Michael looked nervously at the big entrance hall for a few seconds. It gave him flashbacks to one of the worst days of his life, even though he stood in the Seventh City filial of St. Manfred’s Wife School instead of the old SCWF. Ignoring his anxiety he walked up to an information booth manned with a bored official and took his papers to show them.

‘I’m here to visit Anne Adams. I have a permit-383.’

The official looked up from his papers, and then he stared him suspiciously up and down before he checked the papers.

‘She’s my sister, and I have the right to visit my family, don’t I?’ ‘It’s not forbidden, but it’s unusual to have young men here who come for family members instead of fiancées. And you are, well…’

‘Yes, I’m currently unrated but I have an identity and I still have my basic human rights. They didn’t delete my existence. I can legally be here. I’ve had someone look up all the legal stuff?’

He held up his ID card.

The official sighed and stood up from his chair. ‘You have the rights. It’s just unexpected. Especially after… Nevermind. Just follow me.’

The man reminded him a bit of official Greystone, and he clearly wasn’t interested enough to make it difficult for him. Michael followed him through a long hallway in silence, and then they took the elevator to the B-section. They arrived in a world that was completely different from anything he knew, like an Alpha villa but made for women, and he was brought to a dusty room with old leather couches and a library that looked out of place.

‘Ah, no visitation room with glass here?’

The man frowned. ‘It’s in use for a first meet-up right now. This room shall suffice for an irregular family visit. There’s no real procedure for them anyway. Please wait here for your sister.’

Michael sat down on the couch, unsure about the procedure that didn’t seem to even exist for a visit like this, and read the names on the books until a teenage girl came in. She had brown hair and eyes, and was wearing a uniform that was completely different from what he was used to from E-girls in the SCWF, and it took him a few seconds to recognise her as Anne. She surely had grown a lot since he’d last seen here. She had been twelve then and almost a child, and now she was a teenager. They looked at each other, and no-one spoke for a few seconds. The official disappeared altogether from the room and he stood up from the couch to greet her.

‘Hi Anne,’ he finally said.

She still didn’t answer, so he went on.

‘Anne, I’m sorry for being so distant. I’m sorry for never checking on you when you left our home. It’s what I’ve always been taught, but I know now that it was wrong.’

More silence, but she was definitely listening now.

‘Anne, please, listen. I know it’s unusual, and some will call it indecent. But I want to be your brother. No matter if you’re in Wife School or married or what else. I want us to be family, and to stay family.’

His sister still stood there, staring at him as if he were an apparition from another dimension.

‘You want to be my brother? Will you be back then? For good?’ She suddenly asked, out of the blue.

‘Back? You mean more than this one visit? I will if I can. We’re family after all, even if my own parents don’t want to see me again. I shouldn’t give them so much power over me. And it’s not like they’ll visit you soon either.’

In a flash he wondered if she even knew what had happened to him.

‘That’s not really true. Mom was here last week. It was quite the surprise too for me. First her, and now you.’

‘She was here? But they never visited you since you came here. Visiting girls in Wife School is indecent and stuff like that.’

She sank on the couch opposite to him.

‘I think it’s your fault even. She seems to have had a serious fight with dad over what happened with you. She didn’t really know what to say to me, and she was a mess to be honest. I don’t think it’s much fun to live at home now to be honest, she’s all alone with the new maidbot most of the time. But she talked about you. She said you were punished and kicked out. That you were deleted from society and that you probably had gone feral. She was afraid you’d end up being killed by your brother.’

Now it was his turn to stare without knowing what to say.

‘Ah…’ He finally said.

‘But you don’t look like a feral, and I’m sure they wouldn’t let an outlaw visit B-girls in a Wife School,’ she said matter-of-factly.

‘I didn’t get a complete delete so I’m not a feral outlaw, I’m just an underpaid barman living in a crappy state apartment. And the last thing I’d ever do is join the feral men. I’d rather move into a Ghost Town of outlaw women. And I’m not into killing anyone at all. Maybe Sam would do that, with his gun obsession, but no, thanks.’

