Population

Chapter one

ELEANOR

"This has to be some mistake! My birth certificate! I've seen my birth certificate, I promise you.. The date is legal date." The officer looks at me like I'm just another procedure.

Step 1) Find illegitimate child

Step 2) Force self into house

Step 3) Calmly explain that said child is a mistake and should have never existed

Step 4) Haul franticly protesting child to boss

Step 5) Have overworked, unpaid intern fill out paperwork

Step 6) Reward a hard day's work with a donut

With a half-assed, patronizing glance to his clipboard he asks, "Eleanor Pisa?"

"Well, yes, but." The cop- Officer Moncton, pulls his handcuffs from his belt and grabs my right wrist, tightly fastening one loop around my wrist and holding the other.

"Look kid, your names' Eleanor Pisa. There is no mistake, no matter how good mommy and daddy's forgery is." He gives a sharp enough tug to pull me out the door of my childhood home. The only home the law has sanctioned me to know.

"Please. I'll do anything! Money? Do you want money? I'll, I'll pay anything! My parents, they're rich. Name a price and it's yours." My last words while I'm still considered a legitimate person to the United States Government. The officer takes my reaction like he's been through this thousands of times. The terrifying part is I know he hasn't. This is his first, and most likely only time he will ever do this. The bragging rights he must have at the station. A casual convo turns into how he brought in a nothing like me, it'll give him the equivalence of a war hero, not just in the office.

Cop 1: "I took out a suicide bomber yesterday with a single shot."

Moncton: "That's cute. I brought in one of the estimated 75 Illpops  last year." Metaphorically drops mic.

"10 minutes and all be gone. Say I shot you and ran or something, you'll be a hero for defending the world from me. Just please, let me go." My head is pulsing and I'm practically screaming. The neighbors are either too ignorant to know what's going on, or are all to happy to see scum like me gone. It doesn't matter how many cookies I baked for them, how many hours I played with their children, or days I feed their dogs, I'm an Illpop. It wouldn't surprise me if when they find out they deep cleanse their, well, everything.

"By law I gotta read you the order so shut up and listen. Eleanor Pisa age 16, born April 20th 2091. Stated by law in, The Life Bill of Population, signed on July 18th 2090, section A paragraph 3, line 2; "any human child born (except first 100 applied children per each country, see paragraph 4) after said date shall be deemed illegitimate. All rights reserved for legal citizen will be revoked. This prohibition on child birth will last a span of 10 years, on July 18th 2090 legalization will be announced. If a child(ren) is born past date, and lives till age 16 said child(ren) will be taken into government custody. Said child(ren) will have the opportunity to show worth to society, the fate of the child(ren) will be decided upon committee after testing."

"Please." My desperate eyes match his hoping to find any shred of humanity in him. The smallest sliver that'll work up to his heart and he'll end up give me a ten minute head start, but I see nothing. Empty, cold, and calculating. He's never done anything like this before-- yet he doesn't care, but then again, to him I'm not human. All I am is a paycheck that never should have be born. I find myself unsure of what to be more scared of. The fact that this man has probably never significantly contributed to ending a life, and is this detached the first time doing so. Or the fact that not only do I not know where I'm going, but that it'll probably be the last place I'll ever be.