Brad pulled onto the highway and merged with the flow of traffic heading eastbound into the heart of the city. The moon, large and pale, hung in his rear-view mirror. It glowed like a luminous orange in the reflected light of sunrise. A harvest moon, they used to call it, when there was still land left to harvest. That time was long gone now, though, swallowed up in little bits and pieces like the land itself. Progress required sacrifice. This, Brad thought, was as it should be.

Like everyone else on the road, Brad was bored by the stale routine of the morning commute but was unable to find an alternative. Nor did he spend much time searching for one--it just wasn't in his nature to look for ways to get around things.

His genetic code had labeled him at birth as a Conformist, sub-class Management, and his life thereafter was largely scripted for him. Education, employment, hobbies and romances--all tailored to meet the preconditioned aptitudes dictated by the base-pair sequencing of his DNA. The commute might be boring, but it was also the socially accepted--and therefore expected-- thing for him to do.

He reached to the dash and thumbed on the radio. The news was just beginning and he listened with only mild interest as the anchorman carried on about inflationary pressures on the Yen and the latest civil unrest in some country Brad couldn't even locate on a map. As he did every morning, he made mental notes of the greater trends in the world at large and filed them away to use as conversational ammunition at the next corporate dinner party. The world outside his immediate experience only impacted his life in the form of cocktail trivia.

The auto-pilot engaged and Brad reached for his thermos. As he opened the container and poured a cap full of coffee, he noticed a commotion on the road behind him. A vehicle was approaching well in excess of the posted speed limit. Disgruntled at the driver's lack of respect for the established rules of society, Brad nonetheless signaled his blinkers, returned to manual control and pulled into the right hand lane to allow the vehicle safe passage. But the car did not pass. It pulled alongside Brad's own vehicle and slowed to match his pace. Brad cautioned a glance and saw the facial features of a genetic Non-Conformist smiling back at him. The man's forehead was just a little wider and the eyes set a little closer together than society liked. His hair was going gray at the temples, and there was, of all things, a wart on his chin. Startled, and embarrassed by the inappropriateness of his own reaction, Brad turned away. From the corner of his eye he saw the passenger's grin widen. And then the man waved.

The Non-Conformist's car swerved, striking his own and driving him off the shoulder and across safety strip that lined the highway. Brad, shocked by the unexpected incivility, was unable to react in time. His car struck the bridge abutment at full speed, and he died instantly.

The other car accelerated and disappeared into the maelstrom of traffic. Inside, the passenger smiled again and checked a name off of his list. "That's one," he said as he flipped to the next page of his clipboard. "Next up is a kidney over on the East Side. If we hurry we can make it before lunch. I have a doctor's appointment at noon and I don't want to be late."

The Pathologist opened the Y-incision with great care. "Genetic ID number 295Y-QR3-T2." He spoke with precision into the dangling overhead microphone.

"The body is identified as one Bradley Allen Stiger, white male aged thirty-two years. Height: seventy-one inches. Weight: one hundred sixty-nine pounds. Cause of death: brain stem trauma resulting from an automobile accident. FDR Harvest Codes stipulate H3, L4 and E6. Eyes are unavailable for harvesting due to excessive injury."

The nurse attendant poured cold saline into a large glass bowl and set it on the dissection table as the Pathologist cranked the rib spreaders and exposed the chest cavity. There was very little blood. "Harvest Organs appear healthy and undamaged," he spoke into the recorder. "Proceeding with H3 harvest according to federal protocol Beta Three."

"It's a shame," the nurse said. "He looks so healthy. So young. What a tragedy."

"Try not to see it as a waste," said the Pathologist, severing the aorta with a precision stroke of the laser scalpel. "Try to see it as someone else's good fortune."

"Yes, Doctor," the nurse replied.

"In fact," he continued, "I believe that this particular heart is staying close to home. The Federal DNA Registry shows that it is an almost perfect match for the daughter of our own Administrator."

"Is that right?" the nurse asked.

