by Rick K. Reut
Controller Globe concluded Its speech to a deafening blast of applause. While they lasted, Director Downing stole a chance to point out – by laying Its hand on Its wristwatch – that it was almost lunch time. The Controller caught sight of the Director’s hand and nodded, showing that everything was under control. It then waited for the lively clapping and cheering to die down to declare the following.
“And now I’d like you to follow me to the Conditioning Center’s Cafeteria, where we’ll join our efforts in satisfying the first and second one of the three said human needs. Namely, hunger and sexual hankering. After which I will willingly tell you all about the means of the mentioned escape as well as how exactly our two-sex ancestors did it.”
With these words, the Controller quickly turned around on Its jet-black, high-heeled shoes and swiftly led the way back to the Conditioning Center, swaying Its strong, shapely thighs, while being horse-tailed by Director Downing and Its herd of young, thoroughbred students.
Half an hour hence…
The Conditioning Center’s Cafeteria was a large, brightly lit room on the first floor of the building’s wide-spread western wing. Lazily lounging in low-set yet highly comfortable armchairs around rows of round dining tables in twos and threes, the students were just finishing their hormone-harmonized, vitamin-rich lunches.
Controller Globe and Director Downing were sitting slightly apart, quietly discussing something. They deliberately kept their voices down – a professional precaution aimed at concealing certain pieces of classified data their students’ tender minds were not yet ready to digest. In other words, they were chewing some old, specialized fat only few people would have been able to swallow before the First Coming and most would have choked on even after.
Some of it had to do with the subtle technicalities of the gene-engineering process, the ultimate goal of which was the long-awaited victory over humanity’s most feared adversaries: aging and death. Their defeat was said to be only a matter of time, and so, naturally, all sorts of rumors of the soon-to-be-expected triumph had been heard circulating in the clean and constantly conditioned air of the New World State for quite a while.
The rest concerned only the chosen few currently dealing with the situation on the Isolated Islands, where naturally born men and women were slowly starting to pose a tangible threat to the wellbeing of the civilized world. The reason for that was the testosterone-caused restlessness of most of the naturally born men that menaced to turn into a full-fledged rebellion unless necessary measures were taken in due order and time. It was supposed to be debated at the upcoming Controllers’Summit in New York City, where Gianna Globe was scheduled to read a report, proposing Its own solution to the problem.
There were plenty of possible options, ranging from the ancient barbaric practice of total annihilation of all potential adversaries by means of the New World State’s arsenal mass destruction weapons to the new civilized and allegedly humane one of transforming all the inhabitants of the Isolated Islands into what they all allegedly longed to be – beings of boundless beauty and bliss.
“The transformation would have to involve certain endocrinal and surgical procedures. Some cognitive soap brainwashing would also have to be done, of course, for you can’t expect men to mend their mendacious ways by themselves. Men must be made to mend, but in a manner so subtle that they may never even suspect it. This is the only way to avoid the unwanted suffering and pain any conscious change is fraught with. Therefore, the change has to be made unconscious. They must be drugged into deep comatose sleep, from which they will wake up completely reborn. Or even better. They will never wake and will live the rest of Its brand new lives daydreaming. What can be more wonderful than that?” thought the European Controller, while finishing Its main course.
Unfortunately, this was no simple operation to be performed on a full-grown female woman or male man.
“To rebuild something is much harder than to build something new. Give them what they want, but first tell them what they want and that they really want it. For most of them simply don’t know what they want. It would be so much easier if they did. But, unfortunately for everyone, they don’t. There are myriads of ways to be miserable and only one way to be happy. And you expect them to just go out and find it in the intricately intertwined labyrinth of liberty? It is like finding the right transgene without a microscope in the dark, using nothing but bare hands. And besides, who needs liberty when it brings you nothing but pain?” Gianna Globe pondered over a glass of She-male Cocktail, staring in silence at the small-talking students.
“No, no living creature can be allowed to come into this world for woe. They have to be happy! And if they don’t want to do that, they must be made to. No, that’s not it! The idea is to make sure that such a thought can never even occur to them. Any alternative must be made utterly unthinkable. Happiness has to become inevitable. As inevitable as misery and death used to be once. And I will see to it that it is,” the Controller stood up, determined to address the audience once again.
As It moved to the middle of the mess hall, gathering admiring stares and tying them up into one tight knot around Its flawlessly gene-engineered body, the even hum of the students’ voices, mixed with the din of dirty dishes, gradually died down. Soon there was total silence, broken only by the centaur-like clatter of the Controller’s high-heeled hooves. Having reached the center of the cafeteria, Gianna Globe glanced around to assess the attention of the audience, and, finding it agreeable, cleared Its cock-sore throat.
“As I promised before the lunch break,” It began a bit huskily, “I’m now going to tell you all about how human beings managed to escape the burden of lifelong misery by moving on to the wonderful world of social and sexual stability we all live in now. As for the keys to this kingdom finally come, they can be found summed up in our New World State’s official motto, which is Community, Identity, Stability, Transsexuality.”
