Children of Hope

by Michael Fine

  “And we’ll likely need him to uphold the ‘Sanctity’ bill,” Brooks said.

  “He is useful,” Carrington said, as much to remind himself as to reply to Brooks.

  Brooks lifted his glass in a mock toast and took a sip. Why didn’t Jesus turn water into 20-year-old scotch?

  “I’m still furious the majority decision he wrote was based on a states’ rights argument. That’s going to make getting the Court to uphold our bill as constitutional that much harder. Maybe even impossible.”

  “Maybe that was the only way he could get the others to join his decision. In any event, he seems to be willing to do whatever it takes when the time comes, and he can be very persuasive,” Brooks said, optimistically.

  “Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Carrington said. “In the meantime, I need you to make a few calls. We need to twist a few more arms in order to get this baby—no pun intended—over the finish line.”

  “Who?”

  “Pennebaker, Smith, Graham. Probably Abbott and Reynolds in the House too.”

  “Tell me what you need me to do…”

  When Hope returned to her apartment after seeing Billy at the Dish on Sunday, she was flooded with optimism and adrenaline. Vim and vinegar, her mom would have said back when she was around. But truth be told she hadn’t really known what to do, how to take action. Still, one thing was clear, she had to do something.

  Start with the things you can do, even if they are little things, she told herself.

  She texted everyone at the Pancake Shack and told them to hold off, that she would contact them again when it was time to open the restaurant. She took a shower and packed a bag with a few days’ worth of clothes, assuming that she’d be getting on a plane soon. She just didn’t know her destination.

  Hope fired up her web browser and searched for whatever personal information she could find on Senator Royce Carrington, Reverend Porter Brooks, and Julian Kingsley. At this point, she was willing to impregnate any one of them. She was wading through the millions of pages of search results when her phone chimed. She got up and grabbed it from her bedside table. One text message. From Sanam.

  RC and PB mtg at RC's home. 3/10 eve. Oyster Bay Cove, NY. Study NE corner. Professional courtesy given my epic fail. Sorry to have let you down.

  Hope shrieked with joy. She immediately closed all of her search tabs and visited her favorite travel reservation site. Five minutes later, she was booked on an early morning flight to LaGuardia. Waiting until midnight, she made an unannounced visit to her research lab and, within two minutes, raced out with exactly what she needed for her trip.

  In the morning, after a few hours of fitful sleep, she showered, changed, grabbed her suitcase, kissed Angel’s urn, locked her apartment, and ran down the stairs to her car. She broke a large number of traffic laws on her way to San Francisco International Airport. Six and three-quarters hours later, she touched down in New York.

  Now, she was crouched in the woods just to the east of Senator Royce Carrington’s house. The place was enormous. She wished she could dismiss the place as gaudy, but she had to admit, the home was gorgeous and, somehow, understated despite being larger than her entire apartment building. For the past few days, she’d scoped out the neighborhood, found Carrington’s house, and figured out the best route to carry in and cache her equipment in the woods nearby. Despite the unusually mild spring weather, Hope was chilly; she’d been hiding in the woods for over three hours.

  At ten minutes before eight, she heard a car approach, a door open and close, and crunching gravel. Thirty seconds later, she heard a rapid series of beeps and one longer, higher pitched tone. A few minutes later, she heard a second car and more crunching gravel. She waited silently to see if anyone else would arrive. No one did. At 8:10, it was go time.

  Slowly, she carried her equipment toward the house. Even if Sanam hadn’t told her that Carrington’s study was in the northeast corner of the house, she probably could have guessed it. She’d immediately noticed the complete lack of windows on most of the north and east sides of the home. The walls were made from beautiful stone slabs, cool to her touch.

  After ten minutes, she had her gear piled a few steps east of the kitchen doorwall on the north side of the house. She figured that would be her entry point. From there, she could simply follow the interior wall to Carrington’s study. It made sense that’s where the man would conduct business or social events—men love their caves, even when those caves are well-appointed wood-panelled rooms within stone mansions.