"So I'm told. Now how's that for a stroke of luck?"

"I'm so happy for her," said the nurse, smiling, as she placed the heart in the bowl. "She's such a nice girl."

Doctor Joseph Weintraub sat at the FDR terminal in the maternity ward of his hospital, scanning the last of the DNA samples into the Federal DNA Registry. His own gene-code, stored inside the database somewhere, had classified him at birth as a Conformist, sub-class Scientist. He had neither the patience nor the creativity to conduct real research, but was otherwise scrupulous about his work and therefore ideal for this assignment. The FDR left nothing to chance, and early Classification was the key to its success.

Five births yesterday--three boys and two girls. He could hear them screaming through the Plexiglas window behind him. All five, plus three others from Tuesday, lay swaddled inside their clear plastic cribs in the sterile incubation room. These first few days were so critical to their health, he thought. It was no wonder such great precautions were taken to establish their lives on the proper genetically pre-dispositioned pathways even before they were reunited with their parents. Especially before they were reunited, for history had shown what a widespread epidemic of inadequate parenting skills could do to society. Past levels of parental incompetence had been devastating.

That was why the Federal DNA Registry--FDR--was so important to national security. Established in the early 1990s as a way to identify convicted sex offenders, the database proved so popular with politicians and prosecutors that it was quickly expanded to include all felons. By the turn of the century DNA profiles were being recorded for misdemeanor convictions as well.

From there it was a short leap of intuition before the courts required DNA sampling for anyone even accused of a crime, much the way fingerprinting had been used in earlier times. With more and more laws being written each year causing more and more people to be classified as criminals, the database grew at an exponential rate.

It was inevitable that the federal government become more directly involved, and in the early twenty-first century the first official FDR program received its charter by Executive Order. Now, each newborn child was genetically fingerprinted and Classified at birth. The results were added to the FDR long before the infant was allowed to leave the hospital, if it was allowed to leave at all.

Doctor Weintraub knew and was proud of the order and stability that this had brought to an otherwise self-destructive society. Those with criminal dispositions were isolated from society at birth, as were those with a genetic predisposition towards mental illness or other unwanted character traits. Weintraub allowed himself a self-congratulatory smile, for a large part of his job involved making the diagnoses that assured the safety and productivity of the larger community. His was a very important job.

The last printouts rolled off the printer and Weintraub entered the incubation chamber. His lab coat rustled against his pant legs as he walked down the rows of cradles. He paused at each bassinet to consult his charts.

The first child on his list showed a clear genetic precondition in the arts, with a fifty-six percent chance of suffering adult onset diabetes in her early thirties. Still, that was a treatable illness, and was not listed as a direct causative agent for social mal-adjustment. And the girl's heart and lungs were strong and healthy. It was too bad her kidneys, liver and other organs would be unavailable for harvesting because of the diabetes she would suffer.

Weintraub keyed his mobile processor and tore off the printout, which he then affixed to the bracelet the baby wore on her ankle.

Conformist, sub-class Creative Arts. Harvest codes: H1, and L3.

And so it went. Each child's DNA profile was examined and assessed according to Federal Protocols, and Weintraub made his Classifications according to the letter of the law.

There was only one clear disappointment of the infants he surveyed, a day-old male who showed strong genetic tendencies towards deviant sexuality. Weintraub supposed the child would grow up with a penchant for young boys, and wasted no time marking the infant's label for early termination.

Non-Conformist, sub-class Sociopath. Harvest Codes: unacceptable.

The parents would be pleased to be relieved of this burden, Weintraub thought. Raising a family was hard enough as it was. No one needed to be saddled with the stigma of Deviancy, not in this age of early detection. The family would thank him, probably send him a card.

Weintraub smiled and moved on.

