2736

Mari Cho was beautiful. Extravagant, lovely, swathed in flooding robes and dresses, painted gingerly with rosy makeup and accented by shiny teeth. However, something else about her made her especially desirable; she was the last woman on Earth.
	She lived in a rusted underground bunker with her husband Robert who, in all honesty, was hideous. He had a long, drooping face that made it seem as though he was always sobbing. His nose sat at an angle between his awkwardly-distanced brown eyes. But Mari loved him for who he was inside, and he loved her too. Their little bunker with two rooms, one flickering light fixture, and a lumpy mattress was enough for them. It was their home.
	Mari was heavily pregnant. She could barely walk; she had regular fits of vomiting and cold sweats. Robert was deathly afraid for his wife and left one day to find medicine for her. Mari felt her water break just hours after he left and began to sob. She had no time left. The baby was coming. She began to push and tried to give birth on her own, but the pain was almost too much. Each contraction was like a terrible earthquake on the soil of her body and she cried out as far as her lungs could handle. The hatch to the bunker opened once more and Robert clambered to his wife after descending the ladder, nearly dropping the crate of supplies he had tucked under his arm. He successfully birthed the baby, but when he looked up to Mari with a smile across his crooked face, she had died. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he held the wailing child in his arms.
	A few moments later, he heard a stampede of boots overhead and a wave of terror washed over him. The United States Police for Birth and Population Control had finally caught up to them after years of running. When they heard of a female en route to Iowa, they instantly swarmed the state, and have been scouring the place since. It was just their luck that they never looked underground until now. He slowly ascended the rusted ladder that led to the hatch with his baby still in his arm. As he reached the top, a jarring, incessant banging began, and he cringed. Reluctantly he reached out and twisted the handle, knowing death was awaiting him the moment he exited the bunker.
	With no hesitation the agglomeration of soldiers ripped him up out of the hatch and wrangled the baby from his arms. His guttural roar as his child was stolen from him was abruptly truncated as one of the police shot him point-blank between the eyes.
	The soldier holding the child immediately checked its gender. His face lit up as he exclaimed to his fellow soldiers that “yes, this was a girl” and “no, it didn’t matter where Mari Cho went.” They filed into their large speeder and rolled off, kicking red dust over Robert Cho’s slumped cadaver.

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	Susan Cho found herself suspended in a gooey orange slop for most of her life at the USPBPC headquarters. She was wired into to twenty different machines of all shapes and sizes, beeping and glowing with every action, every thought, every twitch. These machines gave her nutrients, kept her unconscious and healthy. Everything she knew was fed to her through one of the wires attached to her skull, constantly pumping her with bits of information that your average twenty-five-year-old woman should know. However, the most important tube on her entire body was the other one on her head. Its purpose was simple; extract pieces of her genetic code, sort it, and throw it in with the rest of the code harvested. It had long since completed this action hundreds of times over, but it was programmed to continue doing so until manually shut down by USPBPC’s executive officer.
	This genetic information was excruciatingly painful to extract from Susan. Each time they did it was the only time her body ever moved. She would open her mouth as if to scream but nothing would break through the sound barrier of the orange jelly. They had to keep this process going until the time was right. Until another girl was born naturally.
Up until that fateful day, April the third, Twenty-Seven Fifty-Seven, not a single female had been naturally birthed. Each had been germinated in a tank similar to the one Susan was in, woven into a perfect recreation of a baby Susan. This baby Susan was delivered via the Stork Program to a happy couple in need of a child. On occasion, this happy couple already consisted of a grown Susan clone, or perhaps even two. The clones grew to be twenty-five in only ten years, in order to counteract the lack of females in the population as quickly as possible. The clones reached age twenty-five the same day that Susan did, even though they were born on her fifteenth birthday.  Once the female population had been somewhat restored, testing for a cure to the disease that wiped it out would begin; however, the effects of the Ovarian super-virus were quickly eradicated due to Susan’s immunity passing to every clone. Therefore, it was possible for the clones to give birth to healthy baby girls. This did not happen until the third of April, ten years after the cloning began.

