Tempus

When I was a child my mother would tell me stories of America when she was a little girl. Technology was scarce and men were in charge.
“It was so simple,” she said as she stared off into a distant past. “it may be simple now, Meredith, but one day you will understand.”
Those words stuck with me every night as my mother became frail from working in front of a computer screen, saving lives without even touching a person. She inserted life chips into people. Life chips tracked health and emotion to help the doctors in our society get a better idea of where we stand as a whole.
I was sent to school until I was sixteen, then the Tempus would check my life chip and tell me what I am meant to do. My parents speculated that I’d follow into their foot steps, a doctor of some sorts, possibly medicine or psychology. I had no idea what to expect, their were the low intelligent factory workers, the teachers, the medical staff, the doctors, and then their were the hunters. I was raised around books and after dinner conversations about the workings of a human mind or a bone protruding out of the skin, they were never crass with me. They were honest.
When I pulled myself out of bed and into the bathroom, my skin was drained and dark circled were under my eyes.
“Today is the day.”
My mother laid out a dress for me with the Tempus crest stitched over the breast. The crest was ‘T’ that branched out like a tree, but the T was prominent. Whenever you were outside of your home the crest must be apparent on your clothing, somewhere. Some people went so far as to get it tattooed on their wrists just so they didn’t have to stitch the insignia on every piece of clothing. The Tempus encouraged this type of devotion.
I walked downstairs My mother was making breakfast, my father was at the table reading. I looked out of the window beyond my father’s head, the trees were sprinkled with white dust.
“Hello, Meredith,” he said to me with a welcoming smile. My mother than came in with a large plate of eggs.
“Today is the day!” she said excitedly as she placed the eggs on the table, I sat across from her and she said next to my father. “Eat up.”
We all ate, I stayed silent as my parents told stories of the day they were both chosen to go into their working fields.
“I was shaking terribly!” she said.
“My mother thought I was going to be a farmer because I was so good with helping her in the community garden,” he said. “the little garden right off of the factorial section of the city, it’s not too far from your school.”
“Oh,” I said to him. I knew exactly what he was talking about. The garden was dingy, dead. Sometimes I saw little kids in their running over any life that remained.
“Charles Worth was very shocked when his son was chosen by the Hunters,” mother said. I remember being at that ceremony and Charles was not happy about that at all. Having a child with Hunting genes can be seen as an abomination, these were the people who were ruthless enough to kill. Charles Worth was the Chief of the hospital and was known for his medical cures.
“For a man who found the cure to cancer, I never seen someone become so broken down by something like that.” she said.
“You are what you are,” my father said. “Your genes can’t change because you are raised a certain way.”
“There’s rumors that Charles wants to find a cure against the genetic coding of choice,” mother said.
“After his son left he didn’t go through the procedural therapy,” father told us. “So his emotional state is clouding his mental state.”
“Didn’t you go to school with his son?” mother asked.
I looked up from fiddling with my eggs, “He’s older than I am.”
They both ignored the concept and talked about the day to come. They were so certain of my fate, but what I got chosen as a laborer or a hunter? Would they love me any less?