In this near-future dystopia, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. And the few are slaves to the system. Fourteen-year-old Queenie is a gubmint girl, a welfare baby born to a single mother living in the projects. She's also one of the few fertile females of her generation, or any. When Mister and Missuz take her home from juvie, Queenie thinks everything's going to be just fine. She'll stay with them for a while, have her baby, then move back to the projects and get enough gubmint money for her and Junior to live on. But the rules changed when she wasn't looking, rules developed and implemented by Missuz and others like her. And what Missuz plans for Queenie isn't a life of government-funded freedom at all.