Angela Woiwode--My Writing Life: November 2011

I sit in the observation room as they lead Ryker toward the huge machine. “Will it hurt?” he asks. His voice, tinny through the speakers in the wall, betrays his fear. Flanked by two armed guards, the nurse offers both pity and warmth through a practiced smile.

“You’ll be sedated,” she assures him.

“Why would he ask that?” asks a girl in the room. “He’s seen enough of these to know.”

A couple other kids snicker in response. A boy, Thatcher, speaks up. “He’s got to be terrified. I have nightmares about this happening to me.”

“You should be terrified,” the first girl says. “You’re always at the bottom of the intelligence list. And being scared is just another form of weakness. You’ll be in there soon enough.”

Thatcher’s face pales, and he doesn’t attempt a comeback.

There are about ten of us who have come to watch Ryker’s eradication, one of the annual requirements for all students in Brighton Academy over the age of four. We have to witness the consequences of not measuring up.

Ryker trembles noticeably and shoots glances at the door. One of the guards moves to block the exit and put to rest any idea of fleeing. The other stays close, ready to restrain Ryker if necessary.

This is my eleventh eradication. I’ve seen students attempt to flee, try to fight off the nurse, even attack the guards. School lore maintains that one student, long before any of us existed, fought so fiercely that a guard had to shoot and kill him.

“Five callens he makes a break for it,” says a girl behind me. “You in, Elizabeth?” I shake my head, but the other students start placing bets.

Ryker won’t fight. He’s a nervous type, not confrontational, which was probably his downfall. The tests made him nervous, and his nervousness made him sloppy. It’s not uncommon among us, but there’s no room for error. If you can’t take the pressure, then you’re not meant to be a Gent.

I watch Ryker sit back in the seat and hold out his arm for the sedative injection. His face and body calm as he slips into oblivious sleep. While Ryker drifts off, the nurse attaches several wires, clamps, and needles to his scalp with experienced efficiency.

I hear callen tickets exchanging hands behind me as the students tease each other. “I told you he didn’t have it in him to struggle,” and “With those powers of observation, you’ll be eradicated next.”

Meanwhile, the nurse finishes her routine, securing Ryker’s head and shoulders to the chair and restraining his wrists.

I’ll miss Ryker. We weren’t especially close, but he always said hi in classes, and he looked out for me. When I was nine, I came in dead last during an intelligence assessment. The boys and girls teased me for weeks, placing their fingers on my head in imitation of the eradication machine. Ryker stood up for me, batting their hands away and reminding them of the precariousness of our continued existence as Gents at Brighton Academy.

The students fall silent as the door to Ryker’s room opens and the Eradicator enters. The nurse has finished with Ryker and steps back to allow the Eradicator to check her work. He’s an unpretentious looking man, small and slight with light-colored, thinning hair. His rimless glasses reflect the machine’s lights while he works.

My stomach drops as the Eradicator and a guard each produce a key card. They use both to open a drawer beside the machine. A retinal scan of the Eradicator’s eye finishes the process, and the drawer opens.

This used to be easy. When I was young, I didn’t know the students who lost their education to the eradication machine. I didn’t miss them when they joined the ranks of the Regs, and I couldn’t imagine a life of menial labor among the insufficiently intelligent. Now, each year I watch another eradication, I feel new fear, which is the whole point of forcing us to witness the procedure. I promise myself never to procrastinate this responsibility again. I shouldn’t be watching Ryker—I should watch someone I don’t know and have never spoken to—but his is the last eradication before my year runs out, so I have no choice. If I fail to meet this requirement, I’ll have points against me, and I’ll be one step closer to being in his shoes.

From the drawer, the Eradicator has withdrawn a syringe filled with a thick, sickly yellow liquid. He inserts it just behind Ryker’s left ear and depresses the plunger. It takes ages to empty. Tense breathing fills the room around me. For all their pretended callousness, Brighton students understand this reality. One slip up and this could be any one of us.

The Eradicator waits thirty seconds, checks Ryker’s vital signs, and nods to the nurse.

