Quills

Dareem sat rubbing Allurai's shoulders while she read the reports from the Bitas team at Izaberne Station. They had followed the footsteps and analysed the soil on the new female's clothes and traced her movement to the middle of a field in the Cold lands before they lost the tracks. There was no evidence of travel. No shuttles from territories in the North or equipment was found in the barren lands. She must have travelled most of the distance by foot. Bureaus around the world had not received any distress calls, nor missing persons notifications for anyone let alone a woman. 

Allurai thought it was suspicious that someone would leave by foot. At least it meant that she had at least made the choice to leave and venture south. Theories that she came from an undocumented tribe were feasible. Liem reported that she had mentioned that she had three sisters. If they were alive, it would be better. If they could find any traces of where she came from they could at least grab samples if they were not burned and scattered as was the cultural custom of those tribes. Even she was interested in how they survived and their society.

Five hundred years ago at the dawn of the Class system, back when the first groups of children were being raised by the hundreds, people started to object. It was not done correctly of course, but the mistakes of the past were corrected to make it a perfect system. When the Class system was proposed and the reasoning behind it; a number of them objected and banned together to protest. They believed that they should not modify DNA to make a subservient race, that it was abhorrent and power crazy to create a slave race of children. Individual voices organised in groups, none were as collected and fierce oppositional as the ones from the Northern provinces that now were collectively known as Izaberne. Bands of their people alongside with indigenous traditionalist tribes people of the area formed treaties and became a powerhouse of opposition. When the first Racks of children were set to gestate, the protests became more violent and they became an army. 

They were called the Dissent; a group of several northern cultures believed that if we were meant to survive, we would simply adapt. They believed the mistake was interfering with nature. That gathering healthy unaffected people was the answer, instead of using an imperfect method to increase numbers was the solution and that everyone else needed to sacrifice and shut down society as they knew it. They could live a different way. They thought they were justified in calling a vote. So, after much destruction and protest, they got their way. The vote did not turn out the way that The Dissent wanted. Most of the population was sick of hardship, afraid of death or profoundly lonely. The class system was approved by necessity. After attempting to wipe out a developmental facility with explosives deployment, the government executed those responsible for the explosions. The execution of sixty-seven Illini tribe members angered the Northern provinces further, especially when their corpses were taken for their genetic information.

The response was the explosion of Northern DNA banks and destruction of notable historical DNA samples. They rejected the tracking and tracing of the new Interfaces and advertised that they would be creating their own community friendly to those with their beliefs and that rejected the technology. They swore a pledge of non-violence, mutual peace and respect. Five hundred healthy females joined their civilization. It had been devastating losing them, but the government soon adapted. They had a ratio of twenty to one and were untraceable. Over time, issues began to occur in the community where males began to infiltrate the community drawn to the higher likelihood of being with a female. When women started to be abducted or sexually assaulted in the street. It struck immense fear in their hearts. Crimes of a sexual nature were penalized by the death of the offender. Rather than investigating and finding escaped perpetrators, the government simply caused all the males in the area's interfaces to blow up. Women and men watched innocent interlopers, those who had managed to flee the binding of the caste system die alongside the few men who had committed the violent crimes. Some of those had integrated into the community peacefully. They had become husbands or lovers. After a vote, the small community decided it was best to separate.

Slowly, they left the city and hid their location from the rest of the world. Leaving their city to crumble. Izaberne station rose in its place eventually as the territory was claimed. They integrated with northern nomadic tribes to follow their way of life. The last contact with the tribes was over three hundred years ago when the climate worsened. However, the aid mission failed to locate them. 

'People had survived successfully in the wilderness for hundreds of thousands of years. Why not them? Their own ancestors had evolved because of climate change, so they would adapt. Is that why she was small and so pale? From the moment they found this girl. It was important to her to get this girl equipped with technology before she was awake. Now with the right identification code as an official and Matriarch of prestige, she could end lives at the wave of a hand. Now that very technology was in that daughter of the North. Even if they wanted to, they could not take the girl back and hide her without disclosing their location. Effectively, all they could do was want her back, and if she had any other spouses, they too would have to be implanted. The more new genetic material that could be added the better. Reportedly, they had suffered the same phenomena, and she was not forthcoming as to where she came from. That was fine if she wanted to protect them. She was their treasure and an opportunity. That opportunity also sat in my hands, Allari's hands.' Allurai thought, rolling her shoulders.

'Hmm, what now?' Allurai thought. Her spouse Reye came into the lavish room that was set up as her office and bowed in greeting. Two of her youngest spouses got up and left the room, leaving her initial three in the room with her. Allurai reached out her hand, and he kissed it tenderly while looking in her eyes. 

"Report." Allurai said. Reye looked at his wife, who seemed to be engrossed in the reports in front of her. 

"You know we can do all of this for you. You should be resting if we want to conceive again." Reye reminded his Matriarch. She had just copulated with 6 of them last night as she was ovulating.

 "Report." Allurai said, annoyed. She had to endure nights of pleasure during this part of her cycle and, after her failure last cycle, decided to add some younger men from a province on the other side of the planet for more diversity. They were vigorous and unique lovers. However, she was really sore.

"Twelve Izaberne station staff members have all requested permanent transfers to the city. They seem to know she is here," Reye said. He started to look more comfortable as they left and spoke more confidently "Four have now applied to the site where she is currently residing. We are assuming that they are guessing, as others have been applying to other sites." Reye continued "All the transport staff that came into contact with her have applied for leave and accommodation in Callor. This is unprecedented. Some of them have a family in Izaberne," Reye finished. Allurai raised her brows and groaned. She raked her face with her palms.

"How interesting, what do you think we should do?" Allurai said to Reye with some concern.

 "Shall we move her or remove the Bitas and below from interaction and the floor she is on? Liem is more than capable of caring for her." Dorien chimed in proudly. 

"An overreaction, Dorien," Reye said. The girl was in the news, he had even been reading all the gossip on the Information boards. "They are just interested in her. It will die down soon with the next fashion release or scandal takes over the Information Boards," Reye said. 

"What of the Gimmel group that followed her into the city? Do they think they have a chance?" Dorien asked. "I think we need to take this seriously, what if something happened to her? Do you want to deal with the headache of dealing with the council over something so easy to fix?" Dorien asked.

"I agree with Dorien, they are likely just interested in her. The Gimmel group can be easily dealt with. We might have to become more creative with others. But, I also agree with Reye. Just a moment of thought." Allurai said as she raised herself up from her reclined position. She expanded her screen. She paused in deep thought, looking at the profiles of the Gimmel displayed on the screen. Luckily, it did not appear that the men on the screen were close in their suspicions as to where she was in Callor. It was random. They were easy to control, and it was not like they posed a threat to her son and any other Alphem in the city. They can not be compared on the same field. Gimmel and Bitas were granted high intelligence in order to do the complex work necessary for their duties. She knew that there was no danger. 

 "Dismiss the transfer requests of all the workers but these three. Jarrad 0100119787, Jeorum 0107856776 and Cetas 190011968." Allurai said. "These three all have great psychological evaluations and work histories. Promote them to researchers and put them in a work space in Sacred Tree Hospital to work on the Genome project. It will not be a problem if we give them a worthy distraction. The rest, presume they are on vacation, but send them a thank-you gift for their concern. It should make them very aware that we know that they are here and ready to deal with them if necessary." Allurai smiled coolly. She scoffed at finding something troubling in one of the Gimmel's files.