Freedom - 2 (Young Justice in Genosha)

by D Benway

It's another fine spring day. The sun's not coming in directly through the window, but it's reflecting off the refectory wall. I'm almost tempted to put colorful film in the camera to capture the effect. Instead, I focus on my Xhosa translation exercise for the tutorial tomorrow. It's something political, which means that Mr. Mthembi will be able to criticize any interpretation I come up with. I do so love a challenge.

I'm into the first paragraph when I hear Col outside, in the hall. As usual, he's not alone.

"I mean, zero?" I hear Cassandra say. "I worked all night on that. I covered six pages, single spacing, and he gives me a zero? Don't you think that's harsh?"

"Yeah," says Col.

"If you had answered the question that was asked, I'm sure that your efforts would have been rewarded," says an unfamiliar voice.

Col opens the door. The sun from the window on the landing is shining right on him. He's got a shirt on, not buttoned up. He's wearing that leather thong around his neck, the one with the piece of jade in it. The jade is the green of the sea. It's resting right over his heart.

"Hey, Robin," says Cassandra.

Col gives me a nod. Bartholomew and the girl from yesterday follow him into the room.

"I don't believe we were properly introduced," she says. "My name is Cecily. Cecily Jane Goldsmith-Smith."

"Robin Timothy Drake," I say.

From her accent, I know she's of my class, and that she's one of the children of a Jewish woman who married an Anglican to save her daughter from complete ostracism. I can hear a hint of Mount Albert in her voice, which suggests that she's not from that well-off a family. The name seems familiar, but I can't place it.

"You're wondering where you've seen her before," says Cassandra.

"Of course not," I say, perhaps a bit too insistently.

After all, it would be rude to pry, and I'll learn far more from rooting through Bruce's files.

"She was in the All-Africa Games last year," says Cassandra, ignoring all the usual rules of politeness in her usual American way. "She won the gold for archery, but they snatched it from her when she failed the drug test."

Cecily flushes. She's wearing a sleeveless sundress. She is almost as muscular as Col. Cassandra's arms are thin as spars, but last week she and Col tossed my car back and forth like a soccer ball for a quarter of an hour. Those of us not cursed with a mutation often feel a need to compensate.

"Bummer," says Col, pretending he's American again.

"Right," mutters Bartholomew. "Bummer."

"But it was all a fix, huh?" says Cassandra.

"Cassandra," says Cecily, who obviously lacked the ability to see that Cassandra cannot keep a confidence.

"I mean, you said they faked it because you didn't let that mutant girl win," says Cassandra.

It's a conclusion that I would expect a cheat to reach. It's also very plausible. Bruce has told me once about the unofficial quotas for the games. I can't imagine that the authorities would have been too pleased if she had won out of turn. I'll have to ask him. They usually don't leave that sort of detail in the files. Cheating at sport is something that even the State Security Executive is loathe to admit to.

"I would rather not discuss it," said Cecily.

"Come on, Cass, chill," says Col.

"I mean, it totally sucks," says Cassandra, heedless. "If you won, you won. I mean, it's not like everyone else isn't doing PE drugs."

I resist the urge to parse.

"So you feel that I should have received partial credit?" says Cecily.

Col winces, but Cassandra misses it, as usual.

"I mean your mother shouldn't have gotten 5 years on Godden Island for it," says Cassandra.

Five years? On Godden? For that? She'll be lucky if she sees her mother alive again, unless they give in and start allowing visitors.

"How about those Hammerheads?" says Col.

It's a futile attempt to change the subject, as I'm pretty sure he's the only person on the island who cares about our football team, which has the stupidest name in all of Africa.

"Did they play yesterday?" says Cecily, more than a little desperately.

"Dunno," says Col. "They didn't say in the paper. It's all full of election shit."

"Elections aren't shit," says Cassandra. "They're real important, especially in a fledgling democracy like this."

It takes a moment to make the parallel between a civil process and small birds learning to fly.

"We've had a democracy here since the mid-19th century," I say.

"But you didn't elect your president," says Cassandra.

No-one responds. I look at Col. Col looks at Cecily. Cecily looks at me. I look at the phone. Col and Cecily see me looking at the phone. Bartholomew pays no attention, he's immersed in his game. Cassandra doesn't see a thing. She doesn't know how all the phones used to work even when the receiver wasn't lifted.

"Let's go outside," I say, opening my window.

I step through it, onto the roof. We're not supposed to do this, as it causes leaks into the room below. Still, if we stay back from the parapet, no-one will see us. Col was seen standing out here at the beginning of term, and was assigned thirty pages of Zulu to translate. It took me all night to finish it.

"Cool," says Cassandra. "I had no idea this was here. We're always flying in and out through Col's window."

"Stay back from the edge," says Col. "Rob needs his sleep."

