This story is one of five winners of the Stop Copaganda short story contest, run in collaboration with Fight for the Future, Rightscon, and COMPOST Magazine.

1. The programmer

Shadow, light, shadow, shadow, light, shadow.

How long until it’s over?

Light, shadow, light, shadow.

“Two hours and twenty-five minutes,” calculates the artificial intelligence.

Ava feels her face melting from sheer vertigo, in a sweat as cold as it is endless.

Shadow, light, shadow, shadow, light, shadow, light.

A tea cooling on the desk. Ava clutches her head as if trying to compose it between her fingers, like broken china: kintsugi^[1] for brains.

Inhale, exhale. Just two more hours of that play of light, the shadow flicker^[2], which will be repeated for 120 of the 365 days of the year, for as many years as her body can resist, because this is the only apartment she could afford. Her life savings and a forty-five-year loan bought her these thirty square meters of ceramic and neon, with a bathroom, two windows, and a small balcony, all facing the wind farm.

Ava thinks of the piercing ringing in her ears. At times, it is the only sound she hears, because … when was the last time she heard the birds singing? Some have gone away and others have immolated themselves in the sixty-meter-long blades of the wind turbines. Rotating around the tip of a 120-meter base, they stand dark and haughty over the outskirts of the city.

Clean energy for industries, clean energy for the capital, the future is here! What did the maddening coming and going of lights against her window matter, right at two o’clock in the afternoon, when the sun was positioned at the perfect angle to cast an apotheotic shadow that engulfed her building almost completely.

Shadow, light, shadow.

Gray uroboros^[3] towers whose heads devour their tails, creating the most claustrophobic inner courtyards. Buildings like Legos copied and pasted all over this voracious city, which grows monotonously upwards to leave some space for the wind farms and rural areas that have survived—because you can’t eat buildings nor artificial intelligence.

Those who live in the lofts on the fortieth floor may not have to suffer the erratic comings and goings of light from the wind turbines; perhaps those who face the other way will also be spared. But frankly, she can only imagine, because Ava has never spoken to an upstairs neighbor. Or one across the hall. Or anyone downstairs. None at all.

The warnings on the Safer City app speak of a violent city, marked by muggings, rapes, and shootings. No one can be trusted these days.

Light, shadow, light, light, shadow, light.

So, it’s just her, the computer screen, and the hum of the wind turbine.

If she had wings, would she flee to a better place? Or would she be one of those suicidal birds that just flies into the huge metal turbine blades?

But no matter how much the tinnitus^[4] hurts, boiling against her eardrums, she turns her gaze to the screen to review the code that an artificial intelligence has predesigned.

Light, shadow, light.

A cheap and fast way of programming, as gray and repetitive as the buildings that are born and die on the horizon: Artificial intelligence weaves the code following a plan that copies and pastes without stopping. Fast and cheap, with fewer human hands and brains involved, but not without errors. One line in vain on that platform and a menopausal woman could end up being assigned to a procreation appointment, as happened a few weeks ago to a neighbor; although she tried to alert the platform—too automated to understand—to the error and screamed for help, there was no neighbor to respond nor did she get the Procreator to back off. She ended up in the ER bleeding to death from the fright and struggle, in an event that was described as “an unfortunate, but isolated mistake” by Sibila, the fertility tracking and dating app.

A line in vain and a woman could have a very bad time.

But well-placed code could facilitate the procreation of new boys and girls, which would boost the country’s development and economy. That is why she had to concentrate, despite the …

Light, shadow, light, light, shadow, light.

What did the birds sound like? In fact, what did humans sound like? When was the last time she spoke directly to another person?

Light, shadow, shadow, shadow, shadow, shadow.

Shadow.

The sun had finally gone down.

Cold tea.

Eardrums. Breathing. Typing.

It hurt less.

2. The user

The rays of an orange sun, dawning among the vapors of the city. And a distorted little bell giving the dreaded warning:

“Twelve days since last menstrual period.”

It’s 9 a.m., she still hasn’t eaten her portion of tofu eggs with seaweed, and Amaia wants the day to be over.

