Uprising and Aftermath
#6 of The Red Ones
The Red Ones Crisis, or the "Penitent Uprising" as the government would eventually refer to it, did not start with a Red One somehow throwing off its yoke of oppression. Rather, it began with an all-too-typical anecdote from the existence of one punished in such a fashion: a trio of Red Ones, cornered in a dusty, trash-strewn lot by a gang of young men, were subjected to especially brutal treatment, unnecessarily kicked and clawed into submission, then held down and taken repeatedly by all, other men wandering by and joining in without a thought. The only difference, then, was that one of them held back early on and watched with a portable camera, uploading the footage to share with his friends onto an internetwork that was finally coming into its own, and perhaps if he hadn't published it publicly, things would have taken longer to change.
Perhaps it had to do with the power of watching itself, the video bringing into focus something that all too often played out without notice or comment in the background of most people's lives, placed in front of people in a way where they couldn't simply shrug and walk on. Many of those who initially saw it, even, managed to be unaffected, but for a certain few, it affected them enough that they intentionally put it in front of as many people as they could. Some of those people were in the traditional media, and dutifully aired it as a matter of public debate. Soon, very few people hadn't caught at least a glimpse of it, especially the close-up shot of one of the Red Ones' faces, scratched, bloody, and contorted with pain and fear, the grinning muzzle of a man leering down from the very corner of the screen. It became an image seared in history, one that brought the perverse treatment of the Red Ones into painfully clear focus and shocked the consciences of an entire generation.
Perhaps it could have eventually faded, but a trend had already begun, and soon more videos appeared to drive home the brutality as the situation drew interest from many different areas. It was largely because of the first incident that a renowned documentarian, Janoek, began a thirty-part series on the subject. For an entire month, a prominent news network ran his hourlong segments, many featuring extensive interviews with Red Ones, both during the day as they struggled with their imposed heat, and at night, when they were more cognizant, describing in horrific detail some of their most brutal encounters. As impactful as the stories were, it was perhaps two particular segments that resonated the most: one that focused on interviewing seemingly regular men, eliciting casual and shameless admissions of the savagery they had subjected Red Ones to, and one where in the middle of an interview, as a Red One is struggling to even talk against the force of her heat, a bystander walks in front of the camera, completely ignores the conversation, shoves her to the ground and roughly fucks her into the dirt as the camera rolls. Then he gets up, wipes himself off on her fur, tucks himself back into his business suit and casually walks off as the camera follows him, completely oblivious, before it pans back to the brutalized woman, streaked with blood and dust, lying dazed on the ground as the shocked documentarian crouches next to her, trying to formulate words for the scene but rendered mute by the scene he is beholding.
By the time the last documentary feature had aired, attitudes regarding the Red Ones had already started to undergo a massive sea change. Using Red Ones had never been considered polite or high-class, of course, but it had been tacitly accepted, if slightly frowned on. Once people started to realize the true ramifications of their actions, though, and the impact they were having not on some heated, animalistic other but on actual, suffering people, the activity became harder to justify. Those who used them were no longer scoffed at but actually shamed; activists splashed some caught in the act with red paint and simulated ejaculate, but even those not on that progressive fringe were talking with their friends and coworkers about the situation. A groundswell of support for the plight of the Red Ones, and against the cruel disproportionality of their punishment, meant that what had once simply been a handy mechanism of both punishment and social order became a brutal abomination that the government could no longer easily condone or ignore. The problem was, though, that their necessity to social order didn't go away - already, as a result of the activism, proprietors were becoming dangerously overbooked, and so, despite their growing stigma, Red Ones were still being used. As a result, the government prevaricated, unable to come to a reasonable conclusion as their position grew increasingly untenable.
Finally, in an act of defiance, the workers who operated the signal towers that broadcast commands to the Red One heat regulators shut down all of the signals for a day in solidarity with the cause, and the Red Ones, temporarily freed from their hormonal control, were encouraged by the activists to step up. Remarkably, after what they had been through, only a tiny fraction resorted to violence; the rest joined in the protests, and with the streets at the city center filled with men and Red Ones, not writhing in forcible sex but standing resolutely together, the government could clearly see the writing on the wall. Legislation was quickly passed, and a universal referendum on the issue was put before all the people, even Red Ones, to vote on whether the program should continue. The vote was far from unanimous, but a strong majority made its voice clear: the program could not conscionably continue, and society would have to examine what it had wrought on its penitents.
