Berlin (Reuters) — Continental Keepers at Berlin Tegel Airport this morning seized four cartons of weapons and grounded a cargo plane bound for Nairobi in an alleged plot against Man.

The cartons contained male-era firearms, explosives, and sarin gas, a lethal nerve agent not in use since the early twenty-first century, AD. Pro-woman extremist group the New Eves has claimed responsibility for the plot, adding that they selected the supposed murder implements as a reminder of what womenkind has overcome since the Sudden Loss. Their connections to neither the illegal armaments nor the flight list have been verified. Nonetheless, the Omega Movement has called for the immediate destruction of the New Eves, language the High Council of Global Continuation describes as "startlingly short of a call to war."

#

Our finalized schedules with last-minute changes transmitted overnight, and I double check mine before rolling out of bed in the morning. I now have "Runes & the Mystique" first, to my chagrin. In Chicago, we learned about the Mystique and our lines as a matter of herstorical anthropology, but here I have a feeling the emphasis will be more… dogmatic.

The topic reminds me of my grandmother, Zetalice, who surprised us all when she went to live on a commune at age seventy. There, in the chilly northern plains, she and some thirty-odd older women run a farm and worship at their own temple. For some reason. One day she said she had a dream about it, and seemingly the next day she was gone.

If Gaia ever comes to me in a dream and urges me to devote myself to corn, I plan to see a psychiatrist. But to each her own.

Chimera begins her day with math, so I shuffle across the quad alone, kicking leaves and hanging back to observe my classmates from afar as I approach. I wonder if my self-reinvention should include my stance on the lines. My friends at home—at my old home—knew all about my desire to say so long and thanks for all the fish, Alices. I’m off to South America or a floater nation or literally anywhere that I won’t be made to stick around and raise my next iteration so we can keep pretending we’re demi-goddesses, blessed among the women of the world for our ceaseless devotion to order, tradition, and extra-personal responsibility. It's not like the individualists in the Pacific have a hard time cranking out enough women, and they still have culture.

My friends, the old ones, would nod and rap my knuckles while saying things like "righteous" and "tell ‘em Haze," even as they described the colleges they were aiming for in midcountry, which districts they wanted to live in, what roles they’d fill—our generation has been called on to pursue agrisciences and materials engineering in particular—yet they never seemed to share my rage.

Maybe rage isn’t quite the right word. Passion?

After listening obligingly to Chimera spout about her family and worldview last night without pushing back, however, on some level it feels the moment for providing counterpoints has passed. Perhaps Haze in Witchniss is more of a listener. I’ll surprise people with my well-thought-out words of wisdom doled sparingly, so each sentence packs a punch. If this class is as soul-sucking as it sounds, maybe I’ll draft out a few axioms to keep in my back pocket.

The only seat available when I finally arrive is in the corner closest to the instructor on the wraparound couches lining the walls, giving us all an equal view of the central projection area. I am conscious of my outward demeanor—confident, carefree—as I doff my shoes at the door and stride over the plush rug, tucking my feet beneath me on the cushion.

The instructor can’t be older than Etalice. She smiles at me even as she scooches away a hair. I feign preoccupation with focusing the projection of my notebook, a transparent screen visible only within close range to me, and securing the fit of my key gloves while I tune into the low chatter of the other first years. All insubstantialities, bland observations and pleasantries given in order to propel us through the final moments of waiting, to distract us from the stress-excitement of the first day in a fresh class at a new school. While they talk, my mind drifts, the deep blue of my gloves reminding me of Lake Michigan.

Leave it to Etalice to decide a traditional suburb named like a fairytale would be a more suitable location for my development. She’d grown up beachside, and from what I could tell, it was the most stunning location for thousands of kilometers in the middle of this vast, confused country. We’d had nothing but expanse to the horizon right beside the city’s density, an exhilarating contrast. In Witchniss, we have neither—the old stone and brick buildings spread evenly, none more than five stories. The sun rises over rooftops and sets into trees. You can spin and get dizzy here, but you’ll never get lost.

I can’t wait to return to the city and the lake, a different kind of claustrophobia. My mother can follow me or not; in three years, I’ll be gone. And if she’s true to her word, I’ll be free to leave entirely, if I want. I could live in Antarctica, or in orbit.

Until then, I’ll be educated.

The instructor, whose name is Glory, dims the lights and calls up a rune into the center of the room. Ten pairs of eyes glint at each other through the projection, an artistically interpreted outline of the female reproductive system that rotates slowly. The ovaries have a swirling pattern inside, giving the appearance of a set of eyeballs. When they line up with my eyes, I blink.

