In the After

again and the map disappeared. “I’ll show you all the recordings, so you can see the version for the little kids, the older children, and the adults.”
    “Fan.” I tapped the notebook I’d brought with me. Rice said my mother wanted my opinion, so I came prepared to take notes.
    Rice dimmed the lights and the screen flickered on. The video was for the younger kids and featured small children and an adult. “The adult is called a Minder,” Rice’s voice came loudly from across the room. Baby, who’d been enjoying the movie, glared at him.
    “I don’t think you’re supposed to narrate,” I told him. “I need to see if it’s self-explanatory.”
    “Oh, right,” he said sheepishly. “Sorry.”
    “No worries,” I said. It slipped out—something I used to say Before. I looked at him, suddenly wishing I’d known him back then.
    The video continued to show the Minder helping the children with their daily routine. At the end, the Minder tucked each child in, then turned on a night-light. The Minder smiled into the camera, and the movie went dark.
    Baby turned to me. I like the lady .
    Good. I think they want you to .
    I scribbled in my notebook. Effective images of comfort to integrate small children, show them who they can trust, who will take care of them .
    “At this point, a Minder will come fetch any child who doesn’t have an adult with them,” Rice said. “I’m not explaining,” he added. “It’s something you should know. At first,” he continued, “we had a lot of small children, but now it’s not that common. Here’s the one for older children, Class Threes and Fours.”
    Baby, this one is for you. Pay attention .
    Baby nodded dutifully.
    The movie started much the same way as the other film, only this time a little girl was wearing yellow. They again take you through the child’s day, demonstrating tasks narrated with simple words, such as school, eat, play, work, sleep . The children were put to bed in a dorm, only this time they were separated by gender. Once again, a Minder tucked them in and smiled at the camera.
    “I thought Minders were only for the small children,” I told Rice.
    “There are a lot of kids without parents here. Some of the Minders are for the toddlers and some are for the dorms.”
    What do you think? I asked Baby. Did you understand?
    Baby looked down at her jumpsuit. I’m yellow, so I do things with other yellows and go to school through the yellow door .
    Yeah, that’s about it .
    “Ready for the last one?” Rice asked.
    I nodded, eager to see the grown-up version. This is for adults , I tell Baby. Try to follow along, but you may not understand everything .
    This time the film began with a shot of the town while WELCOME TO NEW HOPE scrawled across the screen. A woman began to narrate and I realized that it was my mother.
    “You have survived much to get here and we are so very happy to have you,” she said. “Over the next hour, we will explain all the workings of New Hope.”
    The film went over everything, from the Class system, with emphasis on Class Five and red doors, to details about the entry test that placed the adults in their jobs. I discovered that although you may be exempt from having to perform a menial task, that didn’t spare you from attending fitness training twice a week or from doing “acts of community improvement.”
    “Everyone works because everyone is important.” To me this sounded like a great way to spin forced labor.
    “And in order to ensure the continuation of our society,” my mother’s voice persisted, “we must maintain genetic diversity and encourage accelerated birthrates.” This was followed by a shot of a lab and a woman working with a test tube.
    “All babies born in New Hope are the result of careful selection by the Committee for Genetic Diversity. All adult males are required to submit their genetic material for consideration.”
    Next it showed a happy pregnant woman lying in a hospital bed, her belly swollen. “All adult females are expected to carry a child to term once every three years unless they are medically unfit to do so or have reached the age of forty. No one is allowed to bear a child without genetic consideration and to do so will result in immediate expulsion.”
    It took me a minute to process what I was hearing but then my chest went cold. They were forcing people to breed. Not only that, people weren’t even allowed to decide who they had children with. That was why my