She wonders if her smart glasses were sufficiently charged for what was coming. She thinks of a series she has yet to watch, but deep down she doesn’t want to ruin it with bad memories. Maybe better to watch a documentary. A bit of true crime might work, to make up for the deep urge to murder she had. Or maybe something about animals. Animals weren’t as cruel as humans.

“Twelve days since last menstrual period,” repeats the alarm.

“Fertile period in progress. Select a Procreator in the area,” it adds.

Her menstruation was as regular as the moon. “Healthy specimen,” the platform declared. The constant temperature measurements and menstrual records she had been required to keep since menarche proved it. “Healthy specimen, nulliparous^[5],” adds the Sibila application next to some of her photographs.

“Five minutes to choose a Procreator. Otherwise, the system will automatically assign you one.”

So, with half her coffee in her stomach and the other half in her hand, thinking seriously that she didn’t get enough sleep, Amaia sits down.

Slide left.

Slide left.

Slide left.

No one and nothing really interests her: neither to give children to her homeland—with birth rate and labor force problems—nor to find the love of her life in one of those procreation visits—mandated for all women over twenty-one years of age without a partner or children. Amaia is no longer so naïve. She just wants to survive the day. And all she needs is a guy who smells decent and hopefully leaves quickly.

Suddenly, she stops on a profile.

Yes, he has the face of a premature ejaculator and of knowing the shower.

That’s enough.

Some quick sex while watching her animal documentaries on the virtual glasses—the same ones that track all her life and maybe even her soul in the future and prevent her from leaving the building if she hasn’t tried to procreate. Then having the rest of the day off because she wasn’t allowed to work during those twenty-four hours.

“It’s not such a bad life either,” she thinks, feeling a pang in her heart and another in her belly.

“It could be worse,” her head tries to convince her. “Like your neighbors whose windows face the wind farm.”

“Assigned procreator. Thank you for your service to the Chilean Homeland,”  confirms the system.

3. System error

Chile’s community texture was once a firm interweaving of neighborhoods, families, friends, and workers. Common pots, neighborhood mateadas^[6], unions, community radio stations, and cooperatives were some of the forms that popular organization took. But this network became evident as a danger to the authoritarian systems of government. That is why it was directly targeted in three major historical moments: First, in 1973 and until 1990, the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet crushed workers’ resistance with disappearances, executions, torture, and the introduction of crack in populations; then, the social revolt of 2019, which filled the streets of almost all of Chile with protests, was silenced with state violence, disinformation and, later, with the encirclements of the COVID-19 pandemic and the advance of cocaine and fentanyl; but the final blow came in 2040, when in the midst of a security and birth crisis, people agreed to hand over more information to government computer systems.

Under the premises of “more information, more security,” “to rescue a Chile for Chileans,” and “who does nothing, has nothing to hide,” the population—frightened by the bombardment of catastrophic news about crime, mass migration, and loss of Chilean culture and values—accepted more and more restrictions: surveillance cameras in every quadrant, hallway, and office; biometric systems in public transportation, building entrances, and workplaces; the verified humanity card; surveillance through smart watches and smartphones.

Until escalating to the Kast Act, which first repealed the legal and free abortion law of 2026; then complicated the prescription, delivery, and sale of female contraceptives; and finally made mandatory the control of the female population of childbearing age through the Sibila application, seeking to regulate the low birth rate and the male loneliness crisis …

A metallic clang announces that she has reached her destination.

“What are you reading, veneca^[7]? Hurry up,” threatens the foreman.

Iraida could have reminded him that those who migrated from Venezuela were her grandparents and parents and that she was as Chilean as he was, because she was born here. But with racism deepened by the birth crisis and with a hacked digital book reader for old and forbidden PDFs, she was better off keeping her head down and swallowing her anger.

“Nothing, I’m coming,” she said, hurrying her pace.

Export, export, local, garbage, sorted.

Each day she would sleep a few hours, awakening before dawn and taking the bus for two hours across highways and forgotten rural roads, until it took her to some of the remnants of the fields. In the midst of the birth-housing-energy crisis, the cities hyper-concentrated populations and resources, forgetting that without fields and peasants they could not train artificial intelligence to invent food for them. So emergency land was reallocated, often in remote and poorly connected territories. And the second-class population, like her—of Venezuelan descent, female and brown-skinned—had to put up with the long hours of traveling, the eternal days squatting down to harvest the crops, and the bad faces and shouts of the foreman every time he found them distracted.

