The Letter and the Locket

If you’re reading this, I’ve successfully sent this letter back in time. I’ll be brief.

I am including in this letter, a locket. You must deliver it to the address I have enclosed at the precise time I have noted. If you read no further, you have already read the most important part.

It’s the simplest tasks we often fail to complete, but it is vitally important that you prioritize this job above all.

I am sorry to have placed the future of our nation in your hands, but, alas. I have. It may help if you consider that it is your fate to do this, as it is mine to send this letter to you. We all have a purpose in this world.

First, my situation:

There was a time—hopefully the time you are currently living in, unless I’ve made some stupid mistake—when our human species paid no mind to what chromosomes determined the physical makeup of the body. I look back to the late Third Millennium, the years 2500 to 3000, and I burn to live just one day in the life of a human who did not have to be either “Boy” or “Girl”. If you are living in such a utopia, I urge you to cherish it. It will soon be destroyed by our government: a regime intent on returning to what they believe was once “an era of unparalleled human accomplishment”, driven by a deep, biological urge to compete, engendered by nature’s fundamental dichotomy of “male” vs. “female”.

We are brainwashed to believe that, between the years of 1300 and 2500, humans were at their most prolific. The regime believes this prolificity was a byproduct of the competitive environment that pervaded the times, and that it can all be traced back to the first divide between humans: the one that happens in the womb.

We are taught nothing in detail about any time before the year 4000, only that, back before the year 2500, there were two distinct “genders”, and that this binary set the stage for the most productive hour of human history. I believe that, if only I could access information about the past—information that the regime works so hard to hide—I can organize a successful rebellion.

We have been split into Factions. The Factions live in isolation from one another. There is a lottery system. Every month, a group of Girls and a group of Boys is chosen at random to travel to the regime’s Central Laboratory for, first, a series of tests, then, a fight—to the death. Each group is first given physical examinations, then puzzles to solve, social problems to sort out, songs to complete, plants to revive, water to purify, people to befriend, lands to map, etc. The regime scientists collect intricate data on each individual. Then, they reduce each individual to a symbol of their Faction, and, finally, they observe as the Boys and Girls are let loose in an enclosed Dwelling. They are told that the last one standing will live in luxury at the regime headquarters for the rest of their life. I know that this is not what really happens. They all die.

Chemicals for common poisons are placed throughout the Dwelling for those smart enough to recognize them, certain doorways in the home lead to pitfalls that drop for miles, knives are hidden under beds—it’s all a matter of who is smart and strong enough to survive. I believe the last person standing is probably tested further to gather more data on which Faction is stronger, then, they are sent to the Field for Death.

Of course, the regime is certain to broadcast the process (the Dwelling Killings, as they’ve come to be called). We take intricate notes as we watch, and when we are not harvesting crops or cold air from the mountains, we practice on one another, in our own makeshift simulations. We keep ourselves well-educated in secret units underground. Though we know that in the past we were one human species, now that we are split in two, we have come to weave tall tales about the opposite Faction, and some of us believe that they are mythical creatures capable of horrific, unfathomable, inhuman acts. Perhaps some of them are. We must be ready.

This process of preparing to compete with the opposite Faction has, in fact, made us sharper, keener, shrewder, stronger, more talented, and more capable than (according to the regime) humanity has ever been, throughout the course of our history. We are told to take pride in this fact. I must admit that I do take pride in it. Otherwise, my life is truly meaningless.

But it is hell. While we live in ignorance! educating ourselves in secret units! enacting simulations of the Killings! struggling to survive the blazing summers, and preserving food harvested in the winters! the regime hoards the knowledge of thousands of years of human ingenuity and makes magnificent scientific discoveries that it uses only to maintain power and keep the rest of us under control.

Perhaps you can help. Now, for the locket:

This is no ordinary piece of jewelry. It has been passed down in my family for generations. The significance of that fact most likely means nothing to you. I will explain the locket’s purpose, but you must first understand its importance.

You see, families do not exist anymore. Not in the way that they used to. I was born, as we all are, in the Central Laboratory. My Faction was determined at birth, and I was delivered to my Faction Nursery days after I was born. So how could this locket be passed down? This is a family secret.

This locket was made sometime in the Second Millennium. It was passed down for generations, while families still existed. When the regime first rose to power at the start of the Fifth Millennium, my great grandparent wore this locket on their way to the first wave of camps intended to brainwash humans into acceptance of the First Faction Binary. My great grandparent was assigned “Boy”, the locket was discovered on their person, and it was confiscated. It was heart-shaped, and therefore, belonged with a “Girl”. So they said.

