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Davida would come and cradle her in her arms, tell her stories that helped to calm her.
    There was one story in particular that Davida told her often. Every girl of Genero learns about the founding sisters, Annie and Alicia. They survived the ravages of war to create the first dome, the first protection from the radiation that permeated the world left behind after their society was destroyed in the war. Others came to them, sought refuge from a world that no longer offered the resources required to support life. Together they built Genero.
    Davida’s story was a little different.
    Late at night, Davida would whisper in Dylan’s ear the true story of Annie and Alicia. Of how they were beaten and abused by those who would rage war. How they hid from the darkness, so determined were they to survive. Society could be rebuilt, they believed. If it was done right, if everyone followed the right rules, society could thrive and never have to face the darkness of war again. It was for this reason they built the dome, for this reason that they developed the council. Society is about the children, Davida told Dylan. If the children were loved and educated in the right ways, war would never have to be a reality again.
    It took someone special to create a new society. Took someone special to create children who could be worthy of love, who could learn the things they needed to learn. In the former society, children were born at random. Davida explained that in the former society children came into the world in a different method than in Genero, that women produced women from their bodies, had them to fill their empty lives or to experience a role in life that others in society expected them to experience. Children were not brought forth out of love. Most children were ignored by those women who brought them into the world, treated as a nuisance instead of a life full of potential. The sisters knew this was something that had to change to avoid future wars.
    Annie and Alicia found another way to bring children into the world. And they created a city where children were the most important element. Children were to be loved, to be raised in a community where everyone took responsibility for them. They were to be taught gently, encouraged to explore those subjects they enjoyed the most, and not forced to pursue things they found uninspiring. The skills they learned in childhood would be used in adulthood to benefit future generations of children.
    These were Annie and Alicia’s intentions.
    But, Davida told Dylan, somewhere things began to change. Children were born with odd features, with deformities that only worsened as they aged. Children were born with abilities that were not like others’. And when those children were identified, they were taken away. To maintain the purity of the children of Genero.
    “This is why you must not let them see what you can do, Dylan,” Davida told her each time she whispered this story in her ear. “You must not let them see that you are different.”
    “Am I different?” Dylan had asked.
    “You are special,” Davida said as she ran her hand slowly over Dylan’s silky blonde hair. “You are my special little girl.”
    So Dylan hid her gifts. And encouraged Donna to do the same.
    She regretted now that she had not been able to stand up for Donna that day. Maybe if she had said something, if she had told Demetria that she, too, could do something different, they would not have taken Donna away. Or maybe she and Donna could have gone to the Administration building together, faced whatever tests they had for them together. Maybe then she and Donna would be together to face whatever came next.
    She felt like she had let Davida down.
    Dylan paused in her walking, her neck so damp that when she lifted her hair from her neck it was damp too. She stretched slightly, moving her spine this way and that to relieve some of the ache that had settled in her shoulders, her hips. As odd as they felt on her body