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Saanvi smiled as she watched her daughter play with her friends, laughing, running, tagging each other in a wild game that seemed to have very few rules beyond not getting "caught". Fourteen year old Destiny Scarlett - who insisted on being called by her middle name - was a fiesty teenager, with vibrant red hair that certainly justified that desire. But she was more than just one of the very few babies who'd survived the disease which had only recently finally been brought under control - she was the keystone to Pandoran survival, and Saanvi's smile died as she turned away from the window.
Nearly fourteen years had passed since Scarlett's birth mother had fled Pandora after finding out the horrible truth behind the disease, and Saanvi shivered as she made herself a bracing cup of tea. Her own mother had been forced to flee after her role as a so-called traitor had come to light, but she had managed to arrange for Saanvi to be Scarlett's mother, making sure the girl had a chance at being raised by someone who was as against the council's mad plan as she had been. But Saanvi had been warned not to do anything that would arouse suspicion - it was bad enough, her mother had said, that she was the daughter of a "traitor", and Chika had stressed just how imortant it was for Saanvi to fly under the radar so she wouldn't lose custody of Scarlett.
Arjun, Saavni's husband, was another sour note in the Pandoran woman's happiness. Prone to fits whenever Scarlett's mother was mentioned - or indeed, whenever the word "hope" itself was brought up in conversation - he watched his wife's every move with their daughter, prepared to snatch her away if Saanvi set even a toenail out of line. Remembering how cruel he'd been to his ex-wife, Saanvi often found it hard to keep her mask up. But, she reminded herself, if she didn't, she'd lose Scarlett, and the girl would be handed off to someone far less scrupulous, who would no doubt brainwash the girl into taking up her eventual duty as being the mother of yet another prophesied baby.
As it was, Scarlett had had her "duty" inculated in her from the moment she was old enough to understand about the birds and the bees, and Saanvi had been forced to keep her mouth shut, knowing the indoctrination process was also a test for her to see how "loyal" she was. She'd passed the test, but that didn't relax the council's hyper-vigilant stance so far as she was concerned. And she was reminded of it daily; Scarlett's playmates had been chosen very carefully, and their parents instructed to report on their childrens' doings to the council every day, as well as what Scarlett had done and said. It was a horribly invasive process, but Scarlett had, so far, passed muster, being as compliant as she was. Saanvi herself had never been allowed to arrange anything about the girl's life barring the food she ate and the clothes she wore, and never did a day go past when she didn't curse the council for its utter nonsense. If they hadn't been so obsessed with breeding a superior race, they'd have never got themselves into this fix in the first place!
But done was done, and as Saanvi sat at the table, she let her thoughts wander to her mother, exiled on another planet billions of miles away. At least her thoughts weren't monitored, and as the laughter and merriment carried on outside, Saanvi prayed, as she'd done for the last almost fourteen years, that her mother and her friends were safe, hoping that one day, Scarlett would learn the truth and be able to do something about it.
107Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLy9xTsENpq
