Reeducation

Unemployment skyrocketed and riots over food shortages grew day by day. Other industries picked up to replace part of what was lost; pork and chicken became staples to replace beef, but the dairy industry had almost collapsed entirely and when the same strain of bovine spongiform encephalopathy appeared in Europe and then Asia a world crisis loomed. Then a small, visionary group had begun the program. They had taken an abandoned dairy farm on the Mexican border with the United States and retrofitted it for a new purpose. They had seen what was coming, what was possible if the industry collapsed and they had taken steps, watching a select group of people for years and when the time was right, when they could influence the proper lawmakers, they had started. A group of five women were carefully selected and removed from society to the farm where they were reeducated, conditioned with methods that were, at the time, considered inhumane.

"...they were violating every single human rights law in the world and more than a few laws and statutes against human trafficking. It was an extreme measure, but extreme measures were all that was left. The world population was over ten billion people at that point and it was growing rapidly. It would reach eleven billion on the very day that the program began, and thirteen years after that it would be twelve." The professor sighed and clicked over to the next still in the class progression, showing the original group of five involuntary subjects and Kiara pored over their portraits, looking for a face that she knew would be familiar because she knew that she looked exactly like her mother had at her age. "These are the original five involuntary subjects selected for the full round of testing. Seven more were selected as voluntary specimens, and the twelve together made the first 'Herd' of cattle that were reeducated. Can anyone tell me why there were two groups? Miss Philps?" He asked, calling on Kiara.

"It was a control experiment." She said and the professor nodded, gesturing for her to go on. "The involuntaries and the voluntaries were initially kept separate but their testing was identical. This was all to see if there was any difference in the quality of their milk and the efficacy of their conditioning. Eventually it was proven that the difference in the two was minuscule and the next phase of the project was initialized, allowing for mass recruitment. The initial theory of the Granholm-Erikson program was to reduce the number of viable females in the population to curb the explosive population growth. Their logic was slightly flawed but the program still worked. When the new laws on citizenship were instituted with the Ramsey act in 2059, just nine months after the start of the program, registration became compulsory and other facilities had to be opened to keep up with the demand. Within two years of the Ramsay act there were dozens of facilities across north america and several thousand women had been reeducated into livestock. Because of the strict guidelines laid out by Doctor Thomas Erikson and Doctor Samuel Granholm, only females with a significantly lower than average intelligence were selected. Those with the proper body types were given hormone treatments and reeducated, their citizenship was revoked and they were no longer considered humans, no longer had the rights and protections of any human rights act and they were turned into cattle. Those without the proper body types were placed in work camps, cleaning up the vast amounts of garbage and pollution, sorting through recyclable materials, picking and sorting fruit and other menial, basic jobs that were available but no one wanted to work. They were given food and shelter that was better than many of the working poor had ever known."

"Very good, Kiara." He said with a smile and she blushed a little and sat back down. "Now, can anyone else tell me why we don't refer to the livestock with the old fetish term 'Hucow'?" He asked and a young man stood up when he was called upon.

"It's because the 'Hu' means 'Human', and any specimen that has been processed isn't human any longer. The Ramsey act outlined the differences between humans, sub-humans and hominid animals." He said and sat down when the professor nodded.             

"Very good."

He launched into a discussion on the methods of training among the selected, about how the initial rewards for obedience were high, large rewards and the punishments were medium, but as reeducation progressed the rewards were gradually lessened until a mere orgasm, easily attainable, was all an animal needed to keep them in line, while the punishments had become far more harsh. The most difficult part of the program was selling the idea of culling, of euthanizing unruly or resistant animals to a still largely religious populace."             

"It was Sector Seven, what used to be Utah and parts of surrounding states, that had the most resistance. Which is highly ironic, because their own representative, Secretary of State turned Prelate Rachel Spinney was one of the spearheads for the program's implementation. Prelate Spinney was one of only three women on the initial council that selected the five involuntary specimens. Popular support in sector seven was against the implementation of compulsory testing, perhaps due to the religious nature of the populace, or perhaps due to the lower than average test scores of the vast majority of the subjects. Indeed, the program that was supposed to help curb population growth actually had the opposite effect in several areas, not just Sector Seven. Many of the poorest and hungriest people actually had more children during this period, a form of biological protest. This resulted in an actual boom in the population. Can anyone tell me why?" A student raised her hand and was called on by the professor.

