by Nancy Kress
The blond guy sees where I’m looking. He whispers hot in my ear. “You fertile, pretty bitch? Because the doc don’t know how to make artificial wombs. Or maybe he does, and this is just cheaper. Take the ovaries, the tubes, the uterus, the birth canal. Fuck it with an artificial insemination tube. Let the embryo grow right where it was meant to.… After that there’s plenty of customers, of course. All those women who can’t have kids. Suddenly—a miracle! She’s carrying a fetus! And nobody knows where she got it, sometimes not even the husband.… Of course, they want pretty babies, and that means starting with pretty cunts full of pretty eggs.…”
I start to scream. Instantly Emily Jogerst is beside me. “Ben, you stupid brute … get her into the other lab! We don’t have time for your perverse jollies!”
“Sorry, Em.” He puts the arm lock on me again and drags me away. I can’t stop screaming.
It doesn’t matter. They strap me, wrists and ankles, onto a bed. I can’t even move my head. Oh Jesus God no don’t … don’t cut …
But they only slide the bed inside a big tank. Total darkness. Machinery reaches out and gently grips my head. I can’t move it even a tiny bit. Even my lips are held firmly in one position by something that faintly tingles. But nothing hurts me.
I’m not claustrophobic.
Was Atuli? This is a MOSS tank. They’re taking scans of the cells in my skin, layer by layer. I remember what Nick told me. The scans take hours.
And then?
Next comes tissue samples. Tissue samples of blood, skin, hair, lips … will that hurt?
And then? Of course, they want pretty babies, and that means starting with …
I can’t help it. Inside the tank, even though I can’t move my mouth, I start screaming again, and it comes out a strangled gurgle like I’m already in the middle of dying.
17
CAMERON ATULI
A matinee performance, and Shana still has not called.
We’re dancing in our own small theater at Aldani House, a benefit performance for some elderly-charity. It’s a matinee because the rich patrons, all of them ancient themselves, probably have to be in bed by 8:00 P.M. I stand in the wings as they totter in and fill the seats with antique lace, with black tie at two in the afternoon, with silk cleverly cut to cover a dowager hump. People like that want a flashy program, full of spectacle: we’re dancing sections from Western Symphony, Firebird, and Salvadore. Sarah passes me, dressed in a fantastic holo of red and orange feathers; Tasha in a saloon-girl tutu and black lace mitts; Alonso in a blood-soaked tights of brown-green camouflage. The small orchestra tunes up with the usual discordant yawling. On stage, behind the opaqued curtain, the resin rises in illuminated clouds as dancers warm up. I should be out there, but my concentration is gone. All I can think of is that Shana Walders has not called.
After twenty-four hours go to Nick Clementi, she said. It’s been nineteen hours. And a half. But Shana wouldn’t need all twenty-four to talk to Emily Jogerst, would she? And as soon as they’d talked, Shana would call to let me know she’s safe, wouldn’t she?
Maybe not. Maybe the stupid girl forgot that I’m here worrying that she’s … I can’t think about it.
“Cam?” Rob, in jeans and cowboy hat for Western Symphony. “Are you warmed up?”
“Yes. No. Rob—” I haven’t told him about Shana’s trip to Philadelphia. Protecting him, I guess. From what? Neither of us has to risk the trip to Philadelphia. Or would. I didn’t like the idea in the first place, but there was no stopping Shana Walders.
“What is it, Cam?”
“Nothing. Go on; there’s your call.”
The dancers for Western Symphony take their places, and the curtain goes up.
By the second selection, when I must remove my wrister to dance Prince Ivan in Firebird, Shana still hasn’t called. Nor is there any message when I rush offstage, sweating and panting, after my pas de deux is finished. Sarah follows me. “What’s wrong, Cam? You were way off tonight. I thought you were going to drop me on that last lift!”
“I’m sorry. I … I don’t feel well. Listen, could you explain to Mr. C. that I couldn’t make curtain call? That I had to go lie down?”