	The moment this female child was born Susan was immediately removed from her tank. Each tube was meticulously plucked from her skin, leaving red welts. Her eyes blinked open for the first time in many years and she squinted, unable to see in the harsh light. She was blow-dried by a fan that had descended from the ceiling. The remaining chunks of jelly stuck to her body flew off and splattered onto the ground behind her. She was then wrapped in a flowing gradient dress, gradually shifting from bright orange to midnight purple. Her hair was combed, wrapped and curled into a tight bun on top of her head, then donned with a sparkling tiara by another machine. A third machine caked her face with powders and paints, following her face when she moved backwards instinctively. The machine then held out a mirror for her.
	She held her hand to her cheek and gasped quietly. Even though she had never seen another human being, she knew she was gorgeous. Her lips were full and tinged a lovely shade of red. Her brown eyes were framed with black paint that tapered off into points. Her cheekbones were high and the powder used to accentuate them slimmed her face. She thought to herself that there could be no other being as beautiful as she was in this moment, staring into her own eyes. Suddenly, a voice chimed over the intercom.
	“Susan Cho. Welcome back.” The voice was feminine and soft. “Turn to your left.” Susan did as she was told. “Do you see a door there? Walk through it.” She didn’t want to, but her feet carried her anyways, leading her down a long hallway lit brightly by blue LEDs. “We have been waiting a long while for this day.” She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. “The day we can all finally meet you.”
	The hallway came to an end quickly, and Susan found herself at another set of doors. She pressed on the handle reluctantly, flooding the corridor with daylight. Shielding herself from the sunlight, she stepped out onto the veranda in front of her. She could hear commotion all around her, but it wasn’t until her eyes finally adjusted that she saw why.
	There were thousands of shocked faces looking up at her from twenty feet below. Most were silent, some mouthed words to others. Her mouth fell open in horror as she registered what was going on. The same beautiful face she admired from before was looking at her again, this time thousands of times over. These faces roared out in cheers and applause that Susan couldn’t quite hear over the ringing in her ears. She nearly vomited but nothing came out; she had never actually eaten in her life. She clasped her hands onto the podium before her and pressed her forehead onto it. There was a folder with a simple design on it under her forehead. She opened it to find a simple speech for her to read. The ringing slowly subsided as she looked over the papers in front of her.
	“My fellow citizens of the United States,” she began, her voice very hoarse. A quick cough cleared out her throat for the most part. She continued. “Today marks a watershed in our history. We have finally bred the first child of our first generation of naturally-born children in nearly fifty years.” Her heart began to thud rapidly. “As you know, the Children for Humanity’s Outlook project began when I was found under the care of criminals Mari and Robert Cho.” The crowd may have known this, but Susan definitely did not. Her tone of voice marked her concern and curiosity. The audience booed at the mention of their names. “They were attempting to ruin humanity’s chances for survival by….” She fell silent. The crowd looked on in silence as well. Moments passed before she spoke again.
 “Somebody please, help me, where am I? What kind of world is this? Why do you all look like me?! Why did-“ The doors behind her swung open and two people dressed in hefty white armor grabbed her tightly, pulling her by the arms back into the doors. She continued screeching her questions out at the confused crowd.
“Tsk, tsk. You shouldn’t have done that, Susan.” The voice from before was agitated, but somewhat morose. “Take her to her quarters to await execution. She has done her part.”
“Execution? You can’t be serious!” Susan kicked and flailed, but her suspension in jelly did nothing to help muscle gain. The guards remained unfazed.
“You are no longer vital.” With that, the voice never spoke to Susan again. The armored people dragged her down another long hallway and through more doors. They threw her onto a large pile of pillows in the center of the room, then left her. When she got her bearings, she looked around to find she was in a rather opulent bedroom. The bed was dressed in fine silk and donned with dozens of pillows. A wardrobe sat next to it. A fireplace sat adjacent to the bed. There were no other doors and no windows in the room. A faint smell of old books and dust settled over her. Susan immediately broke down crying, clutching a pillow tightly as she heaved. She sat like this for a long while.