Export, local, local, weed.

Because no matter how much artificial intelligence they put into the system, there were always mistakes. Like the time when one of the machines mistook a small and vibrant lilac-colored poisonous mushroom for blueberries, which resulted in the mass poisoning of a Haitian community. “A regrettable error, which killed three migrants, but which remains an isolated event,” the Ministry of Agriculture hastened to communicate.

“Artificial intelligence is not so smart and not so artificial, hijita. Because it is always based on human knowledge.” Her grandfather’s words resonated with her. Subsequent research showed that the database used was European, so it did not have much information on local fungi and weeds, especially that fungus. It was believed to be extinct.

Local, local, export, local.

That’s why she liked to learn from other sources. Including those old photocopies and illegal scans she got on dubious micro-SD cards from the free street markets. Some were collections of former college students; others, digital libraries from the days of feminist collectives.

Local, local, export … and this?

Iraida is astonished at the discovery. It is a plant with small, oval, and soft leaves, crowned with yellow flowers, which she swears she has seen in one of her books. She has no idea what it is doing there, fading among the army of similar trees that colonize hills and hills, absorbing water and substrates, leaving no space for other species.

Another, older collector smiles mischievously, accentuating the wrinkles in her sun-tanned skin. And leaning close to her ear, she dares to whisper its name:

“It’s rue^[8].”

4. Hacker

An awkward morning.

A humidifier that fills the room with steam and the scent of melissa.

His moans. Heavy, asthmatic.

“I hope he goes into cardiac arrest,” Amaia thinks.

—Curlews have long legs and a curved beak that allows them to forage in mud and sand …

She put on the sheets she hates the most, a military green color. Half-drunk coffee rests on the bedside table.

—This adaptation is crucial for their survival in coastal habitats …

More moans, while he jumps on her vulva as if it were a trampoline. Does he think that this gives her pleasure? Does he think about the pleasure of others? Clearly not.

—Curlews are fascinating birds, not only for their distinctive appearance, but also for their long migratory journeys and their ability to adapt to different habitats …

As the narrator’s husky, steady voice sounds over the projection of the smart glasses, her head flies to other places. Inevitably, Amaia thinks that about thirty years ago, some white, American guy invented these glasses looking to have all the information at hand. Five years later, another white guy attached it to his biometric verification system, which he forged by systematically buying iris data from countries in emerging economies. And today, because of those glasses—and the whole biometric system—she can’t leave her building until the so-called Procreator ejaculates and twenty-four hours of fertilization elapse; but, in exchange, she can watch bird documentaries while enduring the month’s statutory fertilization.

“Can you take them off?”

“No.”

Because for about ten minutes he can make use of her vagina, but not her eyes nor brain.

She recalls the news that appeared the other day in her feed. “Rape and other sex crimes down 80%,” the government excitedly announced. But then, what was she, all dissociated, putting up with from a Procreator? Was it consensual, really? Were the rape figures down? Or were they simply legalized through an app?

—During migration and in wintering areas, curlews often form large flocks. This behavior provides protection from predators and facilitates foraging.

Maybe that was the problem. They all needed a flock. She needed one.

A moan, followed by his orgasm, which is more like a convulsion.

—Curlews make one of the longest migrations among waders. They can fly up to fifteen thousand kilometers …

At last, her monthly ordeal was over.

They don’t say goodbye or anything. He simply marks “Fertilization completed” on the app and hurries out the door, waiting for Sibila’s doorbell to ring again, requesting his services in the area.

When she no longer hears his footsteps, Amaia opens the small locked drawer on her bedside table and takes out a plant with vibrant yellow flowers. She mixes it with another fragrant, dark green herb.

One cup of boiled water.

A spoonful of rue.

A pinch of parsley.

“But don’t overdose, it can be toxic,” the farmer had told her, sneaking them under the counter.

Toxicity was the least of her problems, though. So, she adds an extra leaf, just in case.

Let the mixture stand. Just enough to stain the water. But not so much that it cools.

A painful menstruation, another month off.

