Quota
by ineptia


PRE-POOL-DAY


//Low... Very low... Why does it have to be this low?!// mulled Woodrow, pressing the pent-up sorrow and frustration held behind his forehead more and more deeply into the desktop of his home office.
The surface he was now sobbing into was document-strewn with dozens of sheets of significant figures and children's names—animal-bedding cradling a well-meaning high school counselor's conscience, now highly cognizant of its soon-at-hand slaughter.
He had a decade to get ready for the gut-wrenching nature of his position, but he still was not prepared:
//To be given such a LOW initial tally from Pre-Pool to start from... Soley responsible for recommending over 90% of the school's Quota?... Pool due by month's end... Affording every student the courtesy of an in-person meeting would mean beginning them immediately tomorrow morning, and even then that still may not leave enough time... 200! Over 200 kids!!! How?—... At least—feeling like this—I know I care... At least—//
GRRGRGRRHRRHGHCLCKCLCLCCKHLGHHRGCK!
Outside, in the red-setting sun, a garbage truck birled his neighborhood's trash bins empty.
Lyndon would be home soon.
//I can't drag him down with this... work. My work. It's all just work,// the counselor tried convincing himself, as he neatly piled together all the stats, logs, and student files, double-checking that none of the ones he was placing on top were at all tear-stained.
Woodrow started dinner, joyfully greeted his husband at the door when the car pulled in, and—externally—the two similar-looking men shared a trouble-free evening as they moved and felt as one.
The only set date on either of their lips the whole night was their upcoming appointment with the adoption agency, which they both referred to as just "the 13th" and not "Draw-Day."
Lyndon had his heart set on: "Rutherford, Rutherford Hayes."


POOL-DAY


"But—please! PLEASE! Mr. Hayes, Mr. Hayes, I SWEAR I'm gonna change! I have it in me. 'We can all change because we're all the same!'—You kept teaching us that, right? RIGHT!? I-I can't believe you're saying I'm... Me? Oh, my GOD! My brothers. My BROTHERS, Mr. Hayes, they'll miss me—Mr. Hayes, I'm BEGGING you! I'm SO, so sorry about my grades. About misbehaving! I'm SO—"

—"Grover, Grover! Grove... Calm down, caaalm down for me, son. It's not about your grades, or your record—it's not about your "anything"; it just is. And what you're worried about here is far from a certainty. Say this with me, Grove: It is NOT a done deal! I need you to repeat it. Repeat it for me, Grove, for me AND for yourself. Come on now... 'It is NOT: A done deal.'"

"It's n-not... But, Mr. Hayes, I really could still be!—"

—"You could STILL NOT be chosen, Grove—now say it with me: 'IT. IS. NOT. A. DONE. DEAL.' It's NOT—"

"... a-a d-done deal,"

—"Good. Because it really, really truly isn't, Grove; it would literally be like winning the lottery—"

"Yeah, A DEATH lottery... Y-you're saying I'm going to DIE! Oh, my GOD! Oh my god. Oh my god..."

—"It's—That's not the right way to think about it—"

"But that's how EVERYONE talks about it! That's what IT is, after all. You have to sugarcoat it because that's your—that's just your job. And now, Mr. Hayes, now you're giving ME the TICKET! I-I wanna go to c-college... I want my family. I don't wanna—I don't wanna be dead, Mr. Hayes. AAAHHGH!!!"

—"Take some tissues... There, there you go, son... I'll keep telling you, and you have to keep telling yourself, Grover, that there is a POSSIBILITY that you are passed over. Hold onto this hope! Focus on it. This—today—today's just Pool-Day; you know that, don't you? It's NOT Draw-Day... But, Grove... Grover, if you are indeed selected—

"N-n-nooo! NOOOOOO!!!"

—"There, there, son... It's okay. I'm just gonna put my hand on your shoulder now—I know that would comfort me... Now, IF, I'm saying that IF: There are ways to come to peace with it, and they all start by simply remembering who we are, right? Huh? Who YOU are! Who any of us intrinsically are; why everything's the way it is—why you have your dad and your brothers, whom you love, and who cherish you back... The only reason we ever had any of it to begin with is because... because it's all predicated on this process, Grove, and as much as I understand how extremely troubling it is for someone your age to think about, logically, there's absolutely no reason to be afraid of something which has granted us all so many good, GOOD, irreplaceable things."

