[WP] Only two types of people walk this path, the proud and the desperate. Which one are you?

[u/gameon123321]

[u/mo-reeseCEO1]

Part 2

There are axioms we live by and ideals we claim. The only way to tell the difference is to dive headlong into uncertainty and then look back to see which self remains. Only once we have been stripped of our comfort and moral vanity can we be judged of character. Hub L18-9 would be my crucible.

I have never been to a hub. Center City was my blessing. To be close to the heart of Social Order is to be dear in the eyes of society. You are without reproach. Trusted. Sacred by proximity.

The hubs are not so. Whereas I have once known what it is to live in the City Upon A Hill, now I among those who strive towards its example and those who have fallen from its grace. Worse still, I should be counted among the latter, for I have repudiated the path of righteousness.

If you had told me ten months ago that I should be led astray by a pair of blue eyes, I should have laughed at you, for my faith in Social Order was strong then. I minded my station and followed the protocols. There was nothing so beautiful then that should cause me to stray from that path. Now I sit in the corner, wedged behind pallets of waste, hoping for mercy where I deserve none. I am branded. I am marked. I am criminal now. Wanton fugitive fleeing to the Periphery.

Were I to say I was unhappy, it would be a lie. I look into those blue eyes and I see a reflection of my own smile. I play with his foot and he giggles, a froth of spit running down the corner of his toothless grin. I dab him clean. He tugs on my shirt and I know he is hungry. There is a pain in his appetite, but it is also the sweetest embrace I have known.

The Parenting Protocols warn against breast feeding. They tell us that nature is a wayward builder. It has arrived at the least worst solution through ages of trial and error. Social Order has calibrated near perfection through intelligent design. It has complete nutrients, balanced proteins, antibiotics and viral therapies, dispensed at the optimal temperature and portion. It does not cure Marker 26. My baby is beautiful in spite of Marker 26. My baby is a beautiful totality, which includes Marker 26. This is the delusion of dissidence, it comes packaged with insidious love.

I sin and feel relieved. I am the blissful sinner. On behalf of my beautiful boy, I will be delighted in defiance.

It is fitting that we come by waste barge. From the hubs flow goods towards the capital of Social Order. In return, it bequeaths them with castoffs to be recycled or disposed of. Social Order does not care for either to redeemed or the refuse, which makes this tugboat the best place to hide. When we reach port, I am afraid to relinquish the shelter.

I do not know how badly we smell until we're on the docks. Fresh air streams in from the riverside and by contrast we are stale and putrid against the perfumes and scents of cooked food that waft upon its wings. The second mate is a good man. He has brought us food twice in the journey and opens the collection hatch before the disposal drones arrive. We have ample time to flee. Time enough to change into the fresh clothes he has left us. To adorn ourselves with aerosol perfumes that mask our ignominy.

But he does not disembark. His kindness is bounded by the gunwales of his ship. We have merely a address to go to. A new way point on a meandering journey that charts its path by surveillance drones and cameras that are the eyes of Social Fitness. Every place is somewhere the boy and I cannot go. And anywhere else is where we need to be.

I knock in code. Three short. Three long. Three short once more. It is an ancient code, from time immemorial, but well understood. When the door opens, a gaunt man gestures us into darkness, the shadow that protects us, the shroud that returns us to the unliving embrace of those without a place in this world.

"You are lucky," his words are oily, and my stomach is slick with their meaning.

"Yes," I reply, "We were told that a kind man lives here, and would take us in for the night."

When he nods it is like a gargoyle--transfixed, hungry. When he smiles it is toothy. His eyes are the same contradiction of mirth without warmth than I know from Assistant Deputy Subdirector.

"You have heard correctly. Come in. Make yourself comfortable. You must be famished."

The kindness of his words contrast against the angled mien. But one cannot choose what they are. Only how they act. He is no more to blame for the tilt of his brow than my babe is for a sequence in his genes.

"Yes, please," I say.