5. The connection

It didn’t matter how cheap her apartment was.

Nor how sad the neighborhood is.

Nor how monotonous the work is.

The routine gave her the calm and peace that Ava never knew in her childhood.

Her morning starts with her organic soy milk and blueberry smoothie—one of the few crops that local agriculture can still sustain. She turns on the humidifier and adds her favorite scent—lavender. She puts on some lo-fi music, which brings her nostalgia for a time she didn’t even live in, but which seems more analog, warm and simple. Ava turns on the screen and checks if the system has thrown any errors. Meanwhile, her smart refrigerator—which perhaps is not so smart, because it consumes electricity in an insane way—checks if it has all the necessary ingredients to prepare her lunch—tofu stew with potatoes. The system detects that she is out of soy sauce, cumin, and potatoes, so it generates an automatic supermarket order. The order should have arrived at 12:05 at her door, but it’s 12:06, 12:12, 12:20 and …

Nothing?

So, she opens the refrigerator panel, confirms that the order was placed, retrieves the tracking number, enters it into her smartwatch, and …

A failure of the robot?

The real-time map shows her grocery order stuck in the entrance hallway of her tower. The camera shows the robot unresponsive; from its metal claw dangles an eco-friendly bag made of seaweed.

Her routine has already been ruined and with it, her entire day.

And the shadow flicker has not yet started.

“Yeah, but it could have been worse. It could have gotten stuck in the middle of the street,” she thinks.

So, with the headache beginning to imprison her skull, she opts to defy her fear of being assaulted or killed and, with a pepper spray concealed under her vest, she peers out of the elevator.

But down there, in the entrance hallway of the building, she doesn’t encounter the crowd of criminals that Safer City always threatens. Only a frozen robot and a neighbor who, strangely, is opening the door to the emergency stairs instead of calling the elevator.

Ava cannot hide her face of frank surprise.

“I just like to exercise here,”  the neighbor explains, pointing to the steps.

But Ava’s shock doesn’t disappear from her face. Isn’t she afraid of being assaulted? Or of having an accident?

After a hesitation-filled pause, the other woman says with a smile, “Do you want to climb with me?”

That’s how, strangely enough, Ava was encouraged to try new things. With the late lunch order hanging from her hand, climbing the ten floors on foot, legs complaining, breathing agitated, limping a little on her right leg, but with the smile of her neighbor easing the journey.

She turns out to be the one who lives in the apartment across the hallway. With an easy smile and fluid conversation, it is not difficult to lower barriers and accept a cup of coffee.

Ava enters a home that smells sweet and is served an espresso mixed with tonic and orange from the few plantations that still survive in the area.

Her name is Amaia and she is a barista. It is a simple job, poorly paid—because it is usually replaced with robots—but it brought her a lot of peace, among milk drawings, vanilla essence and vapors. Probably as much peace as Ava felt sheltered in her routine and in her afternoons programming.

“And what do you do?” Amaia asks.

“I am a programmer for Sibila. There are few of us human hands, but we exist,” Ava adds proudly. But her hostess’s smile dissolves like sugar in her tonic espresso.

“Sibila? The reason I get locked in my apartment once a month with the stranger on duty?” Amaia asks with a dry tone, eyes like saucers from sheer annoyance.

“Yes, I work there,” Ava repeats nervously.  “I joined because I wanted to contribute to the country. You know: Without children there are no workers, without workers there is no Chile,” she repeats in a pamphlet-like voice.

“And didn’t it occur to them to improve women’s living conditions, instead of legalizing rape? Because that’s how I feel: like rape.”

Ava’s face begins to glow red, congested. She stares dumbfounded at Amaia. Not only because it is the first time she’s met a neighbor. But also because she always believed that her work improved the living conditions of other women.

“But Sibila allows you to choose … we work a lot on the presentation cards and the selection …”

“To really choose, I would have to have complete freedom: if I want or don’t want, when I want. Not just ‘with whom I want’. Or do you like …? Ah—” Amaia stops suddenly as she takes a better look at Ava’s leg and detects the prosthesis. “It hasn’t happened to you, because you’re not in the system, right?”

Ava nods slowly.

“That's why you don’t understand,” Amaia adds in frustration.

