Politically Correct

It was an orderly world with orderly cities and orderly buildings in which orderly thoughts were formed in orderly peoples' minds. These people went about their business, day after day, week after week, year after year. Routine was something to hold on to, after all, and these people never let go. Variation and differences frightened them, these beings who were not able to comprehend something that didn't exist in their small cocooned life. Jobs held little meaning, enjoyment was nearly non-existent, and those who did not go along with society's idea of 'normal' were dealt with in a suitable manner.
Martha was born 273 days after insemination, infant 3522 that day in the hospital. She was named, and confined to an ordered, systematic existence, as were the countless children born that minute, hour, second. There was nothing extraordinary about her birth; time and repetition dulled it to a normal occurrence. Even the pain and emotion that a woman was said to have once felt at such times was no longer there. The child was simply another number, another life to cram into crowded halls in the sprawling metropolis. In again, out again, time dually noted, weight taken, records kept.
Parents were not parents in the true sense of the word. There was no emotion there, there was simply duty. They were guardians, and were treated as such, with the respect and distance due them. Familial ties only meant that you shared their genes and stood to inherit whatever jobs or positions were kept by 'family.' School began at the age of one, with monotonous teachers imparting monotonous information on the newest generation of human robots. They sat in rooms, listening to dull lectures, interaction kept to a minimum, because they had quite enough of that in crowded corridors and transport tubes, the dull throb of humanity pressing in.
Some children conformed easily, adopted the mantle of complacency as their lot in life without a word, no mumble of protest heard from them but for their first defiant cry as they were released into the world. Unfortunately for her, Martha was a curious child. Curiosity, like independence and noise, was not encouraged. Dreams and ideas were quickly squashed out of any who dared by the taboos and pressures of society. Peers were often the harshest of critics.
Martha had a brother. He was younger than her, and she loved him. Her parents tried to encourage her to give her brother his private space, but she simply would not leave him alone. When she was old enough, the solution was to send her to a school-home, where the children lived and learned in the same place, and often times never saw their parents again. In special cases, a child might go 'home' for the summer, or spend a term of school there. Martha was not one of those children; her parents did not visit or bring her home.
While she was viewed as 'different' from a very young age, it was not until the age of five that Martha received her first discipline mark. Museums, while fading into obscurity and distain, still existed, and her peer group had made the arduous trek to the nearest one. They were looking at an ancient globe showing a map of the world as it once was. The instructor was explaining about the shifting of plates and the reasons why they could now understand and control the dangers that had puzzled and killed their ancestors when Martha looked directly at the instructor and said, in childlike innocence, "Earth. That is Earth." The man looked shocked and slightly puzzled before he replied with a frown, "This," He indicated the globe, "Is Sol III. We inhabit Sol III. Earth is a generalized, archaic term that does not explain properly what you are referring to, and thus should not be used. There are those who would not understand what you mean. Understanding is the most important part of a functioning, peaceful society."
The small girl, who might well have been named Contrary, did not bat an eyelash. Martha was used to adults and how they responded to her. She knew how to push their buttons. "But it is Earth. It is dirt and water and air, thus it is Earth." A triumphant smile was on the girl's lips. She knew this was not what the instructor wanted to hear, but it was a stupid thing, and thus she had to see it out. She was never very good at listening, and her nature was coming out in full force.
This time, the instructor did not bother to answer her. He simply touched a small wand to the metal band at her wrist. A dark line of oxidation appeared, etching deeply into the metal. These marks were not meant to come off. The other children looked away, as if they themselves were shamed. Martha's expression, however, did not change. She looked down at the mark, looked back at the instructor, and simply said, "Pretty." Her classmates looked as shocked as the instructor felt. Martha smiled.
Years passed, and Martha, despite gaining a bit in height, did not change. If anything, she became even more. different. She stood out among the other children, and often found herself in trouble for what she said or did. Trouble was not the trouble that we know, of course. There was nothing so crass as detentions as punishment, for often the other children did enough of the punishing themselves, shaming the other child for their ways. Children would often break under the strain of such public humiliation, and they would be carried off quietly in the night, never to be spoken of. This did not appear to faze Martha, however. Her peers were ruthless in their taunting treatment, but she simply looked at them and smiled, as if she knew something that they did not. That usually shut them up. Her tactics did not always work well on the adults surrounding her, and they provided a distinct problem. In her eighth year, she dared to call a personal facility a bathroom, and dared to mention what went on in such places. This earned her another black mark on her already tarnished wrist band. Of course, the problem there might have been the fact that she was suggesting something about a certain instructor when she made the comment. She really never knew when to keep her mouth shut. Martha, hardly bothering to hide it, wore her band as a mark of pride, almost a badge of honor. Others avoided her as one might avoid a plague-carrying rodent. While they pretended to ignore her, a small group of instructors whispered about Martha. They often shot furtive glances at her in the dining hall, whispering about throwbacks, and dangerous behavior. None of them really appeared to know what to do with her, but they knew that something must be done. If allowed to carry on, Martha could become supremely dangerous, undermining their authority and power.
Her third mark, inevitable as it was, came in her final year of schooling. A clumsy tablemate spilled acid in a Chemical Composition study, and Martha, disgusted, mumbled the words "Oh, god." As she rushed to clean it before it ate through the table, floor, and likely someone's head in the room below. The instructor could not have reached her side any faster had a magnet been drawing him. The words were hardly out of her mouth before he pounced on her, face red with the exertion of keeping calm. His voice could have passed easily for the permafreeze spray the class was using.
"Have you learned nothing of your 'Archaic Theology' then, Martha?" His eyes, disapproving, looked down in her general direction. "Do you know what you just said?" He regretted his words as they left his mouth. Martha always knew what she said. "God is a myth. It is an interesting bit of history and culture, nothing more, and should not be used as an epithet."
She stared back, clearly unnerving him with her gaze. It was improper to make eye contact unless friendship had been extended and approved through the proper channels. He tried to break it, but she held him with a power that should not have been possible. She said nothing.
The class was sitting quietly, not talking, work lying on the tables until the discussion was over. They all knew what was proper, what was expected of them; they had spent years learning. They were not listening, merely sitting in quiet contemplation, or perhaps they were not contemplating anything at all. Perhaps they were merely sitting, minds as blank as new slate.
Martha was also sitting quietly. Her mind, however, was not blank. She was staring at the instructor with such depth and knowledge in her eyes that he felt quite helpless, as if she were undressing him and exposing him. He was a man who knew his place, his duty. Questions were not asked, he did not judge, he simply did. She was dangerous, he could see that. She couldn't be allowed to go on like this. Although he could not seem to break eye contact with her, he could still act. His will was still his own.
The wand was drawn slowly out, and it touched the metal wristband for a third, and final, time. Martha's eyes never wavered, never changed, and she never said a word, even as the men appeared and quietly took her away.
The class returned to work, without a word themselves, as if the disruption had never happened, never existed.