The first thing Charlie noticed as they got closer to the citadel was the wall. The fact that it was already visible meant it had to be a construct that rivaled the hoover dam. But when the sun began to rise, its light refracted off the dome in dozens of rainbows. He couldn't see it before, but the citadel was covered in a pale blue dome. From the peak of its tower to the top of the wall a cascade of energy sealed the inside of the citadel from the outside. It was amazing, a technology Charlie could only dream of in his time made manifest in this one.

"Stellar, isn't it?" Said that beautiful voice behind the mask. She peeked at him over the shoulder of her larger sister. "It keeps the dangers out and the cleaner air in."

"What is it made of?" He asked, still transfixed on the waves of light dancing through it.

"I'm not sure," she shrugged, "My mother tried to explain it to me once. Some kind of magnetically contained plasma. I still don't get it"

Charlie smiled at her, "like a sandwich," he proffered, in what simplistic terms he could. "The magnetic field is the bread, the plasma is the filling, I imagine. The plasma does the work, the magnetism keeps it in place."

"And plasma is?" She returned.

"Just matter like everything around us. Only heated so hot it passes from being a gas to being almost energy."

"You know Charlie, that finally makes more sense." She replied.

"The question is, what kind of power could generate something like that?" He pondered.

"Probably our fusion reactor." She shrugged with nonchalance.

"Fusion power." He replied dreamily, "of course you have fusion power. Why wouldn't you have fusion power? You have sonic weapons, I'm sure you have droids too."

She giggled at his wonder of what to her, was commonplace and he couldn't help but smile.

"So, what do you do for fun?" He asked, trying to keep the conversation going. Just wanting her to continue talking to him. To hear that voice, to keep her attention. Until she got back to her real life, and could forget he existed.

"I usually just sneak down to the archives and read." She answered. "It's actually where I found the journal that led to you."

"I didn't pick you for a bookish type." He said with a smile. Bookish was in fact his favorite type.

"I don't know what that means." She said with that cat-like cocking of her head. "And also, why would you think I wouldn't be?"

"Bookish is a person who will sit and read rather than pretty much anything else." He explained, "and you seem too physical to be bookish."

"I'd rather be alone reading most of the time. It annoys Butterfly to no end. But diet and exercise are mandatory and regulated," she shrugged, "societal standards."

"Sounds thrilling," Charlie replied with a hint of sarcasm that he then doubted she caught on to.

The wall had a gate that looked like someone had shoved a house sized block through the wall with a guillotine door built into it. As the trio approached it, the door seemed to raise automatically and let them enter. Once through the second door Charlie saw more green than he had seen in the entire trip from his pod. Trees and bushes, flowers and plants of all species within winding paths of multicolored stone. The path they tread was wider and seemed to point straight toward the looming citadel tower ahead.

They could finally remove the masks, letting Charlie see the lovely face of Rose once more. Discorda was strong of jaw but far from ugly. Charlie wondered if this was the normal standard anymore as people this good looking could not be just coincidence. Charlie soon had his answer as onlookers soon began to gather.

He noticed the first few women peeking from the side paths after about twenty minutes, then slowly their numbers grew. All in loose flowy reignments of bright and vibrant colors. He tried to wave but the core group of ladies scattered. In the hour it took to reach the steps to the main entrance of the tower the numbers had grown to hundreds. All gaping, most with hands over mouth. A dozen women in white versions of Rose and Discorda's armor marched down the steps with an older woman behind them. She was a stern looking lady with a cheerless expression in flowing white robes.

Discorda stepped up and took a knee before the woman to present Rose to her. The important looking woman looked her over with what he could tell was concern.

"You could have been killed." The woman said with a quiet but firm tone. "You could have gotten your sister killed."

"Yes ma'am." Rose replied, definitely submissively.

"You did end up losing the lives of five others." She tacked on this point with narrowed eyes.