So, in due course, a truth and reconciliation commission was formed, and over the course of the year, heard from everyone: the Red Ones, the users, the government officials behind the program. During its run, no further Red Ones were created, and just before it issued its final report, a blanket pardon was granted by the government to all criminals who had undergone the program. They were all put through a much briefer course of transformation, primarily to remove the crimson coloration from their fur, and to restore it to their original hue - save, of course for the stripes that indicated their new "official" roles as proprietors. As much as the world knew that the Red Ones could not continue, few were clueless enough to want a world where the pool of available females was shrunk even further. So, for the Red Ones, their victory was partial: there would be no more rape, humiliation, or abuse, and they would be welcomed back into society, but at the permanent cost of their manhood.
As this transition occurred, though, a problem quickly became apparent: as with any other converted female citizens, the act of being a proprietor was effectively a voluntary one, especially as the Red Ones had not, under the law, received the transformation as part of a contract with inducement to work in that fashion. This meant that while proprietor was the most obvious occupation for them, the government couldn't force them into it - after all, if it did, wouldn't that have been all but akin to a new Red Ones program? So, while the government could attempt to entice and cajole the former Red Ones into such employment, it couldn't coerce them - and given what the Red Ones had endured, it was hardly surprising that only a vanishingly small minority of them wished further contact with men, regardless of the monetary or other enticements offered. And that, then, presaged the larger problem: without the Red Ones, or a wider proprietor base, within a period of less than a month there suddenly weren't enough women to go around to maintain even the barely acceptable satiation that the overwhelmingly male population had enjoyed before.
The government did what it immediately could, increasing incentives for proprietors and touting their benefits in a massive charm offensive, recruiting aggressively at schools, colleges and job fairs. This, however, only resulted in a marginal increase in supply, and men, accustomed to having at least some outlet, quickly became rowdier - while women whose heat went unsatisfied for days risked their own hormones becoming toxic, men going without faced a more gradual but ultimately similar fate, but with their minds instead of their bodies poisoned towards impulse, instinct and insanity. Crime at all levels increased, and rioting, while small-scale, became commonplace. Frustrated men became desperate enough to track down former Red Ones, who they saw as unfairly withholding, and sexually assaulted them en masse, along with some regular proprietors who dared to take an extended break in the face of constant demand. Some of those attacked were assailed so repeatedly and brutally that severe injuries resulted, unleashing a new wave of righteous anger and retaliation and sending the violence spiraling faster and further.
Everyone, men and women alike, were furious at the imbalance and what it imposed on each of them, and the instability was only increased by the police reaction to the crimes: without the Red One program, and with no real prisons to sequester criminals, serious crimes such as rape and murder were ordered punishable by summary execution, sometimes on the spot. As the social order threatened to break down entirely, and as the safety of even professional women was seriously imperiled, the government declared martial law and flooded the streets with troops. They knew, though, that even the discipline of their soldiers could only hold out so long in the face of such a severe shortage, and during the brief period of calm allowed them, they embarked on one last, desperate plan to stabilize the situation before there was nothing left to control.
For a government known for its ponderous dithering, the plan it managed to bring forth in a matter of days was, for it, nothing short of remarkable. It was hardly a perfect resolution, but such a thing would have been elusive at best given the underlying facts. Red Ones, with no limit whatsoever on their punishments, had been capable of sating the urges of up to a hundred men per day; within the work shift of a proprietor, assuming little transition time from man to man and pushed to their absolute heated limits, one could expect to handle perhaps forty. Thus, even to minimally tend to the needs of all men, proprietors would have been required to make up at least three percent of the population, with four or five a much more comfortable and manageable margin. The problem was, though, that proprietors only made up one percent of the population at most, and true females, given their scarcity and usual exclusivity among the elites, barely moved the needle at all. Therefore, the population of proprietors needed to treble, and fast; at the same time, though, simply forcing some subset of men into the job would have led to an even more riotous response, and surely pushed society all the way over into collapse and anarchy. So, as in all things, they compromised: there would be an opportunity to move forward without coercion, and if men were to be forced, it would be only by their own collective choice.