‘So you’re not…?’

‘I might be deleted by the system from the school system and from my family now, but I very much prefer to not delete my own humanity. Thank you. I’m glad to hear mom is worried about me after all, but her fantasies are running wild. On the other hand, if I were living alone with dad and a maidbot I’d have no faith in any man left either.’

‘But you were deleted? Mum also said you had lost your Wife School fiancée when that happened. I didn’t even know you had one. I hardly even registered that Sam was married actually, the outside world is blurry when you’re living full-time in a world like this. What happened to her?’

He sighed. ‘Megan? She’s okay, more or less, but she’s a non-Wife now, so the same story with state apartment, low-pay job and all. And we’re not together like that anymore, if you understand. We’re both unmarriable, and I had a robowife forced unto me. Can’t have a Wife and all that.’

‘But you say she’s okay? You’re still in contact? With your ex?’

Anne stared at her brother again, picking out only one detail of what he had said.

‘Sure. We’re friends. Just like you and your Wife School girls are friends.’

‘But that’s impossible with boys and girls.’

‘Maybe for some people it is, especially in a rotten country like this one. But not for me, or for my girl friends. You can get in trouble for it, but it’s certainly not impossible. And now that we’re talking about Wife School friends, she and her best friends had made a pact to keep in contact even after Wife School, and they kept it even through the whole deletion mess. You don’t have to lose everyone at least twice as a girl.’

‘You are a boy. Why do you say these things? We don’t even dare to think things like that. It’s wrong, even if you’re probably right.’

He shrugged.

‘Because things are wrong in this country, for boys and for girls and for everyone, and we need to change them together. And you’re young and you still have a whole life ahead, with even more chances than I have. Mum’s hurt and brainwashed and all alone, dad is a solitary sociopath, as is Sam, and his wife Natasha is a timid mess of a broken woman. I want a better future for you at least, B or not.’

‘You can’t talk like that. You can’t call father or Sam a solitary sociopath. You should respect men.’

‘Am I not a man? Maybe without ranking now, but I’m still a man, and I believe in basic respect for everyone, including you and mum and Natasha and Megan and Eliza… They’re worth more than any Alpha anyway.’

Anne’s look was almost amused by now, as if she couldn’t believe what she heard.

‘You’re saying weird things, big brother. Dangerous things.’

‘Yeah, I might not be a feral man but I’m probably much more dangerous than that. I’m a revolutionary after all, at least that’s what they say… But nevermind that, our time is almost up I see, and there was something else I wanted to ask. Do you know about black market books?’

‘I know some people have old books, and boy school books that are much better than our Wife school books. But you need something to exchange them for, and I don’t have much stuff to trade. A and B wives in training get a lot of expensive stuff to use, but never for themselves, you know.’

‘But you know who the traders are on your floor, or in your school?’

‘I know one of them, yes. I’m not naive, you know.’ She nodded.

‘Give her an order for a book, any book, and tell her that Eliza will make sure it will get paid for. That’ll get you started.’

‘Who’s Eliza? Your ex? No, she had another name, hadn’t she?’

‘No, just her friend, and mine. And a respected black market trader among other things. Also the one who helped me get a permit-383 to visit you so fast even though I’m unrated. Any black market trader will be able to find her, so if you ever have a message for me you can send it through her too. Oh, and I’ll let them send you the renewed Woman Are Human zine. The main story in the recent one is about a best friend of Megan and Eliza, and her escape story isn’t detailed but they used my wifebot.’

‘You’re sending me forbidden texts about Wife School escapes? Cool!’

‘I’m in it, but not by name. Just read it through…’

She looked at her brother.

‘You know, I haven’t been thinking about you or our Sam that much in all these years, but when mom told us that you were deleted, and that you had gone feral I pictured you completely different.’

