Regardless
of your political affiliation, you can’t deny that the results of
the U.S. election earlier this month will create significant threats
to many groups, including immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ
individuals, and women seeking reproductive health care. The platform
and policies of the winning party state outline quite clearly their
intentions to introduce draconian legislation, roll back existing
protections and target groups considered to be “undesirable”.
There’s no secret about this.
Against
this background, I found it hard to pick a cause for this month’s
Charity Sunday. Organizations I considered included Kids
In Need of Defense (KIND) for immigration rights, GLAD
for LGBTQ advocacy and Planned
Parenthood. Then I realized that underlying all
these individual missions
is the fundamental concept of human rights. While some forces work
hard to divide us into groups, camps and sides, in fact we are all
human beings – and despite claims to the contrary, all human beings
deserve the same opportunities to live in peace and dignity, to be
free from fear, to raise families and build communities, to love and
to create.
So I decided to step back and support the principle of human rights
for all.
My
chosen charity today is Human
Rights Watch. HRW is
an international organization that investigates and documents human
rights abuses around the globe. They use techniques ranging from
personal interviews to satellite imagery to high-tech data science in
order to publish irrefutable evidence of situations where human
beings are being deprived of life, liberty and security.
HRW
is controversial, at least partly because it tells stories some
people, organizations and governments do not want to have heard. To
guarantee their independence, they do not accept donations from any
governmental body. Of course, merely exposing cases of atrocities,
genocide, injustice and discrimination will not by itself improve the
situation. However, it’s a first step.
I
urge you to spend some time on the HRW website, reading their reports
and familiarizing yourself with their methods.
Today,
I’m pledging to donate two dollars to HRW for each comment I
receive on this post.
For
today’s excerpt, I have a sequence from my dystopian MM romance The
H-Gene. This near-future speculative novel imagines a United
States splintered by natural disasters, civil strife and the
devastating effects of a plague, supposedly spread by gay men. The
authoritarian government has rounded up anyone testing positive for
the H-gene and interned them in remote “quarantine” camps,
patrolled by robot guards and surrounded by moats of toxic waste.
I
wrote this novel more than ten years ago, strongly influenced by the
homophobic trends in the U.S. along with memories of the AIDS
epidemic. Alas, it feels all too timely now now.
BlurbWhen
love is forbidden, the whole world’s a prison.
Dylan
Moore will do anything for freedom. Seven years ago, a gay plague
spread to heterosexuals, killing millions and sparking brutal
anti-gay riots. The Guardians rounded up men who tested positive for
the homogene and imprisoned them in remote quarantine centers like
desolate Camp Malheur. Since then, Dylan has hacked the camp's
security systems and hoarded spare bits of electronics, seeking some
way to escape. He has concluded the human guards are the only
weakness in the facility's defenses.
Camp
guard Rafe Cowell is H-negative. He figures the lust he feels
watching prisoner 3218 masturbate on the surveillance cameras must be
due to his loneliness and isolation. When he finally meets the young
queer, he discovers that Dylan is brilliant, brave, sexy as hell —
and claims to be in love with Rafe. Despite his qualms, Rafe finds he
can't resist the other man's charm. By the time Dylan asks for his
help in escaping, Rafe cares too much for Dylan to refuse.
Dylan's
plan goes awry and Rafe comes to his rescue. Soon they're both
fugitives, fleeing from militant survivalists, murderous androids,
homophobic ideologues and a powerful man who wants Dylan as his
sexual toy. Hiding in the Plague-ravaged city of Sanfran, Dylan and
Rafe learn there's far more than their own safety at stake. Can they
help prevent the deaths of millions more people? And can Rafe trust
the love of a man who deliberately seduced him in order to escape
from quarantine?
Excerpt
Something
tickled his ear. “Private message,” his earpiece announced in a
voice that was neither male nor female. He tapped his fingertip on
the embedded bud, the signal for it to proceed.
“Meet
me today at 1700 in the generator building.” Something took flight
in Rafe’s stomach, then landed with a thud. The voice remained
neutral, but he recognized the sender. “We need to talk. I have
changed the security code so that we won’t be interrupted. 22A4J.”
Without really trying, Rafe memorized the code. But he wouldn’t go
to the meeting. Of course he wouldn’t. “Please,” whispered the
earplug. “It’s important.”
The
message ended. Rafe tapped at the device again, but it did not
repeat. He flopped back onto his bed, sending his ereader crashing to
the floor. Damn him! Who did the queer think he was, ordering Rafe
around? Tempting him?
How
the fuck had the guy routed a message to his private channel?
That
was it. He had to tell the Guardians.
He
rolled over and buried his face in his crossed arms. He kept hearing
the electronic voice. Please. Please…
His
alarm clock read 1618.
The
generator room was at the north end of the camp, nearly two miles
from the main entrance to the inmate precincts. He’d have to take a
velocart, one of the small electric trucks the robo-guards used to
move heavy equipment around. He could pick up a biohazard suit from
the lockers just outside the gate…
What
was he thinking? Rafe rubbed his throbbing temples.
“Please.”
