I sat with my head hanging between my knees and took in long slow breaths. 

“I don’t think I can do it,” I moaned as my stomach lurched.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Harper. You have an obligation to your country.” Mother jerked my head up and twisted my long brown hair into a bun.

I had never been vain, but I knew I wasn’t ugly. In fact, I had been told I was actually kind of pretty, with my emerald-green eyes, shapely figure, and straight nose. However, being put on show was something I hated, and this was going to be the biggest show of my life.

I tugged at the skin-tight white jumpsuit I was being forced to wear. The outfit left nothing to the imagination, as it clung to every curve and bump on my five-foot seven-inch frame. “I just want it to go on record that I think I might throw up.” 

My mother tugged my hair a little tighter, putting more force into the movement than was necessary. “It’s natural to be nervous. I was nervous when I was tested, but since the Pandemic it’s our responsibility as women.” 

The Pandemic she was talking about had claimed two thirds of our nation’s population over a century ago and mutated another quarter of the surviving humans into what had become known as the Unholy, which the government then went to great lengths to eradicate. The Pandemic hit hardest among the female population of the time. Its effects had something to do with the reproductive system. For every one man who died, three women did, leaving much of the human population in ruin. When the dust settled and the scientists finally found a vaccine, they realised there were barely any women left. 

By all reports from those early days, the men turned savage, women were kidnapped and brutalised, and many reports of incest began flooding in. That was until Praeses, the leader of our great country, the Nation, sent the army in to round up every female, young and old, and made mandatory DNA sequencing compulsory for every female on their eighteenth birthday. They tell us it is so we can be paired with the best genetic match, but none of the men who can afford the DNA sequencing for a potential bride are under thirty. 

My mother says that if they can afford the DNA testing and have the other financial qualifications, such as a house and savings as well as the government taxes, then they can afford a wife. But, of course, the prettier girls were usually selected by the wealthier men. And no Unholy would ever qualify to take a wife.

My mother took a step back and looked me over with a critical gaze. “I expect you will be matched with a very handsome and wealthy man.”

“I’d feel better if I got to choose my own husband,” I grumbled, tugging on the high neck.

My mother shook her head and mumbled something about silly girls as she ushered me out to the waiting car, where my father sat. He glanced over at me, giving me a smile and a wink as I slid into the passenger seat. 

“Now make sure you behave yourself. Don’t open your mouth unless spoken to, and for goodness sake, don’t fidget,” my mother scolded before closing the door harder than necessary.

If she were permitted at the DNA facility, she would have jumped in the car with us so she could chastise me about my manners or lack of, but only the females who were to be tested were allowed to be present. My father waved at her while pulling the car away and guiding it down the long driveway to the main road.

Our local DNA sequencing centre was only two hours away in the city, which wasn’t too far to go, considering other families in our region had to travel more than eight hours to get there.

“You nervous?” my father asked.

I nodded as I glanced over at him. “What if they find something in my DNA that makes me unworthy to be married?”

“Then you become a Bride of the state.” He shrugged.

A Bride of the state was a woman whose DNA was unsuitable for marriage. Those women were turned into government servants such as cleaners, secretaries and women who service the unmarried men, or as I had once heard them called, prostitutes. I didn’t envy those poor girls. They would never have a home or family of their own and by all reports were forced to have a surgery that left them barren.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be matched,” my father said in his calm voice.

My kind-hearted father always spoke calmly and had an aristocratic bearing. If it were up to him, I would be allowed to stay unwed and live at home for all my years, but the law was the law and my father never broke it.

I sat in silence and watched the world slip by. In all my eighteen years, I’d rarely left the farm. It was too dangerous for a woman to venture out alone and rare for one to go into town, even in the company of a man. 

My father hired young men as farmhands, but etiquette decreed I wasn’t to speak to them nor they to me, so the only males I ever spoke to were my father, my older brother, Bernard, who everyone called Birdy, and Mr Winter, the foreman on my father’s farm. 

Birdy and I had a love-hate relationship, especially when it came to cake. I hated the fact that because he was a boy, he always got the last piece and he loved to rub that in. But apart from that, we got along great.