  The wind picked up and Hope shivered. She could barely feel her fingers and she realized, now, too late, that she should have worn her wool gloves. She would have to leave enough time for her fingers to thaw before conducting her surgeries, assuming she got that far. She was fully prepared for failure and somehow, for the first time in her life, was at peace with that possibility. She wished she’d brought one more tank of anesthesia.

  Hope carried the two oversized tanks of sevoflurane she did bring in her arms to the southeast corner of the house. She’d seen earlier that this is where the air conditioning units sat. As she walked along the eastern side of the house, she paused briefly and stared at the stone wall, as if trying to see her enemies with x-ray eyes. She squeezed the tanks tightly against her chest, not wanting to drop one or clang them together and risk being heard.

  This was the tricky bit. Too little anesthesia and the men would not go under. Too much and they could die. She couldn’t risk using too little; she needed the men incapacitated. Despite being confident about her self-defense skills and being in excellent shape, Hope figured that she was no match for two adult men. Especially Royce Carrington who, despite his age, still seemed vigorous. Plus, Carrington might have a weapon. On the other hand, she didn’t want to kill them. She wanted them to suffer.

  She connected her tubing to the smaller air conditioner, helpfully marked “Study” with a black Sharpie by Carrington himself years earlier, and turned the knobs on the tanks.

  Ten minutes later, the tanks were nearly empty. It was now or never. Hope disconnected the tubing and carried the tanks, much lighter now, over to where the rest of her equipment was collected. She grabbed her medical bag and made her way to the door wall. She was prepared to break in, but the glass slid open without resistance. Thankful that Senator Carrington was apparently more concerned with privacy than with security, she paused once she was fully inside and listened as carefully as she could. She stood perfectly still, silent, until she was convinced there was no one else in the house and that the men weren’t moving about. She didn’t know that Carrington’s study was soundproof, even from within the house.

  In the dining room, Hope noticed the enormous circular black marble table surrounded by high-back muted vermillion leather chairs, and fresh tulips on the table. Carrington had good taste, the asshole.

  Hope tiptoed her way to where she figured the study was. She stopped momentarily just outside the door. If she had been religious, she would have said a prayer. She was not, so she inhaled deeply, turned the handle, and opened the door, ready to face her nemeses, asleep or awake.

  The two men were out cold. She quickly walked over to where they were sitting and checked their pulses. Alive, although the Reverend’s breathing was shallow. Hope quickly went back out and closed the door behind her in order to trap as much of the sleeping gas as possible in the study. Breathing again, she lugged her equipment into Carrington’s house and staged everything right outside the study door. She donned the gas mask she’d purchased at a local sporting goods store that sold survival gear, and entered, again closing the door.

  Hope worked quickly and efficiently, hoping all of her preparation would warm her hands so she wouldn’t have to waste any time waiting for the feeling in her fingers to return. She ran her arm over Carrington’s desk, spraying its contents onto the floor. She didn’t care that she’d broken over $100,000 worth of the Senator’s fancy tchotchkes. She noticed a framed pi
cture of Senator Carrington with former President Fred Spencer, taken at what looked like a hunting lodge. She stomped on the frame, grinding the broken glass into the study’s plush oatmeal-colored carpet.

  She set up her drip bags and laid out her medical instruments and the artificial wombs on a chair next to the desk. That’s when she first realized how ostentatious the chair in which Carrington was seated was. God, it was horrible, in stark contrast to the overall good taste used to decorate the rest of the house. It was the kind of trophy a rich person acquires so he can have a trophy and show his trophy and brag to others about his trophy.

  She dragged the two men onto the desk. She had little trouble with Carrington, who was still trim. The portly Reverend was a different story. She’d planned for this eventuality, though, and took out a large transfer belt with handles and put it around Brooks’ waist. It provided just enough leverage for her to hoist the man up on the table, although she did crack his head into one of the desk’s legs. She laid the men side by side.

