'Girl Thursday Man Friday' – a short, but perfectly formed, salutary story
If 'Poor Things' ever met 'GATTACA' – my science fictional entry into the latest Lunar Awards writing competition.
Hi there.
I know. It’s been a while.
But I’m now behind a new wheel and getting back into my stride. Yes, I’ve found my mojo in a MoHo.
Recently on the writing front, two short speculative stories, a second novel and some flash fiction have been taking up my time.
Below I can reveal the first short story, where I’ve played with tropes, speculated on our far future, flipped things around and guessed what might come up. Or not.
It’s always good to keep an open mind when dealing with such matters. I just hope it’s a cut above the rest when it comes to being judged.
Until next time…
Girl Thursday Man Friday
If ‘Poor Things’ ever met ‘GATTACA’…
After hours of meticulous work, exhaustion threatened to sever Thursday’s concentration. Only one final insertion remained. Maintaining position, she clamped virtual tweezers around the vital target and tapped the ‘break’ button. The base pair parted, promptly followed by its sequential neighbours; unzipping and unwinding like the lithe, eager limbs of miniature dancers. She exhaled, slow and deliberate, before raising her genie goggles and letting the dull weight of reality impinge. Should be only a few more seconds…
The base editor emitted a soft, reassuring beep as a message winked, ‘edit completed’. Fingers dancing over the interface, Thursday confirmed the chromo package and, with a final flourish, tapped to transmit her code to an illicit off-grid vat. Now came the hardest part: waiting. Patience wasn’t her strong trait, but only time and biochemistry stood between her efforts and proof of success. She’d seeded her design, now it needed time and space to grow.
Peeling off her haptics, Thursday stood to stretch her cramped arms and flex stiff fingers. Her roomie, Charlie, snored gently in the opposite corner of their dorm room, auburn hair glinting in the dim light cast by the desk lamp. Above their beds, pop avatars poised mid-preen, their wall animations frozen and dimmed until dawn. It wasn’t so hard to adopt the normal habits of teenage life, despite the hours wasted arguing about fickle taste and fleeting talent. But a teacher’s words still echoed inside her head: ‘You ask too many questions, Thursday. I’ve got my eye on you. Don’t be a secret schemer.’
Too late, thought Thursday with a smile. She climbed into bed and snuggled under her blanket, hoping sleep would envelop her. But, behind her eyes, novel patterns continued to play out their dance. Life’s continuum was infinitely malleable, but still frustratingly rule-bound. Societal restrictions were no longer man-made, but the Elders still prohibited man-making. Vanquished and forbidden centuries ago, Thursday still craved to see one in the flesh.
A real man. Only one. Just for a day.
The dorm block klaxon blared reveille, stirring Thursday and Charlie awake. Today promised to be different twice over: their furthest sun, the larger of a binary pair, was making a rare appearance in this Epicycle. Everyone would be gathering outside before noon to witness Avocet II rise briefly above Homemoon’s horizon, casting genuine shadows with its cherry-red rays. There would be the usual festivities to mark the occasion. Then, all too soon, it would set, returning them to a dim and dull twilight, lit only by Homemoon’s mother planet.
But Thursday planned to eclipse this Epicycle with the results of her secret project. She’d made her excuses to leave the refectory, eager to open her special delivery. Teenage distractions come in many forms. None more so than the contents of the sealed box she carried upstairs to her dorm room. Placing it with care on the kitchenette worktop, she sliced through the security seal with a small knife and parted the flaps. There they were, nestled deep in bio-poly, still unconscious, just as the illicit lab tech had promised. She gazed at them from head to toe. Everything seemed to match her specifications, even if Miss Zygog hadn’t mentioned that in her biology class. Bonus points for sure, with zero debate.
Following the inserted instruction sheet, she carefully withdrew the sedative drip and waited. Their ribcage rose higher, then their eyes opened. Chestnut irises, just as she’d designed. The forbidden man blinked twice, then smiled, revealing fresh-grown teeth. Thursday smiled back.
Without warning, they gripped the box’s edges, sat up and stared at her. “My, you’ve grown,” they said.
Not what she’d expected. They sounded like an old aunt, but still oddly appealing. Those abs were top tier, no mistake. Despite being only twice the size of a lab rat, their voice had a deeper, more resonant pitch. Lower than even her hockey teacher.
“So…you’re my maker,” they asked.
“Yep, that’s me. Thursday.”
“And I’ve been made to order, in order to…?”
“Er…for research purposes.”
“‘Research’?” They gazed around the room. Above Charlie’s bed, two synthetic dancers writhed on-screen. “More like youthful curiosity. Either way, I doubt we’ve got long.”
“Sorry, an extension wasn’t possible. You’re not—”
“—permitted. Yes, I know. And, unfortunately, you excluded any more collective memories. Victors do so love to dictate even our verbal history.”