‘Yeah, I know I’m not really a trophy brother with my old clothes and my unofficial badge, but I’m not a subhuman beast with rusty weapons either.’

‘You can say that.’

‘I am worried about Sam though. He was way too eager to shoot the feral outlaws when I last saw him. And those ferals don’t shy away from heavy violence either. Completely the opposite of the Ghost Town I’ve seen, where ID-less women have an organised nonviolent community.’

‘So you’ve really been to a Ghost Town? That wasn’t a joke?’

‘Yes, I was the first man they ever let in, although they have a boy there now who’s part of the community. He’s…’

The official returned to the room.

‘Time’s up, buddy.’

He saw Anne panic.

‘Hey, we were talking.’

‘Sorry, Miss Adams, time is up,’ The man repeated.

She turned to her brother. ‘You promise you’ll come back. Please! I need to know more.’

‘I will come back, somehow, in one way or another. And I’ll be your brother even if you’re married. And please say to mom that I’m okay. If I ever become an outlaw it’ll be in a nonviolent Ghost Town!’

The official frowned, but said nothing. It really was a strange sort of man that tended to work in a place like this, Michael thought, very stoic and understated. He almost missed Greystone for a second.

Full of thought he followed the official, who led him out of the complex. He still had a short shift as a waiter today because Bert had called in sick and there wasn’t anyone else who could replace him on short notice.

*

‘We’ve established outside contact again. They’re coming to get her?’ Jenny said to Lady Martha, who was drinking her green tea that night.

‘The sisters in Héva?’

‘Yes, they were on the radio yesterday afternoon. It took a while for the Coast guards to contact the right people it seems, and then no-one was at our radio when they tried to reach us. I had to explain to them that we don’t have full-time radiologists like they do. They call us primitive, and I suppose they see our country as backwards. As if their aeroplanes don’t explode when they try them out here. Those sisters have a weird culture, I tell you that.’

‘So they are coming to bring her home? Did they say when and how they will do that?’

‘It seems complicated. They have to organise a rescue mission, and apparently the whole thing is getting an international dimension if I understood it well.’

Lady Martha looked up from her tea.

‘International? You mean even more countries are involved? So we finally have made contact with not just Héva but with the international world after all? Afropea, Lantada, Tartica, all these places that we stopped having contact with after Manfred?’

‘It’s possible, Lady. They just said they had to inform an international envoy too before they could do the mission.’

‘I know we’re not used to thinking in those terms, but what do you know of the international status of Héva, Jenny?’

‘Well… They are not uncontacted like us. They do have some sort long-distance contact with the rest of the world, but they seem kind of ostracised and isolated still. As if they’re outside of the group. Maybe because they’re a bit of a photonegative version of The Nation, it seems there is a focus on human rights that includes gender equality in other countries. Excluding men like they do might be frowned upon.’

‘Equality between men and women? Wasn’t that always a forbidden idea? Both for Manfred and the Sisterhood at least I mean. Do you think people can actually live like that as a society in this day and age?’ Lady Martha said thoughtfully. ‘And I mean not one in a hundred men, but all of them, living together with women as friends and equals? I can’t make sense of that, Jenny. A good man here and there, okay; but that?’

‘If they are willing to pledge allegiance to all friendly people, regardless of sex, rating or identity status. But I don’t think Afropeans have anything like our rating system or identity status.’

‘Men without Alphas and Epsilons? Really. This is all too much. I’m still trying to understand how Eliza finds it more natural to not see gender differences and have friends regardless of male or female. And still it has saved at least one human life already, think of the boy.’

‘Poor kid. They would have killed him indeed. Most of them don’t live long without their identity, it’s well-known. But still, Jenny, even for a progressive Ghost Town leader it’s all going a bit fast…’

‘It’s going fast, but we need to take that road if we want to have a future. Maybe it’s even more important to get in contact with whatever international connection they are involving now than with Héva. They could be of more use than the Sisterhood if you ask me.’

