A BEACHED STARFISH

July 2058

Alexa adjusted her glasses. She didn’t really need them, but she had been told that staring at computer screens for eight hours a day would give her eyes muscle memory that would ultimately cripple her long-range vision. The lenses were designed to pull her gaze out of that arm’s-length range and force them into long-distance focus. She’d bought into the theory and resolved to wear them more often, particularly when outdoors, as she was now. Besides, Jordan had told her to bring them next time they met.

She walked to the bench in Riverside Park where they’d sat when she first revealed that Shane Whitman had approached her and she’d raised the subject of Artie Sharp. Since that day, things had moved fast, and this morning’s events had forced her to call Jordan and urgently ask him to meet. But she needed to be calm, despite how shaken she felt. It was essential that she didn’t mislead Jordan and allow her emotions to cloud her judgment.

Luckily, she had arrived early, and that would allow her to get her thoughts in order. The park was empty. It was a beautiful, warm spring day, the trees bursting with a new season’s growth that refreshed the air and evoked optimism and renewal. She breathed deeply, hungry for that optimism, searching for its cleansing power, forcefully exhaling the darkness that Shane Whitman had left inside her.

He’d arrived at her office unannounced again, dismissing the security minders and locking the door from the inside. This time, when he removed his wig, he threw it across the room. He wasn’t wearing lipstick, and he hadn’t shaved.

“Progress, Alexa!” he’d shouted. “We need progress. The tribunal can’t wait. The budget needs to be fixed now, and the UN compliance team can’t be put off any longer. We’re going to air, ready or not. Do you hear me? READY OR NOT!”

Alexa got to her feet. She was wearing a head scarf because it was Hijab Day at the Social Equity Ministry, one of two hundred designated days celebrating different cultural identities (though, typically for Alexa, she wore the hijab to promote awareness of female oppression, not as a cultural endorsement.) She tore it off and dropped it on her desk.

“The models are all done!” she protested. “They’ve been tested and run by the SEM’s human rights and treasury audit groups, and they were forwarded to the tribunal chair a week ago. There’s no hold up on my end.” She was perplexed by this outburst. As far as she was concerned, she’d done all that was asked of her. “The white male minority problem has been solved. The budget now balances. The ball’s in the tribunal’s court,” she emphasized.

Whitman glared at her. “I didn’t come here to have you tell me what a clever girl you’ve been, Alexa. I came to tell you that we’re all sitting on a knife edge, and it’s starting to cut into our asses! There’s resistance. I’m hearing rumors that backsliding, scheming, gender-bending intersectionalists on the tribunal are plotting against us as we speak. They won’t give up their victim’s privileges without a fight—and when they fight, it’ll be vicious, Alexa. There’ll be riots; there’ll be deaths. I know who they are. I know their methods. That’s why we have to act fast! We need to announce the new policy settings without further delay. I’ve called a planning meeting at the Department of Truth and Public Guidance first thing tomorrow, which you are going to attend—and I expect you to tell us how we can make sure the ArteFact Channel supports us.”

“… What?!”

“It was your idea. The tribunal chair only signed off on this plan because you sold him on getting Artie Sharp as its mouthpiece.”

“I did no such thing!”

“Well, that’s what was told to the tribunal, Alexa, and that’s what we’re damn well relying on.”

“I only said that someone like Artie Sharp—someone with credibility—should be recruited to back the new policies. The tribunal chair admitted that government policy changes are never well received. I never said anything about being able to arrange it.”

Whitman grabbed the veil from her desktop and ripped it in two, apoplectic with rage. “I’ve spent twenty years in these fucking frocks, Alexa—twenty years in suffocating wigs and cock-busting corsets, painting my face like a clown and pretending to like faggots and dykes, all because you menstruating feminists and your false-nipple transfem offspring decided it was your turn to have power and put men on the chopping board. Well, it’s over now, do you hear me? It’s death to victimhood and an end to Society Points. Tomorrow, Alexa, you’ll be there, and you’ll tell us how we can sell the public this plan that you designed—or I’ll be breaking out the guns!”

