five of those on the verge of shutdown. Some men still preferred the old way, it seemed. They were welcome to enjoy it for now; Agynos had adapted quickly to the much more functional and inexpensive sex-bot trade, not to mention artificial reproduction systems that, since the advent of the Atminoff method, had exploded onto the market. Things in North America were progressing by nature, the law of free market capitalism bringing about the natural end of women. 

The elevator came to a stop at the lobby, announced by a pleasant Australian voice. The marble floored lobby was abuzz with businessmen, families on vacation and a few hungover young men cradling their heads over blood-red glasses in the soft armchairs. Kindra was checking the directory board for the room he needed when his TabPhone began to buzz in his pocket.

"Yes?" He answered, eyes still on the room listing.

"Its me." Balian spoke back. "I think I'm onto something."

Kindra was silent for a few seconds. His eyes fell on the slot that read ANZAR INDUSTRIES, ROOM 2010.

"A problem?"

"Maybe." Balian sounded both breathless and as if he were trying to keep his voice low. 

"A problem at home?"

"Yes, at home. Look, I can't talk about it right now. We need to speak in person. Where are you?"

Kindra's smart shoes clicked on the marble floor as he made his way down the long corridor of conference rooms.

"Not at home." said Kindra.

"Well you need to get your ass home as soon as you can." Balian bit back.

"We agreed you would handle things stateside, I push international." Kindra stopped at the room marked two-zero-one-zero. "Call the Arrowheads if you need help."