The Factory and the Town was beginning to have problems.

Easton was the fifth of the Factories, the fourth of the Towns connected to Centon City and to the villages by the Silver Road. The other Towns had settled into the factory work, to the shackles of the Silver Road, to the puffing of the smokestacks and the red dust that landed on everything. There had been no reason for the governors or the administrators to believe that Easton would be any different, and, indeed, for the first five years it hadn’t been.

The strange things had begun with unicorn sightings in Easton. There weren’t supposed to be unicorns in the Towns; most townfolk believed the unicorns to be nothing but a myth. The new Administrator had been appointed for the factory, a new Mayor was elected for Easton, and the factory burnt more coriander and planted cilantro all around the buildings.

That was, unfortunately, only the beginning of their problems. The coriander kept the unicorns out of the town square and out of the Factory, yes. The new Mayor and the new Administrator kept order in Easton and the Factory respectively, yes. Curfews kept the Villagers and the Townsfolk from mingling too much, yes. But the factory workers hadn’t all been born in Easton, and you couldn’t stop people from moving out of the Town, at least, not yet.

It had started with rumours, whispers, hints. It had started with gossip over coffee at the market, conversation over clotheslines, stories sent home in the mail. It had started with people talking to each other.

It ended up with guerilla warfare.

In between, there was a mess on the hands of the Mayor and the Factory Adminstator, and a lot of misunderstanding to go around.

But it came to a head when one young woman with a rounded belly knocked on the gates of Easton.

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