"Female. Woman. Human. What does it mean, for our sex to be vestigial? What do we see through our eyes that we haven’t shaped by our seeing?"

I take a big, slow inhale as quietly as possible. Tomorrow I’ll arrive earlier. I need a seat where spacing out is easier to pull off.

Scanning the room, all attention seems to be trained on the rune or the speaker. Most girls lean forward on their seats, a few eager ones raise hands, and two key busily into the air, both with cream-colored gloves. What can they possibly be noting already, I wonder. Her inane rhetorical questions?

My face stays neutral but I guffaw inside.

Surely Bug would understand. Too bad she’s already graduated from Glory’s inspired awakenings and is on to part two, which must be something like: "You, Yourselves & Your Place In Line," taught by the esteemed Hallelujah, undoubtedly an alpha.

"If all you see in this rune is sex, you are missing the truth. It has always been more than sex, a woman’s power. Look closer and you will perceive the shape is not just uterine, but of a woman herself."

I squint and honestly try to see it. I’ve always thought the female reproductive system resembles the head of a steer, but with my inability to stop seeing eyeballs in the swirls positioned at the far edges of each side, the rendering looks more like a bloated frog or a tropey alien. Glory clearly comes from the same camp Zetalice has joined. I make a mental note to ask my grandmother later what she sees in this particular rune. No doubt her answer will be equally or more outrageous than "a woman herself."

While Glory continues, I scroll surreptitiously through the dorm directory to find Bug, at a temporary loss when I realize I’ve forgotten her family name. Then I have it: Thetana. She’s the same stage as me. I wait with my finger at the ready to ping her, checking in my periphery whether Glory is paying attention. Still talking, she orients her fingers as though poised to project the next rune. Without losing her in my eyeline, I wiggle my index finger and message Bug. The subtle movements translate into words floating in front of me:

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Greetings human! Learning about my uterus, or something, over here. Think Glory has ever witnessed Procreation?

I’m heady sending it; fast, I retrain my attention to the lecture and act rapt.

Glory has switched the display to something thankfully more abstract: a set of twenty-four increasingly smaller circles that telescope inwards, or out, however you want to look at it.

"Who here knows this one?"

More than half the hands shoot up. I hope she knows how to read a room, so maybe we can pick things up a bit.

"Gammaris, please tell us."

My eyebrows raise without permission. She knows all of our names already? I command my face to relax, then slide my left index finger with a quick up-down, checking for notifications. Bug has replied. I forget my concern about Glory as I raise her words before me.

From the far side of the room, I hear Gammaris’ reply: "It’s a sign of succession. Twenty-four rings from alpha to omega. Each complete on its own, as well as the extension of the previous."

Greetings! Ah, I miss old Glory Hole and her deep introspection. You’ll agree with me when you have Dion next year. At least Glory’s not STILL hung up on understanding us as compared with men, centuries after the fact.

"Good, good." Glory nods. "And which way do the rings extend?"

"I’m sorry?" Gammaris replies.

"Inwards or outwards? Who extends whom?"

Gammaris straightens her back and nods once. "Of course. There is no set direction; the line grows and changes in time, but must be understood as a whole which converges. Everyone is a daughter and a mother."

Except omegas, and arguably alphas, unless you consider Gaia's immaculate touch on a test tube to be the original mother of us all. I might push on this so-obvious-and-so-conveniently-ignored point, but I’m rereading Bug’s reply. I’d bet all my coin on no one else bringing it up, though. Sometimes defying logic seems to be a requirement for delving into the Mystique.

Glory, though, has a curious expression. Something about it nags at the corners of my eyes, pulling my attention from my screen. The room hushes as others must feel it, too.

"Perhaps. That is one belief. But I’ll have you consider this." She clicks and the image changes to a sped-up animation of a redwood tree growing from a seed until it nearly consumes the room. The tree pauses with its bark inches from our faces, so that we see each other through it as eerie, umber-tinged ghosts. Glory backs the animation up, settling on the infant version of the tree. Then she adds to the right and left schematics of cut-off stumps from all angles that spin in a slow circle around the tree.

"The rings of the tree grow ever outward, as we all can see. But what of the tree itself? Up and up; the more rings, the higher the height."

And down and out—the higher the tree, the wider the roots must spread. It’s not all about what you can see at the surface. I hold my composure, but still… that isn’t the only flaw in the metaphor: trees can keep adding rings—no one cuts them down after twenty-four.

Another message appears from Bug. Using my pinky, I open it with a small gesture.

Apparently, the persistence of gender is what’s still holding us back from utopia. I suppose Dion’s never heard of Gethen.

