You may have heard about the first lottery, how thousands of citizens came out to guard the "winners" from being taken away. The woman and I were there. We joined a crowd around the house of Oiko, the most eminent poet of our city's golden age. How sad that you've never heard of her. In my younger days there wasn't a single Neo Arcadian, reploid or human, who didn't keep her verses close to his heart and tongue. Her words were woven into the very fabric of our souls.
The spectre of innocent people being taken away at random terrorized us, but Oiko's shut-down wounded me with a deep and frenzied pain. Equality, brotherhood, happiness, love for our city, hope in our future: she embodied everything our civilization had once held dear.
Then again, that's probably why the bastards took her.
There we were, the woman and I and the crowd, forming circles around Oiko's house with our arms locked together. The soldiers came and told us to disperse. We refused. Then they began dragging people away. Screams rang out. I saw citizens on the ground, getting beaten or shot. Everything became panic and confusion. I lost sight of the woman. Then I turned my eyes toward the house and saw Oiko being led away.
I lost control of myself. I pushed my way toward one of the soldiers, grabbed hold of his uniform, and struck him.
I don't remember what happened immediately after that. When I awoke I was bound and blindfolded, and rough voices spoke to me. The three days that followed were the darkest of my life. While I was there I must have taken some damage to my brain, because my memory hasn't been the same since.
You see, I have a tendency to repeat myself. Or did I tell you that already?... Right... Well, anyway…
I don't wish to say anything more about those three days except that, on the afternoon of the third, suddenly, I was released into the sunlight and the woman's frantic embrace...
...Yes, yes, I'm all right… I'll go on…
She told me how, after I disappeared, she went to every prison she knew of, demanding to know where I was. At the last, they identified her and arrested her.
"You were one of the dissidents who tried to obstruct our work at Oiko's house," they said.
"Yes, and I'd happily try to obstruct your work again," she said.
"Not only that, but according to your file, when you first entered our city, you didn't do so through the proper channels. You put the last surviving civilization on earth at risk of contagion."
"I don't dispute that it was wrong, back then," she said. "The laws of this city used to be sensible and fair."
"Also, for forty-five years you've been living with this violent rebel, Andrew, in a marriage of sorts."
"No, not a marriage of sorts," she said. "Just a marriage."
"Andrew will be released, once he has been re-educated," they said. "But if you renounce your relationship with him, and from now on stick to the society of humans and loyal reploids, we'll drop the charges against you."
"Bring your charges," she said.
They took her before the municipal court. There, the judges decreed that, out of respect for her humanity, she could go with her life and her freedom intact. But they stripped her of her citizenship, and called on the Metropolitan Opera to disown her. They did.
Then she set about to expediting my release.
"I bought you," she explained, shuddering with joy, as we huddled on those steps in the sunlight. "That's how it is now. A new law. If any reploid's to be safe, from the lottery or the courts, they've got to belong to some human. So you belong to me, and to hell with the consequences.
"You paid to spend a night with me once, and look what came of it," she said. "I just gave everything I had, to spend the rest of my days with you."