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

approached, a lean, muscular man with strong, even features, his tousled hair giving him a playful, almost boyish look. He gave me a quick peck on the cheek, then turned to kiss Naomi. We sat down and he took Naomi’s hand, then leaned over to kiss her again, a goofy smile on his face. Naomi, I noticed, was wearing a similar expression.

Tearing his gaze away from Naomi’s eyes, Simon turned to me. “Great to meet you, Calli. Naomi talks about you all the time.”

“I don’t know when she has time to talk about me since she’s always talking about you!”

We all laughed.

The waitress came over and we ordered beers. When our drinks arrived, I picked up my bottle and took a sip. The beer on the Moon wasn’t exactly up to Earth standards, nor Fae’s, but it wasn’t bad. “So, Simon, I understand you work in Sector One.”

“Yeah, it’s not glamorous, not like what you and Naomi do,” he looked at Naomi and his face softened, “but it allows me to live here.”

“Why the Moon?” I asked.

“Who wouldn’t want to live on the Moon? How many people in the history of humanity have had the opportunity to live off-planet?”

“That’s true,” I admitted.

“How do you like working for the Foundation?” Simon asked me.

“I love it.” Naomi and I exchanged a smile.

“They’ve been catching a lot of flak in the mainstream media lately, for being an all-women organization.”

“Really? I hadn’t heard. I don’t keep up with world news.”

“I doubt any of us do,” said Naomi. “No one ever talks about the news, here or on Shambhala. Perhaps we should be paying more attention. So, what’s up, Simon?”

“Things seem to be heating up. There’s a group, mostly women, if you can believe it, who’ve been staging rallies against the Foundation. There’s been some negative press about your warp drive, too, but from what I saw, the big news at the moment is the claim the Foundation is practicing reverse discrimination.”

“The warp drive? That’s odd. Hadley and I haven’t published anything. I don’t have any idea how people could possibly know about it.” I shrugged, then thought of Amélie.

165

I had told her about the drive, and in great detail, but there was no reason she would talk to the press. She wasn’t even a scientist. No, it couldn’t have been her.

“Sometimes it’s nice to be so far away,” said Naomi.

“That’s for sure,” I said. “Nice to be here with you both.” I raised my beer bottle, and Naomi and Simon did the same. We clinked our bottles together, and each took a drink. “That’s crazy about the reverse discrimination. I guess technically they’re right?”

I looked at my companions, feeling confused. “But don’t they understand? Don’t they get it?” Why would women be against an all-woman company? And what business was it of theirs? It just didn’t compute.

Simon shook his head. “What you mean is, why don’t they realize that supporting women in the sciences is just a tiny drop of justice in an ocean of historical inequality?”

He smirked, then added quietly, “I wish the whole world was ruled by women. We’d be much better off.”

I studied his face, his expression. He was dead serious. “That’s a bold statement, especially for a male of the species. What makes you think that way?”

“I grew up in a matriarchal family. My folks died when I was really young, a freak hovercar accident, so I was raised by my aunt and her partner, a loving lesbian couple.

And my maternal grandmother lived with us until she passed away when I was twenty-seven.”

“Oh, sorry to hear that,” I said.

“It’s okay, we all have to go sometime. My grandmother had a good life with us. It’s funny, she rarely talked about when my grandfather was alive. From what I remember about him, he was overbearing and controlling. She ended up taking care of him for years, he was really unhealthy. She never complained, even when he treated her like a servant, like she was his personal property. I was around nine when he died, but I remember he was always making these awful comments about her, how she wasn’t very sharp, how she needed to go back to school so she could learn how to be a proper wife.

It was offensive. But he always tried to make it seem like a joke. I think for my grandmother, her life began the day he died, because she was free. She had eighteen years of freedom, more than a lot of women ever get.”

I shook my head, not quite sure how to respond.

“I just feel like men are not good for society, or for the planet. I’m not saying all men should be eliminated.” He gave a wry laugh. “I just think, on the whole, we can’t be trusted.”

“What do you mean?” I had never in my life heard a man say anything like that before.

