Callisto 2.0, Susan English [i love reading .TXT] 📗

I was about thirty minutes into my morning run when Izumi strapped herself onto the treadmill next to mine. I decided to ask her something I had been wondering about since first arriving at the Moon facility.

“Hey, Izumi, why aren’t there any men working for the Foundation?” Naomi had given me her perspective, but I was curious what Izumi’s take was.

“That was my idea originally. Diana and I went back and forth about it for a long time. I feel women work more cooperatively when there aren’t any men around.”

Naomi had guessed correctly, then. “It’s definitely different. Not that I’m complaining.” I thought for a minute, my stride slow and steady. “To be honest, I love it. I would always choose women for my study groups at the university. Even when I was younger, I gravitated toward females. When I was a teenager, I figured it was because of my sexual orientation, but I suspect it’s deeper than that.”

“Yeah, it’s nice, isn’t it? Being with only women.” Her breathing was heavier now that she was running, but she settled into her rhythm. “It’s a little bubble of tranquility.

With the right group of women, that is to say,” she added, glancing at me.

I nodded.

“Even with women in positions of power, the myth of male superiority is hard to escape. There are still plenty of women who buy into the brutality of the patriarchal regime. They don’t see it that way, but looking through my anthropological lens, their denial is simply a manifestation of patriarchal hegemony.”

“Do you think human males are intrinsically more aggressive than females?” It was something I had always been curious about.

“That I don’t know. But males of many species, perhaps humans too, seem to be hard-wired for conflict. Consider chimpanzees. There have been countless documented cases of a band of male chimpanzees invading another tribe’s territory solely to murder other males. And they are our closest relatives, genetically speaking.” She gave me a wry smile.

“If only our evolution had been closer to the bonobos than to chimpanzees.”

“Make love not war.” She laughed softly. “Although the bonobos can be brutal sometimes, too. But overall, their matriarchal society is peaceful.”

“I don’t know how keen I would be to have sex with everyone I disagreed with in order to keep the peace, like the bonobos do.”

“Yeah, they do spend a lot of time having sex. But at least it’s always consensual, thanks to the power of the female alliances. The females look out for each other. Even with the peaceful bonobos, the male sex drive can be overwhelming.”

My body felt strong, relaxed. I increased the speed slightly on my treadmill. “One time I was hiking with a friend in the Sierra Nevada mountains. We sat down beside a river and a stray dog latched onto us. Turned out she was in heat, and she was being 80

pursued by three male dogs, all desperate to mount her. The poor girl was exhausted and curled up next to us to try and sleep. When the males came close, I threatened them with my walking stick. She just wanted a break, poor thing.” I shook my head. “Then later, when we were on our way back, this other hiker started a conversation with my friend, who’s hetero, by the way. This guy wouldn’t leave her alone. He kept asking for her contact information, trying to convince her to go out with him that night, asking where she lived. He was very persistent, despite her obvious attempts to discourage his advances. Finally, I said, ‘do you want me to use my walking stick on him?’ I believe it was a moment of enlightenment for her, when she realized, although the two species were different, the behavior was the same.” I shrugged. “Sometimes I thank the Universe I was born a lesbian.”

“You and me both! You’re right about the common behavior across different species, and even interspecies. I saw a documentary once on sea otters. The narrator explained that sometimes a male otter will rape a seal pup for hours until the pup dies.

It was horrifying. Even more disturbing, if that’s possible, the male will continue to rape the decaying corpse for up to a week.”

I swallowed, tasting bile. “My god, how shocking.” My stomach was heaving, and I wanted to throw up. Stopping the treadmill, I wiped my face with my towel, willing my stomach to relax.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Izumi continued. “I don’t have anything against males of any species.” She gave me a little smile, and her eyes had a faraway look. “There are many beautiful men in my life, and I love them to the depths of my soul. They are kind, gentle, and good-hearted people—living proof that, if there is a biological component to human male aggression, then biology is not destiny.”

Grateful for the shift in the conversation, I turned the treadmill back on and started running again. The images Izumi’s words had conjured in my head were appalling.

“When we first conceived of the Foundation, Diana and I made the conscious decision to cultivate a working environment based on empathy and compassion.” She looked over at me. “These aren’t strictly feminine standards of behavior—there are plenty of men, both today and over the history of humanity, who adhere to the same set of ethics. But it seemed to me females more readily embrace these principles—not all women, obviously, but like I said, the right group, carefully chosen. So for now, at least, we decided anyone who identifies herself as a woman and who embodies our fundamental tenets is a candidate to be part of the Foundation.”

I stopped, my workout complete, and began to unstrap myself from the treadmill.

“But I don’t understand, how was it that I was selected? I was offered the position without an interview or anything. Not that I’m opposed to the philosophy, I think it’s amazing.”

Izumi laughed. “Oh, sweet Calli, we did our homework. It wasn’t an accident, choosing you.”

What had Diana said during our first meeting, when I had asked, why me? It wasn’t 81

idle chance. “But how? How did you find out about me?” My heartbeat accelerated, and I wiped my face with my towel to give myself a moment of privacy.

“Don’t worry, we didn’t spy on you or anything sinister like that.” She gave me a kind smile. “We had Annie analyze your presentations at scientific conferences, with the question-and-answer sessions at the end, your undergraduate writings, comments from social media, yours and other people’s about you and to you, any petitions you signed, your entire electronic footprint, all in the public record, but it was more than enough.”

I stared at her, one hand on the treadmill to keep my body still, spellbound.

“Annie is very good at generating a personality profile from disparate data. It’s similar to what search engines and online shopping sites do: analyze each customer’s preferences, values, opinions, interests, to better tailor advertisements to increase consumerism. That technology has been around since the early 2000s. But instead of determining what type of shampoo you’re likely to buy, Annie’s task was to