Sibila’s programmers are not users of the system. In her case, she is not subjected to the statutory monthly fertilization because she was born with a disability in her leg. The system marks her as an “unhealthy specimen, genetic problems,” and she could only undergo fertilization if the nation escalated to a State of Catastrophe. And, currently, they were only in First Emergency State.

“So, you haven’t even thought about it? Some of us are subjected to sexual violence and forced motherhood; others are excluded by the system. Do you even know if you want to have sex? Do you know if you want to be a mother someday? Why do others decide for you? Don’t you see? You are not above. You and I are part of the same problem.”

Suddenly, Ava feels she can’t hold any more information in her head. She mumbles an “I’m sorry, I didn't know,” and, as if staggering, crawls into the hallway and crosses to hide in her apartment.

For a few brief seconds, Ava thinks that she might report Amaia for unpatriotic behavior.

But her words hurt and bounce back.

Are they part of the same problem?

Light, shadow, light, light, shadow, light.

The shadow flicker was back.

Also, the uneasiness.

6. Malwares

It began as great things usually begin: with small acts.

Like that morning when she stumbled upon the rue bush.

The system required her to report the plant and take it to incineration. But Iraida didn’t know if it was for its showy yellow flowers or pure curiosity that she saved the seeds. First, she sowed them secretly in a small nursery that she hid inside her bathroom. Then, being invaded by their pungent scent—which could well alert the neighbors—she tried spreading her seeds on the abandoned land under the imposing wind turbines.

Contrary to expectations, the rue did not allow itself to be crushed by the shadow and sprouted vigorously on the spot.

She told herself it was just a plant. That it was just a hobby. She didn’t understand what all the banning was about, nor the smile on her co-worker’s face.

Then, on one of the mornings when she ventured out to buy her own groceries at the few street markets that survived automation, she came across an old book on natural gynecology, which she quickly loaded onto her hacked tablet. “You’re going to find it very interesting, mi niña,” said the vendor, an old Mapuche^[9] woman in a headband and silver necklace.

Although the cover only said “natural gynecology,” a couple of pages later she came across the real name of the book: “Abortion Recipe Book with Medicinal Plants.” She had only heard of the word “abortion” in the strong laws against the practice. It would not have occurred to her that it was not the first historical period in which it was forbidden, much less would she have thought that women had always resisted from the margins, with ancestral knowledge and making use of what grew in their backyards.

Thus, she learned that by using Indian nimbus and wild yam, pregnancy could be prevented, because they had contraceptive properties. And that rue, that forbidden plant which she had been playing at dispersing and cultivating, was a vital herb, because it inhibited the nesting of the fertilized ovum and, if conception had already occurred, it could also be used in conjunction with other plants to stimulate contractions, inducing abortion.

Rue, pennyroyal, parsley, mugwort, ginger, chilco^[10]: fragrant, courageous plants and roots.

Plants that they could use for their own autonomy.

To decide yes or no. To decide when.

The next thing was a fluke: She was wandering through the fields checking moisture and substrates, as well as the operation of the cultivation robots, when she came across another worker. Squatting, crouched among the potato bushes, she was moaning in pain.

The worker put a finger over her mouth as a sign to keep silent. Iraida didn’t utter a word, because she understood what she was doing. She had seen it in her books and did not judge her.

Iraida disappeared for a few minutes and then reappeared with a deep green tea in her hands. She gave it to the other woman slowly, throat tight trying to drink between pain and fear, and then helped her into a doggy position, palms and feet on the ground. And chanting a soft litany, she massaged her hips with a cloth, side to side, tucking the uterus, until the herbal tea took effect and the worker was free of pain in copious bleeding. She mumbled a “thank you” that would be burned into her memory.

That’s how she knew there was no turning back.

She had the knowledge, the plants, and the women who needed her.

How to go back?

How to remain unchanged?

7. Fatal system error

Her morning had started as they all did: with her soy milk and organic blueberry smoothie, turning on the humidifier and adding her favorite scent—lavender—and putting on some lo-fi music to work in front of the screen. It could have been a day of routine and peace, barely interrupted by the fluttering shadows generated by the wind turbines. But just as her refrigerator was getting ready to check the inventory—today it was time to have rice with seaweed for lunch—and to place a new order, she heard them.