Rose however seemed to grow bolder at this point, "but we succeeded. We succeeded where Celeste's team failed. Her whole team perished. But we did not." She stared daggers at the woman. She looked back at him now, "Magistrate, this is Charlie. He was just where the journal said he would be. He will save us."

"We shall see." Was the Magistrate's cold reply when she looked at Charlie. She snapped her fingers twice and a small hovering vehicle arrived that Discorda set Rose onto the back of. "Take her to the medical ward." She commanded the girl driving. The girl nodded and sped away.

The head lady then turned to Charlie. He tried to be charming, he stuck out his hand for a cordial handshake, "hello my name is Charlie…". She took his offered hand and also grasped his other hand to bring both up when Charlie found one of the binding straps around his wrists once again. The head lady didn't even look at him as she spoke at Discorda, "take him to the lab and secure him. Take less public routes to keep him out of sight." And walked away without a word or look to Charlie himself as if he wasn't a person at all. Discorda took hold of him by the binders and led him away from the crowd of women while the Magistrate began to address them.

Butterfly barged into the room while the medtech was still rebuilding Rose's leg. Wild eyed and panting as she looked over her significant, "babe, what have you done to yourself?"

"I did it, I found the man from the past." Replied Rose with a smile that suggested she might actually be enjoying nearly having died.

"You disappeared, leaving a NOTE that just read 'going to save the world', and come back with your leg destroyed and a," her voice fell to a whisper, "a male in tow?"

Butterfly shook her head and paced in circles away from the table and back, "and look at you," the small dark haired girl waved her hands frantically, "no make up? Your hair a mess? And hurt?"

Rose gave a look to her as if she were spouting nonsense, "not a lot of use for makeup in the waste, and yes we had to fight this huge, berserk mutant but that MALE," rose was not so quiet mentioning Charlie, "saved my life and now is the salvation of womankind. So yes, the way I see it, a very successful mission."

"A mission you were supposed to turn over to Celestia Citadel, you know, the Citadel with an actual army, actual soldiers. What happened to that plan?"

"I did, their squad never returned." Rose answered in more hushed tones.

"And you thought it was a good idea to take on a mission in which real soldiers all died?" Butterfly yelled. She took a deep breath and spoke at a more sedate level again. "I love you babe, but you are too important to the Citadel to be risking that beautiful face. You are too important to Enlightenment. You have a responsibility."

"I. Am. The. Captain of our citadel guard. Its safety is my responsibility, and we needed Charlie. The Magistrate needs him or we will fade away slowly as more births continue to fail. So I did what needed to be done. I took experts, experts that knew the risk and volunteered anyway. And we succeeded. We succeeded where 'actual' soldiers failed."

Butterfly again breathed in deep, closing her eyes and readjusting herself. She stood up straight and tall and spoke with eyes closed at first, "regardless you are alive, on the mend and it seems a heroine." She opened her eyes with a smile. So tonight we will return you to your usual perfect beauty and mingle at the debate floor tonight. This will be no doubt a hot talking point at the forum and you have all the best information to crush the dissenters and we will render them all speechless." The smaller girl kissed Rose on the cheek and practically skipped out of the room while the medtech continued on Rose's leg.

After a minute of working Rose was aware of the tech's eyes darting up to her repeatedly. "What?" She practically snapped.

"Did you really discover a male and bring it back to the citadel?" She asked in a twitter.

"That was the mission." Rose sighed.

She was quiet for a few seconds, even though she paused on Rose's leg, then she excitedly blurted out the question, "did he try to ravage you on the trip back?" A big, strangely out of place smile overtook her face.

"No," answered Rose calmly, in an exasperated tone, "he isn't…" her thoughts drifted back to their journey and what they talked about, "Charlie's not… he's not like that."

"What IS he like?" The tech continued.

"He's…" she thought some more, "different. He's not like anything I expected."

