The Choice
By Alyssa Altadonna
What makes something worth living for? What makes something worth dying for?
On Iamos, the fourth world from the sun, the answer was simple. It was the only solution left, really, to a dwindling people on a dying world. The answer was what the geroi had given us, and there was no questioning it.
We live for each other.
It was a phrase uttered reassuringly, a balm for souls worn raw by the devastating realization that our planet’s magnetic field had simply stopped, that there was nothing left to hold our atmosphere intact, that we had somehow gone too far and pushed the planet too hard and now there was nothing left for us. It was the key to our survival. It was the end of chaos, panic, uncertainty. We no longer had to wonder or live in fear of the unknown. The geroi had given us the Progression, and they had given us the solution. If we followed them, our species would survive. We had to, because we lived for each other.
There was another side to that phrase, of course. The implicit other half that few conceived of and none dared speak aloud. That was, of course:
We die for each other.
This was something that I hadn’t considered much growing up. All my life, I knew only one thing: I existed for the good of the collective. The certainty that our lives were bound to one another meant that we each had a duty, a contract to fulfill. I knew my responsibility was to contribute to the good of the Society, and if I upheld my end of
From an early age, I was groomed to be an Enforcer. Although it was a position of honor and prestige, the plain fact of the matter was that the Enforcers did the geroi’s grunt work. The geroi made the laws, and we ensured that they were followed. We were the tax collectors, the police, the soldiers, all in one. We kept the plivoi in their place, and we kept the geroi’s hands clean.
When I reached adolescence, I was apprenticed to an officer—Ketros—who taught me everything there was to know about the job I’d been assigned. And I was the best he’d seen in a long while. It didn’t take me long to gain quite a reputation among the Enforcers. I was earmarked for an officer position as soon as I completed my training. The geroi were known to lavish wealth and prestige upon those officers that met with their favor, and even as an apprentice, I had that. There was a bright future awaiting me, and I knew it.