In
eighteen months at Malheur Camp, Rafe had never once set foot inside
the electrified fence that separated the resident precincts from the
guard quarters and the control station. It wasn’t forbidden,
strictly speaking. He’d studied the procedures in case there was
ever a need for human intervention. He knew the layout from the
digital maps. He certainly knew what things were like inside, after
all his hours staring at the monitors.
It
had simply never been necessary. He shook his head, trying to banish
his wayward thoughts. It wasn’t necessary now.
Suddenly
the overhead light went out. Simultaneously an alarm began to ring in
the corridor. The small window above his bed provided enough light
for him to find his shoes. He stepped from his quarters into the
darkened hallway. A red emergency beacon flashed in the corner.
His
earpiece vibrated once again. “Sorry to bother you, man.” Rafe
recognized Turk’s ghetto intonations in the bland synthesized
voice. “Something’s blown in the generator room. For some fucking
reason, the droids can’t get in. Will you check it out?”
And
how did you manage this, Dylan? Rafe thought, torn between fury
and wonder. “I’m on my way,” he told the air as he strode
towards the main gate.
It
was late afternoon in September. The floppy biohazard suit was hot.
Designed to keep microbes out, it obviously didn’t let any air in.
Rafe summoned two robo-guards to accompany him through the gate. A
third met him with a velo. “Dismissed,” Rafe told them, his voice
sounding hollow through the ventilator. “I’ll drive myself.”
The
cart made its stately way down the central artery from the gate to
the northern section of the camp. In the mid twentieth century,
Malheur Camp had been a field station for geologists studying the
volcanic origins of the eastern Oregon plain. Some of the dorms dated
from that period. Those wood-shingled huts had been bleached to a
uniform grey by decades of harsh weather. The more modern buildings
were plain plastifoam rectangles with vertical slits for windows.
Originally white, they were now a dingy yellow, spotted here and
there with patches of black mold.
There
were no trees. The flat ground was mostly bare, strewn with sharp
basalt pebbles. The inhabitants of one or two dorms had tried to
cultivate some ornamental plants, but the vegetation had just
withered and turned gray like everything else. Probably the toxic
chemicals in the moat had leached into the soil over the years. Rafe
had heard someone joke about that once, maybe one of the drivers who
brought supplies. “Double use,” the guy had commented. “Keep
the pervs from escaping and get a waste dump at the same time.”
Fresh
fruit and vegetables were cultivated in hydroponic greenhouses in the
southeast quadrant. The warehouse was in the southwest. Rafe rolled
past the workshops and the rec halls—like the dorms only larger—a
basketball court and a baseball field, and row after row of bleak
barracks. Side roads branched off to the left and right, leading
between the dorms towards the concrete walls and the first
electrified fence beyond. Floodlights mounted on three-story-high
steel towers loomed over the cramped clusters of low-rise buildings.
Robo-guards
strode along the paths or herded groups of inmates to their assigned
duties. A few figures in neon pink came out of the buildings to watch
Rafe pass. He was, for some reason, glad that the biohazard mask hid
his face.
He
arrived at the generator room at 1652. Why the fuck should I care
what time it is? he scolded himself as he parked the velocart.
Unlike most of the structures in the camp, the generator building was
reinforced concrete with a steel door. The Guardians had foreseen the
possibility of sabotage.
Of
course, that hadn’t made any difference to Dylan.
Rafe
took a deep breath, trying to slow his racing pulse. He had to remove
his glove to punch in the security code. The lock clicked. He pulled
the heavy door open.
It
was pitch black inside, and silent. Normally, the hums and whines of
the generators would have filled the windowless, two-story building.
“Dylan?”
Rafe’s voice had a quaver that was not due to the respirator. This
evidence of his own weakness made him angry. He pulled a penlight out
of the chest pocket of the suit and flashed it around the apparently
empty space. “3218! Show yourself. You’re in big trouble.”
The
door clanged shut behind him. He took a step forwards, still not
seeing any sign of the devil he knew must be there.
Nothing.
Rafe seethed. He couldn’t stand to be played for a fool. He tore
the mask off his face and pushed back the hood, then strained his
ears for some indication that he was not alone. All he could hear was
his own breathing.
Rafe
played his light over the black coils and silver casings of the
generators to his right. They ran the length of the building, flanked
by an aisle to allow access for maintenance. Control panels lined the
left wall. Normally they’d be populated by blinking lights and
gauges, Rafe guessed, but they were dark now. Halfway up the aisle,
between the power equipment and the controls, was a sturdy looking
bench several feet wide. Rafe sat and swept the light along the
bottom of the silent generators, in case someone had squirmed
underneath.
He
held his breath and listened to absolute silence. “Dylan,” he
said finally, struggling to keep his voice even. “You asked me to
come. I’m here. Come out and tell me what you want.”
A
snap. A hiss. The smell of melting wax. Dylan stepped into view,
apparently out of nowhere, holding a candle. The warm light illumined
the curved shells of the machines, making them look like antique
mechanisms of forgotten purpose. It flickered across the floor like
fairies dancing in the woods. It made Dylan’s skin glow like
polished ivory.
https://www.lisabetsarai.com/thehgenebook.html
Don’t
forget to leave me a comment. Every one is a small but significant
contribution to universal human rights.