Cecily is staring at me as she steps over the sill. Bartholomew discreetly closes the window behind her. If anyone's listening, I hope they'll take it for a door. They probably aren't. After all, they've got me here.

"So how about those Hammerheads?" says Col.

"Hah," says Cassandra. "Trying to change the subject?"

"They're playing Cape next week," says Cecily.

"Your president wasn't elected," says Cassandra. "There's never been anything about that in the newspaper here."

"He was appointed by an interim government after a coup," I say. "All of our previous presidents and prime ministers were elected, all the way back to 1848."

"They were?" says Cassandra.

"You've been here a year," I say. "Don't you know any of our history?"

"History's never been my thing," says Cassandra.

"Didn't you read about it in the newspaper in America?" I say.

"I didn't used to read the paper," says Cassandra. "I have to, here, so I can figure out all the weird shit."

"Weird shit," says Col.

"Sorreee," says Cassandra, bending over and giving Col a hug.

She does that a lot. Cecily gives me a look. I wonder if it was Col who brought her along, or if it was Cassandra.

"Why don't you give her the lowdown?" says Col, to me. "Didn't you win the iodine prize last year?"

"Iodine prize?" says Cecily, lifting an eyebrow.

"I.O.D.E. Prize For Best Historical Essay," I say. "I did a study of elections under the old regime."

"So tell me," says Cassandra. "I wanna know."

Oh God. Oh well, at least it can't be worse than giving my paper to all those old bats and watching as they fell asleep from all the G&Ts they'd had for lunch.

"Right," I say. "The island was colonized by Boer settlers from the mainland, who believed that the Boer leadership were taking too soft a line with the natives. Some 500 survived the straits, and they settled at Hammer Bay in 1848. They killed off the few thousand natives who were here when they landed, and then elected their first leaders. They ran the place as a constitutional republic until 1903, when the British annexed it after the Boer War."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," says Cassandra. "What about all the black kids around here? You had two black presidents, I know that much."

"They came over with the British," I say. "The British didn't want to work on their farms, and the settlers certainly wouldn't, so they brought over guest workers from the mainland, mostly from Natal and Transvaal."

"So this was part of South Africa?" says Cassandra.

"Not quite," I say. "We weren't included in the Union because the British wanted a good harbour near the Cape in case the Boers tried to take the Union over to an enemy. We had a governor appointed from London, but we elected our own prime ministers."

"Funny thing," says Cassandra. "I'm hearing you say 'the British', but here I am, sitting in this cushy old stone school that looks like it's right in London someplace, listening to one Mr. Robin Timothy Drake suggest in a British accent that he isn't British."

"I do not have a British accent," I say.

"You all do," says Cassandra. "Even Col does when he gets pissed off."

"Have you ever heard an Englishman say 'South Africa' like we do?" says Cecily.

"You mean 'Seth Effrika'?" says Cassandra.

"Not quite that clipped," says Cicely.

"So you all have South African accents?" says Cassandra.

"No, we bloody well don't," says Col.

"Oh, come on," says Cassandra. "You do sound just like them."

"No," I say. "They say 'abowt' and we say 'about'."

"Hm," says Cassandra. "'Abowt' and 'abert'. That's it?"

I look at Cecily. She shrugs.

"Clout?" suggests Col.

"OK, OK, peace, guys," says Cassandra. "Let's hear some more history."

"I've lost my place," I say.

"1903," says Cecily.

"All right," I say. "We had elections every 3 to 5 years under the colonial regime until 1961, except for the ones in 1915, when there were riots over Conscription and the National Unity government was appointed."

"So that one wasn't elected?" says Cassandra.

"There was a plebiscite in which only those whose sons were fighting for Britain could vote," says Cicely. "The National Unity government received a higher plurality than any government before or since."

"Oh," says Cassandra, clearly uncomprehending. "So who was rioting?"

"The Chosen," I say. "They didn't feel there was any need for them to die in a foreign conflict."

"The Chosen," says Cassandra. "Those guys with the black crosses like Red Crosses in the black circles that look like those things on the front of a Mercedes Benz?"

"Them," says Col.

"How come?" says Cassandra. "I mean, back home it's the Christians who always hang around the Army and all."

"They aren't Christians," I say. "Theirs was the faith the Boer settlers converted to in the 1880s. Most of them were of the Dutch Reformed faith until the Prophet arrived from your country in 1881. The Chosen are to the Reformed Church as the Morons are to evangelical Christians in your country."

"Mormons," says Cassandra.

I could be forced to admit that it was a cheap shot. Cecily gives me a quick smile.

"Anyhow, the leadership of the Chosen decided that they didn't want to sacrifice their children to the imperial battlefields," I say.

"They had no trouble sacrificing mutants," says Cassandra.