The locket was thrown into a pile of rubbish to be sent to the Girl Faction. What happens next is how I came to understand fate. The Girl who picked up the locket on the other side was my great grandparent’s partner—my great GrandMother, who was pregnant at the time. She wore her partner’s locket when she gave birth in her Faction (a birth in a Faction! oh, to have seen it!). She was the Birther of my grandparent, who had, luckily, also been assigned “Girl”. My GrandMother lived with her Mother in the Girl Faction. This was unprecedented, and has never happened since. Apparently, it was very difficult for them, what with the jealousy of the other Girls and the pressure to pretend to be strangers to make the others more comfortable. And, of course, my GrandMother was given the locket you now hold in your hands.

The story darkens here. My GrandMother was captured and forced to become a Birther for the regime. She took the locket with her to the Central Laboratory on the day she was captured. She was never allowed to see the humans she birthed. When she was approaching the end of her life, the regime released her to the Field for Death. Incredibly, she traversed the desolate lands of the Field and somehow made her way back to the Girl Faction! She kept herself alive and navigated the terrain using the knowledge she had gathered about the land, plants, and water from just watching the Dwelling Killings, which were broadcasted at the Central Lab. As I write now, I can not understand how she was able to accomplish this feat. There is greatness in my blood.

When she returned to the Girl Faction, she was on the very brink of death, and a total stranger to the group. According to the story that I’ve been told, as she took her last breaths, she slowly looked at the faces of the Girls who had gathered around the intruder. She could suddenly see, in the eyes of one Girl, her Daughter. She was filled with some mysterious knowledge that this was, in fact, her offspring.

Now that the regime has studied this phenomenon, we understand it to be associated with TEI, transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, which I will get to later.

With each generational pass, my ancestors knew that this locket was collecting more and more power, though the nature of that power remained a mystery.

My Mother now held the locket. It suddenly became her life’s mission to pass it to her offspring. Something inside of her insisted that, someday, someone in her lineage would finally untap this artifact’s true power. I am that someone.

Incredibly, she volunteered to become a Birther for the regime. This had never been done before. What bravery! I have a strong lineage to live up to. This is my burden in life.

Ten years passed. She birthed 9 humans. Then, she volunteered for Death, and she was released to the Field. She was better prepared for the long journey back to the Girl Faction from the Central Lab because she had spent years preparing for the Killings before she volunteered to be a Birther.

When she made it back to the Girl Faction, like my GrandMother had been, she was on the brink of death. She stumbled through the crowd, grabbing faces with her sweaty hands, shaking like a leaf, searching frantically for the eyes of her Daughter.

But she did not recognize a single face. Horrified, it dawned on her: she had only birthed Boys.

Did she give up? As I said, there is greatness in my blood.

My Mother spent a week recovering and preparing. She cut off her hair and fashioned clothing like what she had seen Boys wear in the Killings. And then, she set off for the Boy Faction.

And that is how I received this locket.

The regime has invented an artificial birthing process in my lifetime, which makes me the last in my lineage to ever own it. I have no choice but to unlock its potential before my Death, or else its fate is to return to dust.

Thank you for indulging me in the story of this locket’s importance. And now, for your help.

The regime, all its evils considered, has, admittedly, made many great scientific discoveries since the New Millennial Renaissance (they broadcast these accomplishments often and proudly attribute them to the Boy-Girl split). The greatest of these discoveries, apart from the ability to send objects through time, is a technologically engineered artificial simulation of the passing of memories from one generation to the next: ATEI. Within this locket, I have inserted an invisible layer of ATEI film.

You must deliver it to the name and address I have enclosed. The locket will travel through the years, collecting information along the way. My ancestors knew all along that there was something special about this locket. Perhaps this means that you succeed.

Once I send this letter, at the moment my Mother hands me this locket—on the brink of her Death, her short, chopped hair matted with dirt, sweat on her beautiful face—it will contain the memories of every life it lived before it reached me. The memories it will have gathered since the Second Millennium will help me to understand all the knowledge of the past: knowledge that the regime does not want me to have.

I don’t know how—perhaps it is my belief in fate—but I know that, when I receive this locket in the second loop of my life, I will know what to do with it. I will know, because there is greatness in my blood.

Make haste. The future of our nation depends on you.