Charlie sat on a table in the center of the room. It looked like an operating theater, transparent ceiling with another room above to observe. He could tell from spots on the floor that everything save the table had been removed. The door he had entered opened once more and three armored ladies entered and two motioned at him with technical looking sticks. They grunted at him and pointed behind him. When he didn't move the sticks had two prongs on the end that gave him a sharp shock.

"Ow!" He cried, "you know you can just tell me what you want."

This confused them considerably, the sticks lowered and one of them spoke, "um, go to that corner and remove the strange garment."

Charlie moved toward the corner, unzipping the uncomfortable suit, "see, wasn't that easier?"

"We…" another began, "we didn't expect you to talk."

"We were told to be cautious." The one who directed him to the corner added. "We thought you were some kind of savage."

"Trust me, ladies. I am no danger to anyone." Charlie said as he reached the corner. "I feel I need to warn you, I am naked under this suit."

He turned around pulling his arms out of the sleeves to find one of his visiting ladies had pulled a gun-like device from the wall still attached by some sort of cord. She had a broad smile as she pulled the trigger and began hosing him off with a jet of water. Charlie turned his back against the cold spray and peeled the rest of the suit off. He noticed the drain in the floor and realized he should have seen this coming. He did his best to wash off without turning to expose himself to the women washing him.

"Turn," one called out finally. When he hesitated she shouted, "turn around!"

When the torrent shut off finally, the one who had yet to speak was staring directly between Charlie's legs. He quickly moved his hands to cover himself but the girl asked meekly, "is that it?"

"I'm sorry, is that what exactly?" He replied.

"Is that… the thing." She reiterated, now looking Charlie in the eye instead of in his crotch. "The male horn."

" I'm sorry, 'the horn'," he echoed, confused. "I have no horn, miss. Just my regular genitalia."

She now looked at him disappointedly, "records say males were aggressive and… horney, and would attack women, stabbing women with their… horn. This is how they would claim women and make them with child. The venom it extruded would make women docile and lose the will to fight back."

Charlie sighed once again at what hundreds of years of misinformation had yielded. "There is no horn, in my day sexual arousal was called getting horny, don't ask me why. It happened to men and women. But yes, what is between my legs is designed to fit into what is between yours. And the only thing it extrudes is the semen that carries the sperm that joins with your egg to make a baby." One of the other women threw him a towel that he wiped quickly all over and wrapped around his waist to hopefully end the biology lesson. "Men and women both did this willingly in my time, wanting to have a child."

The third guard set more folded cloth on the table, and turned to exit. This prompted the others to follow. The curious one picked up the wet cryo-suit and left with it. On the way out the curious one said to another, "it doesn't make sense."

Her fellow guard replied, "he's probably defective somehow and doesn't want to admit it."

Charlie found the cloth was clothes to put on. A loose light gray tunic and a dark gray set of yoga pants looking bottoms. Charlie's different shape and apparently smaller body size than expected left them loose on him more like sweatpants.

He draped the towel over the table before sitting back down. He decided he should try to hold onto it if he could, it was after all the most useful item in the universe.

Rose stood there beside Butterfly, makeup perfect, hair styled and shiny, wearing a beautiful dress and bored out of her mind. The attendees nibbled food and drank while gathering into groups and debating the latest theories and advancements. As Butterfly had suspected, the hottest topic was Charlie. The discussions ran from, is he really the solution to the birthing problem to will he mean the downfall of society? Rose was shocked at how excitedly some of them discussed Charlie, the person she spent two days walking through the wasteland with, overthrowing their world and enslaving them all. Rose just wanted to run away to the archives and read.

"He's not like that." Rose said quietly, as one woman and her own significant, discussed how dangerous Charlie's very existence was.

"What was that babe?" Butterfly asked with a laugh.

"Charlie," when she spoke again her voice was stronger, "he is not like how you are describing him at all."

"Oh is that so, well how is he then Rose?" Butterfly's tone was suddenly hostile.