"Mutants weren't considered to be Chosen," says Col. "Only mundanes could be members of the church."

"So who could be Chosen?" says Cassandra.

"Depends on when it was," I say. "The Chosen allowed Africans to enter the Church just before the UDI, but out in the bush the settlers were still throwing African guest workers onto burning circles."

"List of terms," says Cassandra. "UDI? Burning circles?"

"The Chosen believed that the material world was God's gift to the faithful, and that, as a tribute, some portion of it had to be returned to God," I say. "They would set great bonfires at mid-summer and burn one in ten of their worldly possessions, as well as any apostates they could get their hands on. They only ended that latter custom in the 1950s."

"Apostates were anyone who did not convert to their faith," says Cecily, anticipating the question. "The Chosen had a duty to attempt to convert all those who did not join them. They would kidnap people and take them into the bush for a five week indoctrination and if their victim failed to accept the church, they would be branded apostates, with flaming brands."

"Holy shit," says Cassandra. "You guys were all apostates."

"Yeah," says Col. "None of us got branded, though."

"My mother was branded," says Cecily.

"There were degrees," I say. "Those who were Dutch Reformed or Anglican were only considered to be of the First Degree, but those who weren't initially Christian were considered to be irredeemable."

Cecily is glaring at me. Goldsmith. Damn.

"It wasn't all that important, not before the UDI," I say. "In the 1950s, there weren't enough of the Chosen to form majority governments in the Parliament, since they were outnumbered by the settlers of British and Indian descent. They knew independence was coming, so they started accepting the African guest workers into their faith and started demanding the right for them to vote. The Chamberlain government granted universal suffrage in 1957, and the party of the Chosen won the election in 1960, then declared independence from Britain in 1961. That was the Unilateral Declaration of Independence."

"So was there a revolution?" says Cassandra.

"Not as such," I say. "Our government declared independence after the Governor-General wouldn't agree to the Chosen's demands for altering the suffrage."

"They wanted to give the vote only to the Chosen," says Cecily. "That is exactly what they did, once independence was declared."

"No apostate was allowed to vote, at first," I say. "Although that was relaxed in the 80s when 1st degree apostates were allowed one tenth of a vote."

"We weren't exempt from conscription, though," says Cecily. "Two years in the Magistrates for everyone, two years of continual religious indoctrination. They got my father that way."

"Oh shit," says Cassandra. "You mean, they killed your dad?"

"Might as well have," says Cecily. "He converted and left my mother when she would not. She married the man to escape the ghetto of irredeemable apostasy only to have him cast her back into it. He even disowned his only child, on account of her mother's blood."

I am staring at Cicely. This is not something we would normally discuss in front of strangers. Even Cassandra respects the silence that falls. I've never heard her say anything about her own father. I certainly don't want to think about mine.

"So where do the mutates fit into this?" says Cassandra.

"Mutants started to emerge just after the UDI," I say. "The Chosen decided that they were beyond being irredeemable, especially after one of the first ones started speaking out in favour of a return to universal suffrage. They first set the African converts on them, claiming that mutants were witches and practioners of bad magic. They killed dozens before Moreau went to the government in 1963 to show how he could make better use of them."

"This is the guy that people were calling the Genesomething?" says Cassandra.

"The very one," I say. "The whole story only came out after the coup. He had been an anatomist at the Hammer Bay Veterinary College, contracted by the CIA to assist in an investigation of a spaceship that had crashed in the hills of South Eden in 1958, and when a second ship crashed in 1962, he was able to exploit some of the technology that was recovered."

"It belonged to a collective organism called the Colonizers of Rigel," says Cecily. "They lived in self-contained environmental suits through their entire lives. They also had their primary consciousness erased at birth to make room for the collective. Moreau was able to modify this technology to create the encapsulated mutates."

"So this was enough to make us not worth killing?" says Cassandra.

"There were two issues," I say. "First, Moreau was one of a faction of the Chosen who did not approve of killing mutant children. Second, he was able to show the obvious economic advantages to having mutates who could stand in for the heavy industry that we never properly developed. The economy was almost entirely based on agriculture and the fisheries in 1960, except for the Wayne-Bessemer Iron Works, and the WB had almost been insolvent after the South Africans got ISCOR up and running."

"You omitted a third issue," said Cicely. "We might have managed a slow slide into genteel poverty, but that would have required bringing in even more guest workers from Africa, and that would not have been acceptable to many at that time."

"Bastards," says Col. "Fucking bastards. I can't remember anything from before my 16th birthday. Not one bloody thing."

He never talks about this. I hope he doesn't start hitting things. I don't know how many pages of Zulu I'd have to translate if he punched a hole in the roof. Cassandra moves in for a hug, but Col waves her away.

"Did they have you long?" says Cassandra.

