Young women, their mothers, and their best friends huddled in their lacy finery and blew on their recently-manicured hands, impatiently waiting their turn at the order kiosks. The crowd was worse than usual because of the State decree set to take effect on the first of the year. Talk about Big Brother. Noelle wrinkled her nose. It was bad enough that created mates faced a different standard under the law and had to be approved for natural procreation, but to now be required to run your possible mate through an approval process? That took things to a whole new level. Sure, on one level it made sense that created constructs needed specific controls—obviously you didn’t want some crazy running around creating an army of serial killers or something. But that was why the existing psychological pre-order process existed, and why the State recycle programs were in place. As much as it upset her, she at least understood the need. Now, though, the State was pushing much further. Veto power over creations and recurrent batteries of tests before being granted provisional citizenship went too far.