I’m racking my brain for the location of Gethen, about to look it up, when Glory says my name and I panic that my face has betrayed me.

"Yes, Glory."

"Must I remind you of the academic behaviors contract you signed on enrollment?"

Isn’t that what you’re doing? I think. I consider answering yes, just to see how she’d react, but check myself.

Instead of speaking, I make a show of closing my screen while shaking my head. Our gazes linger on each other for a moment. My eyes burn, daring her to look away first. Then she smiles at me again, and it looks genuine.

Now I feel like I’m the one who was being rude… wait.

Hellfires.

She turns back to the center of the room and clicks to change the rune, while I stare at the ear where her face has just been.

Class ends and I realize I haven’t the foggiest idea what the last several images were, nor have I taken any notes.

#

Part of me has been pretending I’m a college student walking around the precise landscaping, brick pathways, and rune-carved buildings of Witchniss secondary. But as soon as I walk into the dining hall and re-remember it isn’t a food court, nor a row of MealMakers, but a single grand room with vaulted ceilings and stained glass, wood furnishings and synthetic candle lighting, I know I’m actually in someone’s fantasy novel dream. They may as well have thrown in a few bubbling cauldrons and hung some artisanal birch brooms around the walls. When this town was chartered in the early decades after the Sudden Loss, there must have been something in the water that made magic seem both real and appealing.

I suppose cleverly disguised technology is close enough. For all its old-school vibes, this is the first place I’ve eaten where drone servers descend from sliding panels in the arches above us with place settings as soon as we’ve sat down. I can't help but lean back when the one before me whirrs to drop off a goblet, a golden-stitched napkin, and a titanium spork. Later, another wave of flyers will waft in with the food, inevitably carrying warm air from the kitchens like a steamed, pan-seared, or broiled cloud lowering itself onto our plates.

But first, we toast. This evening Glory presides over dinner. She stands in a deep red togatta like we’re at a gala of some kind and raises a glass to our strong successions. Thankfully, we don’t have to follow the same dress code, because I’ve never figured out how to tie together the one-piece robe myself and furthermore its lack of pockets is completely unacceptable.

I sip my seasonably appropriate mulled cider and wish it was fermented; I’ve already pegged two students at my table of twelve for alphas. When Glory sits down, we dig into steaming plates of cornbread, collard greens, and lentil pie, eyeing each other over the platters.

For the first month of school, a randomizer seats us. With 593 girls and fifty tables, I calculate that I have a six percent chance of sitting with Bug or Chimera at any given meal, and a sixty percent chance of sitting with any individual twice in a week. If the goal is to be forging bonds, I don’t understand the method.

Still, I appreciate that we aren’t sequestered by year or letter or any other discernable pattern. Perhaps that’s the reason for it, to protect us from labels—although that only fills me with more questions for our administration.

Our awkward, quiet pass-the-collards and who-do-you-have-for-data-sciences breaks apart after a couple of minutes when a head-to-toe freckled student begins loudly comparing our dinner to her meals in the nursery, where most alphas are raised. She’s aimed at no one in particular, speaking with the presumption we’ll all listen. I conceal a grin behind my bite of cornbread. Now I just need the other one to chime in.

Like I’ve given a silent stage direction, the other alpha interrupts with a story about her own nursery shenanigans, and the two of quickly dominate all table talk while the rest of us either feign interest or turn inwards for a heart-to-heart with our pie. The former group are in earlier letter stages for the most part, while the rest are probably thetas or higher. Just a hunch.

Sometimes, I wish I wasn’t so good at identifying stages.

I’ve heard that elsewhere they foster the alphas out, which sounds like a better idea to me. Probably gives them less of a goddess complex. As for the rest of us, there’s no excuse.

I say fewer than ten words total and leave before dessert. Outside the night air is welcoming, as is the lack of chaos around me. My gait slows along the brick pathway from the dining hall towards my dormitory.

Halfway there, a meteoric flash of silver makes me stop and almost stumble on the path. I look up to see a group of roughly ten students in cloaks standing together between the hedge and the wall of the arts building. They’re all staring at me now, in a silent circle. One girl’s arm is extended towards the center. Another one holds something long and sharp, which glints when I shift to rebalance myself. As they stand frozen, my predator eyes catch the motion of a drip-drip-drip from the first girl’s outreached hand onto the dry leaves. Seconds pass like ages before I notice a small trickle of blood run from the tip of the silver thing to the fingers that grip it, which in the instant of contact suddenly whip the object—a knife—to point at me.

I don’t think or shout.

I run.