"..."

—"Grover, what if I told you that you could remember things which you didn't personally experience: How—if you really thought about it—you've actually been Drawn before? But also how you were never even Pooled? How, in reality, there have been countless moments where you've been to the Fields, all at the same time you were playing with your brothers? Oh, Grove. Come here... I got you, son, I got you... Haaah... Let it out. Let it out... Now do you remember this embrace? The solace I'm trying to convey with these words? Anything? Do you remember hearing them or speaking them before?"

"..."

—"No? Because there ARE strategies you can learn which can make it better, which make the prospect of being Drawn for Execution not be the end of the world; instead of an apocalypse, it will become more, like, an apotheosis. Do you know what this word means, Grover? 'Apotheosis'?"

"SNNFF... Uh-uh, n-n-no..."

—"It means YOUR version of what the best possible feeling is. Outside of school... I realize you've been trained to fear Execution-Day, but—and I am not lying when I'm telling this to you—almost everyone condemned is able to find—discover immense meaning in it being their time. Because they understand they are not REALLY dying; they are always living."

"..."

—"You know, in order to have this job, I had to meet with thousands who were actually Drawn, not just put into the Pool, and I can scarcely remember even a single man who—even as they left to board—was even remotely as scared, or angry, or upset as you are now, Grove... It gets better."

"..."

—"Trust me, if you ever see those far away Fields, the only emotion you'll feel is... it's going to be of superlative happiness... and there'll also be a sense of deep-felt PRIDE..."

"..."

—"If you ARE chosen, what you'll be doing for your dad and your brothers, for your friends, for your teachers, for me, and the rest—we'll all be owing our lives to you, Grove, our future happinesses, our collective hopes for Rehabilitation... You could make that possible...

"..."

—"...A-and the fact of your being so young, son, I'm so, so sorry; maybe if you were older all I'm saying would make more sense to you, but this is just how we beat the Quota, the way we keep it—it's a terrible word, but—as "fair" as possible... The amount of deficits a fourteen-year-old offsets is just—there's no other way to navigate these sorts of choices except through these sorts of techniques: It would take six boys a year older than you to get the same effect numbers-wise. I can't be fair, but I can try to be ethical, even when the Quota may not be, and—but, I'll reiterate: Execution-Day for you isn't yet written in stone. You've still the same chance as the rest being Pooled for it to pass you over...

"..."

—"Grover, I dearly want to talk with you more about all of this, but our time here's been up... Look, son, please take these with you. Give them to your father when you get home... I'm afraid this may be our last meeting together—I've written the name of your Pool Counselor here..."

"..."

—"Grover, did I ever mention that when I was your age that I actually dodged Draw-Day?"

"...R-really? It d-didn't get you, M-Mr. Hayes?"

—"No, it didn't, but, hey, just like you, I thought it absolutely would: You see, it was all to do with my name, wasn't it? Now, who 'Would-Draw' 'Woodrow'?"

"H-heh..."