"People resist being constrained, particularly in their reproductive rights." She said in a soft voice. "During this time period, prior to addendum four of the Ramsay act, the penalty for unlicensed reproduction was a monetary fine. Most people could not afford it, but many people, particularly in the old United States, were comfortable living with debt, even with crippling debt, and they knew that no one would take their children from them."

"Very good Alicia." The professor said, "You mentioned addendum four. What was that?"

"Addendum four of the Ramsay act, instituted in 2065 stated that the penalty for unlicensed breeding was no longer a monetary fine, but instead was the immediate revocation of the citizenship of the offending parties. Birth control at that time was completely effective and freely available to anyone so no excuses were accepted."

"That's right." The professor said with a smile and a nod as Alicia sat down. "And the population boom turned into a boom in new livestock for the dairy farms and the work camps. The addendum was successful but the wording was very specific and geared toward the poor. The wealthy were given 'Special Consideration' under this addendum and some of them paid very steep sums to have as many offspring as they wanted. This endured until just last year, when Profesor Dalton Bellik was named overseer of the population control program. Professor Bellik spearheaded addendum seven, basing breeding rights purely on genome typing and nothing else. You have to have a low predisposition to hereditary conditions in order to qualify for a breeding license. There has been continued upset, of course, but as before, drastic measures need to be taken. The Professor refused to accept bribes or cave to threats. No one was exempt from sterilization if their genome was found to be impure. The idea of having the 'Right' to reproduce is dying slowly, but it is dying, as the group of you are here to prove."

He went on about the shift in IQ and genome cleanliness over the last eighteen years, from the steady decline of the time before the Ramsey act until now the median IQ of the population had risen by ten points. That was phenomenal in a single generation, and the average person had a genome rating of C/1b or higher. The laws that were outlined in the Ramsey act had given the population a reason to educate themselves and take care in breeding. The world population, over twelve billion a decade before, was in decline. The number was expected to drop below ten billion within the next five years and the genome was expected to improve to a C/1B or better in the population. Even among the fifty million livestock in the various facilities around the world, the quality of the genome was rising steadily though the standard was different. Cows were not selected for breeding as often and those who were, were chosen for their docility and submissiveness and their pre-hormone bust size rather than their intelligence. The first generations had been tamed, taken from 'Wild' human females and were now being bred into docile, domesticated hominid animals. As the class was winding down he talked about the initial phases of H.G.A.P. and the offspring of the initial ten women and he removed his shirt, making many of the girls in the class giggle as he turned to show the tattoo on the back of his shoulder; 'C3-2'.

"I was one of the first children born from those initial cows." He explained, gesturing to the screen where the pictures of the first herd were up once again. "My mother was C2-61, the cow in the second row and my father was Doctor Thomas Erikson, the head veterinarian and one of the directors of the project. There was only one child in Group three born before I was though none of the children born from that group were raised as livestock. Yes, Kiara?" He asked, seeing her hand go up and the smile on her face.

"My mother is in that picture as well." She said, standing up and taking off her shirt to show the tattoo on her own shoulder; C3-1. "She is cow C1-27, the one right beside your mother."

"Oh my! You and I were born on the same day." The professor said with a smile. "And our mothers were very close, they were paired during the scouting phase and became even closer once they had both been processed... we're practically siblings."

There was some talk about this for the remainder of the class, as the two of them were something like celebrities to the others in the room and as they all filtered out, Kiara remained behind for a little while to talk to the professor.

"Well, I had no idea that I would meet you this way, Kiara." He said when they were alone and she smiled and shrugged.

I didn't think so either, but I'm glad I did." She said and he smiled and looked her over. She was attractive, average height but with a slender, curvy build and unoffended by his lingering look.

"Are you doing anything this evening?" He asked and she shook her head with a smile.

"No... but I'd like to be." She replied and he smiled back.

The End