Cicely winces. This is not something we talk about.

"Five years," says Col. "When they cut me out of the suit, my mother and father were dead and the entire street where I lived was gone, destroyed in the final battle of the Civil War."

"I'm sorry," says Cassandra, as if that's supposed to help.

"Shit," says Col. "It hit everybody. Cissie's dad got killed in the initial battles, and they burned Rob's mom."

Stop. Stop. Don't think. Cecily's looking away. Cassandra is staring at me. I will not cry. I will not. I will feel nothing.

"Oh man," says Cassandra. "Look, all I wanted was to know about this election. I mean, I know you guys get really uptight about your personal spaces-"

"So what do you want to know that's so bloody important?" I say.

"Uh-" says Cassandra.

"An American organization called The Right came in to support our government, which was reeling under the sanctions that your country put on it after they didn't need us anymore as a staging area in case South Africa went Communist," I say. "Then the X-Men came in, knocked off the government and The Right and left chaos. We had three years of civil war and damn near everything collapsed, then our new bloody president shows up and says he's running the place. He brings in his mutant allies, who put an end to the war and get the economy rolling again, after a fashion. He takes almost all the power for himself and his appointed cabinet, appoints himself to a ten-year term which is rubber-stamped with an approval from the UN and the American Congress, he sets up the two political parties we had before, he cuts all of the most fanatical and exclusivist Chosen out of the political system, and he starts opening the borders to any bloody mutant who claims to be a refugee from persecution. Our median household income is a tenth of what it was, we still have food rationing, our schoolbooks get printed on bog roll paper, and no-one says fuck all about it. The two parties we have do exactly what they did before, except know they're cheering on fucking Magneto instead of the Church. One nominally represents the Anglos, the others the Boers and the Africans, or something like that. It's just like bloody America, right down to the debate they're having here next week."

There's dead silence at that. Cassandra's looking at her black-painted toenails. Cecily is staring at me, wide-eyed. Col has his head back against the wall, and he's smiling a very small smile.

"Tell it like it is, brother," says Bartholomew, looking up from his game.

"Yeah," says Col. "Tell it like it is."

I am becoming aroused. Thank heaven for loose-fitting trousers.

"I thought there were three candidates," says Cassandra.

"No-one pays any attention to DeVries," I say.

"He's famous back home," says Cassandra. "He's on t-shirts and everything. He was on Letterman with Phish."

"He represents nothing but the old Left," says Cecily. "He proposes that we give up even more than we have already, and turn our backs on the World Bank and all the others who are helping us get back on our feet again. No-one pays him the slightest bit of attention."

"He was our token of resistance before Magneto," I say. "He represents a faction of the Chosen who were opposed to encapsulations and to guest worker restrictions. He was only elected because he could rally both the support of the Uni in his constituency and of the indentured servants that he had freed from his family estates."

"He only got away with that because he was the last direct male descendent of the Prophet," says Cecily.

"So what about that poll?", says Cassandra. "The one before they called the election? The one where they asked who would make the best prime minister? DeVries won that one."

"That poll was paid for by anarchists," says Cicely. "Besides, DeVries's party has never been able elect any other MPs, and so they have no hope of playing any role in Parliament."

"But the election for the Prime Minister is separate from the Parliamentary contests," I say. "He would only need a plurality to win, not that he has a hope of getting one."

Cecily flushes. I have the feeling that she's been too busy in training to keep up on the latest constitutional developments. I can only keep them straight because of the discussions that I have with Bruce.

"So why isn't he in the candidates' debates?" says Cassandra.

"He would have to be picking up at least 15% of committed voters in five consecutive opinion polls," I say. "He's never been able to manage more than 10%."

"Who runs those polls?" says Cassandra.

"The National Electoral Council," I say.

"The government?" says Cassandra.

"Yes," I say.

"This is worse than back home," says Cassandra.

"Yeah," says Col. "It really sucks. DeVries should be in the debates. He'd have something to say about Freektown."

He doesn't really open his eyes when he says it, he leans back in the sunlight, and says it all through that little half-smile of his. My God, he is beautiful.

"That debate," says Cassandra. "Aren't they having it at the Concert Hall across the street?"

"Tomorrow night," says Cicely.

"Really," says Cassandra.

"Nothing we can do about it," I say.

"Dunno," says Col. "Cass. Wanna show you something."

He takes off, his shirt fluttering in the slipstream behind him.

"Bye," says Cassandra.

She takes off after him, her insanely wide-bottomed denim trousers flapping like loose sails. I look around for Bartholomew, but he's gone as well. I am left alone with the very well-informed used athlete.

"Well," she says. "I wonder what that was all about."

"I really have no idea," I say, as I watch them dwindle to two tiny dots and disappear below the treeline.

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