"Charlie is…. sweet, kind even." Rose stammered as all eyes in the room were suddenly now on her. He's smart, and funny… and…" Rose's throat began to feel dry and her voice tapered off.

"Where is all this coming from Rose?" The dark haired girl was shorter than Rose but somehow Rose always felt smaller when Butterfly was like this. "Do you actually feel for this male?"

"... he's… my friend." She practically whispered.

"Did you not listen when Contessa laid out how dangerous these creatures are when you first brought the location of a living male to our beloved Magistrate? How could you let yourself feel sympathy for this beast? What is going on with you Rose?" Rose took a step back at each question Butterfly asked. She could feel the tears forming in her eyes. She couldn't break down and cry at the event, even in the face of the dressing down the woman who was supposed to love her was giving her.

"Oh my word, Butter!" said one of the academics with a gasp. "She's in his thrall! He must have taken her during the trip."

"He was unbound when they arrived at the citadel!" Someone shouted from the crowd.

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"No!" Said Rose, the temperature of her face rising. She knew it must be turning bright red.

"Rose!" Cried Butterfly, her face looking utterly shocked. "Did he touch you? How could you let him take you? Did you even fight back?"

"No… he didn't touch me." Rose cried, as tears would no longer be denied. "Well… he pulled me out of the pit with the trogs. And he fixed my leg in the shelter. But he never touched me like you're implying…"

The voices from the crowd closed like sharks smelling blood in the water.

"How did he touch you?"

"How did it feel to be touched that way?"

"Did he share the secrets of male passion from the legends?"

The voices blurred together and Rose began to feel like they were drowning her. She could bear no more and ran from the room sobbing. The only voice she could make out over the din as it faded into the distance was Butterfly calling after her. But soon, it too faded.

The door opened after a few hours. The first person through was Discorda followed by the head lady. She was flanked by three young women in gray robes. Charlie sat up straight and tried to improve the mood with levity, "I don't mind sparse accommodations but I wouldn't have minded a book." Without a word in response Rose's larger sister pushed him down on the table and attached restraints that pulled out of the table onto his limbs. "Well, this is not exactly encouraging." As she fastened him to the table, Charlie could not help notice one of the gray girls standing behind Discorda jutted out her lower jaw and scratched her head. This caused a giggle in the other girls. He noticed on the big woman's face that their joke didn't go unnoticed. She closed her eyes and sighed as she finished his bindings. "I'm beginning to suspect you ladies are just into tying people up." He whispered to her with a smile and a wink.

"This is serious ladies," the head mistress, as Charlie was beginning to think of her, "if you can not compose yourselves you will be excused." She stepped up to the table, and for the first time seemed to look Charlie in the eye. "Can one of you tell me what we have?" She asked while her eyes attempted to burn through him.

"A male." One of the girls piped up.

She raised an eyebrow, Mr. Spock style, and turned to the anxious girl. "A male what Petunia? Be specific."

"Sorry Magistrate," she apologized trembling, "a male of the homo sapien sapiens species."

"Correct. And what is his importance to us?"

The jokester from earlier spoke up in a snide voice, "he possesses, in theory, untainted spermatozoa we can use to revitalize our genetic base and reverse the trend of pregnancy failures our current system is experiencing."

"Excellent as always Agatha," she smiled as she turned back to Charlie lying there. she grasped the front of his pants and with a rip of velcro, opened a flap he hadn't realized was there.

Charlie yelped as she reached in to manipulate his testicles. "A little handsy. You might have warned me. Do I need to turn my head and cough?"

"Shouldn't it be bigger?" Commented Agatha.

"Shouldn't your boobs?" Countered Charlie.

As Agatha's eyes widened in fury the third girl gasped, "you mean it can actually talk? I thought it just mimicked phrases."

Charlie felt the Magistrate's grip tighten as he winced in pain, "behave yourself male, or you will wish you had."