She flips the switch.

“I’ve heard the smell is horrible,” someone says. Lasers and needles work on his brain, searing his hair from his scalp in jagged patches. His body occasionally jerks in response to the stimulation in his brain, causing a similar reaction from the observers. We never get used to the painful-looking convulsions. The machine, however, senses the movement and corrects itself, locating the precise pattern unique to Ryker’s brain.

No one speaks for the remaining ten minutes of the procedure. Ryker jerks, the machine adjusts, and the Eradicator runs around Ryker’s chair monitoring his vital signs. The nurse stands ready with a case of syringes, all treatments for possible side effects of eradication. He might stop breathing, become paralyzed, or have a seizure. Most eradications go smoothly—I’ve only seen the Eradicator use those treatments three times—but he’s always prepared. I’ve heard that the Brighton Eradicator is one of the best, and I only hope those aren’t rumors. No Brighton student has ever so much as spoken to someone in another academy, so I don’t know for sure.

We all let out a breath as the machine slows down and stops. The Eradicator removes another syringe from the previously locked drawer and the nurse pulls a privacy screen between the observation room window and Ryker. We see the green liquid and large needle before it disappears behind the curtain. Although we can’t witness it, we know what is happening. Sterilization.

It is over quickly, and the nurse removes the screen and sets to work freeing Ryker’s sleeping form from the machine and restraints. The Eradicator injects Ryker one last time, this one in his neck to counteract the sedative, and then puts his instruments away.

Ryker slowly begins to stir.

“Here goes nothing,” a boy says in a quiet, low voice. It’s been silent for so long that this interruption feels like an intrusion. We all know this is when we find out whether the eradication was successful.

After eradication, Ryker should remember how to read and write, as well as other simple facts and procedures. He will remember how to feed himself and who the commander is. He’ll know his colors and basic math. But everything he learned after turning six has been taken, eradicated.

He sits up, and the Eradicator approaches him. “How are you feeling?” he asks.

Ryker rubs his head, exploring the bare patches of scalp with his fingers, flinching when he hits a tender spot. “Where am I?” he asks. I unclench a little. Ryker can still speak, and he knows how to put a sentence together. His simple cognitive function is undamaged.

“You’re at Brighton Academy,” the Eradicator says. “But I’m sorry, you can’t stay.”

“Isn’t that a place for Gents?”

“It is a place for Intelligents, yes.”

Ryker looks down at himself. He is wearing denim pants and a dark blue cotton shirt—the uniform of the Regs—instead of the crisp, short lab coats and trousers of a Brighton Academy Gent. “This is odd,” he says. “I look like a Reg, but I can only ever remember a life at school.”

The Eradicator offers his hand and helps Ryker stand. “Walk for me,” he says. This is the second and final test. If Ryker’s physical function is intact, he can move on to an occupation among the Regs. I don’t allow myself to think about what would happen if he fails to take a step. I silently encourage him.

Effortlessly, Ryker’s foot moves forward, and he takes two solid, if a bit groggy, steps.

The Eradicator smiles at his work and finally answers Ryker’s previous question. “You remember living here because it’s all you’ve ever known. You were born here and educated here, but you’re not suited to this life. Today, you will experience your new life for the first time.” He nods at the guards, who open the door and allow two young women to enter. “These young ladies are here to take you home,” the Eradicator explains. “Meet Penny and Kellie. Ladies, this is Rykie.”

“No,” says Ryker. “That doesn’t seem right.” He thinks for a few long seconds. “What’s my name?” he asks, panic beginning to show.

“Your name among the Regulars is Rykie,” the Eradicator says. “It will take a little getting used to, since you can’t recall your former name, but that is how you will be known from now on.”

The girls come forward and each take one of Ryker’s elbows. They will give him the scripted explanations as they walk him into his new life among the Regs. He’s heard it before—we all have—but his memory is lost now, so it will be new to him.