“That was down to cost. And I don’t think my history teacher—”
“What kind of research?” Their interruption was unexpected. She wasn’t in that much of a hurry.
Best not mention cracking the Elders’ locked archives to access forbidden alleles.
Unprompted again, they stood up, stepped out of the box, and extended their arms, palms out. Thursday was reminded of engravings on the first ship to pass Homemoon, an ancient vessel which Jove’s gravity had briefly gripped before it arced towards this distant binary system she begrudgingly called ‘home’.
“Are you satisfied with your workmanship?” they asked, before sitting down, legs dangling over the counter. Their tone was unsettling. It felt more of a demand than asking her opinion. As if what she thought didn’t much matter.
Their body deviated from normality in several ways, most of them subtle differences: the torso’s inverted triangle of sinew and muscle; absences leading to fewer curves and flattened planes of muscle. But most obvious was the unnecessary functional substitution. Sometimes embryology was such a kludge.
Thursday looked up, distracted. “Hmm?”
“You did design me, yes?”
There it was again: accusation with a dollop of arrogance. Perhaps she’d accidentally omitted a sequence. “Yes, of course. Who else? I custom-built your genotype by analysing several million genomic records.” Best not mention cracking the Elders’ locked archives to access forbidden alleles.
“So I’m a statistical slice through the mean. Just an average man. More normal than normal?”
“I guess so. But average is a good thing! Beauty and health underlie highly averaged human phenotypes, and your immune complex is close to perfect.”
“Good to know I won’t catch a cold, despite…” Their hands waved over their body.
“Ah, I guess your memories include wearing clothes.”
They smiled wryly, a dark eyebrow raised. “Only if the memories I have are true – to protect the innocent and the ignorant. And I suppose I come with a modesty implant. Unlike current company.”
The little fellow sure had a big ego. “Well, none of that matters now,” she replied. Not since the Absence of Y.” She fetched a hand towel from the bathroom, rolled it into a ball and tossed it at the man.
“Is that what you call our ending?” they asked, deftly catching the towel and wrapping it around their hand-wide waist.
Thursday frowned. “It’s how our Elders used to phrase it. But it’s not something that comes up in conversation. It would be like talking about…about dinosaurs.”
“Hmm. So you remember them. But what do you want with me?”
“I thought there might be something you can do which women can’t.”
“Really? Like what?”
“I…I don’t know. My teachers might be hiding something. You were once half of humanity. You must have had a purpose.”
“Is that what you’ve been taught, or you’ve drawn your own conclusions?”
“We’re not taught about men specifically, just how your Y chromosome grew increasingly redundant. I mean – why did nature bother?”
“‘Y’ indeed. But I think it helped with a few things.”
Thursday crossed her arms. “Oh? Do tell more.”
“On one condition.”
“Go on…”
“I want to see the Sun. Or at least a sun. It’s been a collective while.”
…they crossed their legs. The towel was at risk of redundancy. But at least it helped her focus…
Thursday’s eyebrows rose as she paused to think. “That would be difficult. Everyone will be outside. You won’t be easy to hide.”
“Please. Just open a window or something.” Their tone had shifted from demanding to almost pleading.
“Okay. I’ll do my best.” She picked up the man and set them down on a small cushion on the floor, then sat on her bed. They craned to look up, their eyes flitting over her body. Then they crossed their legs. The towel was at risk of redundancy. But at least it helped her focus on their words. “Go on then,” she prompted.
“Number one,” they began, holding up a finger: “Strength.”
Thursday laughed. “Seriously?”
“What’s so funny?”
“Well, I could knock you over with my little finger.”
“That’s not what I remember. We were definitely stronger. Or why bother with segregated sports?”
“Men only played with each other? Weird!”
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that. But, yes, both men and women ran, jumped, swam and hit balls with sticks. But in separate teams, and not solely against each other.”
“So men were scared to play with women?”
“Only when asked to play hockey. Or maybe tennis. Definitely lacrosse.”
“No idea what those are, but go on.”
The new man held up two fingers – like a victory sign. “Number two: War,” they declared. “Men have died in their millions protecting their loved ones.”
Their memories were seriously ancient. “We’ve been learning about that this semester. Not how to actually start one, of course. That would be stupid. Have you any memories of actually being in a war?”
“Not fighting in one. But seeing them on a screen, yes. Wars were generally caused by a failure of communication between—”
“Two men. Who each thought they were better than the other.”
“Well…I suppose that’s one historical perspective. By the way, what year are we in?”
“Years are difficult when you’ve two orbiting stars to contend with. But today marks the end of our five hundred and eighteenth Epicycle. I think your rough equivalent would be seven hundred years – after the Absence of Y.”
“Seven hundr—?”
“If you do want to see a sun, I suggest you speed up with your little list.”