DRAW-DAY


Woodrow and Lyndon had completed their appointment (which had been a gleeful success), Lyndon now checking his diary for conflicts as the couple signed up at the lobby's front desk for what would be their "next steps" appointment.
A figure was approaching the building; they were pushing a stroller.
Woodrow fast-walked over to the entrance and whooshed open the door to the infant and his... mother.
She offered Woodrow a kind smile, then knelt to her son: "What do we say to the kind gentleman? THANK-YOU! Thank you, dear."
"No problem, uh... m-miss," Woodrow stammered.
Eyes closed, she nodded her head at Woodrow with the same self-deprecating grin he had seen himself give in the mirror countless times before.
She disappeared into the building with her stroller, but not before Lyndon had caught a glimpse of the eccentric.
"That's something you don't see every day," Lyndon snidely remarked to Woodrow on his way to the door, which his partner was still dumbstruckly holding open.
"Yes, at least not here..."
They both steped outside together into the crimson sunbeams.
Woodrow had encountered a few women in his post-grad classes, but seeing someone like her this far East was not something he expected at all.
He wished he could have been more polite.
And seeing her face at first, and not just his...
It had been very long indeed since Woodrow had first confronted the notions these seismic feelings unlocked, and now they were rocking him anew.
Reaching the car, each man opened their door, sat down, and closed it in complete synchronization with the other, as if reflections.
Woodrow would sometimes make deliberate efforts to distinguish his own movements from Lyndon's—and thereby Lyndon's from his—but not with his brain as frazzled as it was, even if it had not been for the visage of the woman, because:
Waiting for Woodrow at home would be the Draw results.
He punched 239 students—CHILDREN—into the Pool... and he knew that only 5 of them wouldn't be Drawn.
All throughout the appointment, at the time the Draw must have been taking place, Woodrow had been praying—
//Pass over Grover.. Pass over Grover... Passs over//—
"So, excited?"
Woodrow hadn't yet started the car.
"Of course, Lyn. I mean, after all, we're finally going to be parents..."
"Mmhmm! It's been just the two of us, and now it's really going to be three. And who knows what the future has in store? Maybe more..." Lydon mused, lowering his head affectionately into Woodrow's chest.
//Does Lyn really not see the irony in the words he's using?//


EXECUTION DAY


Of course Grover wasn't spared.
The thoughts of the 234 eclipsed the 5, and the thoughts of the 234 simplified into Grover, that innocent, terrified young boy who so reminded Woodrow of a younger version of himself.
The new family had been home all day—it was a global holiday after all.
Lyndon was always very subdued and introspective on Execution-Day, thinking about his three brothers whom the Eternal Punishment had once ferried away.
On the couch in front of their TV, Woodrow bounced Rutherford on his lap, attempting to find meaning inside the infant's effulgent eyes—eyes which were genetically identical to his own eyes, to Lyndon's, and to the eyes of everyone he had ever and would ever meet.
While overt meaning never shone, Woodrow knew at least he had found beauty and love, and they would have to be enough.
A blurring wave of memories swept over his mind:
//Do I remember bouncing myself on my knee like this?//
Meanwhile, Lyndon had already gone uncharacteristically quiet—the broadcast was starting...

VOICE-OVER: 327 years ago, Marcus Stansfield murdered 4 children belonging to our Galaxy's Royal Family.
324 years ago, he was sentenced to die for his crimes, recursively, and with extreme prejudice.
320 years ago, between the ends of a pair of rifles, Marcus Stansfield was compelled to erect the first cloning vats on Tantalus.
These rifles were trained on him by two of the Royal Family's Guardsmen—the only humans not sharing our DNA to ever set foot on Tantalus.
302 years ago, Marcus Stansfield offered Marcus Stansfield Jr. as proxy to fulfill his first sentence.
Also 302 years ago, Marcus Stansfield committed suicide.
Over the next 300 years, the prisoners of Tantalus—all of us copies of this heinously evil man—have lived and died for only two reasons:
1. To satisfy Stansfield's sentence.
2. To possibly achieve Rehabilitation.
As of this year, the Galactic Queen has declared that Rehabilitation has not yet been achieved.
As of today, 42,828,137,922 executions have been carried out.
After today, 42,944,183,441 executions will have been carried out...


EPILOGUE


After the Drawn are brought to the Royal Family's planet and dispatched, what is left of the Executeds' bodies are sent back to Tantalus.
Woodrow didn't tell Lyndon, but he attended Grover's funeral.
After the service, Woodrow approached Grover's father, Donald, who gave the high school counselor a tarnished envolope.
"He knew what you were trying to do for him, Mr. Hayes," Donald said, "And, in the end, that was enough. Thank you."
Woodrow hugged Grover as an adult, and saw himself in the faces of the man's children, who squeezed him back.
In the tear-and-blood-stained envelope were all the words Woodrow needed to read to not want to quit his job anymore.
Also inside was a strange-looking flower from a planet he knew he had visited once before.

END OF QUOTA
BY INEPTIA

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Pub: 03 Mar 2025 23:30 UTC

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