THE TRIALS OF AN ANGEL (part1)

1 - The Beginning

I sit on a red sandstone rock worn smooth by time. A red kangaroo flyer comes up holding a coconut in her hands. A joey peers at me from the safety of her pouch. Four soulful eyes look into mine. The nut must be opened with the silver hammer on my lap. One crack on the top opens a hole. She tips the nourishing milk down her throat and hops off without a sound. I place the hammer back on my lap and wait for the next ‘roo.

Ever since puberty the same dream. I wake up asking the same question. Am I strong enough to bear the load?  

At first I thought it was a about my early childhood, but as my education progressed it became clear I was being groomed to lead. I never felt special. Marge, Jonny and my tutors took great care to make sure I didn’t feel privileged or entitled. Just an ordinary girl in an extraordinary situation.

In 2049 when Lila Grace-Langley made the first of her rare visits, she told me. ‘It is important you identify with the incoming members of the community as your extended family. They are as important as your own children.’ I was seventeen and pregnant with the first child.

It wasn’t necessary to make that point. My brutally honest education saw to that. By sixteen I had no illusions. The population of the world was falling dramatically. Down by one-and-a-half billion by that year and decreasing exponentially. The average age 60 plus and counting.

The only hope for seeding re-population: a handful of kids born to women resistant to the virus scattered across the globe in MVPs. The Parents separated from them for use as tools in a global breeding plan. I soon stopped crying for Brenda. Having just a name for a memory made it easy.

After the most powerful nations realised geo-political conflict was pointless (they were going to die out anyway) they chose the only answer. International co-operation. Minimum Viable Population communities were set up to a standard pattern based on free exchange of research information and access to DNA pools. Each would develop according to local cultures – an unavoidable compromise (as Lila Grace put it). As my education progressed, I worried it may have been a dangerous error.

Our community, like all the others started out small with an AI based support system set to upgrade and expand as numbers grew. It took care of infrastructure, cleaning, medical supplies, tech maintenance and a bunch of other stuff. As a child I was given my first personal android helper. Odd looking thing, but I kind of got used to it. I called him Droid. I sexed it because it had a deep voice. Although upgraded many times over the years he was always, Droid. Robotics were our lifeline to the future.

Eighteen years passed before the first of my “family” arrived. By then I’d given birth to five babies in quick succession all conceived through artificial insemination. Another ten containing my DNA were brought to us, delivered by what Jonny called IVF cloning. He always seemed troubled about that.

The pleasure of natural sex eluded me for many years. There were simply no partners available without my DNA. I could say, “What you don’t have and all that,” but in truth my life was too full for it to be an issue. There were my children to be educated and organised into a sort of hierarchy of experience to guide the incoming kids assigned to our MVP.

As a child psychologist Marge had the greatest influence on me as to how I wanted it structured. Influence maybe the wrong word. She explained the thinking behind her profession. Sharing that guided my decisions. Jonny had an input and of course there were certain things Lila Grace insisted on. But the bottom line was, by the end of the century all the GenX, Y and A’s would be gone. We’d be on our own. We had to be comfortable with what we’d created.

Fifteen “offspring,” nine girls and six boys all born within five years. My last natural born, a girl was the youngest of all and my closest companion. Rachael’s been at my side all my life. The weakest at birth, nearly dying on three occasions, it was a natural choice.  

Our community is split into seven ‘gebiets.’ The German word for area I learnt from Marge. For some reason I preferred it to neighbourhood. It seemed more personal. More, “us.”

Each gebiet is headed by one of the girls. They are like older sisters to the residents. The boys are not attached to a single gebiet, acting as brother/father figures to all. Each one educated in a different skill, but I insisted they all have in depth knowledge of digital technology. It’s important to know what goes on inside androids and robots. Both how and why. I felt that from an early age, a mild distrust perhaps due to the classics side of my education.

By the beginning of my sixty-seventh year the community was up to nearly three thousand. We produced babies although it didn’t go as smoothly as we hoped. AI support was crucial.

Nevertheless things went very well. Marge passed away eight years after the first incomers, she was a great help. Jonny retired around the same time so he was able to be here and carry on where Marge left off. He passed ten years later at eighty-five. I was considering stepping back to make way for my children to take over and plan the next stage. I found myself thinking about my dream and wondered if I’d fulfilled the challenge it posed.

I thought the answer was yes, but a month later I found out the challenge had only just begun.