Chapters Beta Academy Chapter 3
Jessica found herself in a mood after breakfast. She loved Amy, like Alpha families must love each other in the world outside, but the way that girl unchecked herself from the limitations of their reality just annoyed her sometimes. After seeing Cathy uncheck too, and never come back… No, it was Jessica’s responsibility to watch out for her sister. Amy could daydream and lose focus in a way that was really harming her future, and so Jess was nervous for their classes today, hoping for good news for her sister. Still, first period was not yet the class which would decide her fate.
As her chair controls deactivated and the lesson began, Jessica smiled up from the second row at the young History teacher at the front of the classroom. Not as young as her, of course, but Miss Alyssa couldn’t have been older than thirty. The teacher had been a kind of mentor to her, a relationship grown over the last year and a half quite naturally once Jessica asked for after-hours tutoring. She felt a connection with her teacher, more than any other staff member, and one could see why. She was kind, smart, and she was the only staff member in the whole school who actually looked like her students, who knew what it was like for them. Most of the other teachers and supervisors meant well, of course, but to them Jess was still just a Beta with a Purpose, plain and simple.
“Good morning, sisters! Let’s pick up where we left off on Friday. Does anyone remember— yes, precisely: the Independence Day Attack of 2017.”
There was a pause before Miss Alyssa’s digital notes appeared on the desk in front of her, its faux-wood surface dissolving, actually a terminal monitor which had been on standby. A second later the projector above her warmed up and began the video content for today’s lesson. She read off her screen to start but was soon directing her impassioned lecture toward the class, her shoulders unconsciously gesturing where arms instinctually would have.
“…it was a desperate act, backed into a corner, unaware of the consequences, a clear confirmation of how badly the world needed a treaty on biological and genetic weapons, like those on landmines or nuclear weapons before, and how badly we needed a solution for political strife, stagnation, and brinkmanship.”
Another pause while the famous videos of the explosion in San Francisco Bay played above her, where an Alpha Teacher would have stood with a long pointer in their dexterous hands.
“I don’t need to remind the class of the ramifications of that day.”
The teacher shuffled absentmindedly in her seat; her wheelchair. Of course the girls understood the ramifications, as the class was lined, front to rear, with twenty-four short wheelchairs, a young woman aged 17-18 in each one, each wearing the identical state-issued uniform. Or mostly young women, but it was easier to generalize when there was but one gender anomaly for every thousand Beta girls, in a world where any Beta was one to every forty Alphas. Yes, Alyssa would teach half the 11th grade girls after her gap period, and then the other batch of 12s. Every student would be in the same outfit, the same apparatus, strapped into their chairs and their destiny.
“The irresponsibility of the countries before the World Protectorate System is appalling, as you can see. Irresponsible with the environment, with humanity itself. Shortly after the breakout, a large segment of the population were focused solely on how the Independence Attacks would hurt the economy, their money. They had no concern for the reports of strange birth defects along the west coast.”
Jess was eating this up, but she knew it all already, they all did. The reason she liked Miss’ class was that she didn’t just teach what happened, she taught them why it happened. Nothing in History this year was very new or scandalous, they were just learning more detail, motivations, reasons, opinions; interesting only to a secret nerd like herself. Some supervisors openly questioned why the Betas were even taught anything of the sort, but intelligence and aptitude needed to be measured somehow, and besides, Miss Alyssa herself was a testament to the benefits of such an education.
More than 60 years ago, from what they had been told, the world was a much scarier place. Ghastly wars were being fought left and right, and the former USA was actually a huge perpetuator of that world, constantly vying for dominance. National ideologies were constantly in flux, at each others’ necks. Communism had fallen, why not capitalism? Even as far as they had come technologically, there had been conflict, starvation, inequality everywhere, and the Earth was on its last legs.
Jessica wondered to herself: it couldn’t have been as bad as they say, could it? There had been seven billion people before the collapse! But if Miss Alyssa was teaching the same material as all the others, it must have been true to some degree. So yes, famine and strife and inequality and all the rest.
That is, until a loaded missile was sent to San Francisco Bay one autumn morning. Apparently it didn’t do much damage, merely grazing the Golden Gate before hitting the water, so the government hardly looked at it, too busy coordinating a full-scale war with North Korea in retaliation. But they failed to notice the contaminants onboard until it was much too late, until it had spread through the water. Ten years of failed quarantines and martial law later, the world was a very different place, and the first generation of Betagirls were growing up in the fledgling Academies of the North American Protectorates.
Jessica wondered who had come up with the term “Beta” for them. Hints in her memory from a middle school lecture attributed the term to Joseph Eldridge, the UN Secretary-General and and creator of the Academies, but that might equally have been hearsay spread by the other girls, Jess couldn’t remember. It was sometimes hard keeping facts straight living in a closed school where rumours spread like a game of telephone. But anyways, in such a progressive society, it seemed a little harsh, portraying her and her friends as “less-than” or secondary to the rest of society, even when they were so important.
Her Biology teacher had finally told them why they were important only six months ago. Why they were imbibed with the Purpose. Why their home and the few places they traveled to beyond the fences were under such tight security. Of course, Jessica 326 had always known her one role in life, what she was raised for, what the Purpose reinforced ever more strongly as she got older, but her Bio teacher Miss Dierdre had finally enlightened them to the reality outside the walls of the Academy. The girls had all gossiped about for so long that she would have guessed naturally, but it was nice to finally know.
Riiiiing, that’s the end of class!