For starters, the subsidized program was more clearly and narrowly focused. All proprietors, for the moment, would be required to provide subsidized services, but only for a quarter of their work shifts - and with a concomitant tax increase, paid at the average market price for their level of experience rather than the statutory minimum. Collectively, this amount of service provided enough for the bare minimum of contact each man needed to keep from going over the edge, although far less than required to fully satisfy them. Everything else, for every level of practitioner, would be provided at market rates, and proprietors with an established clientele could accept their usual clients as their portion of subsidized service if they wanted to. Furthermore, they could still refuse men who didn't meet acceptable standard of hygiene and conduct, so even to get those minimal services men would have to show proprietors significant respect; those who preferred the sorts of interactions they'd had with Red Ones would have to either adapt or go without. While it wasn't perfect for proprietors, it was something of a bump up for their earnings potential, as even mandated services were better compensated, and the lower rations meant that more men would divert their money towards just a bit more contact than they would get otherwise.
That still left, though, the prospect of creating enough proprietors to go around without such brutal rationing. How, though, to balance the conscription that might be necessary in a way that didn't seem unjust? The best that the leaders had been able to come up with was a lottery, but with a particular twist that made it seem less mandatory. There would be six half-year periods, and at the end of each one, one half of one percent of the male population would need to become proprietors. If that goal was not met by volunteers, a lottery would be held among the population for the winning slots, with the "winners" given a choice: become a proprietor, or take themselves out of the equation through being assigned a neuter, sexless gender, in which case another name would be drawn.
Because the demand could be met entirely though volunteers, though, men would have only themselves to blame if one of the lotteries had to be held. In that vein, they would be encouraged to convince others to take on the profession, or volunteer themselves. Threats or coercion, of course, would not be allowed, and any provable allegations would lead to the offending party automatically winning the lottery and having to take the choice themselves. Incentives, though, would be allowed, including a standard one: a bounty fund, to which all men could collectively contribute, and which would be split among those volunteering during that period and an equivalent number of original proprietors, to make sure that their prior volunteering was fairly rewarded (by the end of each period then, the original proprietors, and any former Red Ones who volunteered, would be awarded two shares of the bounty, to partly compensate them for what they had already had to go through during the crisis). Individual incentives could also be offered, although doing so would only lessen the likelihood of a lottery or the number of slots required in it; there would be no way to pay for someone else to take your place if a lottery was held and you were chosen. Therefore, if those in the elites wanted to ensure that they were not to be subject to becoming proprietors, they could only do so by ensuring that the entire half-percent of men volunteered each time. Between the various incentives, it was thought that more than enough men would take the plunge, and if not, then men in total would only have themselves to blame.
There were those in the government, and elsewhere, who had argued that former Red Ones, having already been converted, should be first in line when it came to being "encouraged" to volunteer, but such a thing was determined to be unjust after what they had already suffered. Those who were willing would receive an added bonus from the government, and be especially protected against abuse; for the others, though, it was clarified that they would not be forced to be proprietors, or even to stay women. While, due to the imbalance, having them become men would not be an option, all those who wished would be offered a conversion to a neuter form and would be allowed to do away with sex in either role entirely. Conversely, they could choose to undergo, without attached obligations, a transformation that would completely restore their sexual sensitivity, so that they could enjoy sex that wasn't abusively repetitive or overheated. Given their prior suffering, Red Ones that chose to enter the profession would be assigned no minimum requirement of service, and could provide as much or as little as they liked.