The Controller once again unbent four of the five flawlessly manicured fingers of Its right hand, starting with the thumb and finishing with the ring finger, on which there really was a ring (a massive platinum seal-ring with a large diamond “T” letter inlaid in its middle) sparkling in the sun that broke into the buffet through the wall-sized window behind Gianna Globe’s back.
“These four words that form a master key to our success are essentially interconnected. There can be no true Community without collective Identity, no collective Identity without social Stability, and no social Stability without Transsexuality as the main pillar for the first three,” The Controller touched each one of the four unbent fingers of the right hand with the forefinger of the left one, stressing Its point.
“In the luckily long-gone pre-transsexual times they used to think that no such pillar was needed. But they were wrong, and I will soon show you why. However, now I’d like to return to the problem of the Class Struggle, which was also raised before the break, in order to demonstrate how the previous Controllers’ Council had dealt with it almost eighty years ago,” said Controller Globe, turning around and heading back along the evenly arranged rows of dining tables in the direction of the still seated Director Downing.
“To tell you the truth, solving the Class Struggle problem wasn’t such a difficult aim to accomplish, since we’d already had all the technological means necessary for that. All they had to do was to give the matter the advantage of their thought and then take some tough, unconventional decisions. Mind you,” the Controller halted in midsentence and with it in the middle of the mess hall, “those tough decisions were unconventional for them back then but not for us right now, for any conventionality is always relative and never absolute. In other words, what appears acceptable at one time can be completely unacceptable at another, and vice versa.”
“Be it as it may, their main idea was to abolish all classes, or castes as they were called back then. Which is completely logical, since there can be no class struggle without them. Just like there can be no classes without ther
e being some kind of inequality. And just like there can be no inequality without there being someone who has more means to derive pleasure from life than someone else. To put it plainly, the keys to a class-free society are actually pleasure and equal distribution of its means among all social members.”
The Controller stopped at one of the tables to pick up a plastic tray. “That is, proper distribution of pleasure among the people.” It showed the tray to the students and then slowly put it on another table. “Which is not really a problem, when it comes to economy. Namely,” It picked up a plate and pointed it at the audience, “to material goods, such as food, services, comfort and so on. This is due to the fact that objects of such a pleasure do not have the will of their own. A steak, for instance,” It raised another plate with a half-eaten piece of meat high above Its head, “cannot refuse your mouth from being eaten. And a cocktail…” a half-empty glass jumped up and joined the plate in the air, “…cannot deny it from being drunk, whereas…” both the glass and the plate landed back on the tray, “…another mouth is more than capable of denying your mouth from kissing, or your penis from penetrating it.”
Controller Globe confronted the appalled audience with a grim glare.
“At least, that’s the way it was before Our FordorFreud’s Second Coming. It is true that they tried to solve this problem in course of the First Coming by means of miscellaneous propaganda techniques, trying to teach those poor pre-transsexuals that every single one of them belonged to everyone else. And it did work for a while. But not so well, since there still were rather frequent cases when the maxim did not work at all. As a result, some social members stayed unsatisfied and therefore unhappy.”
“Each one of such cases,” Controller Globe continued after a second of sinking silence, “(and I assure you there were more than plenty of them all over the world back then) posed a tangible threat to the overall stability and hence happiness of our society. For how can the whole society be considered stable and sо happy, provided some of its parts are unstable and unhappy? Even some pre-modern wise men used to say that if a body is to be deemed healthy, then all the parts it consists of must actually be healthy. Otherwise its instability is inevitable. If you don’t let out some steam, it is only a matter of time before the kettle starts to boil over and may even blow up in the end. A wise Controller cannot afford to take such chances. Prophylactic measures must be taken beforehand to make sure that the society stays stable and strong.”
“But what are these prophylactic measures and why are there cases when individuals aren’t happy in spite of all the good work we do?” Gianna Globe asked rhetorically, and then once again stopped and waited for the words to wrestle their way to the students’ digestion-burdened brains.
“The answers to these crucial questions the Controllers asked themselves at that memorable meeting almost a century ago are actually quite clear. They lie in the very foundation of human nature, which depends on physical and psychological preferences. In the animal world females choose males on the basis of instinctive likes and dislikes. So do males. And so did all human beings when they still had two sexes.”
“Let’s consider food,” the Controller pointed to a plate. “Somebody likes ice cream, and…” then to another one, “…somebody likes chocolate, and…” then to one more one, “…somebody likes chocolate ice cream. It is most certainly not a problem in itself. But if you happen to be an ice cream liking somebody who likes chocolate, then that poses a Freud of a problem, since then you are not going to be eaten. And what if you want to be eaten by that particular person more than anything else in the whole wide world? And yet, whatever you do is absolutely pointless, since you are an ice cream and cannot possibly become chocolate no matter how hard you try. The range of choices you happen to have is not that wide open then, is it?”
The students and the still seated Director Downing nodded their perfectly shaped heads in consent as the Controller carried on.