Over the next few hours devices rose from the floor scanning him completely, especially around the crotch. He heard discussion of harvesting his testicles to extract the sperm. Before he could protest though, the Magistrate nixed this claiming if left intact they could continuously be harvested as they produced more. Charlie began to realize this would not be as pleasant an experience as he first thought.

Rose sat in the archive, head down on her arms crossed over the console. Her back spasmed with sobs and she sniffed at random intervals. She berated herself for breaking down like that. She was the captain of the guard, she was a decorated warrior, she was not supposed to cry like a little girl.

"I thought I'd find you here." Butterfly's voice announced her arrival.

Rose looked at the time in the display, "after an hour and a half almost." She said in a distasteful tone without facing her.

"I had damage control to do. I had to protect your image after that outburst." Her tone conveyed that she was still upset as well.

Rose sat up and wiped away the tears with a final sniff. "I don't care about my image, you do."

"You are an important woman. You should be respected. And you are my significant, so yes your image is important to me, more than my own in fact." She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed, "did he do something to you in the wastes? Did he touch you?"

Rose's eyes narrowed, "No." She said firmly. "I am still me. I am unsullied, if you must know. You think of me as unfaithful?"

"No, babe. I just don't know what he is capable of. You know the legends. What they say about men." Butterfly appealed to her.

"The last man died hundreds of years ago. You think, maybe the legends could have become overblown in that time?" A small chuckle escaped a half smile on Rose's lips, "Charlie is no warrior, he wasn't about to overpower me. And besides, as I said he's not like that. Charlie is nice, we don't have to fear him."

It was Butterfly's turn to sigh, "how do you know it isn't an act? How do we know nice isn't some sort of ploy?"

"It's not, trust me." Rose replied.

"He could be manipulating you, he could be manipulating everyone. Maybe it would be best if you didn't have contact with him anymore." Butterfly pleaded.

"I am captain of the guard. He is important, I can't not have contact. Especially if he's somehow dangerous. It is my duty, B." Rose stepped up and wrapped her arms around her. "Things will be fine I promise."

Charlie was brought food by Discorda. Some bread, mostly vegetables that were all raw. As she sat the plate down and turned to leave Charlie caught her arm.

"It bugs you how they treat you doesn't it?" She stood there for a second then nodded. "They are just jealous of you," he continued, "and maybe afraid. I'd have been killed by that berserker beast if not for you. Thank you by the way. You're skilled and strong, and brave and kind of pretty actually. In my day there were a lot of people who would have loved to meet a girl like you. They would have called you Amazon and meant it as a compliment. Don't worry what they think, they wouldn't have lasted an hour out there in the waste. Not like you, you could rule out there."

She paused for a moment and then pulled away from his grip. She paused once more at the door as if contemplating his words and then left. Charlie picked up his plate and began to eat. Some of the veggies were recognizable, others seemed completely new. But none of them were horrible.

Charlie awoke to the door opening once again and the Magistrate and her cronies had returned. Discorda once more secured him to the table, but as he expected this now he didn't fight this time and it went smoother. A new device was wheeled in behind them. The table tilted up at an angle and the boss lady once more ripped open the flap that covered his genitals. Charlie glanceed up at the mezzanine above the room and spotted a familiar face. Rose stood up there waving with a big smile, mouthing 'hi Charlie'. She was not in her armor now but instead wore some kind of gown. The left side of the chest was decorated in ribbons and pins that reminded Charlie of military medals. He surmised this must be a dress uniform for her. She was done up now, makeup and hair done, her hair shone in the overhead lights and was braided down the opposite side from the pins. It occurred to him that this didn't make her any prettier. It was nice, it was different, but it seemed she was just as pretty done up as she was injured and frazzled in the wastes.

His attention was drawn back to the room when one of the girls screamed. "It can move on its own."

"Shit," Charlie panicked as his little friend began to wake up as he was thinking about Rose. And she was watching. He couldn't bring himself to look to see what her reaction was but he felt sure she would be horrified.

