Chapter 464: The Price for Safety
“So…from the sounds of it, you came from a world where a dictator tried to, and I can’t believe this sentence is coming out of mouth, breed into existence the ultimate psychic warriors?,” Zhen Liu asked. A part of him was still shocked that there was yet another Earth with radically different histories, but he was a transmigrated soul on this world so he really couldn’t justify freaking out over this revelation.
Multiverse theory, it’s fun.
“Essentially, yes,” Elsa replied, “Thankfully though, he died before he could enact this absurd policy to the fullest. Kind of hard to implement a global breeding program when the rest of the world is against the idea.”
“Of course.”
“But…it didn’t stop him from inflicting untold damage in the process. Myself included…”
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Prior to the Optimization War, the early days of the Tyrant’s reign were… quiet.
The sun shined, the birds sang, the farmers gathered their harvests and Elsa continued to make her homemade confections for any who wanted a taste.
People paid their taxes to some other form of government, they went to church and children went to school.
Everything was basically the same even with the changes in government…for about a year.
After that one year, things started getting…weird.
At first, it was very subtle changes, almost progressive.
Benefits for veterans? Earned!
Laws prohibiting gender bias? Huzzah!
Increased testing for espers? Alright, sure, make sure the kids can properly control their powers.
But then things got progressively more…invasive.
A special symbol on identification papers to distinguish espers from non-espers? Okay, sure, little weird but okay.
The symbol now differentiates power levels between espers on an A-F scale? Feels like something that should have been established earlier, but alright.
Special privileges and locations accessible only by those who have a specific type of Esper identification symbol. That’s… getting discriminatory.
Number of children is now limited based on the psychich power of the people involved, and things are now getting totalitarian.
Over time, more and more radical changes to society were implemented that seemed to favor psychich ability over everything else. The rights of mundane people and weaker espers began to dwindle until the point that only those with an arbitrary “C” ranking could be considered a proper citizen of the state, but even they fell victim to the whims of the “A” and “B” ranks.
Elsa’s homeland had transformed from a constitutional monarchy with a somewhat progressively conservative lifestyle to a totalitarianistic meritocracy where only the powerful reign.
And only the powerful could multiply.
The Tyrant had implemented a series of reforms and laws that the rest of the world “lovingly” called the “breeder’s creed”.
It was a complex series of laws that essentially gave anyone of a sufficiently high grade the right to do whatever they wanted with those of a lower grade, regardless of overall financial or marital status, due to the state funding everything to make this happen.
It soon became a common sight to see those of a certain grading to have a cadre of lower class…”dependents”.
As one can imagine, this system got worst overtime.
Punishments became downright draconian as those of a lower grade were essentially slaves to everyone above them, and those above abused their power to a most heinous degree.
It didn’t reach a boiling point of internal rebellion until the start of the Optimization War.
Around that time, advances in technology had reached an unsettling point, one where procreation could be possible via an external environment could be used to create “designer babies”. In reality, these devices made use of extracted reproductive organs, from the deceased or otherwise, to create children without the need of the original owner of said organs.
This device was initially used for medical purposes, help people who couldn’t have children naturally to have children, but in the hands of the Tyrant, they became so much worst.
By the Tyrant’s decree, the army was sent out to invade neighboring nations taking everything they could get their hands on, but with a special focus on the most “valuable” citizens.
Intellect, physical beauty, psychic abilities, as long as the person could be deemed “valuable” they were a target.
Alive was preferred, especially by the lead officers of these invasions, but dead was an okay alternative. After all, the important parts could still be preserved…
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“Well…that’s disgusting,” Zhen Liu commented/joke in an attempt to digest the absolute horridness he just listened to. It might have been inappropriate, but it was his coping mechanism and he’d rather not have his imagination go that dark.
Elsa understood this reaction and could only shrug helplessly.
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and one of nature’s oldest instincts is to multiply. Combining the two together, and you get an absolute mess.”
“Yea-hold up…”
Zhen Liu was about to agree, but stopped himself when he started to realize some details about these “artificial” reproduction technologies.
And why Elsa, a powerful psychic in her own right, wanted a child of her own.
“Miss Reinhardt…were you by chance…”
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Initially, these “artificial” reproduction tools were used exclusively on enemy combatants and POWs.