‘Do you think that could work? Jenny, it’s all a bit dazzling, much more than that whole unsegregation thing.’

‘There still is worldwide international trade and travel according to Jibrilla. They have technologies we’ve never heard of. It could give so many opportunities for our Ghost Towns…’

‘But the Central Computer? Connor Johnston?’ Lady Martha said.

‘Oh, I know Manfred decided that The Nation should stay uncontacted, but we don’t officially exist, remember. Being recognised by other countries could make a difference, don’t you think?’

‘Or they suddenly do recognise us as enemies and they start attacking us if we team up with what they see as the enemy? Ghost Towns will have to navigate this carefully. If they suddenly direct all that unused agression and violence towards us, we’re toast.’ Martha said carefully.

‘Hmm, we have to watch out for that too indeed. Which is why I think broad international contacts are better than Héva. Hévans and the Central Computer guys would just start an all-out war, but an egalist Union of nations is another matter, especially if they trade new tech with us. Maybe if they think they miss out?’

‘But isn’t Manfred’s computer designed to never have any innovations, and was his isolationism part of his vision for The Nation.’

‘Their world is so small and narrow. But even Connor can’t be so stupid to miss out on new tech and trade possibilities, is he?’

‘You know how dogmatic they are.’

‘I have to think about this more, Jenny.’ Jenny nodded, and took the cue.

‘Goodnight, Lady Martha.’ She said, and disappeared into the night.

*

The next morning Eliza walked to the exit of Seventh City Ghost Town, wearing her stained orange overall. She was going to get the bicycle when she almost bumped into Eric, who was carrying a box of fresh choy cabbages, being followed by a tiny chicken, almost a chick still.

‘Oops, sorry, I should watch out better.’

‘No problem.’

‘What’s up with your new friend, Eric?’ Eliza asked, looking at the shy little bird that followed him like a satellite.

‘Little Roc? Oh, nothing, she just follows me. She hatched too early and I took care for her like a mother.’

‘She’s not going to be part of the lunch then?’ She said teasingly, and Eric stopped.

‘Don't call her that! She's a respected non-human member of Seventh City Ghost Town now! And I will defend her with my life.’

‘I see that letting boys in here was a slippery slope towards more extreme forms of inclusivity. So when will they start giving full membership to potatoes here? I'll have to get some before that, because I'm making fries today.’

‘Don't mock little Roc! She was the first one to hatch, and I was a bit lonely here in this strange world, so I made friends with that cute little yellow chick. She’s not a farm animal anymore, she’s a pet.’

‘She looks more like a familiar if you ask me.’

‘Are you sure that you aren’t the witch here? So who’s your familiar then, your Michael-dude?’

‘He’s not mine. I don’t own him. He’s a free person and a legal adult.’

‘Come on, you two are always together when he’s here.’

‘That doesn’t make him mine. And anyway, he’s going to date someone else because I’m such a bad player. Nevermind. I had a question that’s not for the ears of your tiny friend here.’

Eric looked at the chick. ‘She doesn’t understand English yet I think, but what can be so bad for the ears of Little Roc?’

‘Angela asked me to ask when you were selling chicken meat again.’ Whispered Eliza.

‘Ah, I have nothing to do with that. I’m not killing them myself. I’m not a killer. But we’ll have chicken meat available again in two weeks on Thursday. I’m not really looking forward to it. It will make me a traitor to my new friend.’

She hugged him without a warning. ‘You’re so adorable and I love you for that, little guy!’

‘I love you too. You’re the most incredible woman on the planet. I wish I could fall in love with you and Love Ceremony you so you’d hug me forever. But it doesn’t work like that.’

‘All my friends can have my hugs, don’t worry. But it’s surely a curse to only be attracted to men, isn’t it?’ she winked conspiratorially.

‘It’s horrible, men are scary and they don’t like me. They find me an abomination.’