The last child on his roster gave him pause to think. A girl with a full head of hair and clear, black eyes, she nonetheless indicated on several of the key propensities red-flagged by the FDR software. Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactive Component. Mild to Moderate Obesity onset at puberty. Strong Critical Thinking skills that were on the very edge of Conformist behavior. In fact, her readings were so general that a specific Classification was difficult. No matter what station she was led to, she would doubtless be unsatisfied and disaffected. The poor girl was too smart to be comfortable with her place in life, but not well enough adjusted either mentally or socially to rise above it. This could easily progress into Social Mal-Adjustment Disorder with accompanying Anti-Social Behavior.

It was a tough call, but she did code well on Harvesting, and that was certainly in her favor.

Weintraub considered carefully before deciding.

Non-Conformist, sub-class Maintenance. Harvest Codes: all.

At least this way she would be relegated to a life of manual labor, thus limiting her access to the types of education that might incubate her propensity to disaffection. Besides, Weintraub thought, physical labor would keep her organs healthy until she was harvested. He added a note to her file: re-evaluation at thirteen and every year thereafter until she coded for Harvesting.

It was a challenging Classification for a Conformist Scientist to make, better suited for a more creative Non-Con, but Weintraub was confident of his ability to do his job. After all, he had been prepared for this task almost since the moment he was conceived.

Back at his desk, Weintraub turned his attention to the other aspect of his job--the part that most of society was not aware of or simply chose to ignore.

He sat before his terminal and leafed through the stacks of Requests that had piled up overnight. There were so many people in need or want of an organ, he thought, that it was simply amazing that anything had ever been accomplished before the FDR came into place.

He took the first Request, a type L4 Liver for an aging musician of no small repute, and entered the genetic profile into the Registry. The computer blipped and whirred for a few seconds, then the Match List appeared on his screen. Four citizens currently resided in the state who appeared to be viable donors.

Weintraub scanned the list of Genetic ID Numbers and their supplementary Harvest Codes. They all looked good, so he pulled up the files one by one and examined the data more closely. It took time, but he finally determined the best match for the L4: a woman in a small town who shared the entertainer's tissue and blood types, and who was currently unemployed due to a layoff at the plant where she worked. She would do just fine, and would save the factory some money in unemployment benefits as well. It was a good choice.

Weintraub typed the confirmation key sequence and the order went out. A Harvest Team was notified by electronic transmission, and the Target was placed on a Collection List. Sometime this weekend she would suffer a rather serious accident, most likely fatal.

Not for the first time, he admired the efficiency of the program and the society that had developed it.

Pleased with his work, Weintraub retrieved the next Request from the stack. It was a total heart-lung replacement for a Code H3-L2, requested by the agent of one of Hollywood's biggest stars, a real heavyweight in political campaign fundraising. The actor had been all over the tabloids in recent weeks as news of his illness was leaked to the press, and this Request had been coded as a Red Flag Priority by the head of the Federal DNA Registry Administration herself.

Weintraub had only seen a handful of Total System Requests in all the years of his tenure on the hospital's FDR Team. Their scarcity only made finding a viable Match that much more difficult. Weintraub expanded the search parameters to include the entire DNA Registries of all fifty-two states; he had never failed to find a Donor yet, and he did not plan to start today. He keyed in the numbers and waited while the internal co-processors churned their data. Soon the screen flickered and the list appeared. There were only two names. The first was a near-match that belonged to the wife of a Senator from Puerto Rico. There was no way she could be Harvested. As long as her husband was in office it was simply out of the question. It would be professional suicide even to recommend such a Donor to the Harvest Team. He was a Conformist, not a martyr. But the other name was a perfect match for both blood and tissue, and was nearing the end of his pre-determined Productivity Lifetime. Encouraged, Weintraub pulled up the file for further review. The Donor's name flashed across his screen and consumed his field of vision.

He sat back in his chair, breathless, as the automated messaging system notified the local Harvest Team and added his name to their list. Sometime this weekend . . .

As we approached Halloween, I decided to present the most horrifying story I received among last year’s submissions to Anotherealm. This one was far and away the scariest story I read last year—as well as one of the best written. So, what do you think, gentle reader?