They will tell him that he’ll find a trade among the Regs, something suited to his abilities, which are already known. He will perform his work in exchange for food rations, housing, and medical care. It’s hard work, but the living conditions are comfortable. Ryker—Rykie—now has a new purpose. His work, and the work of all the Regs, supports the Gents, who use their extraordinary intellect to solve the world’s evils.

The young women will tell all of this to Rykie, reiterating the idea that the Regs do important work by spending their own energy in order to allow the Gents to concentrate on real problems. I don’t know what will happen to him after that. I hope with a guilty conscience that I never find out for myself.

“That’s another one down,” says one of the observers. We all stand and retrieve our tablets from various bags, purses, or over-large pockets. As we exit the observation room, the nurse presses her fingertip to each screen, which scans her fingerprint as evidence that we observed the procedure.

I take my tablet from her and wipe her oily print off the screen. The eradication verification form appears. I already know what it says, since signing it is a formality every year. I check off the medical accomplishments of the Gents: preventing or curing seventy-five percent of all cancer, developing ways to prevent all birth defects, curing diabetes and most degenerative diseases. The next section focuses on agricultural feats: creating taize, a hybrid supercorn, by cross-breeding strong, energy-rich types of corn with other grains and plants, converting taize into tysene, a renewable, powerful, and efficient fuel, bioengineering meat products that don’t require the space, resources, or slaughtering required by traditional animal husbandry. I check through the list quickly and get to the educational philosophy of Peter Tamson, the first commander of the New Establishment.

Hundreds of years ago, the average intelligence was frightfully low, and education was wasted on everyone instead of being viewed as the finite resource it is. Why spend time, money, and attention educating those who cannot or will not use it, will not make a difference? Because of the Radical Reorganization, Tamson’s revolutionary method of selected breeding and education, the New Establishment State now leads the world in wealth, education, and progress. We only allow the most intelligent members of society to procreate, then we identify the best among their offspring and focus on developing their talents and abilities. With more and more countries following our lead, we must redouble our efforts to remain the best.

I sign off on the line, my signature saying that I will work toward the goal of bringing glory to my Academy and country, and should I be found unfit to do so, I will accept my role among the Reg population, where I will work to support those whose abilities exceed my own. Once I submit the form through my tablet mail, my to-do list pops up, and “Annual Eradication: Age 16” moves into the column of completed tasks. Ryker lost years of education and a chance to change the world for the better. I crossed off a chore.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what inspires me, and I have to say that I am often inspired by the sick and twisted. Need proof? Well,one of the first things I assigned my seniors to read was "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift, a satirical essay in which he proposes that the Irish (who were oppressed, starving, and overpopulated) ease their suffering by selling their one-year-old babies to the British...for food. (Remember, this is SATIRE. If you're not sure what that means, just imagine I said that Stephen Colbert came up with that plan, and then you'll understand.)

Anyway, I am inspired by the bad guys. I love them, and a lot of people think that's strange. I understand when this confuses people. After all, I'm the mostly-vegan vegetarian living with fifteen mammals and reptiles who is all about making love, not war. Had I been around earlier in history, I would have made an awesome hippie. I even have the hair for it.

But what a lot of people don't do automatically is to separate between fact and fiction. Real bad guys freak me out. People are responsible for terrible deeds, and that never fails to sadden and disturb me. These bad guys do not inspire me, and I really wish there were a way to cure the world of them.

But in the fictional world, the bad guys have one job: to create conflict. Every story centers around that conflict, so no bad guy = no story, and stupid bad guy = stupid story. Following that logic, great bad guy = great story. They appall us, they offend us, and they make us cry, but that just means they're doing their job of causing the main characters pain. And if the main characters aren't suffering, then you aren't cheering them on, and at the end of the book, they wouldn't have achieved anything. (You'd be so bored you would have put the book down unfinished ages ago, anyway.)

So the journey of a writer is to find that conflict and that perfect bad guy and allow them to torment the good guys. It's the neverending story of good vs. evil, and as readers (and viewers), we eat it up every time.

Angela Woiwode--My Writing Life

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