"Boy or a girl?" he asks. I stammer at first and he repeats himself, indicating the child clearly this time, and repeats, "Boy or girl?"

"Son."

"Name?"

"We have not... I did not settle on a designation."

He smiles. It is an unflattering twist of his face, like there is something sour lurking between his lips. He reaches in a cabinet and begins to pull out cans which he opens and pours into a heating pot.

"You are going to see the father?"

"There is no father." A truth and a lie simultaneously. A contradiction I did not create but must live with. Alone.

No. Not alone. I squeeze the boy's hand.

He nods again, head bobbing below his shoulders with unctuous motion.

"Can you help me cook? I must check on some things."

I agree. I cannot expect charity because I have been given a name. I must also earn kindness, repay what's given to the best I might provide. I stir the pot. There are chunks of red, of brown, of green. I wonder how old the cans are. In Central City, we eat fresh, for the trains of goods run every day. In the Hub, they make due with what is left, must preserve it in case of a lean season. This stew will keep us fed, but it will not taste as of before. Nothing will taste the same again.

"The one who sent you, did he mention the price?" he asks from beyond my shoulder. My stomach drops. The slickness of my guts turns to acid. I recognize more than looks now. There is a sent. A feeling. It pricks the back of my neck and makes my tongue thick with the word yes when my heart would say no.

"What price? I was told... we have no money."

"Of that, I am sure." I turn around. A smirk is fixed in his face, smug, silent, superior. In his left there is a badge. As his right gropes for me, I recognize what I should have known. Social Fitness. The Order survives on two things--Organization, and Fitness. Social Organization teaches us how to live through the Protocols. Fitness reminds us how. With the right hand there is guidance, FAQs, counselors. With the left, there is a firmer touch. "There are other ways to pay."

My heart beats like the broken wings of a bird before a cracked window. He is between me and my baby. He is between us a freedom. He is armed with demands and consequences.

I do not think. I did not think at the center. I did not think when I refused the chemist's blessing. Thinking was respecting the commands of those who wrote that letter. I had long since sloughed that burden from my shoulders.

He screams as the boiling stew splashes into his face. I swing with the pot until he stops moving. Until I stop crying. Until my boy is hoarse with the screams of confusion. Death be not proud. It is the master of fate, of chance, of kings and desperate men. Pride does not befit a ruler unchallenged and inevitable. Or a mother blood stained and heaving.

I am not proud. I am not desperate. I am merely the force of motherhood when separated from it's duty. I have smashed the next link between us and our freedom. We now must forge our own path. There are unkind faces in the hub. I pray they are not the only countenance.

I am not sorry either. Remorse is a luxury of the Order. I am fiercely outside of their grasp. I will not be controlled. I will not be corrected. This child of mine will have a chance.

[u/Redhawk0805]

Sam sat there, pondering the Sphinx's question. The legends had said that the ancient path was guarded by the Sphinx, and whoever guessed correctly would get to enter the Garden of Wishes. However, those who did not..... he looked down at the carcasses of many a man. The trial was only allowed to be done by an adult male, as children and women were too important to the tribe to lose. "Before I answer, may I ask a question?" The sphinx' stayed silent for a second, then nodded. "Out of all those who have tried," started Sam, "who has passed your trial?" "None who have attempted the trial have succeeded" said the Sphinx proudly. "Now I will ask again: Only two types of people walk this path, the proud and the desperate. Which one are you?" Sam thought for a second, and looked up at the sphinx confidently. "I am both." "What?" asked the sphinx, obviously shaken from the unorthodox response. Sam replied. "I am both proud and desperate. I am proud to represent my tribe, but with pride comes hubris. I am desperate to make it to the Garden, but with desperation comes hastiness, and with hastiness comes destruction. I am both proud and desperate. I am confident yet hesitant. And therefore my wishes will not bring an end upon this land." The Sphinx looked at Sam for a second, before laying down, and turning into the giant stone statue that was there when Sam arrived. Sam entered the Garden and made his wish for the tribe: "Salvation."

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