The Mating Games // with badassrumlow
It was the Spring of the year 2017. The world was not like what you know. People and the world were in harmony. Mother nature and technology found a way to coexist and integrate into each other’s natural cycle. The planet and it’s people were thriving.
Of course some things hadn’t changed from how they were in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. They still had a social strata built society. The wealthy were the ones with power, status, influence. While the poor lived in terrible slums on the outskirts of the dictated districts.
Each social class was cordoned off into different districts of each major state. The innermost walls held the capitol and president of that state. Next each wall lead to each strata based on a certain amount of wealth and class. There were three major walls. And beyond the outer most wall lay the end of civilization for miles until you reach the next country state.
That is with the exception of each country state’s Mating Games Estates. Each are about the size of a single district. A giant castle like building overgrown with lush nature. They purposely let the earth run its course with its foliage with the exception of maintenance of facilities, utilities, and housing to keep things inhabitable.
Each spring families of second tier social strata and above send their single family members to participate to find their mate. It lasts a month where at the end of each four week interval there is a Reveal Ceremony where people that have coupled see if a brand appears marking them as a successful and permanent mate. Each family has a crest. So mates will display a scar like symbol of each family on their right hip above their waistline. This can only be possible after receiving a wristband that contains all your information needed at the start. It will inject you with the branding serum after a compatibility scan. This scan is done after successful Mating. Meaning you must have sex.
This is where it all starts. Javier. A young man who just reached the age of nineteen and legal contender age for the Mating Games. This will be his first time attending. And it’s only possible because at a young age he was caught in the slums with homebuilt tech that he used to rob people blind with. All without even having met them. The government caught him and threatened to send him to prison for it. But he countered their threat by saying he’d leak Intel from within prison about everything he knew about the government’s secrets because he hacked their system without ever being seen. So of course they came to a stalemate. Javier proposed a trade. He’d stop committing crimes and not tell their secrets if they gave him money and a place in the top tier of the social strata.
With their hands tied they agreed. And so Javier and his mother lived and learned like people of the upper aristocracy for three years. They were broadcasted as government sanctioned aristocrats who also did work with them. Now Javier to the Mating Games. He was in his private terrestrial rover which was a high speed hover vehicle that moved over land. There were others too. Ones that sailed the seas, soared the skies, and moved about the cities. This one had it’s own AI that was his driver. He just sat in the back with the window down as he passed over fields and other lush green territories.
When he finally got to the huge estate he such his hand out and let it scan his personal comp located in his right wrist. The gates opened and let him in. The car drove itself to front of the castle like building and let him there. He tapped a buttons on his holographic screen from his comp and sent the car to park with the other cars. He walked in and the room was already buzzing with mingling singles before the opening ceremony.
It was a simple ceremony stating the rules and safety regulations. Also it was a chance to display propaganda for consumers. After sitting through the entire thing Javier got the added installment to his comp for the Mating Games. He grabbed a drink at the bar but nothing alcoholic and headed for the gardens hoping someone there would be interesting to talk to since they also thought to go to the beautiful place. Once there he bumped a man. He was a bit older but handsome nonetheless. And Javier didn’t have a problem with an age gap. He turned and a genuine apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t spill anything on you did I? I feel horrible if I did. Your clothes are beautiful. They match your eyes very well.”
