The Matriarch Manifesto

by Devin Hanson

  The going was slow at first as he fumbled through the tools, but as he worked, he began to understand what the central computer was looking for and he was able to map the footage to the virtual tapestry being pieced together. From there, it was a rapid process of highlighting the areas of damage and indicating whether the damage in question was able to repaired or had to be replaced entirely.

  Jackson was lost in concentration when someone tapped him on his shoulder. He looked around and recognized one of the extras that had been on Wharton’s crew on Nova Aeria.

  “Oh, uh,” Jackson stumbled, trying to remember the man’s name. He had a purpling bruise high on one cheek and Jackson’s eyes hitched on it before he jerked his gaze away. “Sorry. I don’t think we ever properly met.”

  “You’re Jackson Harding, right? One of Nicks’ crew?”

  Jackson nodded. “Yeah.” He held out his hand. “I remember seeing you on Nova Aeria.”

  “Markel. Weston Markel. Nicks has you doing footage mapping?”

  “No, uh, I asked to do it. I was curious about the process.”

  Markel grunted. “Boring, right?”

  Jackson shrugged. He actually thought it was pretty fun, but he feigned boredom. “Once you do one…”

  “Hey, skip that. Your shift is about up anyway. Leave it for the pencil necks. We’re having a, uh, an extra gathering down in the Basement. Got some big news. You should come. Every extra on Angela will be there.”

  “Oh.” Jackson glanced at his tablet and saw Markel was right. He had about five minutes before the end of his shift. Leila hadn’t been able to make it to lunch, but he had hoped she would be available for dinner. Still, he couldn’t think of a good way to bow out of Markel’s invitation. “Yeah, sure. I’ll come.”

  The Basement looked different with all the lights turned up to full brightness. Instead of the intimate atmosphere and the seemingly open space of the club, he saw just how cramped the space really was. The open floor around the bar was crowded with some two hundred people. The restaurant level had been cleared of partitions and more people crowded on that level.

  When Jackson stepped off the elevator, he was ushered down into the club floor and joined the press of bodies there. The smell of sour sweat and stale vomit wafted murkily through the crowd. Jackson pushed through the crowd until he had a good view of the small stage set up on top of the bar and tried to breathe as little as possible.

  While he waited for whatever announcement was going to be made, he craned his neck and scanned the crowd, searching for someone he recognized. Were all these people extras? He saw a handful of familiar faces, people he had seen in the hallways outside of airlocks, but nobody he knew by name.

  Before he had time to start getting bored, a PA system crackled to life and feedback blared out over the speakers before cutting out. The noise on the crowded floor settled to a mutter and everyone turned toward the stage expectantly.

  Wharton climbed up onto the stage, moving stiffly. A small cheer rose from the crowd, and Jackson heard the woman next to him say, “Good ol’ Wharton. What’s he got for us this time?”

  “My friends,” Wharton said, holding up his hands. The noise of the crowd quieted. “It’s been a while since the last time I called you all together. We extras are the glue that holds our society together. Without us, the habitats would fall from the skies. We should celebrate with each other more often!”

  He waited out the agreeable murmurs and sporadic cheers, nodding along. “We haven’t had much to celebrate in recent years, though, have we? Life on our beloved Angela hasn’t been easy. We’ve had more deaths in the last two years than in the prior decade. And it hasn’t been much better inside.

  “Food supplies are stretched to their limit. Only the very wealthy can afford to eat a diet free of supplemental yeast. The air is thick with un-processed CO2, our water supply is rationed. Angela is hardly a utopia!”

  There were a few uncertain laughs, intermixed with a rumble of agreement. Nobody seemed to know what Wharton was getting at any more than Jackson did.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Wharton continued. “Venus is not Earth. Our ancestors moved here hoping for a life free of oppressive government. They wanted to push the boundaries of human experience, they wanted the chance to make their future for themselves.

