From the Heartland

In the USA of 2268, every boy is crew cut, every girl’s skirt reaches below her knees, every parent is shown respect, the town deputy knows every name. One hardly ever sees a stranger in the flesh. Cities have all but disappeared, commerce and employment is on-line. To keep the USA the utopia it has become, only real men are allowed to wed, own property and vote, and thus the manhood tests that Darryl must pass before he can be a full citizen with the right to vote, own property and wed.

Without his Manhood, he can be a farm hand in a bunk house, a menial worker in a rented room or he can join the service where he can remain a low ranking enlisted man. His only other legal alternative, voluntary ascension into simulation. So it is all important that he pass those tests, his whole future, and that of his girlfriend depend on it.

This is in fact a look at racism as seen thru the eyes of a Caucasian male who does not have the genetic predisposition to be racist but has never had the experience of meeting someone from another race until now. We also look at two 'utopias,' the one that the rabid right seems to want and the one the left seems to be aiming for. In real life neither of the new nations described here would actually work without modifying human nature but the sci-fi format lets us use this as a backdrop to the relationship between Darryl and Keisha.