"Restrain it." Said the Magistrate, and Discorda pulled a strap across the table, pinning his penis to his stomach.

"It's ok." Said Charlie, straining against the uncomfortableness of the strap. "It's supposed to do that, that's how you get the sperm out."

"No, male." The boss replied coldly, "that won't be necessary." As the end of the table began to split from itself, spreading his legs apart. "We have no need of your seminal fluid. Just your sperm cells."

The new machine was wheeled in and up against the table. The machine clamped down on his testicles, prompting an outcry from Charlie.

"Ow, ow. Ok is that really necessary?" He shouted.

"Quiet male, or you will be gagged." The Magistrate responded.

Suddenly Charlie felt the pain of needles piercing each of his balls. Charlie screamed, he swore and he screamed some more.

An intercom clicked to life, the voice of Rose pouring out frantically, "mother! Mother, stop you're hurting him!"

"Rose, please be calm. He is fine. You know men don't actually feel anything." The Magistrate replied unemotionally.

"He does not sound fine, mother!" Cried Rose.

Mother. Charlie surprised himself that underneath the pain he could feel humiliation at the same time. She was the daughter of the lady in charge. Because of course she was. If she didn't have reasons to hate men after this war they had, one of them came out of the wastes with her daughter under questionable circumstances. He was being tortured by a pissed off mother.

"Why is he making those sounds?" Asked Agatha.

"He doesn't feel anything. Men don't feel. He is just trying to manipulate us into letting him go. Continue the extraction!" The Magistrate yelled.

Petunia focused back on the viewfinder and manipulated the probes. The third girl looked on her tablet at Charlie's vitals, "cardiac rate up sixty percent, neurological activity up one hundred twenty!"

"I said he is fine, Olive. Those readings are insignificant."

"Then why am I bothering to monitor them?" She asked Agatha.

As Charlie continued to scream and howl, Rose continued to attempt to appeal to her mom, "mother please. Please stop it, you're hurting Charlie."

Contessa spoke toward the ceiling, "Butterfly."

"Yes ma'am." The reply echoed in the room over the intercom.

"Please remove my daughter from the observation level. Take your significant somewhere till she is more calm."

"Yes ma'am."

In moments Butterfly appeared on the next level and dragged Rose out of sight. She apparently had to physically fight her out of the room it seemed. The procedure continued and Charlie endured over half an hour of the extraction process before finally passing out.

Charlie lay there, curled up on his side, his whole body aching. His genitals understandably, but his chest ached from screaming, his muscles from thrashing against the bonds. His throat ached from his own voice and his head pounded from the stress of it all. At some point he believed he must have died in the pod and he now found himself in hell. Another plate of food had been brought in, but it sat untouched. The towel he'd held onto was acting as padding between his legs as he propped his head up on his arm.

"Charlie?" Reached his ears, drifting on that all too well known voice. But even its beautiful sound did nothing to ease his pain. Rose stood there head down and hands behind her back.

After several seemingly eternal heartbeats he responded, his back still to her, "what more do you all want?" He knew that hostility was unwarranted. But he was too tired to bite it back right now.

"Are you alright, Charlie?" She asked softly, "I'm so sorry Charlie, I didn't know that was going to happen."

"Mother not share the plan with you before you set out to bring me back?"

"No, she did not. And that was stupid of me not to consider it. After hundreds of years post war against males, the myths and rumors of your kind rule our consciousness. I should have known. I guess they are right, I'm not very bright. I'm just a pretty symbol to be leveraged for political gain." Tears she thought she was out of began to run down her cheeks once more. And she turned to leave Charlie be.

"What's it like, Rose?" He asked, braving the pain to turn to face her. "What's it like to be wanted?"

"What do you mean?" She asked while wiping her cheeks with a sleeve. "You are the most wanted thing in the world."