“I’ve seen it my whole life. Even when I was just a little kid, the way a lot of other boys behaved made me sick to my stomach. I remember when my ‘friends’,” he emphasized the last word with air quotes, “would destroy ant hills, just to see the ants panic, desperately trying to save their eggs. As the youngest in the neighborhood, I couldn’t do much, but I witnessed how older boys would indoctrinate the younger ones, 166

egging them on to do cruel things, and calling them names when they balked or cried.”

“How sad,” I said, examining Simon’s pained expression. How was it growing up as a male? Especially one as tender-hearted as Simon. It couldn’t be easy.

“Yeah. Once I tried to put myself in between a gang of boys and a stray dog they had been pelting with rocks, and instead they threw their rocks at me, calling me weak and girly. I realized right then that being called a girl was the greatest compliment they could have given me. Oh, the girls could be mean, too, don’t get me wrong, but it seemed like it was more circumstantial, and never driven by some crazy overwhelming instinct to cause suffering, to destroy.”

“Do you really think it’s innate?” I asked, remembering my question for Izumi about male aggression. “It’s hard to separate culture from instinct.”

“The old nature-versus-nurture debate.” Simon shrugged. “I don’t know the answer.

In some ways it doesn’t matter—neither is an excuse for the behavior.”

“I agree,” I said.

“The thing that gets to me is the dehumanization. Listening to adolescent boys and now grown men talking about women, the things they say without a drop of shame—

it’s revolting. And the weird thing is, they do it in part to form a bond with other men, even when they’re trying to one-up each other with their sexual conquests.”

“But not all men are that way.” Though I couldn’t deny that plenty of men had treated me like a sexual object. I had been subjected to innumerable catcalls, the occasional brush and fondle on the metro, flashers masturbating in alleys as I walked by, dick picks sent to my inbox, and countless leers bordering on disgust. But no, definitely not all men. These lecherous perverts were the minority.

“Yeah, sure.” Simon waved his hand dismissively at my protest. “There are plenty of guys who aren’t into the whole denigration of women, I can see it in their faces, but they get sucked in and they feel like they have to compete, have to play the game, to be accepted. It’s sickening.”

“That could be support for the nurture camp—socialization,” Naomi said, eyes trained on Simon, her expression full of compassion.

“I’m sure that socialization has a lot to do with it,” Simon admitted. “But so what?

Aren’t we better than that? Can’t we rise above our biology, or our culture, or the combination of the two, and just be decent human beings?”

Naomi’s eyes shifted to me. “Simon’s upset with some men from his work.”

“Yeah, sorry.” He inhaled sharply and bit his lower lip. “I guess it’s affecting me more than I realized.”

“Play the recording, Simon,” said Naomi softly.

Simon looked at Naomi, then at me, and his shoulders drooped. He looked defeated, but not from our conversation. No, this was deeper. “The other day, I left my wrist computer in the break room, I wanted to record the guys talking.”

I arched my eyebrow at him.

“I know it’s a strange thing to do, invasion of privacy and all that, but I thought if 167

they listened to themselves, how they talk, they would change.”

“But don’t women work there too?” I asked.

“Yeah, but this group of guys always take their break together. I think the women figured out it’s better to avoid them when they’re in their pack.”

“I see.”

“I recorded their conversation, and later, played it back to them.”

“Play it,” Naomi said again.

Simon grimaced. “It’s very graphic and disgusting.”

I looked at Naomi, who nodded. I shrugged.

He touched his wrist computer, and male voices filled the air. I leaned forward, listening intently.

Voice 1: So, get any last night, boys?

Voice 2: Nah, too tired.

Voice 3: I was at the bar. There were some fine pieces of ass.

Voice 1: Speaking of ass, did you see the new girl who works on the dock?

Voice 3: With the big tits and ass?

Voice 1: Oh yeah. I’d like to lubricate my dick with that pussy, I’ll bet it’s tight and slick.

Voice 2: You know it, my brother.

Voice 1: And she uses it, she’s like, all over the place with those boobs, flaunting.

She wants it, and bad.

Voice 3: [Laughs] Ever notice how these hot pieces of meat think they’re in control, that they can use their tits and ass, and we guys will do whatever they want. [laughter]

We’re the ones in control. All they want is a good fuck, they’re begging for it, and I’m telling you, I’m the man for the job.

Voice 2: Oh yeah, they want a man to take control, they’re all about the alpha male.

Voice 1: And the biggest dick, like