In any event, however the total was met, by the end of the periods the population would be made up of four percent proprietors, an acceptably comfortable margin. At that point, the subsidized rations would be increased to a more comfortable minimum level, and the hope was that the situation would then stabilize. At that point, the lottery would be removed, but it would stay that way only if the percentage remained constant - as such, the bounty fund and other incentives would still be encouraged to ensure a healthy population of proprietors to meet overall demands. Everything else, including the system of essentially randomized conception and communal child support, would operate much as it had before, as would the justice system, complete with the reinstated lethal penalties for the most serious crimes. Becoming a Red One would no longer even be an option for punishment, although to prevent sexual misconduct, such offenses that didn't rise to the level of execution would me met with enforced transformation into a neuter form, without the benefit of unconsciousness during the transition.
Controversial or not, it was the best proposal anyone could think of, but given the weighty nature of the situation, it was decided that it had to be put to a vote, with the only other viable but considerably less gradual and equitable alternatives: either accept the plan as it was outlined, hold an immediate lottery and subsequently drum three percent of men into proprietor service directly, or hold a lottery to render a sufficient selection of men neuter that the current set of proprietors could meet the needs of the remaining population. There was plenty of grumbling, of course, but there was also no question that there was no other realistic way forward if society was to be maintained. The referendum was held with little protest, then, and unsurprisingly the comprehensive plan won out by a wide margin. As soon as the vote was finalized, the plan was put into place with an official government announcement: the first six-month race was on to provide the first batch of new proprietors, one way or another.
During the very first period, people didn't perhaps take things quite as seriously; as it was such a small percentage, and there were plenty of others to tackle the load, they contributed modestly, and consequently the number of those who volunteered for a share of the bounty pot were modest as well. At the end of the period, a half-percent were needed, but only a third of a percent had signed up, and so the very first lottery was subsequently held. As it was truly random, several of the people selected were among the elites, a few of whom even had exclusivity with a natural-born female. Naturally, they screamed and threatened and called on friends in high places, but the government remained resolute; for the scheme to work, it had to be fair, and that meant if a lottery happened everyone had to be at risk. So, as much as they squirmed, those unfortunate elites were put to the same choice as every other winner. One after another, they grudgingly accepted their lives as eunuchs, sacrificing one of the key joys in their lives, and as the other elites watched them, watched as their natural women backed out of their relationships in favor of more virile candidates, they knew that none of them wanted to meet similar fates. For the next period, then, the bounty fund increased more than tenfold, and individually-proffered incentives abounded: vehicles, property, and all manner of other inducements. As it ended, a full seven-tenths of a percent were in some stage of the transformation, lowering the threshold for future periods, and allowing other men to breathe a huge sigh of relief... while remembering to dig into their pockets to keep the next lottery at bay.
For a while things stayed tense; kept to the bare minimum satiation of their in-built drives, society remained balanced on a razor's edge. Over time, though, as more and more proprietors came on the market, the tension began to dissipate as supply brought prices more into reach, and proportions grew so smoothly that the government increased the subsidy ration earlier than anticipated. With the incentives, more and more men seriously considered becoming a proprietor, especially when first embarking on a career; with all of the incentives and advertisements permeating society, the notion of being a proprietor began to shift naturally as well. Because of its importance, and because other men were relieved at not having to come face to face with the sacrifice themselves, proprietors were seen as selecting an honorable and rewarding profession. It was still too much of a sacrifice for the majority of men, but once the last lingering stigma of it had been swept away by the flood of enticements, those who had been curious before but felt constrained or shamed by their fellow men were no longer held back from taking the plunge. And there were more than enough of them, or those who simply made a financially mercenary calculation, to make it all work.
As of the current point in their history, five periods have been successfully completed, and the sixth is already underway with promising results, only a few hundred individuals below the acceptable four-percent threshold for suspending the lottery. After a period of turmoil that nearly brought society to its knees, once again things were stabilizing, and nearly to an equilibrium - everyone was satisfied enough, unrest was mostly subdued, crime was back to normal and punished accordingly. As tough as it had been, their civilization had found a way through, and without the unacceptable cruelty that the era of the Red Ones had perpetrated. Whether the society would be able to keep things together, as populations grew and demographics changed, it was far too soon to tell. For the first time in many years, though, people could look toward the future with unashamed faces and open hearts, with genuine hope that their world could bear their instinctive drives without further pain and injustice.