"No," he replied, "my testicles are the most wanted thing in the world. My seed. Charlie is just a support system for them. No one gives a crap about me. I'm familiar with being needed. People always need something from me. But I'm never wanted. I have always been the first one thought of when they need something but the first to be forgotten when the party starts." He looked at her green eyes sparkling in the light from her tears. "My mother left when I was four. She needed to find herself so she ended up joining some cult. By the time my father tracked it down the whole lot of them had disappeared off the face of the Earth. He was a military man, he blamed me for being stuck at a desk because he had to be around for me. When I was eight he found some friends of his to watch me so he could accept one last field mission. It was supposed to be less than a month but he got himself killed on that , oh so important mission. From then on it was foster home after foster home. Never more than a few months. I busted my hump and graduated early so I could go to university when I was sixteen. I didn't ever make friends or have time for girls. I had to graduate to support myself. So no one would be stuck with me that didn't want me. My roommate Todd was my first friend. He was rich, handsome, and every girl wanted him and his friends. Our friends I guess, but Todd was the only one that remembered me most of the time. But even he was distractible when it came to girls. He saw girls as trophies, not that he was horrible, but he just was always more interested in the next girl than the one he had. What I wouldn't have given for just one of them to look at me the way they did him. I had plenty of women who saw me as a friend. To fix things, to build things, even to reassure them they were pretty when Todd would drop them and move on to the next. But I was never what they wanted. If I'd ask if they would like to go out sometime most of them would even laugh in my face. He wasn't a monster like in your legends, but I'm sure he was the epitome of what those myths are founded on. Me? I might as well not exist, but here I am, paying the price for their behavior. Once again cleaning up their messes."

"I am so sorry Charlie." Rose said finally, drawing out the words in a hope he would understand how much she really meant them. "Being too wanted isn't great either. Everybody wants something of me. One mother wants me to be a great leader, one wants me to be a great warrior. Butterfly wants me to take her to the top. My squad wants a leader, my people to save us from extinction. I just want to hide and read and forget about it all." Once again Rose found herself weeping, "But I'm not a leader, I'm not bright, I don't make good decisions. I'm the captain of the elite guard but I don't like to hurt people. That's like the job, to protect others you have to fight. And I don't know if my significant loves me or just loves where I can get her. I'm sick of it Charlie." Charlie had sat up painfully on the table as she stumbled forward into him. "Don't wish to be wanted Charlie, being wanted is too much pressure."

They wrapped their arms around one another as Charlie whispered, "it's ok. All you have to be is you. And you are not dumb. There are many types of intelligence, you are emotionally intelligent. And it isn't a bad thing to not like hurting anyone. You have compassion, and that is the most valuable thing in existence. Decisions made with the heart are never bad decisions. You can lead an empire on compassion."

Rose squeezed him tight, prompting a wince from Charlie. "Oh I'm sorry, you're in pain." She let go of him to rush over to a wall and place her hand on it. A box came to life on the surface and she pushed a rapid succession of tabs. Another door opened in the wall and she took out a cylinder.

She rushed over to him and poked his arm with the it. A quick hiss and Charlie began to feel light headed, but the pain began to rapidly recede. "Better?" She asked with a genuine smile. Charlie nodded and she helped him lay back down, "I will try to get her to stop. If I can't, I promise to sneak you another shot before she comes." Charlie drifted off to sleep and Rose gently kissed his forehead before walking with purpose out the door.

She stopped outside and looked at her big sister standing guard. "He doesn't deserve to be tortured, does he?" The large woman remained stoic, torn between her duty and the love of her sister. "Does he?" Discorda shook her head and Rose continued on.

Contessa sat in her lab as the AI sorted the sperm cells harvested from Charlie. The machine scanned the seed for X and Y chromosomes and sorted them into separate vials. The door opened to Rose storming into the room.

"You have no right to treat him like that," she practically growled.

The Magistrate inhaled slowly before turning around to face what was in her opinion her daughter's temper tantrum. "Why should you care, Rose? It's a man. I needn't remind you how they destroyed our world." She said, confident in the superiority of her argument.

