The year was 2078.
A cold April evening in the great glass city that had once been called Stockholm.
Inside a tall building made of living crystal, a woman stepped onto a round platform bathed in soft white light.
Her name was Dr. Elara Voss.
She was young for someone so important — only thirty-one.
She wore a suit so thin it was almost invisible.
Every curve of her body, every line of muscle, every small scar from her younger days of training could be seen clearly.
She wanted the world to look at her.
Not just her face.
Her entire presence.
Floating behind her, inside perfect transparent bubbles filled with warm liquid, were thirty-six tiny glowing spheres.
Each one was an embryo.
Each one was female.
Not a single one carried the Y chromosome that would make a boy.
Elara spoke quietly.
Her voice reached every mind connected to the network.
"For thousands of years, making new life required two people — a man and a woman.
Today, that requirement ends.
We have perfected Artificial Embryo Synthesis.
We can now create children using only a woman's cells.
Healthy.
Strong.
Perfect.
Ours alone."
The large room became completely silent.
Then came applause — first soft, then louder, then like a wave.
Most of the people in the room were women.
A small number of men sat in the back rows.
They did not clap.
Their faces were still.
That one evening changed the future.
Not all at once.
But slowly.
Like ice melting drop by drop, until the whole lake cracks.
Families began to choose the new way.
Mothers said:
"With AES, I can be sure my daughter will be strong, smart, beautiful, and live a very long time.
Why take any risk?"
Year after year, fewer boys were born the natural way.
By 2085, only one in every five new children was a boy.
By 2090, it was one in ten.
The old way of making children began to feel outdated, almost strange.
Women rose higher and higher.
They became the leaders of companies.
They sat in the highest seats of government.
They commanded the armies.
They controlled the science that ran the world.
Men watched this happen.
At first they told themselves it was just temporary.
Then they felt the change in their daily lives.
Then they felt the anger growing inside their chests.
The leaders gave men the hardest, most dangerous work.
Deep mining under mountains of ice.
Repairing machines that burned hotter than fire.
Working in zones where invisible radiation slowly poisoned the body.
The reason was written plainly in every new work order:
"Male bodies are better suited for extreme physical labor.
And since reproduction no longer requires men, they are the more expendable group."
Expendable.
That single word burned in many men's minds like acid.
For ten long years the anger stayed quiet.
Men spoke in whispers in dark tunnels.
They looked at each other during breaks and nodded without words.
They waited.
Then, in the winter of 2094, the waiting ended.
In a vast underground mine called Kiruna-9, more than three hundred men stopped their machines.
They sent one short message to the surface:
"Remove the mind-control chips from our heads, or we will not work another shift."
The answer came within hours.
The women who ran the mine turned off the heating systems in the men's living areas.
The temperature dropped fast.
–8 °C.
–12 °C.
–16 °C.
Children cried.
Old workers shivered under thin blankets.
That same night the men answered back.
They did not wait for permission.
They broke open three of the main geothermal pipes.
Super-hot steam and molten rock exploded upward like a volcano.
The ground shook for kilometers.
Surface buildings cracked open.
Many women died in the sudden disaster.
That was the spark.
The war had begun.
It did not end quickly.
It lasted three full years — three winters, three summers, three endless seasons of blood and cold.
The men knew the underground world like they knew their own skin.
They built traps using gas leaks and fire.
They made weapons from pieces of mining equipment.
They turned narrow tunnels into death zones.
The women had something far more powerful.
Their soldiers were called Valkyries.
Tall, strong, beautiful women who had been born or improved by the same science that made AES possible.
Their bodies healed quickly.
Their minds were connected through tiny implants — one woman saw something, and every woman in her squad knew it instantly.
Their armor could change color to match snow, ice, or shadow.
When they moved, they moved as one creature.
Before the biggest battles, the Valkyries did something very cruel.
They recorded videos and sent them deep into the men's communication lines.
In the videos they made love to each other.
Slowly.
Openly.
Bodies shining under red lights.
Hands sliding over skin.
Mouths open in pleasure.
Loud moans that echoed in the tunnels.
While they touched each other, they looked straight into the camera and spoke:
"We are coming.
When we reach you, there will be nothing left of your kind.
Not even enough men to satisfy one of us."
Some men could not bear it.
The sound, the sight, the promise — it broke them.
They walked out of hiding with empty hands, hoping to touch real skin one last time before the end.
Most men became harder.
Angrier.
They fought with everything they had left.
The war went on and on.
Battles in frozen tunnels.
Explosions that collapsed ceilings.
Hand-to-hand fighting in total darkness.
Until the very last battle.
It happened at Jotunheim Spire — the deepest, strongest place the men still held.
When the fighting finally stopped, only thirty-seven men remained alive.
They stood on a broken platform, covered in dust and blood.
Around them stood hundreds of Valkyries.
Perfect circle.
Silent.
Waiting.
A tall woman with silver hair stepped forward.
Her name was Colonel Ingrid Varg.
Her armor was cracked in several places.
Sweat and blood still clung to her skin.
She looked like something out of an old myth — a winter goddess who had just finished killing.
The men's leader — an older man named Elias Stahl — raised his head.
"What are your terms?" he asked.
His voice was rough, tired.
Varg looked at him for a long moment.
"There are no terms," she said quietly.
"There are only rules."
Above them a large screen appeared.
White letters on black background.
The Jotunheim Accord
All males above the age of sixteen are hereby classified as Class-D Strategic Assets.
All Class-D Assets will be permanently relocated to the Underfjell Labor Districts.
All surface residency rights for males are revoked.
Reproduction will be conducted exclusively through Artificial Embryo Synthesis.
Male children will be raised in controlled creches until age sixteen, then transferred to Underfjell.
Any attempt at unauthorized surface contact or natural reproduction will result in immediate termination.
Elias looked at the words for a long time.
Then he took a small knife from his belt.
He cut the palm of his left hand.
Blood dripped slowly.
He pressed his bloody palm to the screen.
The cameras recorded every second.
That night the thirty-seven surviving men walked in silence toward the great elevators.
No one spoke.
No one looked back.
The massive doors closed behind them.
A deep, final sound echoed through the mountain.
The war was over.
The men had lost.