  Her fingers were close to being ready for surgery, but not quite. She flicked her hands as fast as she could, trying to get more blood to flow to her most precious body parts. It wasn’t that she cared about accidentally nicking the patients, other than that she didn’t want to cause a severe internal injury; it was that she didn’t want to risk the embryos inside the wombs.

  Just as she thought she was ready to begin, Carrington stirred.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Saturday, March 10 (moments later)

  Senator Royce Carrington’s Home

  Village of Oyster Bay Cove, Nassau County, New York

  Improvise. Improvise. Improvise. That was her new mantra. For her entire life until about a month ago, it was Plan, Plan, Plan. Now, she seemed to be doing her best to string together a series of partially cobbled-together plans as best she could in the face of enormous uncertainty and then, when those plans went haywire, fly by the seat of her pants. Again, she had the thought that her new modus operandi was both scary and thrilling.

  Hope quickly rushed out into the hall and carried the two tanks into the study. Was there enough sevoflurane left in them? Only one way to find out.

  Hope took out a handful of cable ties left over from their aborted attack on the Senate. It made her think of Charlie. Poor Charlie. I’m coming, soon, and hopefully they’ll let you go. She looped ties together into long chains, flashing back to the green and red Christmas construction paper chains she made in the second grade, and tied Carrington spread eagle on the desk. She secured each limb to a corner of the desk and, for safety, took out another large handful of ties, made two more chains, and tightened them across the man’s thighs and neck and under the table. She repeated these steps on Reverend Brooks. Finally, just as Norman Underhill had done when he attacked her in the hospital parking garage, she put a bandana over her face and donned a red RESISTANCE baseball cap, being sure to tuck all of her hair into the cap.

  She gagged the two men with rolls of gauze and waited out of sight. She saw the well-stocked bar and was tempted to toss back a whiskey. No, she needed to be at her best.

  Carrington came to first. Over the course of a few minutes, he slowly realized his situation and struggled hopelessly against the half-inch wide, extra-strength cable ties. His eyes widened in fear. He had no idea who had knocked him out and incapacitated him. Hopefully it was just a burglar; material things could always be replaced. But why would a burglar tie me down on my desk? The thought unnerved him.

  A few minutes later, Reverend Brooks stirred and went through a similar process of recognition and fear. His screams were muffled by the gauze roll Hope had crammed into his mouth.

  Finally, once both men were fully aware of how at risk they were, Hope moved forward until Carrington and Brooks could see her.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” Hope said, eerily calm.

  Carrington struggled to free himself from his bindings, but eventually gave up. Brooks actually wet himself.

  “Please listen carefully. I was going to leave a key decision I have to make tonight to chance, but I’ve decided to let your answers to some important questions decide for me. One of you is going to be unhappy with what happens this evening. The other, more so.”

  Hope pulled out a vial of clear liquid and two syringes. “To encourage your honesty, I’ve brought this. It’s sodium thiopental, commonly known as Sodium Pentothal. It’s the closest thing to a ‘truth serum’ we have. Thank you, Abbott Laboratories.”

  Confusion was obvious on the men’s faces. Hope injected the men and waited ten minutes for the drug to make its way through the men’s bloodstreams and for them to regain consciousness. She removed the gauze rolls from the men’s mouths.

  Hope began, “There’s a Jataka story of the Buddha, in one of his previous incarnations as the sage Mahosadha, who must arbitrate between a mother and a mythical being in the shape of a woman who has kidnapped the mother’s baby and claimed it as her own. To resolve the dispute, the Buddha drew a line on the ground and asked the two women to stand on opposite sides of the line, each holding one of the infant’s feet and one of its hands. The one who won the tug of war, pulling the baby’s whole body beyond the line, would get to keep the baby.”

  “That’s barbaric,” Senator Carrington exclaimed. The sodium thiopental was suppressing his higher cortical functions and he could sense that he lacked his normal iron control.