Miss called out her closing announcements, “Remember to do your readings, up to section 7.2, with the initialization of the UN World Protection and Stabilization Plan by Joseph Eldridge. Hey, Ashley 312! I noticed in the access log that you only skimmed today’s section last night. You have to try harder, dear. And yes, yes, this will all be on the quiz next week. See you on Wednesday.”
A resounding sigh preceded a faint whirring; the mass exodus of twenty-four chairs. Even though Jessica’s chair was now unlocked from her spot on the floor, she didn’t move her shoulder against the controls to roll out of the classroom. No, she fought against her tight waist strap a bit instead, in a bid to let the classroom empty so she could go up and talk to Miss Alyssa. Looking up, she locked eyes with Adam just as he passed on his way out, a quiet smile lighting up his face, lighting up the fireflies in her stomach.
“Hey!” she bursted, cheeks flushing red.
“Hey, Jess.” he said, undoubtedly knowing she would hang back: it was common-enough.
She looked back down quickly as he passed by and left, motors whirring. He did have a nice voice, she thought through the haze.
When Jessica finally rolled herself up to the front of class, the room nearly cleared out, the small teacher across the foot-high mock desk gave her an eye, not without a smirk. “You know you can’t keep skipping PT like this, Jess. You don’t want the supervisors to take away your controls.”
Jessica didn’t need reminding. “I know, Miss, I just wanted to clarify some things.” Alyssa nodded for her to continue on. “So I don’t really understand, did they think the Beta virus would only incapacitate the United States? How didn’t they know it would spread?”
“Well, Jess, that’s a good question. We won’t really ever know, we can’t ask them ourselves, but I’m sure you’ve learned about the scientific method and experimental responsibility in Biology class when you studied the big breakthroughs, right?”
Jessica puzzled to herself, “I… don’t think so, Miss, they must have changed the curriculum since you lived here. All we cover is Alpha and Beta physiology, oh and reproductive science of course. The rest, I’m not sure…”
This seemed to momentarily tick the older woman off, but she caught herself and said cryptically, “Hmmm, so they stopped pretending. Well… you give and take at the Cascadian Academy, always remember that you girls are lucky compared to many others. I was raised here, as you know, and only by the luck of being distributed here after birth was I educated enough to be able to teach all of you.”
Jessica could only imagine what an Academy anywhere else must be like, or if they even had Academies like this; she had only rarely ever left these walls or the dense evergreen forests beyond for short class trips to the beach or museums nearby in Seattle, and even then, they were always back in the group strollers in sets of eight, treated like toddlers yet again, guarded heavily by Enforcers to boot. And besides those little glimmers, where all the girls were stunned silent by curiosity as they were led on a leash through the land of the Alphas — the “normals” — it was strictly taboo to ask about other Academies, or the Future Centers, or even the specifics of life for everyday people. Everyone did anyways, but not without great care. It was strange… like her curiosity could not be put into words.
“From what I’ve read, the Beta Virus was supposed to only affect people of European and settler descent, to tip the scales toward the East and fulfill their old vengeance and supremacist agenda we talked about last week, but of course that would be an impossible genetic puzzle to unwind. There’s barely one hundredth of a percent of our DNA that makes each of us unique from each other. No it was a mistake to even try, so everyone but the few microcolonies still in successful quarantine is now a carrier, and once you graduate to one of the Future Centers in Seattle, your Alpha offspring will be distributed to Alpha pairs based on factors that have nothing to do with race or sexual orientation for that matter. They may even end up with Korean parents! So remember, that even though we have to live with the repercussions of that day, they failed, and out of necessity we haven’t had a war since.”
This perplexed Jessica even as she nodded in agreement. The world seemed like a better place, but was such a disaster necessary to bring us to this state? Sure, war was a thing of the past, but at what cost? So spiteful, so careless, so…
“Miss, one last thing, I’ve always wondered, why are you not in a Future Center? I mean you seem like you have so much to give the Protectorate, to the people of Cascadia.”
The older woman shuffled in her seat a bit. The question obviously made her uncomfortable. “And am I not giving what I have to you, Jessica? After all our little chats like this, you must know by now that’s a very inconsiderate question.”
The young woman blushed, “I’m sorry… I didn’t—”
“No no, you should be told, but only because you’ll find out soon for yourself. This does not leave this room, do you understand me, young lady?”
Jessica was all ears, nodding.
“You know why we have our Future Centers, of course? So we can keep the ‘engine of humanity’ alive?”
This was all review for Jessica from that quiet day in Bio class; it turned out that nearly all Alpha women were infertile, it was the Betas’ job to make sure humanity didn’t go extinct. This infertility was the real intended curse of the Beta Virus; Jess and the lot of them were all just a side-effect, an exception.
“Well… not all of your Purposes will be fulfilled.”
“Yes, of course Miss, Low Betas don’t get to—”
“No, not just them. Not all of the graduates will be birthers in the Center.”
This hit Jessica like a brick wall. Every ounce of her training, her entire future, Purpose, and self-worth all revolved around becoming a birther. It was everything! All-encompassing! She suddenly realized how careless her question had been. Miss Alyssa was a Beta too, after all. She had the Purpose hardwired into her brain. She needed this as much as any of them.
“I can’t tell you much more, just know that it’s very important for you all to perform well in the Academy before you graduate. I know you’ll do fine Jess, you’re my best student, but there is much you still don’t know about what comes after… all of this…” She trailed off with a look of deep emptiness in her eyes, and a large part of Jessica regretted ever asking.
“You best be off to PT, now. Miss Harriet isn’t a very forgiving woman.”