  “Of course there are hardships! We live in an artificial environment; who knows that fact better than we do? We might never have the chance to walk under the direct sunlight without a suit on, we might never experience water rain, we might never see trees under the open sky.

  “It isn’t all bad, though. Venus could be a wonderful place to live. But, I ask you, when is the last time you ate fresh fish? When is the last time you took a breath of air and didn’t smell your neighbors on it? When is the last time you knew you could have a new child and be confident you would have room to raise your child properly?”

  Wharton was beginning to grow more animated. His pleasant smile was turning grim, his voice rougher with emotion. “A few days ago, I went to Nova Aeria. The air was crisp and fresh, the hallways uncrowded. I ate at the cheapest restaurant I could find and had fish and vegetables served me without a hint of yeast.

  “When the habitat was struck, a fifth of one of the stacks was rendered unfit to be lived in until repairs could be made. I saw no crowding as people adjusted to make room. I saw no desperation, no fear of where they would sleep that night. Could you imagine the disaster if one of the stacks of Nueva Angela were to be damaged? We would be sleeping in the hallways and on emergency rations.

  “What made Nueva Angela so different from Nova Aeria? It didn’t take me long to see the truth. How many matriarchs live on Nueva Angela? None! Not a single one of our glorious rulers deigns to live with us. And why would they? They live in unimaginable luxury! There are habitats populated primarily by matriarchs and their spawn, with two hundred people living per stack! Two hundred! There are dozens of common bunk houses here with more people sleeping in shifts than that. I can guarantee you that no matriarch has ever had to time-share a hammock with someone else.

  “As you probably know, Nova Aeria is a matriarch hub. Dozens of matriarchs live there, and hundreds more pass through their facilities monthly. By displacement mass, Nova Aeria has less than a fifth of the population of our great habitat.

  “There you are, Jackson.”

  Jackson felt someone grab his arm and he looked back to see Millicent behind him. Someone shushed Millicent and she made an obscene gesture in return.

  “Chief? I was looking for you earlier.”

  Millicent scowled up at the stage. “I wasn’t invited.”

  Someone jostled Jackson and hissed, “Shut it, kid.”

  “Hopelessness,” Wharton was saying, “is a crushing feeling. Knowing there is nothing you can do to improve your lot. Knowing the most you can hope for is to live for a few more years before your body is recycled into fish food. Long years of nothing but flavored yeast to eat while the matriarchs feast on the best food science can provide. But we needn’t be powerless any longer.”

  “Oh, shit,” Millicent groaned softly. “What did he do?”

  “Today, the balance of power has shifted. The matriarchs can no longer thrust our voices aside. Today, we rise up into our rightful place as valuable citizens of Venus. Starting today, we finally have the leverage we need to make our voices heard.”

  Wharton threw out a hand, pointing out into the crowd. “But make no mistake. This dream can only be achieved through complete unity of purpose and action. The only way our lives will improve is if we stick together. We extras are family! We care for each other when nobody else will. We are brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, cousins, uncles and aunts, in spirit if not in blood.

  “There will be danger ahead. Sacrifices will have to be made. But we must persist. Only through unwavering commitment will all of us come out the other end alive and well. Take heart! In only a short time, our lives will dramatically change for the better.
This I promise you.”

  Millicent tugged at Jackson’s arm, but he resisted and held his ground. Wharton’s words struck a chord within him. He wasn’t sure about the talk of sacrifice and danger, but wasn’t he already doing that every day out on the habitat roof? What if Wharton’s promises were true? What if they could improve their living conditions? Wouldn’t it be his responsibility to see those improvements through?

  “Everyone here in this room was invited because I believe you have the will to hold strong through trying times. There will be people who attack us, who will try to crush our dreams and hold us down in the indentured slavery we have been in since arriving at Venus. We are the extras! Nobody knows danger like we do. Nobody lives as hard a life as us.