"He was asleep before that war ever began. How can you hold him responsible for things that happened after he was put to sleep?" Rose's counterpoint caught her off guard, but Contessa had been making this point long before her daughter was born.

"It's not just the war, Rose. Long before the war men subjugated us for thousands of years. Took our rights, our voice and even control of our womanhood. We were property and it was going on long before him. So he slept through the war, it does not excuse him!" She was out of breath, and more furious than she intended to be. And she didn't know why. Why did this man make her so mad? All of them were gone. The rest of his kind were no more. He was a resource, she should have no emotional connection, yet she filled him with rage.

Rose saw the confused look on her mother's face as she ended her own argument and seemed lost in her own point. She took a breath and remembered how Charlie said that compassion was the most valuable thing in existence. "But what about us?" She began, "what about what we did? We wiped out half our species. When we had them defeated, we could have just subjugated them. Put them under our rule. Why did we wipe them out? As heartless and cruel as you claim they were, what does that say about us?" She took her mother's hand in hers, "did we become the monster we sought to destroy?"

Her daughter's words felt like they had stabbed her in the heart. What had they become?

Butterfly burst into the lab suddenly, panicked. "Magistrate, we have an issue!"

Still thrown by her daughter's point the intrusion annoyed her more than anything, "Butterfly, the point of having an assistant is that you handle problems so I do not have to." When she looked at her the petite girl was pale.

"Ma'am," she began as slow as she dared, "the Grand Magistrate is arriving."

The door opening once again roused Charlie from slumber, but the elevated tones of Rose and her mother shocked him awake. Five warrior women in gold armor entered the room, followed by a woman that easily stood over six feet tall. Rose and the Magistrate followed, the boss lady was frantic in explaining something to the new woman who coldly replied, "You had a male in custody, You made no effort to inform me or the council, I had to hear of it through private channels. You have no means to support a prisoner long term. And you spit in the face of those women who died on a hairbrained quest to bring back this," the tall woman paused to look disapprovingly at Charlie, "thing."

"Celeste," said Contessa as calmly as she could muster, "my love, it was your daughters that successfully brought him to us. He is the key to undoing the falling birth rate, I am sure of it. But you cannot take him, I need him to fix the problem."

Celeste turned to Contessa, seeming to take pleasure in lording her height over the woman, "as I understand, all you need is his seed. You can come and harvest all you want while I hold him in the Citadel of Justice. My dear Tessa, I am merely annoyed by how we came by this male. What I am angry about is his existence should have been kept from the public. This whole citadel witnessed him being brought in and the rest of the citadels found out over social channels. You have instigated a panic across our whole society. He will be held somewhere the public will feel he is contained for the safety of everyone."

Rose and Contessa were silent so the golden guards flanked the table, dragged Charlie to his feet and produced a set of binders.

"Wait." Said Rose with uncharacteristic firmness, "I am captain of the guard here." She stepped up to the guard and snatched her binders from her, "securing the prisoner is my obligation."

She stood in front of Charlie before making a show of patting him down. When she reached the top of his pants he felt like she shoved something down them. She quickly moved on up his body and when her head was close enough to his, Rose whispered, "I will fix this Charlie, I swear." And with a swift motion, slapped binders on his wrists once again.

Charlie was marched through the citadel to a pad on the side of the tower, high above the ground. One of the transports, like they had crashed in the waste, awaited. The golden guard escorted him aboard, Celeste turned to her significant and her daughters, "I will be in touch about getting access to the male for your research." She lightly kissed Contessa's cheek, like this was just a routine visit, boarded the vessel and the ramp closed.

Rose stood at attention as the ramp closed, slowly cutting off her view of Charlie, and it sped away. Discorda put an arm around her sister as Rose wept into her sister's chest.

Contessa watched them grieve and looked to the diminishing transport whispering, "what have I done?"