Read Online The Cage of Zeus by Sayuri Ueda, Takami Nieda - Free Book Online Page A

minority and majority were soon deemed discriminatory, and such semantic distinctions ceased to exist. At last, people came to realize that such reductionist thinking was meaningless. That there was no exact delineation between the majority and minority. That the majority can always become a minority. That possibility was the essence of what it means to be human.
    “And so intersexuality isn’t so much a peculiar goal of people with peculiar ideas as it is a challenge we must face in order for human culture to mature. Although whether governments recognize the lifestyle is a different matter.”
    The world’s progressives began to fight for the right for people to have both sexes. The conservative majority protested. To the conservatives, bioengineering hermaphrodites was nothing more than a vulgar hobby of freaks.
    Although there was a storm of debate, in the end, society simply couldn’t accept the idea of intersexuality. The media chased after the story for a while but soon stopped once the controversy died down.
    But the progressives had not completely given up.
    At the time, space medicine research was already being conducted on Jupiter-I—research that had continued since humanity established its first city on the Moon.
    The path to the Jovian system was fraught with bigger obstacles than the paths to the Moon or Mars: the cosmic radiation, far greater than on the way to Mars, plus the gas giant’s intense magnetic field. Humanity was faced with the challenge of increasing its ability to adapt to the space environment. Medication to restore the cell structure and DNA damaged by the radiation, a new model of molecular machine, overcoming the circulatory disturbance resulting from the zero-gravity environment, etc.
    At some point, the data gathered from animal testing eventually had to be tested on humans.
    That was what the progressives had put their finger on. They asked scientists to create a special community on Jupiter-I in exchange for offering up their bodies for experiments.
    They requested approval for the creation of an exclusive dwelling for the bigender—the special district.
    “The notion of body modification, which arose from the sexuality issue, presented us with the new challenge of figuring out how the sexual functions of both sexes could coexist in the same body. The only answer was to manipulate the sex chromosomes, but no one dared take on the risk on Earth. The strong opposition of the conservative majority was one reason. The issue of ethics was another. Once we recognize anyone having chromosomes other than X or Y as human, we begin to entertain the possibility of modifying the entire body. For example, improving the functionality of our arms and legs, improving our audio-visual faculties, being able to subsist on water, minerals, and light like plants. If we make radical alterations to the body in this way, how far can we go and still call ourselves human? Where do we stop in order to remain human? It was obvious that no one would be able to draw that line, which is why even researchers hesitated,” Kline said. “Nevertheless, the people seeking to become bigender tried to overcome those hurdles. Humanity has to change—no, humanity must actively seek out change, they said. Through the issue of sexual diversity, they came to the conclusion that the human body must be and should be reinvented. If people’s ways of thinking change along with the times, then it’s only natural that the body do the same, they said. These people were an appealing opportunity to scientists. They had offered their bodies for experimentation just when scientists were in need of subjects.”
    “But on the condition that they would be made intersexuals and promised refuge in the special district,” Shirosaki concluded.
    “The International Space Probe Agency based on Earth, the Planetary Bioethics Association, and scientists on Jupiter-I came together to negotiate the terms of the experiments. And establish