After what felt like hours, she finally got ahold of herself. Susan stood and looked around the room. She had to escape, she needed to. She noted that there were no cameras mounted anywhere in the room. She tried the door, but it was obviously locked. Then it hit her. The fireplace.
She immediately ran to put out the fire, throwing a blanket over it. It sizzled down to coals, and she began to pull the blankets off of her bed. She tore open the wardrobe to find dozens of replacement blankets, as well as many long dresses and fancy clothes. She threw it all out onto the floor, then stopped to observe how much cloth she had. With a nod, she ran back to the fireplace, looking up the chimney to see if there was an opening. Very far up, she saw a glint of sunlight. That was enough for her.
Susan sat down and began tying. She tied corners of silks together, knot after knot after knot, and tugged as hard as she could. Each knot could support a lot of pressure, which was very important for what she was going to do. Hours, perhaps even days passed, and she continued tying, ignoring any hunger or fatigue. By the time she was done, a gigantic coil of sheets and dresses snaked around her like a basilisk. She found one end and tied it tightly around the bed post, giving it a good tug to make sure it was secure. With no further delay, she tied another end around her waist and ran back to the chimney. The inner wall was corrugated well enough for her to get a grip with her bare feet.
	Susan took a deep breath and got to work, shimmying up the sides of the chimney. She kicked up soot with every step, and the higher up she got, the greater risk of falling back down to her death. Doing her best to keep this off her mind she continued in this way for a very long time.
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When she finally reached the top, she swung one leg over the lip of the chimney to pull herself up into a sitting position. It was daytime, and the sun hung high overhead, shielded by a few puffy clouds. With fear building in the pit of her stomach she looked down. She was easily eight hundred feet above the ground from here. The building was on one side, but the chimney was ten feet higher than the roof. She had to get down, and she couldn’t go back inside. Her original plan remained in place. She swung the other leg over the chimney so that she was now dangling over the edge. Before fear could completely consume her, she began her descent. She bounced off the side of the chimney and winced, but she got her footing quickly. With each knot in the rope, she slipped down four feet. Every drop was heart-wrenching, making her feel as though the rope could break at any moment.
Suddenly she heard a raucous chopping sound grow closer from behind. When she turned she was met by a helicopter flying towards her. It stopped approaching her and turned to the side to reveal a woman in camouflage clothing staring at her. Of course the woman looked exactly like she did, but she appeared older than the other clones somehow. Her hair had one white stripe pulled back into the ponytail that stopped at her shoulder. She slowly raised a bullhorn to her mouth and spoke with a ragged voice.
“Susan Cho. You are a fugitive from the law. Stop your descent now and surrender, or face consequences.” She sounded hesitant, as though she didn’t want to cause her any harm. Susan didn’t know what to say or do; she sat there, frozen. The rope was going to slip over the chimney and cause her to drop again any time now, even if she wasn’t moving. She knew that she faced death if she went down any further. The two women simply stared at each other for a while.
“Do you surrender?” The woman spoke again, not breaking eye contact. Susan began to respond just as the rope slipped down another fifteen feet. The bed must have finally given way and pulled to the fireplace. Susan’s heart sank.
“Wait, yes, I surr-“ the deafening sounds of gunfire flooded her ears. The first bullet entered her leg. The woman screamed something at someone behind her. Susan screamed out in pain as the next entered her hip. Next, her stomach. Chest. The onslaught stopped as the woman continued shouting commands, tears filling her eyes. With her last remaining moments of life, she recalled the last words she ever heard from that mysterious voice. She was no longer vital. They got what they wanted from her. But, she supposed, it was for the greater good. The last bit of light left her eyes as she looked up at the hovering helicopter. Susan Cho dangled dead from her rope of silk like a spider caught in another’s web, dripping crimson and swinging gently in the wind. That was the end of the Children for Humanity’s Outlook program, and the start of a new world.