It took eight years for the smartest women in Ladytown to figure out how to
save young Cletus Márton’s life, which was about as long as it took the
Aljabaran scientists to synthesize the haemophilia virus in the first place.
They brought him out of stasis, and started treating the infection. It cleared
up right away, but now he had haemophilia itself, so he had to receive further
treatment to stay alive. He spent the rest of his life with the disease, but
he was also well cared for, and only partially because he had a job to do.
Since he was the last man in Ladytown, it would eventually turn into a ghost
town, once the last remaining girls grew up, and either died off as well, or
just moved to Aljabara. The city wasn’t letting anyone else immigrate there,
so if they wanted to keep the dream alive, Cletus was their last hope. Before
they revived him, a group of the townsfolk built a luxurious house for him,
and provided him with constant medical attention, and just about anything he
could ever want. Each month, he would meet a new partner, and attempt to
impregnate her with a child, so they could restart the population. He was
fortunately not the only participant, or everyone in the next generation would
have to choose between full and half-siblings. Two paternal bloodlines wasn’t
the most genetically healthy, but it was better than one, and really all they
had available. Fulcrum Nielsen, the man who helped train the Ladytowners in
combat skills, had a son who was coming of age, and he wanted to contribute to
the cause as well. Anchor Nielsen was not a fighter, but he was empathetic,
caring, and fully against the misogynistic government. Fulcrum raised him to
be open-minded, but he probably would have come to the same conclusions about
social justice on his own eventually. It was wrong what the Republicans were
doing, and he wanted to help. If that meant having a bunch of children with
strangers, then so be it. For a few years, Cletus and Anchor did their civic
duty, which may sound like a big win, but neither of them would have been
interested in sleeping with that many different people if they didn’t need to
do it to save the human race. They were both extremely monogamous, and hoped
they would one day be able to settle down with just the one partner, and be
happy. They persevered, though, and did what they could to protect Ladytown.
The government was enraged when they found out that their plan to destroy them
had failed. They knew that at least two men were involved, but they assumed
they had somehow survived the virus, and had no idea that Anchor had had
anything to do with it. He went on to continue pushing boundaries, expressing
outcry, and changing minds. His work was instrumental in ultimately ending the
phallocratic republic, though it would not happen for a very long time, and he
didn’t do it alone. Meanwhile, once his paternal duties were complete, Cletus
went on to live a very simple life in Ladytown. Though being there was itself
an affront to the Republic’s values, he didn’t actively work against them,
like most people around him did. He helped the effort further when he could,
but he had already done so much that no one expected him to do anything more.
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