  “It is our right to live the best life we can! More than that, it is our duty. Our ancestors moved here with the hope of a better life. What disservice do we do them if we submit to the grind of our current existence?”

  “Jackson,” Millicent hissed, “we need to go. Now.”

  Jackson shook off her hand. “I’m staying, Chief.”

  “Use your head, Harding! Don’t listen to him, listen to him!”

  “If you don’t want to be here, you can piss right off, can’t you?” someone snapped at Millicent.

  Jackson shrugged. “I want to hear him out.”

  “Fine.” Millicent looked angry, then suddenly sad. “I’ll see you back at work tomorrow.”

  “Sure.” Jackson turned back to the stage and put Millicent from his thoughts. What had she meant, anyway? It wasn’t like her to say things that didn’t make sense. He felt the crowd close up behind her and press against him, urging him closer to the stage.

  “No doubt you’re wondering how I can be so sure change will happen,” Wharton called. “Before I show you, know that once you see what I have to offer, you are in this with the rest of us. There will be no backing out. We cannot allow dissention to weaken our resolve. Strength, through unity!”

  “Just tell us already!” someone cried out eagerly.

  “Very well, my fine friends. Behold!”

  Wharton stepped up to a bulge at the back of the stage covered by a drop cloth. Jackson hadn’t really noticed it before, but now as Wharton rolled back the cloth, he saw it was a cage, welded together from grates, a little over a meter on a side.

  “The matriarchs Alana Romaine and Cynthia Everard!”

  Jackson gasped. The two women had clearly been beaten severely. They were covered in bruises about the arms and face. Crusted blood matted their hair and stained their clothing. Still, he couldn’t miss the look of defiance in the eyes of the women. They were gagged and bound, but still seemed to hold a commanding presence that caught and held his attention.

  Jackson wasn’t the only one who reacted strongly to the revelation. A surge of shock ran through the crowd and suddenly shouting filled the room. Jackson couldn’t tear his eyes away from the matriarchs. Even in their current position, they looked out on the room possessively, like they owned the habitat entire, and they were exactly where they wanted to be.

  Wharton raised his hands for silence, then tapped at his mic, and then resorted to shouting. “People! My fellow extras, my family. You must calm yourselves. Think of the Three Fs that we survive by! What do you do when the winds rise to hurricane force and threaten to rip you from your safety line? You Fasten!”

  “You brought the hurricane!” someone shouted from the crowd.

  “The hurricane is already upon us!” Wharton shouted back, then mellowed his voice to a cajoling plead. “In another ten years, fifteen on the outside, our population will outgrow our habitat’s ability to sustain our lives. It is a subtle threat, one that none of us saw coming until it was too late, but it is just as deadly as a catastrophic hull breach.

  “It is Foresight, not impulse, that led to the capture of these matriarchs. They are our safety line. Without them, we have no bargaining power. We’re not stupid. We know as much as any of you how desperate of a gambit this is, but our future depends on it.

  “And now, it is Focus that will guide us. All of us together must focus on maintaining the security of the lower levels. Without complete cooperation among all of the extras, this endeavor will fail before it gets anywhere. And then the entirety of Nueva Angela will suffer immeasurably.

  “What is our alternative? In ten years, when our air becomes poisonous and our waste processing backlogs, when our food supplies run low and our water is rationed to bare necessity, what then? I’ve done the math. The oldest one third of our population must be slaughtered. Our reproduction will have to be all but halted. One child per couple for the next fifty years, and then only two children per couple to maintain population. That is what our future holds.

  “Are you ready to watch your parents murdered? Are you ready to have only a single child while the matriarchs have dozens of children each?”

  Wharton glared around at the crowd. Jackson glanced at the people next to him and saw the same emotions he was feeling reflected back at him: horror at the future Wharton was painting warred with the sickening necessities. Were those really the only two options?

