Page 84 of Inside the Sun

"That’s not what I meant," I say quickly. "A lot of people just avoid politics altogether."

"One of my brothers, Winter, works for the company making the recruitment app for the BA program, so I’ve picked up some stuff."

I nod. "It’s an interesting project. The thing Dante conveniently forgets is that it’s entirely voluntary. No one’s forcing anyone to take part."

"Exactly," Sun says, brightening just a little.

"And now Dante’s plastered everywhere, screaming his propaganda from every headline, pushing his hateful narrative as far as he can."

I hesitate. Should I take this conversation further? Maybe.

Sun said he wanted normalcy. Perhaps simply talking politics, like regular people, will lift his mood a bit. Give him a taste of a normal, everyday convo.

Or… perhaps it’ll ruin his mood.

With politics, you never know.

"Dante ignores the fact that our society’s facing a demographic crash. He pretends not to understand how population sustainability works. But one day, we’ll be old too, and there won’t be anyone left to fund our pensions. It's no fun to end up on the street, hungry, with no medical care."

Sun studies me. "Are you into this kind of stuff?"

I hesitate. My views come from a very specific place, and I can’t talk about that with him. I need to dodge this one.

"Not like I’m into it," I hurry to say, biting back the urge to rant about Beta Empowerment. That movement’s been inbed with NotFromHere for years. Same goals: stopping human reproduction altogether.

NotFromHere just took it further, they’re openly genocidal. And I spent six years of my life fighting them after they killed my granddad.

They’ve dug their roots into countries all over the world, leaving devastation in their wake. All in the name of one twisted belief:

That the people living today don’t deserve to exist.

That a few percent of alien DNA in our genome makes us thereal invaders.

This planet once belonged to men and women, and to the NFH we, with our three subgenders, are an abomination.

All those years in the army, I’ve seen massacred villages, slaughtered omegas, alphas, even tiny children. Burned-out homes marked with giant NFH letters and their logo, a face of an alien crossed out with a red X.

They see us as enemies of this planet, not its rightful children. They believe humanity needs to be wiped out completely to preserve the planet for organisms with ‘uncontaminated DNA’.

I hesitate before I say it, but I end up sharing the shortened version.

"You know, the Beta Empowerment movement often speaks positively about the NFH. They practically defend them. And Dante himself, anytime someone in an interview asks him to outright condemn their genocidal actions, he dodges it like an eel. I mean, betas are sterile. That’s why NFH lets them live."

Sun pales a little. And suddenly, I realize that he knows this topic firsthand.

"Yeah… I… I hate the NFH too. They killed my cousin’s husband. Great guy. It’s a cruel organization. And you’re right,Dante openly winks at them. I’ve seen pictures of him shaking hands with their leader in South America."

I’m one breath away from asking how his cousin’s husband died, but I stop myself. It’s probably just a coincidence. Fate knows how many people the NFH has killed.

Sun changes the subject.

"If people actually read up a bit, they’d realize the government isn’t trying to trigger a population boom with this program. They just want to maintain a one-to-one generational replacement. Keep the number of people stable."

"Exactly, and I’m good with that. I’m not a fan of extremes. I don’t think the population should grow, I believe two billion is about as much as the planet can handle without damaging the ecosystem. But total annihilation? That’s the other extreme."

Sun smiles. "Totally agree. As long as we can live in balance with the planet, without destroying the environment, the climate, or poisoning it, we should be allowed to live here like anyone else."

There’s a short pause and I smile back gently. "Well, we’ve hadquitea chat. And people say politics always causes fights."

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