She stares at me. I know I don’t look ill. And curtain call is important at a benefit like this … the patrons want their considerable money’s worth. They want to stand and shout Bravo! and see roses delivered to Sarah and Caroline: the entire show. I don’t dare skip curtain call, in costume and full makeup. I just don’t dare.
So it’s nearly six in the evening when I reach Dr. Clementi’s in Bethesda. I ring the bell over and over, but no one answers, not even a house system. Finally I use the duplicate key Shana gave me to let myself in. I search the library, the living room, the master bedroom, Shana’s room. But there’s no note, no recorded message, nothing left by the family to tell Shana where Dr. and Mrs. Clementi went or when they’d be back.
I can’t think what to do next, so I do nothing. I sit in the library and wait. Someone has to come home, sometime.
And what’s happening to Shana in the meantime?
Finally, desperate, I press the vid button beside “Laurie Clementi.” That’s who Shana is supposed to be. Although I can’t think how I’m going to explain to Laurie who I am, or why I’m in her father-in-law’s house.…
“Please leave a message for this number,” a system voice says. “Thank you.” I cut off.
I don’t know who else to call. Except for the people at Aldani House, and Dr. Newell, I remember no one else in the world.
The phone rings. The house system answers, and then Dr. Clementi’s voice, thank heavens. “Téléphonez 301-555-7986 … Ditez-vous à John, ‘Allez-vous à 593 Skinner Street … rue Skinner … Billy McCullough … pour l’enfant … pour l’enfant pour Laurie.’…”
Why is Dr. Clementi speaking French? And to whom? Not to John—he’s telling someone else to call John. “Repeat,” I say, although I understood the words the first time. French is one of the languages I don’t know how I know. The system repeats the message, which makes no more sense this time.
Who is Billy McCullough? Does he know where Shana is now? There’s no one home at John Clementi’s, I just called. I glance at the time: 7:02.
What I need to do is send police to this Skinner Street address, because if “Billy McCullough” is connected with a baby for Laurie Clementi, then he might also be connected to Emily Jogerst. But I don’t know any police; I don’t know anyone. And Shana told me that the woman who talked to me at the New York gala, the old-lady patron, was really an FBI agent—also that the police had rescued me from the people who abducted me but then kept the whole thing quiet, with no prosecution. Protecting the criminals. Which police can I trust? Any of them?
I know nothing, nothing. It’s all been deleted. And I chose this ignorance for myself, rather than live with what was done to me. But I haven’t escaped that unknown past after all. Here it is, pressing in all around me.
All that my operation did was wipe away the knowledge that might have helped me now. I crippled myself. I, myself. Or was I really the one who even chose the operation? I don’t know. I can’t remember.
In sudden fury, I activate the vid system and leave a message at Laurie Clementi’s house, right after her father’s: “Dr. Clementi, this is Cameron Atuli. I just got your message, the French one, to John. He’s not there and he’s not at your house either, where I am now. Shana is missing. So I’m going to go myself to meet Billy McCullough and tell him you said…” What? I didn’t know what sort of baby deal was being arranged for Laurie Clementi—although surely it had to be secret. But this is all I have to keep these people from hurting Shana. “… going to tell Billy McCullough that you said that Shana Walders is being followed by the authorities, and they should be careful to have nothing to do with her. Or the whole structure could fall through.” Whatever it was.
Then I stand in the middle of the Clementi library and fight the rising panic. I have to do this. I
have to go to Skinner Street and talk to someone who might have been involved in my own kidnapping and in my.… But I have to do this. If I don’t, Shana may die. I can’t just wipe the situation out of mind.
I try to think ahead, to plan: money from an ATM, call a cab at the crossing two blocks down, convincing lies to tell Billy McCullough. A weapon? I search the house, watching the time. In Shana’s room I find a military stun gun that she probably isn’t supposed to have. I don’t know how it works, but I experiment for a few minutes until I think I’ve got it.
Then I leave the house quietly, closing the front door as if it might break, locking it gently because my hands are trembling and I think that otherwise I might drop and lose my fragile hold on the stolen key.