Rooted to the spot, Alexa just stared at Shane Whitman in his floral-print dress and white Roman sandals, the thick fingers of his tattooed, muscled arms opening and closing as if he were squeezing the life out of a dying turkey, and she decided that he was probably clinically insane.

But now, composing herself on the park bench while waiting for Jordan’s arrival, she consoled herself with the thought that insanity was grounds for additional Transitional Benefits in today’s society (at least until her new plan was implemented). His emotional outpouring was merely the symptom of a tortured identity. In that respect, he was undoubtedly one of many. If her new social plan could help overcome such suffering, then it would be worth supporting.

She took off her glasses and breathed deeply. In the distance, an adult and child were playing some sort of game, and she could hear the child laughing. What game were they playing? Putting her glasses back on, she watched as a tall and athletic man with a slow, loping run was chased by a young boy who was trying to tackle him to the ground. The man allowed himself to be caught and fell slowly, gracefully onto the grass between the trees, taking the limpet child clinging to his legs down with him. The child’s delight audibly carried through the spring air as the man feigned death like a beached starfish.

Alexa felt just like that man. She’d allowed herself to be chased and caught by the Agenda Implementation Tribunal, she’d tossed Artie Sharp into the air like a football, and now she’d been brought crashing to the ground. There was no way she could betray Artie’s true identity, even if Jordan were to agree to help her in some way. The influence of the ArteFact Channel derived as much from its anti-state stance as it did from its content. The state could never be trusted—and Artie would never be trusted again if his message were to merge with that of the state. Thus, tomorrow morning at the Department of Truth and Public Guidance, she too would become a beached starfish.

The man and the boy got up off the grass and slowly weaved their way towards her, passing a football between them that the boy would occasionally drop, laughing as he retrieved it, while the man waited patiently, hands on hips. Alexa liked the look of the tall man with his tracksuit and olive skin. She admired the shape of his close-cropped hair, and when he turned his head toward her, she liked his smile…

My God—it was Jordan!

She whipped off her glasses and stood up. “Jordan?”

He grinned proudly. “Alexa, meet my grandson, Manaia.”

“You mean…?” Alexa couldn’t think of a worthwhile thing to say. The true nature of her life circumstances had revealed itself to her in this totally natural moment: a man and a boy playing ball in the park. How had such a thing become so extraordinary?

The three of them sat on the park bench together while Jordan gave her a very abbreviated summary of Lexie’s situation at the Hope Clinic, which was just opposite the park, where he and Manaia had come to play ball while Dr. John Erasmus was arranging for Lexie to have a skin graft.

“And Manaia is one mean tackler,” Jordan said proudly, patting his short hair. “He’d make a hell of a linebacker.”

Alexa walked back to the hospital with them and waited in the Hope Café while Jordan took Manaia back to see his mother. She drank a soy latte, but she had no appetite for food; it made her sick to her stomach that she might somehow betray Jordan. Of course, it was sheer coincidence that she’d identified his connection to Artie Sharp after having casually suggested Artie as a possible mouthpiece for the government’s change in social policy. But coincidence or not, she feared losing Jordan’s trust.

When he rejoined her, he ordered a kale and carrot smoothie with root ginger and turmeric. “Energy!” he exclaimed, downing the drink in one go. “Kids sure do have it.” His own energy had increased noticeably.

“I brought my glasses, like you asked,” she said, handing them to him.

“Great!” He thought for a moment. “Look, I’ve been mulling over what happened on the hillside the other day, and I’ve decided that you need to know the truth about Artie Sharp; then we can decide together what to do about the government’s agenda. You’ve trusted me with your secrets, and I trust you to keep mine. Come with me now, back to the DDC, where I have my office, and I’ll introduce you to Antonio. He can fix you up with photoelectric lenses and a transmission chip. Then we can talk about those handwritten meeting minutes you found. Just make sure your Alt-Identity is switched on and your location tracker is off.”