Author's Note - My qualifying entry for SFSD8 - exactly 500 words -
Genre :- Soft sci-fi.
Include the phrase 'The shit always hits the fan just as I'm about to ...'
Queer World
I looked at the man under arrest, trying to hide my disgust. He looked normal enough, from the outside - but the inside, that was another matter. His husband stood next to him, his arm tight around his waist, vainly hoping to show that they were a normal couple. I didn't know how he could keep up the pretence. Surely he must have known? Or at least had his suspicions?
But there could be no doubt, the other man had been caught right in the act. Kissing a woman, on the mouth. Ew. My nose wrinkled involuntarily.
It was ten years now since heterosexuality had been outlawed. Ten years since Earth's population reached twelve billion and the planet was groaning at the seams with the weight of uncontrolled humanity. Then had come The Enlightenment.
God had spoken to Father Robert Reagan on the top of Mount Washington and shown him the Truth. Homosexuality was the Way to salvation. It was the only way to stop uncontrolled reproduction and save planet Earth.
Overnight, heterosexuality became unfashionable, then unacceptable, then it was gradually banned across the globe. Illegal. A few of the more fanatic religious groups called it 'evil', after all it had nearly caused the end of the world, but I wouldn't go as far as that. However, it was certainly an illness. I knew there were special clinics people could attend to be cured - why hadn't this man done the right thing and gone to one of them before it was too late?
I stared impassively at the two men in front of me. Dawn, my fellow Enforcer, strode towards the guilty man, a large pair of handcuffs dangling from one hand. "Citizen Schwarzenegger, you're under arrest," she announced.
I saw both men hunch their shoulders and clench their fists, bracing themselves to resist, even though there was nowhere for them to run to. Before they could get in the first blow however, Dawn whipped out the tranquiliser gun in her other hand and shot them. They collapsed on the ground in an untidy heap. Dawn gave me a satisfied grin. "See? The shit always hits the fan just as I'm about to put on the handcuffs. Now I just shoot them and have done with it."
I gave a wry smile of agreement and gestured to the Enforcer van idling behind us in the alley. In a few moments, the two unconscious men were loaded into the back and driven to the courthouse. Once there, one of them would be charged with being a public nuisance, and probably released in the morning, but the other would be charged with hetrosex. If found guilty, and I had no doubts, he would be sentenced to the labour camps until a vacancy came up in one of the public clinics for gender reconfirmation.
I shook my head. It was his own fault.
Dawn and I continued our patrol. Our next task was to track down the woman involved in the case.