* * *
Skinner Street is just an alley running between the numbered streets a dozen blocks off the Mall in D.C. This is a different world from Bethesda. Garbage blows across the narrow street, lined on both sides with crumbling walls of brick and rotted wood. Boards cover about a third of the storefronts and narrow doors; the rest are barred. In the summer twilight people loiter outside, glaring at each other: a dangerous-looking black man rooting in a garbage can, a prostitute in a red skirt and gold holo wig, three old people in bent metal lawn chairs in the middle of the sidewalk. No kids. The air smells of cooking and broken toilets.
A rat walks across the concrete stoop of 346. I jump back. It stops and stares at me insolently, completely unafraid, before finishing its walk and disappearing into a crack in the building foundation. I wait for a minute before taking its place on the stoop and knocking on the door. It rings faintly, solid metal.
“I’m here to see Billy McCullough,” I say to the woman who opens the door a crack, chain fastened. She’s old, with thin gray hair and skin the color of mine, but seamed in hundreds of crisscrossing lines. Behind her is a tiny living room with sagging sofa, new bright green rug, heavy green curtains tightly drawn. “Dr. Nicholas Clementi sent me.”
She removes the chain, unsmiling. “Come in.”
“I’ll wait here,” I say, half inside and half on the concrete stoop. “Ask him to come here, please.”
She shrugs and shuffles off, into another room or maybe a hallway. Voices rise and fall, but I can’t distinguish any words. Then an old white man in an expensive suit comes into the room, sees me, and stops dead.
“Holy God.” He stares as if I’m a ghost. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Dr. Clementi sent me,” I say, and manage to keep my voice level. “About the baby for his daughter-in-law Laurie. He couldn’t come himself, he’s too sick, but he said I should give you an extremely important message. He said—”
“Halleck!” McCullough calls, and instantly another man appears beside McCullough. This one takes one look at me and says, “The face on the monkeys!” and draws a gun.
I fumble in my vest for Shana’s gun but I’m nowhere near fast enough. The other man’s stunner hits me in the legs and instantly they’re gone, vanished, I can’t feel them at all and I’m flat on the concrete stoop outside. My legs, I have to have my legs I can’t dance without legs.…
“That’s enough, Halleck! I have to be able to fucking question him! Get him inside!”
My legs are still there, I can see them. I just can’t move them at all. Shana’s gun is wrenched from my hand and someone grabs me under the armpits and drags me inside the house. I twist the top half of my body to fight, but without the bottom half I can’t get any leverage. So I grab both sides of the doorway and brace myself hard.
“Get him loose! Get him in here!”
He can’t get me loose; I’m hanging onto the door jamb with all the strength I developed for lifting ballerinas.
Halleck curses, lets go of my armpits, and brings both his hands locked together onto my belly.
The pain is astonishing. And I can’t breathe, I can’t get any air.… He’s dragging me inside and I’m going to suffocate because I can’t get any air.… I can’t even scream, I can’t do anything—something heavy falls on top of me, and I’m struggling so hard to simply breathe that it’s long agonizing moments before I realize it’s Halleck.
The concrete stoop is boiling with people, dragging Halleck’s body off me and leaping over me into the room and shouting. It’s moments more before enough painful air fills my lungs so that I can sort out the sounds. The old gray-haired woman cawing obscenities; people shouting on the street behind me; the dangerous-looking black bum from beside the garbage can bending over me.
“Police, Atuli. You all right?”
“P … p … p…” I still don’t have enough air in my lungs to talk.
“Yeah, police. We followed you.”
I must look baffled because he smiles reluctantly and says, “You never guessed that Dr. Clementi’s phone’s monitored? Kind of naive to be doing this, ain’t you?”
Shana would have guessed. Shana would have used a public phone to call John. Shana …
“Shana … Walders!” I gasp. My lungs feel shredded; every word hurts. “They’ve … got her! They’ll—”
“No, they won’t,” the cop says grimly. “Not if McCullough talks quick enough.”
McCullough—they must have taken him somewhere. Outside, or to the back of the house. I can’t ask; I can’t talk any more. The cop tries to help me to my feet, but I still have no legs. The stunner. Finally he lifts me in his huge arms and dumps me on the sagging sofa.