The screams.

Sharp, painful, tearing the air.

Her first reaction was to report it to Safer City. But a thought froze her for seconds: She couldn’t be the only one hearing it, could she? If the screams were heartbreaking. And they were so close. So why weren’t there other reports on the app? Why weren’t other neighbors asking in the chat?

Of course: fear.

She was so tired of the fear.

So, contradicting all her reasoning and decades of fatalistic news, she grabbed the pepper spray that always rested by her door. She fearfully peeked outside and corroborated that it was Amaia, her neighbor across the hall, who was screaming for help.

The rest happened in seconds.

As soon as she saw Amaia screaming, lying in the hallway of the building with a guy on top of her, she turned on the pepper spray. The man let out a shriek like a wounded beast. Then, Amaia grabbed the delivery robot—who had just left breakfast at the door—and unloaded its twenty kilos of metal on his head, with a force that only someone who trained on the building’s forty flights of stairs could have.

He stopped moving. He even stopped breathing. A trickle of blood began to stain the floor.

“I—I thought he was a regular Procreator. But he’s an undercover cop. H-he found my plants, Ava,” babbles Amaia.

“Plants?”

“Yes, contraceptive plants. They exist, Ava. They still survive, cultivated by women farmers. They hide them in their bathrooms, sell them at the few counters still manned by human hands, like in my coffee shop. I’ve never wanted to be a mother, especially not like this, Ava, I …”

Amaia cries, overwhelmed. Her tears fall down her neck, onto the floor, and mix with the policeman’s blood.

The building’s camera creaks, sharpens, focuses; its automatic system recognizes the blood. Then the alarm goes off. It’s a matter of seconds before more police arrive.

Ava could have reported the situation to Safer City. She could have closed the door, claimed she mistook the cop for a mugger, and continued working with the lo-fi in the background in her apartment purchased with a forty-five-year mortgage.

But instead, she led Amaia into her kitchen. And tried a trick that once she read about in the tireless forums she checked until the early hours of the morning.

She raised and lowered the levels of the old smart consumer refrigerator once, three times, fifteen times. Until the system failure generated an electromagnetic explosion so big, it set off all the car alarms in the surrounding area, but also disrupted the cameras for a few minutes.     .

She took the hand of Amaia, who wiped away her tears and looked at her with hiccups from sheer shock.

Maybe she could improve the quality of women’s lives. Maybe she could begin to repair all the damage she had done.

They ran down the emergency stairs, ten floors down. Ava felt like she was floating, as if she didn’t have a prosthesis at the end of her right leg.

Outside, the sun shone high, announcing the fluttering of wind turbines.

They opened their arms and felt them like wings.

Free, migratory.

Like curlews.

^[1] Kintsugi: Japanese practice of repairing fractures in ceramics with gold resin and other metals, turning the object into art.

^[2] Shadow flicker: Alternating changes in light intensity, caused by the rotation of wind turbine blades projected onto the ground or houses, when the blades interrupt the sun’s rays. This effect can cause discomfort to people and, in extreme cases, have negative effects on photosensitive people.

^[3] The uroboros is a symbol that shows a snake or dragon swallowing its own tail and forming a circle with its body. It symbolizes the eternal cycle of things, also the eternal effort, the eternal struggle, or the useless effort, since the cycle begins again in spite of the actions to prevent it.

^[4] Tinnitus is usually described as a ringing in the ears, even if there is no external sound source. It is usually caused by an underlying condition, such as age-related hearing loss, an ear injury, or a circulatory system disorder.

^[5] A nulliparous or nulligesta woman is one who has never given birth to any child.

^[6] The mateada is a social gathering typical of countries such as Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile, where mate, an herbal infusion, is shared.

^[7] Veneco is a derogatory term to refer to Venezuelans. Veneca is its feminine form.

^[8] Refers to the plant ruta graveolens.

^[9] The Mapuches are the largest Indigenous people in Chile and Argentina. They are known for their historical resistance, first to the Spanish crown and then to the Republic of Chile.

^[10] The chilco is an edible, medicinal, and ornamental plant that grows in Chile and Argentina.