‘You know what would have happened to me if a man had chosen me in Wife School, do you?’ Eliza remarked and her voice was very dark now.

‘Ah… This Country is horrible for everyone.’

‘But then again, I think few men ever looked at me. I was the last in line, remember. Nothing desirable about me. Unsexy and lowly rated. I wasn’t made to be noticed by men looking for a Wife. The Angel may zap ‘em all. Just the feeling when one looks at you at the choice night alone is horrible. Even if they don’t mean harm it’s hard to turn that off.’

‘Michael you mean? I heard he almost chose you in a Wife School choosing ceremony?’

‘Oh, well… He did, but he still chose Megan and doesn’t count. The few good ones are always collateral damage. But the others that night alone were enough to run away from men for the rest of your life. That’s Epsilons for you. Well, they actually were all removed by an intervention team that night so I guess they didn’t do much harm to any Wife School girl for at least a year. But really, those baboons didn’t even have enough braincells to understand courtship sabotage.’

Eric picked up the little chick and put it on his shoulders.

‘Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I, you know, hadn’t been deleted and was forced to take a wife. I would just have frozen, and I think most women expect more of a man than I could give.’

‘You wouldn’t abuse a Wife. She would still have dodged a bullet. I haven’t heard of one happy Marriage in my life, and no relationship is still better than anything I’ve ever heard about Marriages.’

‘But I didn’t know you could be friends with a girl. I really had never heard of that. It’s just unthinkable if you want to Be a Man!’

She hugged him again.

‘Don’t worry, buddy. No-one will force you to take a Wife here, and all the girls are your friends. And the only men they’ll ever let in are not the Be a Man type.’

She chuckled when he made the gesture again just because she said those words.

‘But boys will be boys, even you, hah! I’ve never met one who didn’t react to those words. And it’s cute.’ She said.

‘Boys are cute?’ He asked.

‘Oh, all the good ones are incredibly cute. It’s the Be a Man types who think real men are serious and tough and whatever. But I’m off now, need to get a few spare parts in the city. She gave him a last hug and disappeared on her bike.

‘She’s really something, isn’t she?’ He whispered to the chick. ‘But without her I wouldn’t be here, and I might not even be alive anymore. I’m more like you than you think, little one.’ The chick chirped and he picked up his box of cabbages again, to bring it to the kitchen of the bar.

*

Two days later Michael almost bumped into Samantha when he came out of the bar kitchen after his shift.

‘Hey cutie, ready for our date next week?’ she asked.

He threw his hands in the air in surrender. ‘What can I say. You’ve won that game and I didn’t pay attention to what you were doing.’

‘Come on, a little bit of enthusiasm please. It’s not like I picked you as a Wife in a Wife School Ceremony or so. It’s just one date.’

‘I still didn’t choose anything. I just figured it would only be fair to give you a chance to not start a relationship with me like the other girls. If you behave that is.’

‘Oh, wow. What an attitude.’ She said, taking a step backward.

He reached in his little backpack and handed her a ‘Ghost Town Guidelines for Relationships’ booklet.

‘And here’s some literature for you. Just in case.’

Samantha looked disdainfully at the brochure. ‘These are for Ghost Town women. You don’t even live here, and you’re a boy.’

‘Ah, I hadn’t noticed that before. So what were you planning to do?’

Samantha thought he had a strange teasing look in his eyes now. ‘Well, the Ghost Town is the best idea indeed. You’re the only boy in The Nation that I can take on a Ghost Town date. You’re too cute and innocent to be alive, and completely hopeless but you’re also the only safe guy within reach in this rotten country. So I promise I will behave, and I’ll give you a classic clean romance fiction date like in those silly books, like you’ve never experienced before.’

He sighed, but couldn’t help but notice that she was very serious about it.

‘So what do you propose?’ He asked.

‘No proposals please. Just be there at seven in the evening and make sure you are dressed for the occasion.’

He just nodded. What had he agreed to?