“It’ll wear off in fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, just stay there.” He vanishes into the back of the house. The prostitute in the short red skirt—another cop?—follows him, and a third person goes out the front door and closes it behind him.
All of a sudden I’m alone.
Not if McCullough talks quick enough. I lie back and close my eyes, trying not to think, not to picture what could happen if McCullough doesn’t give them the address of Emily Jogerst’s operation in Philadelphia, or doesn’t know it.… Oh dear God won’t it ever end…?
A noise in the room, followed by a gasp and running feet. I open my eyes. Standing by my sofa, looking at me from dark steady eyes, is a small child that is me.
My face, my eyes, my skin. But the little boy’s thick hair is black and straight, cut in long bangs, which makes him look faintly Asian. He wears red overalls and a T-shirt with blue rabbits. We stare at each other, and my heart stops. Then the child pulls back his lips to show solid square monkey teeth, chitters loudly, and scampers across the room to climb the green curtains with his human hands and hairy, curving, prehensile feet.
“Come back, dammit!” says the red-skirted prostitute/cop. She reaches up toward the chimp, who chitters at her from my face and then suddenly leaps at her. It wraps its arms around her neck and cuddles its head into her breast. She holds it fast and hurries from the room.
I can’t go after them. I can’t move. All I can do is what I am doing: look down the hall where the chimp-me disappeared into some other place, far out of my reach.
18
SHANA WALDERS
By the time they take me out of the MOSS tank, I’ve got a plan. I’ve had hours in there to think, hours strapped down in the total dark.
What I think is that I don’t want to be cut up and turned into a cunt-and-womb baby-maker.
And I don’t want a Shana face on bunches of chimps, neither. I’m me, the only me, and I’m a human being, even if I’ve been a stupid arrogant bitch to get myself into this position. But there’s no use crying about the past; what counts is what I do when they take me out of the tank. So I think up a plan. My head is completely immobile, and my wrists and ankles are tightly strapped down and won’t budge. I have to use the only thing I can still control.
“All right, Shana. Stage two.” Emily Jogerst is right there when my bed is rolled out from inside the tank. She’s standing close, next to the short ugly doctor in a white coat, plus a black man and a young girl. Those two pull out my stretcher. They’re in jeans. I see everyone clearly but they don’t know
that because my eyes are wide and fixed in my rigid face. Then the smell hits them.
“Oh, God, she’s shit herself,” the girl says. “Catatonic shock.”
“So clean her up,” Jogerst says. “And drug her for the tissue samples. Call me when you’re done.” She leaves the room. After a minute, the short ugly doctor follows her, wrinkling his nose.
“Lucky us,” the girl mutters. “God, she stinks. Unstrap her, Larry.”
Larry unstraps my wrists. The girl goes over to a sink and I hear water running. Larry moves to the foot of my stretcher and unstraps my ankles.
I jerk to a sit and thrust both hands under Maggie’s blue dress. Hours of wriggling against the stretcher mattress rubbed my bikini panties down to my knees; there’s nothing in my way. I grab a handful of my shit and throw it right in Larry’s face.
He jumps backward and cries out, which is not the right thing to do. Shit gets into his mouth and the next minute he’s retching. I’m gagging myself but I still leap off the bed and rush to the girl, who’s holding a water basin, eyes wide. I grab the basin and smack her over the head with it. That holds her while I reach for something better, which turns out to be a heavy metal piece of equipment, God knows what it’s really for. I bash her with a sharp metal corner and she goes down. I turn to Larry.
He roars like a charging rhino and comes at me. I drop the metal thing and meet him with both hands thrust out front, and I’ve slimed them good. He can’t help it. With the taste of shit filling his mouth and smeared across his face, he can’t help himself—he hesitates a second. It’s enough. His charge is broken, and I duck under and tackle him, bringing him down with me on top. I shove one hand toward his eyes, and while he closes them and jerks his head to the side to avoid me, I’ve got time to grab with the other hand for the sharp metal where I dropped it on the floor. I hit him in the neck, and then on the head, and I keep hitting him until he doesn’t move.