The Breeders

XI

Hope is a powerful thing.  An ancient tyrannical leader once quoted, "The most dangerous thing we can do is allow hope."  Hope seeds the mind with ideas.  Hope dissatisfies the oppressed.  Hope makes the stubborn.  Hope makes them strong.  Hope was growing within Venus.  When she first started making her plans she didn't know where they were going to go or what they were going to do once they were out of the Cube.

Now she had a vision.  She wasn't sure yet if Pepa was going to help them but it seemed hopeful that she would.  She was sympathetic toward the enhanced because of her brother.  Things in the outside world might not have been perfect but they had to be better than what it was like in the Cube.  Venus knew that she, Cas and Mars would be living a refugee life.  A place like the Cube wasn't going to let her just run away.  They would always be hunting her.  Just like Pepa's brother.  If there was a way to join them him she could learn from him and learn how to survive.

Venus was lost in thought when she felt a sharp jab in her side.  In a solemn scowl, her eyes flickered up to Cas.

"I've been trying to hold a conversation with you for the last twenty minutes and you haven't eaten anything, either.  If you don't eat they're going to confine you in the medical area and shove a tube down your throat.  Trust me I've tried it.  It's not fun."

Venus sighed and took a big bite of food, "I'm just thinking?"

"What about?  Mars and why he all of a sudden has a more interesting set of friends to hang with?  Cause to be honest I've been kind of wondering that myself."

"I don't think it's a better set of friends, necessarily that has him sitting at a different table," Venus told her.

Cas gave her a sympathetic smile, "He'll come around.  You two need to just let the weirdness of the tank to wear off."

"It sounds so easy," Venus sighed, "I knew it would ruin us if we were ever paired together."

"It hasn't ruined you," Cas tried to ensure her, "you'll see.  You both just need some time is all.  It's just inevitable that it's going to happen."

"I know,  I guess I was just hoping that we would be older and more mature."

"And well used?" Cas asked.

Venus nodded, "Yeah, I figured eventually breeding would just become a mindless habit."

A nauseating feeling rushed over her and she pushed her almost full tray of food away, "Ugh, if they want us to eat why can't they serve something a little more appetizing?"

"You and I both know it's not the food that's turning your stomach.  It's just the little beast inside you," Cas chuckled.

Venus didn't respond.  She didn't see the life inside her as a monster.  She understood why many of the female breeders did.  It made the moment after the birth easier to deal with, but the life within her was a part of her.  She had given birth to five children.  Five pieces of her soul were walking around the world without any knowledge that she even exists.  She was never allowed to see them but she knew that if she were to ever run across them in a crowd she would know that they were hers.  Even though she hadn't been pregnant long with the one quietly growing in her womb the connection to it felt even stronger than with any of the others.  She felt like it could hear her thoughts.  She often found herself talking to the baby in her own head.  IT was comforting.  It was one place the Cube couldn't go.

"You not a beast,"  Venus thought.  "You're beautiful."

She wished she could hear a voice respond and a part of her almost expected it.  But she knew the baby couldn't hear her, and even if it could it wouldn't be able to answer her back.

Cas scooted the tray back in front of her, "Feeding tube."

With a sigh, Venus complied and started eating again.  The food wasn't tasty, the Cube didn't care if the Breeders enjoyed their meals.  They were served the most nutritional meals.  If something tasted good it was just by natural chance.  

Venus finished off her lunch and stared down the brownish-green liquid that sat on the tray.  It was a mixture of different vegetable juices that tasted as terrible as it looked.  The mear sight of it turned Venus's sensitive stomach.

"Come on," Cas urged ready to leave the mess hall.

Venus really didn't care if she left or not.  All the other Breeders that weren't female or weren't breed got to go spend some time in the quad.  The Cube thought the idea of a bred Breeder running and jostling about with other Breeders to be too risky for the fetuses.  Girls like Venus were sent to rec rooms where they would be forced participant in low impact exercises then sent back to their rooms for refreshing naps.

The naps were more than welcomed.  Growing a life seemed to drain even the enhanced bodies of the Breeders, but the exercises just irritated Venus.  She wanted to be with her friends.  Even though Cas was a female Breeder it was rare that they were bred at the same time.  Usually, the girls that seemed to be consecutive with her were ones that she didn't seem to connect with.

"Go on without me," Venus told her, "we're splitting up anyway."

"Are you sure?  I hate the thought of leaving you here all sad and alone," Cas said as she got up from the table.

Venus nodded, "Yeah, I just have to finish this sludge then I'll be done."

"Okay, I guess I'll see you sometime around dinner then?"

"It's a date," Venus smiled to her friend.  Many of the Breeders were starting to file out of the mess hall and Cas filed in behind the others quickly leaving Venus alone at her table.

With a deep breath, the guzzled down the horrendous drink and set the glass back on the table as a shiver of disgust rippled through her body.  When she looked up her eyes met Mars' from across the mess hall.  He was watching her and the pain and sadness on his face filled Venus with guilt.  

She wasn't sure that if she could get them safely out of the Cube, that he would ever forgive her for her sudden cold uncaring shoulder toward him.