Horror story upon horror story was sent to the wider world about several mass graves containing freshly castrated victims of both sexes, with their “legacies” being used to fuel an unending war machine.
However, when the sparks of internal rebellion began to light in Elsa’s homeland, the Tyrant and his loyalists realized something.
Who said they could only “optimize” foreign enemies, when there were so many domestic ones nearby?
All it took was a tip to the local secret police.
Rebel propaganda being spread by a decently powerful psychic?
To the extractor
Suspicious of your local shopkeeper with the chiseled jawline who caught you shoplifting that one time?
To the extractor.
Snubbed by that pretty lady with red hair for being a creep?
To the extractor.
At this point, it didn’t matter whether you were a mundane “F” or an extraordinary “A”, as long as you were slightly disloyal to the state, your right to procreate was removed, replaced by “public service”.
This of course, lead to increased amounts of people rebelling, even more people trying to escape to other countries that didn’t actively harvest their reproductive parts like crops and a whole slew of people who are it their business selling other people’s “businesses”.
Which brings us back to Elsa.
During this time period, she tried her absolute damn best to stay out of sight and out of the government’s claws.
But over time, and an increasingly bleeding heart, she soon became one of the foremost people runners that helped almost anyone and everyone get the hell out of her once proud homeland.
Thanks to her Esper ranking of “B”, her military background in intelligence gathering and her abilities of telepathy and clairvoyance, Elsa quickly learned how to help anyone fly under the radar via forged documentation and establishment of secret routes that hardly anyone knew about.
Overall, Elsa had managed to help over a thousand families escape the clutches of the Tyrant, his regime and his oh-so creepy secret police.
But alas, this all soon came to an abrupt and terrible end.
“This is the police. Open up.”
“Shit! How did they find out?!”
“I don’t know, but go. Now! I’ll handle this.”
Elsa had been in the middle of hiding yet another family on the run, a young couple of espers with a newborn baby, when all of a sudden, the secret police had showed up at her doorstep.
Apparently the neighbors of the family she had hidden away this time around had decided to tattle on them for the sake of a reward of some kind.
The family in question not only violated the child policy at the time, but due to the ongoing war, the two of them should have been drafted a long time ago and sent to the front lines.
Regardless of the circumstances though, it was Elsa’s problem now.
“Good evening officers, is there a problem?”
“We heard a report about deserters and unlicensed breeders. We need to investigate your shop.”
“Of course, sir. Not a problem.”
This wasn’t the first time Elsa had to get the secret police to fob off with a well timed bribe or a charismatic joke.
Unfortunately for her, that wouldn’t be the case.
“Now then, Miss…hold on…Elsa? Is that you?”
“Marina?!”
Whether it was fate or bad luck, the officer in charge of the investigation this time was an old army buddy of hers from back in the day, Marina Goldstein.
The two of them had worked in the same intelligence and interrogation unit, meaning the two of them had some familiarity with one another.
Unfortunately, because of this familiarity, Marina knew exactly was Elsa was capable of…and what she was probably doing.
“Elsa…it’s been a while, hasn’t it?
“Yes, it has…”
“It’s been what, ten, fifteen years since we last seen each other?”
“I believe so…”
“Elsa, enough of this bullshit. Tell me what I need to know and maybe, for old time’s sakes, I can help you clean your hands of this whole mess.”
“That…”
Elsa knew that she was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and had no idea how to get out of this situation without doing something either violent or desperate.
In this case…she chose the latter.
“Hold up, commissar. How about we cut a deal instead?”
“Oh?”
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Elsa took a deep breath before she turned towards Zhen Liu, her hand on the bottom hem of her shirt.
With a touch of hesitation and anxiety, she slowly lifted it until that bottom hem was just above her stomach, revealing to Zhen Liu, a horizontal scar right across her abdomen.
As soon as Zhen Liu saw this scar, he immediately understood everything.
“I don’t regret doing what I did for that family’s sake, but…I can’t say I haven’t looked in the mirror and ask myself time and time again, about what could’ve been. So please…can’t you help me?”
Zhen Liu examined the scar for a moment before exhaling.
“Alright…let me check something…”
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS
Mizako
Note, any parallels to real world events are completely coincidental and very dependent on the writer’s recent memories.
Pinocchio on Netflix is good.