“Okay. Last, but definitely not least: Sex.”
“I know about sex.”
“The verb, not the noun. Where do you think you came from?”
“Er, a vat, of course. Where else? ‘Tip the tot from the pot’. Decanting is a very efficient and painless process. You ought to know that.” She stared at her manufactured homunculus.
Cheers erupted from the nearby square, heralding Avocet II’s appearance. Everyone would be there except her. A slice of sunlight across the opposite wall glowed a beautiful rose-red hue. This had better be the last item, or the wilder celebrations would kick off without her. Charlie would be dancing without a care, off her noodle on stim.
“What if I said I can make Y chromosomes?” they said. “Millions of them.”
Thursday forgot about the sunrise. Her eyes widened. “Millions?” All those late nights trying and failing to get man-making genes to behave. And now a veritable factory of the fuckers was sat in front of her. If this man was telling the truth…
Eyebrow arched, she asked: “And where exactly are they all kept? No fibbing now, or stargazing is cancelled.”
For the first time, the man looked sheepish, and doubt filled Thursday’s mind.
Charlie burst through the dorm door. “For Avocet’s sake, Thursday, are you joining us or not? Sunset is only twelve ticks away. You should see Miss Zygog’s—” Charlie halted mid-step, mouth ajar. “What the…? I thought you were joking. Is that…is that a real man?”
“Yep,” Thursday replied, with a note of pride. “Life-size, with everything intact.”
“Extra sauce and no mistake. Does it talk?”
“Delighted to meet you, Charlie,” they said.
Charlie goggled at them. “No way.”
“They were about to tell me where they kept a gazillion Y chromos, if you can believe that.”
“Not sure I can. But why lie?”
“You were in that lesson with me. It’s what they do.”
“Yeah, but that was to compete for food and territory and—”
“Mates,” said their temporary guest.
“Run that back, sis-man.”
“Mating. Copulation. Sexual intercourse.”
“Blimey, Thursday. They got decanted with a right potty mouth. You sure it’s real?”
“Deffo. Didn’t tweak anything beyond the archived ‘omics.”
“No wonder the Absence—”
“Deal is they want to see a sun, Charlie. So chop-chop, before Avocet sets. Time to discover where those wonderful Ys are.”
“Down my Y-fronts,” they said.
“Come again?”
“Just a joke.” They pointed between their legs. “Maybe.” The towel had become less of a tent.
Charlie ripped it away and leant forward. “Nada to get excited about down here,” she said, extending an index finger.
“Not there,” they said, slapping her hand away. “Below.”
“Gazillions packed into those?”
“Where else, for goodness’ sake?”
“You tell us, mate,” Charlie replied, both their gazes fixated on the other’s swaying treasure chests.
Thursday sighed. It was decision time. She’d gotten this far. Max kudos was typed all over her plan. Her reversing the Absence of Y would be momentous, even if the dinosaur Elders called it calamitous.
And her donor would still get to glimpse their monotonous little star whilst she claimed her prize.
And she could always decant another man if this one failed – all her maker data was tucked safely away from her teachers and other prying eyes.
And Charlie would never snitch on her bestie. She was as keen on seeing a man as her.
Thursday took a deep breath. Remarkable science often demanded courage and sacrifice. She pointed next to the empty man-cradle. “Charlie, pass me that knife.”
“What?” her man cried. They looked genuinely distressed. Thursday leapt forward as they bolted for the door. Despite them barely reaching her knees, she managed to grab their waist. So much for their sporting boast.
“You can’t go out,” she gasped. “I promise you’ll see the sun before it sets. A deal’s a deal.”
They continued to struggle. “What are you doing? You can’t just—”
“Just chill, man,” said Charlie, returning from the kitchenette. “This roomie watched plenty of archive vids before designing you. Not just men. Other species too. Some in cages, or on farms, even in homes. They didn’t seem to mind.”
“Mind what? I’ve no idea what you’re—”
“Here you go. Hope it’s sharp enough,” said Charlie, exchanging the knife for Thursday’s curious creation. She jiggled them up and down until she heard teeth rattle. “They’re quite small, aren’t they? Should be back to the party in no time.”
“I think it’s us who’ve grown. But it won’t matter,” Thursday replied, angling the knife to catch the sun’s ruby-red illumination. “Here’s to making real man-babies in no time. Bet Miss Zygog won’t be dishing out detentions after today. Hold them up to the window, Charlie, like I promised…now…there they are. Okay, keep them still.”
“Look at them crying. What a baby!” said Charlie.
“Never seen a sunset before?” Thursday teased, the knife poised at a critical juncture. It was hard to imagine men were once heroes. Charlie and her looked at each other and burst into laughter. So much for Miss O’Jean’s ancient history lessons.
I am sure you can guess how much I thoroughly approve of this!
Great story. Shades of Leguin♥️♥️