The Gender Game (The Gender Game #1)

by Bella Forrest

Ms. Dale, my defense trainer.

artificial mint

(null)

The chemical the hygiene department sprayed in here helped to mask the odor of trash, but had the tendency to cause a dull headache.

was my eight-year-old brother, Timothy.

The mark of a black crescent.

"When am I going to see you again?"

How I would have to maintain complete ignorance as to his whereabouts to everyone in the city.

"I love you too, Ma," he whispered. Ma. How I despised it when he called me that. And now of all times…

Ooh jeez

As the woman straddling my hips drove a tranquilizer dart into my shoulder, that scream would become the last memory I ever had of my brother: A marked boy.

seven-year incarceration period, I would be on track for reintegration into the city a few days after my twenty-first birthday… whatever life the Court expected a girl with no family to live after having spent her adolescence locked away from society.

And I had better not slip up. I'd already rebelled against the Court at the age of eleven by committing obstruction of justice, and after being convicted of womanslaughter (albeit involuntary) via the use of a weapon (even if it was a dinner fork) a few years later, there would be only one fate left in store for me if I didn't get through these next two years without first-degree infractions. It would be straight to the city labs, where I would be put painlessly to sleep without further trial or consideration.

He'd been flagged as "excessively domineering" in the matriarchy's screening lab when he was eight and consequently deemed an unfit member of Matrus' peaceful society. A score of five out of five for both aggressive tendencies and insubordination was essentially the kiss of death for any Matrus-born boy. Tim was a slave in the coal mines in the Deep North now. Or so I’d been told. I hadn't seen him since the day I’d failed to smuggle him to Patrus.

patriarchy of Patrus.

"Obstruction of entry to dormitories is forbidden,"

Nothing sharp was allowed in my suitcase, not even nail clippers. That was why there were never mirrors in the dormitories of these facilities, only in the bathrooms, which were monitored by wardens.

Making friends in facilities like this wasn't encouraged.

I’d reciprocated to ward her off, not to plunge the fork into her throat.

Weapon usage by anyone other than an authorized warden was strictly prohibited throughout Matrus;

So she traveled back with me in my uncle's rowboat… We left Dad."

They married here and he took her name. But he couldn't survive here. He begged Mom to let him take us back with him." "… And your mom couldn't bear it in Patrus," I finished.

Just as marriages only usually lasted in Matrus if Matrus was all the man had ever known, the same was true of marriages in Patrus; women born there were conditioned to the ways of life in the patriarchy. They didn't suffer from culture shock as Matrus-born women did.

A woman in Patrus had about as many rights as a pet animal. She couldn't legally reside there without being owned by a man, and even with a husband she was limited. She couldn't go out by herself, she couldn't work, drive, or own money or property. I'd even heard that their physical appearance and clothes were dictated by the man, if he ...

I'd spent the last five years of my life as a Matrian prisoner, but even so, I was sure that I still held more dignit...

This extra leniency shown toward them was made up for by the harshness of Matrus' legal system — there was little male-committed crime in Matrus for a reason.

Such differing upbringings between Patrian-Matrian couples were all but impossible to reconcile in the long term.

Veil River was known colloquially as Suicide Stretch, and there had been more than a few incidents of c...

conceive in an insemination center.

My mother had chosen the latter to have my brother and me. And if I ever decided I wanted a child, I would do the same.

I didn't need a man in my life—not even a Matrian male—and from all that I'd been told by my mother before she died, I was better off without one anyway. Better to remain always self-reliant. Self-reliance means you're...

Besides, even Matrian husbands were a headache with all the accompanying paperwork and responsibility they came with. These days I had a hard e...

new pharmaceutical drug that anesthetized emotions while sharpening logic and intellect—hardly the makings of an empathetic people.

@tyler

as Matrus' thus-far unrivaled expertise in the fields of biology and medicine was the one thing Matrus truly had to offer Patrus in exchange for water and fresh crops from the verdant mountainous region. Matrus could survive without Patrus’ trade, but it would make life more austere for all of us.

According to our history books, centuries ago, Matrus and Patrus didn’t even exist. They were one group of people, one band of survivors of the Last War that toxified vast swathes of the great land once known as America.

It started with a party of women protesting against the colony’s quickly forming male-dominated leadership. The party believed that if men were allowed to prevail again, they were simply creating a replica of the former testosterone-driven regime that had led everything to ruin.

the screening of “violent” boys was instituted by Matrus’ politicians pretty quickly, as well as the building of aircraft that were used to discover the mines in the Deep North…

My brother was what he was. A fault in Matrus’ system.

I'd have to face the consequences of falling asleep so late for the rest of the day.

Other than the basic ability to read and add up numbers, boys weren't given an education like girls were, just an apprenticeship in manual labor. The same was true of the girls in Patrus who weren't allowed to attend school like the boys. The only semblance of training they received was domestic.

Education, we take it for granted, yet its always held to such a powerful level

Dale had encouraged me to continue. She'd told me I had a natural instinct for fighting and that it would be a shame to let it go to waste.

Unlike my brother, she wouldn't be penalized for her boldness.

"OH, MY GOD! VIOLET'S KILLED DINA!" I haven't

them to erase two counts of womanslaughter from my record?

Other than Tim, I hadn’t had significant close contact with males and didn't think I'd ever need to.

An accessory. A pet. No rights. No voice.

was for the sake of our nation's — and womankind’s — long term peace and well being, and that it was only because of a long history of misbehavior by men that we were in this position to begin with, their assurance wasn't enough for a minority of women whose lives had been touched by the screening.

could have sworn, though, at one point, that I actually saw the shadow of a person darting through the trees—or some other kind of creature that stood tall and upright. But it vanished quickly, before I could even point it out to Ms. Dale, leading me to conclude it was the mist playing tricks on my eyes.

I wasn't used to this—having things done for me. Least of all by a man. I had never relied on a man before in my life, for anything. But if I wanted to stand a chance of seeing my brother again, it looked like I was going to have to get used to it.

The expanse of clear, shimmering water felt almost like a taunt to their neighbors—Matrus couldn't even conceive of such waste.

but I guessed fairly attractive.