Compelling Science Fiction Issue 11 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Compelling Science Fiction Ltd.
Published: 2018-06-01T04:47:20+00:00

"Patrick, it could happen to any of us. It could happen to me tomorrow."

"Damn it, Cynthia!" he raged at his on-again-off-again—and off for good now, thanks to the draft—girlfriend, "I don’t need any of your Progressive crap! It could happen to you, but it won’t. It happened to me! I’m the one who’s going away, for good." He pounded her kitchenette tablette with his fist. A plastic dinner plate hopped and landed with a clack. "I’m the one whose whole life is being taken in four days."

"Patrick Ferguson, don’t take that tone with me," Cynthia said with a tilt of her head. "I’m sorry it happened to you, but I didn’t do it. It was just the luck of the draw. And it still could happen to me. If it does, I’ll go knowing I’m doing my part to Build a Better Future for Everybody." Patrick could hear the capitals in her recitation of the slogan.

Cynthia’s face took on the smug look that usually preceded an I-told-you-so of some sort. "If you’re so flinking anti-Progressive, then maybe you should have voted last time. You know they only run the draft when the Progressives are in. You don’t really have anyone to blame but yourself, now do you?"

He stormed out of the apartment, after kicking the door—hard enough to hurt his foot, still aching a bit from punting the HouseBoy with only a slipper on—but before he could do something even stupider. There was no point having this argument. It wouldn’t change anything. And worst of all, Cynthia was right and they both knew it.

The world was divided concerning the draft, but not passionately enough for it to become either eliminated or permanently instituted. Some people—the Progressive Party and their followers, like Cynthia—thought it a good idea, or at worst a necessary evil. Others objected to it or thought it irrelevant nonsense or, like Patrick, just never thought about it at all. Like him, many of these people never really believed it could happen to them. After all, most people, like Patrick, didn’t even know anyone who’d been drafted.

Then there were a deluded few who viewed the draft as some kind of adventure—muckleheads who would volunteer to go. Hell, some people would volunteer for anything, but it didn’t work that way. The Progressives didn’t take volunteers, only randomly chosen draftees. Like Patrick.

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