“And so, eventually, you’re going to have to accept the frightful fact that you are not going to have or be had by that particular person for the rest of your natural life. Which inevitably turns it into a life of misery. At least for a while. Whereas it all could be so easily avoided in no time at all. Sometimes even in no more time than it takes to have a real ice cream cone or chocolate bar. And then everybody would be happy and go their separate ways. Or keep getting together for as long as they want.”
“But no!” the Controller shouted, shamming capriciousness, “I don’t like ice cream, says one. And I don’t like chocolate, says another. And I don’t like chocolate ice cream, says another one. And then what are all those poor ice creams, and chocolates, and chocolate ice creams to do about that? Tell me!” Gianna Globe addressed the stupefied audience in search of an answer that simply wasn’t there.
“You see. Even you can’t,” It announced finally, when it became clear that no answer was to follow. “So how could those mentally and physically retarded pre-transsexuals? An so, the only thing left for them to do was to stay miserable, or else adopt some practical philosophical teaching or tenet they would then waste the rest of their pitiful lives using to learn not to be so wretched, and would probably succeed only on their death beds, when it didn’t really matter anymore anyway. Obviously, this wasn’t reasonable option. On the contrary, the only practical solution to this problem was to find a way of begetting and bringing up social members that would love ice cream, and chocolate, and even chocolate ice cream altogether.”
“But where and, what is most important, how can such a way be found, you may ask me,” asked Gianna Globe, after another purposefully prolonged pause. ‘And as an answer to this question, I’ll tell you the same thing those Controllers told themselves at that memorable summit almost eighty years ago. Namely, in and by virtue of biotechnology!”
Controller once again stopped and stared at the students, who stared back at It in awe-struck silence, waiting for the lecture to go on. And it did go on as soon as Gianna Globe was sure they were ready to follow.
“Unfortunately, using purely psychological programming, also known as conditioning, one can’t make all females like all males and all males like all females. Even if one eliminated most traditional institutions and ties, such as family, which is exactly what they did during the First Coming, there would still be incidents of preference and rejection, and the notorious case of Bernard Marx is a characteristic example and evidence of that fact.”
“The thing is that the mechanism of human psychology, and in this case sexology, is very tricky. Females react in an essentially different way from males, and males in an essentially different way from females, which provokes constant social confusion and clashes. After a careful consideration and analysis of this circumstance, the Controllers’ Council came to the conclusion that there can be only one certain way to dismiss this discrepancy. And it is by dismissing the whole sex and gender dichotomy altogether.”
“Regrettably, however, one cannot dismiss only the gender share of the dichotomy and allow the sex share to stay the same, since its psychological part is tightly tied to the physical and the physical to the psychological. In other words, gender is tightly tied to sex and sex to gender. Consequently, if one really wants to dismiss the gender discrepancy that causes the said clashes and confusions, and, as a consequence, sorrow and suffering, one has to first of all dismiss the sexual discrepancy. And there are only three ways to do that.”
“One,” the Controller unbent Its index finger, “wipe out all women and leave only men. Two,” the Controller unbent Its middle finger, “wipe out all men and leave only women. And three,” the Controller unbent Its T-shaped-diamond-encrusted-platinum-ring-girdled ring finger, “combine women and men into one single universal sex.”
“The first two ways,” It bent back the last unbent finger, “are bound to be a strategic failure in the future, for they are obviously too one-sided, and especially when one considers pre-modern civilizations. You see, if you wipe out on
ly one of the two sexes,” It bent back the second one of the two unbent fingers, “in such technologically stunted societies, there will be no way for these civilizations to continue procreating. So, in the long run, all such societies’ projects are doomed to lead to a dead end. And the example of the ancient Amazonian tribes, which, as far as you all know, consisted exclusively of warring women, is a historical or, if you prefer, mythological proof of that.”
“This finally brings us to the third,” Controller Globe unbent the two bent fingers, “or the middle way of combining these two sexes,” before bending them back again, “into one self-sufficient, united, universal sex. That is the one all of us now luckily belong to.”
“This way,” the Controller raised Its unbent index finger, unconsciously pointing it at the green-glowing “Exit” sign behind Its back, “was absolutely not possible to be trodden before certain biotechnological discoveries made it such. Namely, before we learned to design, engineer and produce people artificially, in the process providing them with the best possible heredity and physical shape, which it is practically impossible to say no to. And not because they are so good – because we know plenty of examples from the pre-transsexual era, when physically worthy men, for this or that reason, were deprived of the attention of the opposite sex, thus making them waste their lives in pain and misery – but because absolute absence of sex and gender binary leaves no room for sexual preference and denial, consequently, making individuals totally omnivorous. And when each individual is totally omnivorous,” It unbent Its middle finger, “it means that no individual can possibly be either favored over others or rejected by them. And when no individual can be rejected,” the Controller unbent Its ring finger, “it means that all individuals’ desires are satisfied. And when all individuals’ desires are satisfied,” the Controller unbent Its little finger, “all individuals are happy. And when all individuals are happy,” the Controller unbent Its thumb, “so is the whole wide world.”