  “Horrible,” agreed Reverend Brooks.

  “Really? Not seeing it, huh? Okay, let’s try the Chinese story of the the Chalk Circle. A beautiful sixteen-year-old girl is sold into a house of prostitution by her destitute family after her father’s death. A wealthy and childless man takes her into his house as a second wife. The girl bears him a son, but this makes the man’s first wife jealous. So the first wife poisons her husband and blames the young girl for the murder. The girl is arrested and beaten until she confesses, despite being innocent. Just before she is about to be hanged, Bao Zheng, known for his moral fortitude, intervenes and places the baby in a circle of chalk between the man’s wife and the young girl. Each is ordered to pull the child toward her.

  “Why are you telling us these terrible stories?” Brooks asked.

  “Wow. All right. Let’s choose a story you know, from Sunday School. King Solomon—you’ve heard of him, I’m sure—has to rule between two women claiming to be the mother of a child. He tells the women that his ‘solution’ is to cut the baby in two, so that each woman can receive half. One woman doesn’t contest the ruling, but the baby’s actual mother begs King Solomon to sheathe his sword and give the baby to the other woman, which is how he comes to know she is the true mother of the infant.”

  “Such wisdom,” Reverend Brooks said, his voice thick with reverence.

  “Finally we’re getting somewhere,” Hope mumbled, exasperated. “So, to confirm, Reverend, you think this story shows that King Solomon had great wisdom, is that correct?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And if you were in his position, would you have done the same thing?”

  “I would hope to be that wise.”

  “And had the woman not begged the King, what should he have done? What would you have done?”

  “A king must be a man of his word,” Reverend Brooks said without hesitation.

  Hope turned to Carrington, who had turned his head and was looking, aghast, at his friend.

  “And what about you, Senator? Would you have cut the baby in half if neither woman objected? To be a man of your word?”

  Carrington’s reaction surprised her: He turned his head away from Brooks and began to cry. She discreetly wiped his tears and gave him a few moments to gain his composure.

  “Never. I could never…” Carrington’s voice trailed off into a whisper.

  “Look at Mr. Tough Guy now,” Brooks mocked, noticing Carrington’s emotion. Disdain dripped from his voice.

  “Thank you both. I appreciate the candid conversation.” Hope said
. “For the record, I have to say that I am appalled that neither of you recognized the parallels between the Jataka and Chinese tales and the more popular story of King Solomon.” She knew that biblical scholars see the King Solomon story as a re-telling of this standard folktale, which had been documented almost two dozen times by the time of the bible. “You may want to invest a bit more in some history lessons and a little less in your bible studies.”

  Her rebuke over, Hope crammed the rolls of gauze back in the men’s mouths and walked over to the two tanks and set them near the desk, then reassembled the tubing. She attached the tubing to both men’s nostrils.

  “Next comes the part you won’t like.”

  Carrington struggled, again to no avail. Brooks trembled, certain he was going to die. Hope’s next comments made him realize it would be far, far worse.

  “I am going to impregnate you both. That’s right… impregnate. As in ‘make pregnant.’ I am going to insert an artificial womb into each of your abdomens, each containing a fetus.”

  Reverend Porter Brooks started to moan through his gag. Senator Carrington glared at Hope, the hatred beaming from his eyes.

  Hope pulled her phone from her pocket, tapped and swiped a few times, and turned the phone so that first Carrington and then Brooks could see it.

  “This is a small explosive device I am going to attach to each of the wombs I insert. Connected to each is a sensor that will detonate the explosive should you attempt to remove the womb before thirty-five weeks pass.” Adrenaline was coursing through Hope’s veins now. “That’s right. No abortions for women? Then no abortions for you either.” She hoped her bluff was convincing. She only needed to fool the men for five days, which was when the vote on their bill was scheduled. To increase her odds, she’d shielded her artificial wombs in a stainless steel and titanium mesh, hopefully making them radiopaque, or opaque to X-rays or similar radiation.