Folsom (End of Men, #1)(30)

I set my half-eaten bar down on the table, overcome with what he’s saying. I’ve known his name, his age; I remember the night I took his mother and put him inside of her. She was one of my first and she’d been horribly nervous until I sang her my favorite song and stroked her hair. I’d meant it to be funny, but she’d told me that I had a beautiful voice and asked me to sing it again. After that, after I’d already moved on to my next station, they’d told me our coupling was successful and that he would be the first male child born to the Regions in twenty years.

“Tell me about you then,” I say. “Because I don’t know anything and I want to.”

He pulls out the only chair in the room and I sit while he perches on the edge of the bed. He has straight posture, a strong chin. He bears none of the awkwardness I remember about myself at his age. I see what Gwen has been saying about him.

“What do you want to know?” he asks.

“What was your childhood like? How did you like where you lived?”

“The Black Region,” he says. “It’s all right. My friends are all girls…”

We both smile. “My mother, she’s great. She never let me think I was special, while always making me feel special.” He grins. “Like, you may be one of the only men on Earth, Laticus, but pick up your damn socks.”

“Did you go to school?”

“The Society sent tutors. I’m fluent in six languages, and I have completed all of my University courses in mathematics.”

“You have a degree in math?” I ask, surprised. He nods.

“I can also dance the foxtrot and cook a soufflé.”

“Impressive. The perfect man.”

“That’s what they were aiming for, I think.”

We grow silent. The Society’s agenda has suddenly seeped into the room.

“They want me to join the End Men right away. I was supposed to wait another two and a half years, but they say I’m ready.”

“You’re not ready,” I say quickly. I can almost feel Gwen tense up behind me.

“I want to help. I want to do what you do.”

Anger clenches my insides. He’s just a boy, but I have to warn him. I breathe deeply before continuing.

“The life I live is lonely. I have no home, I have no family, and I have no ties to any one place. What they make us do takes our souls; it turns us into machines that function without love. Every human needs love, Laticus. You have the love of your mother—your friends. But, they’ll make you give that up when you join the End Men.”

He’s quiet for a long time, watching my face with something akin to confusion.

“I am your family,” he says, finally. “You’re not alone anymore.”

It takes everything in me to not stand up and walk out of the room. His simple words crack open the resolution I try so hard to maintain. I think I’m having another heart attack and almost tell Gwen so, when I realize I’m feeling—feeling more intensely than I have in a very long time. I’m about to speak again when I hear Gwen’s voice.

“Folsom, we have to go.”

I look back at Laticus whose face drops in disappointment.

“So soon?” he asks.

“I’m afraid so.” Gwen smiles at him gently and his shoulders sag.

“Can you come again?” he asks me.

“I don’t know.”

He nods and I can tell he’s trying to be strong.

He walks us the few steps to the door and before I can follow Gwen out, I grab him, pulling him into my chest. He’s still half a foot shorter than me. I feel his arms wrap around my back and squeeze. I hold him there for a minute before I abruptly let him go and push past Gwen into the hallway. I hear her say “good night” to him and then the door clicks closed, leaving my son in his prison.

The next morning I wake up with a terrible headache. Light streams into the room and I flinch against it, recounting the events of the night before. Gwen had led me back to my room silently, kissing me lightly on the lips before turning to leave. The knowledge that she is carrying my son while also taking care of my teenage son is something that makes me both relieved and unsettled. Before now, after impregnating a woman, I hardly saw her again. If I did, it was in passing: at a party, or years later when I returned to their Region and we ran into each other. I’ve seen Gwen more than I’ve seen any other woman, aside from Robin. My attachment to her has grown over the weeks. And Laticus, I’d not known what to expect when I saw him. Would there be a detachment, or would he feel like my son? But, the minute I walked into that room, I felt the connection. Maybe it had been his resemblance to my brother that caused my heart to immediately open to him. I want to protect him.

“Folsom,” Doctor Hunley walks into the room, her face serious.

“Members of the Society have arrived. They’re setting up for your meeting.”

I nod. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

The Society is a privately funded group, started by a man named Earl Oppenheimer just after the mumps epidemic sterilized the last of the men. He was eighty-seven years old when he called the first meeting, recruiting scientists, politicians, and doctors to join the organization as a way to find a solution to the universal problem of male extinction.

I was twelve years old when I first heard about it, my mother having received a summons to bring me to the newly founded Genome Y lab. Earl lived just long enough to see the birth of Laticus before he died, and his daughter, Milly, took over the organization.