In the luxurious operating room, a blonde beauty was giving birth, there was not a single cry, not a sign of effort, the medications worked perfectly and this was her seventh child. The robot nurse was in charge of checking that all health levels were perfect.
From the time she entered the delivery room until she gave birth no more than twenty minutes had passed, but despite the mother's good condition she did not make a gesture to see or pick up the baby, it was as if it did not exist or did not matter. The baby cried and was placed in a special crib while the robot nurse took it to the evaluation room.
When the doctor came in with the report his face was not very encouraging.
"I'm sorry Mrs. Stirce, the genetic potential evaluation shows a level G"
It was a disappointment, but at least she could be proud of her second child, a class A, and of the third a Class B, the rest for her did not deserve a thought, but a class G was really garbage.
"Well, the next one will be better, proceed according to protocol, I don't want to see that waste"
"As you order Mrs. Stirce, we will begin the sterilization process and send him to the outer edge when he is ready"
"I don't care at all, as far as I'm concerned you can incinerate him, it's a waste of resources..."
In that world, genetic potential was what divided society into groups, everything was so measured that resources would not be wasted on waste that could barely evolve naturally. The consciences of the upper classes, the S and A, were washed with the system of purchasing improvements and skills, the theory said that with effort and luck even a waste could rise above the rest.
But the truth was much crueler, no baby below class C would have the right to have offspring, they were genetic failures that would only create more defective humans, all would be castrated at a genetic level with a small modification that was only reversible if fortune allowed them to advance to a higher class and pay the high cost to recover their reproductive capacity.
On the other hand, these babies would be given the minimum nutrition and would be sent to the child farms, where they would be kept only until they were 5 years old if they were class G, seven if they were class F or ten if they were class E, from that moment on the children would have to work cleaning the ventilation and sewer ducts of the space station where they were sent if they wanted to eat, or if they were lucky enough to be class E they would work in the landfill or in the loading docks.
Their survival was already their own business, if they died it would not matter to anyone, and if they survived it would be up to them to carve out a future for themselves for when their bodies grew and no longer fit in the small and narrow tunnels or to stop collecting garbage in the landfill.
That society that measured everything had made a very cruel calculation, it was more expensive and had a higher maintenance cost to have cleaning robots in the tunnels, than to have the children clean so they could pay for the cheap food recycled from organic waste that they were given.
That baby with a disastrous destiny was not even worthy of a name, only an identification number, AX600545G and was sent to a children's farm in the infamous Gretia station, a mining station intended for classes G, F and E.
The child's future was as bleak as they could imagine, in that universe of orphans banished from "normal" life concepts such as affection did not exist, most of the time the children were alone, some care robot taught them the most basic things, to speak and when they were a little older to read, not because they wanted to educate the children, but so that they would not get lost in the tunnels because they could not read the signs.
The only real community was among the children themselves, but raised without supervision or a moral compass, the fate of the group in which the child fell was what could differentiate heaven or hell. The worst instincts, abuse, and selfishness were not uncommon from the time the children turned two. For many, being released into the tunnels was a liberation from those children with bad feelings who soon learned to impose their will by force.
AX600545G was called "Mouse" as long as they had reason to imagine names by his classmates, because he had a thin, ugly face, with a lot of black hair on his head and ears that were a little bigger than normal, but in the group of twenty children with whom Mouse was raised there were no big bullies, only helpless boys and girls. Mouse's best friends were Rabbit, a girl with big shoulders, skinny and ugly, and a balloon head, and a tall, big-headed boy.
The children took their nicknames from the stupid drawings that were given to them so that they would remain in a daze for hours and not cause trouble. But those two were the only family that Mouse had.
From the time they were four years old, they began to be told what their job would be, how they would have to crawl through shit and dirt to be able to pay for their food. By the time came to be free, Mouse gathered his friends.
"Let's stay together, we'll have more chances down there than if we split up"
"Whatever you say, Mouse, I'll always follow you..."
"I'm scared, I don't want to go into the tunnels..."
"Don't worry, Rabbit, I'll protect you no matter what"
The first day in the tunnels was as traumatic as only a psychopath could imagine. From the farm itself, they were released into the tunnels. Each child was sent to an area to clean, and if by chance they didn't do it, the tunnel sensors would detect that they hadn't done their job, and they would have no way to pay for their food. To add more pain to the matter, they couldn't go back to the farm to sleep. They would have to find their own shelter to sleep in, and get out by themselves to the dining room.
Shit, bugs, and an unbearable stench. Normally only ten percent of the children would reach adulthood. Most would die in the tunnels and would have to be removed by the children themselves to take the corpses to organic recycling centers. They had to get the proteins from the disgusting mush from somewhere, which they could pay for as food.
Mouse and Balloon Head fulfilled their mission despite vomiting several times and enduring being stuck in tunnels among cockroaches and feces. But Rabbit couldn't bear it. She was weak, the weakest of the three and she was a very sensitive girl. She stayed trembling, hugging her knees in a corner. The children had a hard time finding her. Just by looking at her, they knew that she hadn't been able to fulfill her mission that day.
The girl just kept repeating the same thing over and over again when her friends arrived.
"What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I don't want to be here, I don't want to be here, I hate bugs, I hate bugs, I can't stand it, I can't stand it, what am I going to do?
Balloon Head started to cry as soon as he saw the girl in that state, but Mouse was not going to abandon her to her fate or give up now that they had finally left the farm. Mouse was fed up with the gray walls, the care robot that broke down and many days he was not able to even put up the drawings. Mouse wanted to live, and he wanted his friends to do so too.
"Don't worry, bunny, there are three of us, we will share the food, you will get used to the work, I told you I would always take care of you, don't worry"
It took them two hours to get to the dining room, at the end when they thought they would not find the way they saw a group of children a year or two older than them who walked confidently through one of the main tunnels, they did not dare to ask them, they just followed them at a distance.