  Jackson was fifteen, but even he remembered when the food had been better and the air fresher. He thought of his mother, having child after child to avoid having to work or sleep in the community bunks. He knew she wasn’t the only one, and he knew enough of math and population growth to realize that Wharton wasn’t exaggerating. The habitat wouldn’t be able to support the growing number of people living in it. It wasn’t a question of if, it was a question of when.

  “I refuse to accept that future,” Wharton growled. “I refuse to allow myself to be treated as if I were less than human while the matriarchs live the life our ancestors were promised. We have a plan, now. We have the method of our salvation.

  “Some of you are thinking that you will go home tonight and will forget all of this. You will go about your normal work and whatever happens here will pass you by. You are wrong. Every extra is part of this. I would include the whole population of the habitat, but I know only the extras have the understanding of necessity and the willpower to see it through.

  “We are all in this together, now. If you are thinking to go to the authorities, if you wish to warn the matriarchs of what happens here, I have this to say: Go ahead. We have already sent a video of our demands to Horizon. The matriarchs know.

  “For the next few weeks, your job boards will have new duties that will bring you to the Basement. We will fortify this place and make it impossible for the Horizon marines to attack us. All of us must contribute to our future, or none of us will have one.

  “I bid you now, return to your homes. Do the math for yourselves and see if I am right. Spread the word among those you believe to be reliable. Get a good night’s sleep. It might be a long time before any of us are well-rested again. Tomorrow will begin a new day, a new era. Tomorrow we take back our future!”

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  Excerpt from the diary of Annette Everard, dated October 8th, 2115.

  What qualities do we look for in those whom we allow to become a matriarch? Strength of will, emotional stability, morality under pressure, these are all a given. There are scores of qualities which go toward making a good immortal, many which would normally be considered negative.

  Strangely, there are some qualities generally considered to be virtuous which upon inspection prove to be detrimental to the longevity of an immortal. Self-sacrifice is one of these. A woman who is too giving of herself would find others eager to take advantage of her, and in an immortal, is a self-defeating quality.

  I’ve gone into great length in my notes about which virtues could be considered valuable, and, indeed, which traditional vices are something to strive toward, but nothing compares to the woman’s will to live. All else is for naught if the woman cannot convince herself to face another day. For us, personal drive to live is the number one factor in determining whether a woman is fit t
o be a matriarch.

  Cynthia Everard remained sitting until the door swung shut and the drop bar clattered into place before she scrambled to her feet and hurried over to Alana’s side. The other woman brushed her off and drew herself stiffly into a sitting position.

  “I’m not made of glass, Everard.”

  “Glass is a lot stronger than you might think,” Cynthia sniffed, but she let Alana stand on her own power. “If you die of internal bleeding, this whole habitat will be shot out of the sky.”

  “It’s just bruising. I’ll be just fine after a treatment.”

  Cynthia folded her arms about herself and turned away. Optimism could only get you so far before reality had to be dealt with. And the reality was, it was highly unlikely either of them would get a treatment ever again. Still, there wasn’t any point in voicing those concerns. Alana knew the odds as well as she did.

  The room the extras had locked them into told volumes about how the renegade locals had been spending their time. The solid steel door had been retro-fitted hastily by someone not particularly skilled with a cutting torch to include an observation hatch and a ground-level hinged flap. The flap, when Cynthia tested it, seemed to be locked closed from the outside, and was far too small to crawl through at any rate.

  The rest of the room had been stripped of anything that might offer the two matriarchs a weapon. Even the shelving that had been built into the wall had been cut away and the nubs ground flush with the floor. The ceiling’s drop panels had been cleared out and the air vent had been reinforced with steel.

  “There’s no escape but through that door,” Alana said grimly.

  Cynthia looked at her in surprise, then read her expression. Alana hadn’t been defeatist, she had simply reached the obvious conclusion and was being pragmatic. “Looks like it,” Cynthia agreed.

  “So, Wharton sent his demands to Horizon,” Alana sighed after a few minutes of silence. “How is your mother going to react?”