by B. C. CHASE
Members of the international press had congregated around them. Some were snickering to each other. There was no getting around what the machines looked like. They had even received an endorsement offer from a condom manufacturer. Given the preeminent importance of the endeavor, China had gracefully declined.
Back in the East China Sea, Doctor Ming-Zhen had spent hours under water in order to master his claustrophobia and learn how to maneuver them. Conditions inside were atrociously confined: it was like being in a metal coffin. To say he was relieved when training was over was to put it mildly.
At the insistence of his camera crew, he jumped up to pose in front of the subs with the only person who would descend after him: Doctor Ivan Toskovic.
They made an odd pair, Doctor Toskovic winking with triumph at the journalists and Doctor Ming-Zhen staring straight-faced and anonymously into their lenses. The two wore tight wetsuits; Doctor Toskovic's accentuating his muscular physique and Doctor Ming-Zhen's emphasizing his skeletal smallness.
After the photo op, the first vessel was prepared for descent. Two hooks at the end of a steel cable with a Y-split were attached to a small u-bar protruding out on each side. The cable slowly tightened and lifted it up onto a platform above the steel-rimmed borehole. As it came down to rest with a clang that echoed up the ninety-foot tower, the press shuffled, murmuring in expectation.
Doctor Toskovic shook Doctor Ming-Zhen's hand, saying, “Are you ready, my friend?”
He nodded a reply. “And you?”
Doctor Toskovic smiled with a shrug, “I like dark abyss, I like certain death.” He motioned to the sub, “I like to drive giant penis. So, I love this mission!” He grasped a compass hanging by a chain from his neck and kissed it, “Besides, I have lucky compass. We will be A-OK.”
Doctor Ming-Zhen knew that he carried the compass with him at all times. It was a matter of pride for the Russian after he had been lost in the Arctic wilderness while working a remote drill site. Placing a hand on Doctor Ming-Zhen's shoulder, the Russian said, “I see you on other side of ice, eh?”
Practically blinded by a hundred camera flashes, Doctor Ming-Zhen walked up the steps to the platform and entered the doorway on the side of the upright submarine. Inside, he climbed two notches in the white, round wall up to a spot with stirrups for his feet. Then he buckled a vest around his chest and placed his forehead against a brace. When he pushed a button, the vest, the brace, and the stirrups all tightened so that he was firmly buttressed within the machine.
He pushed another button and the door swung in and clinched shut with a suction sound. There was a hiss which he knew to be the chamber pressurizing.
He was now totally sealed in. He started to feel a wave of panic, but he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Claustrophobia. It quickly subsided.
Opening his eyes, he said, “Ready for descent.”
“Have good trip,” Doctor Toskovic's voice said over speakers in the cabin.
“Acknowledged,” he said.
He heard operators talking over the speakers: “Ready for descent. Releasing submersible, opening hatch.” Doctor Ming-Zhen knew that much of this was actually automated; the operators were mostly there for dramatic effect—for the journalists.
He slipped a picture of his wife and daughter out of his sleeve. Fastening it to a rim below the glass, he said a quick prayer mantra.
His stomach lurched as the machine took a sudden two-foot drop. He heard some members of the press shriek in alarm, but he knew there was no reason to worry, at least not yet. The platform had simply given way and the submersible was swinging mildly from the steel cable like a giant pendulum. He folded his hands over his chest and took another deep breath. There was a loud metallic twang from the tower and he felt the machine beginning its descent.
Doctor Zhou Ming-Zhen was now forty-two years into his paleontology career. His last educational acquisition had been his second PhD, this one in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Stanford, awarded over twenty years ago. He was now head of the Chinese National Academy of Sciences Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
His childhood, burdened by heavy expectations, had done little to contribute to his success in the field. His late father had been a Communist Party official in a smaller town, relatively poor compared to the officials in Beijing. His mother, still living and now placed in a monolithic assisted living facility housing thousands of the elderly, had been a homemaker. The two of them had presented a dichotomy of nurturing values: on the one hand he was coddled and spoiled as the lone child, but on the other he was chastised and scolded with the constant weight of the family's success on his shoulders.
When Ming-Zhen secured a scholarship to attend university through outstanding academics, his parents dispatched him with the anticipation of greatness. None in his family had attended higher education. But when he chose Paleontology as his course of study, his parents were devastated, even angry. How could he improve the family fortunes by scratching the ground for old bones? He was a fool, his mother said. He shamed his family, said his father.
And now, forty-two years later, he agreed with them. He was known the world over not merely as a paleontologist, but as the greatest fraud in the history of paleontology.
This came about through a chance discovery in the Gobi—during a routine fossil dig two years ago. What he and his team of students found there in the desert was something so astonishing that all his years of study and practice could never have prepared him for the firestorm that it unleashed.
As he descended down towards the deep interior of the ice, he desperately wished he would never have stepped foot on the Gobi, that he had listened to his parents and become an engineer. But here he was, dropping into the dark unknown, not knowing if he would return at all.
Gobi Desert, Inner Mongolia
Unlike many deserts, the Gobi was cool in the summer and outright cold in the winter. His team of students wore jackets as they worked. Dealing with finger-numbing winds on a dig was not ideal, but, in Doctor Ming-Zhen's mind, anything that drove others away served to save more fossils for his teams.
They had so far exposed two twelve-foot skeletal forearms. The expectancy of his fledgling team was palpable. Veteran that he was, even he had some trouble containing his anticipation. Such a find was extraordinary even if the arms were not attached to anything.
One handsome member of the team, named Chao, was “studying” to be a paleoanthropologist[1], though from what Doctor Ming-Zhen had seen he had not exhibited any discipline, spending his time at the Academy in revelry and womanizing. His wealthy parents had paved the way to his success with golden bricks, paying for a lavish lifestyle at the Academy and bankrolling any project he undertook there, notwithstanding this dig in the Gobi.
Since the moment they had arrived, Chao had treated Doctor Ming-Zhen more like an employee than an esteemed professor. Now, with a tone of authority, he asked, “Are you able to identify the dinosaur from these bones, Ming-Zhen jiàoshòu?” Chao spit the respectful salutation out like a sour grape.
Doctor Ming-Zhen arose from his crouched position and asked the rest of the team, “Is anyone ready to venture a guess?”
His team squirmed. He repeated, “Anyone?”
A young woman on her knees grasping a dental pick looked up. She speculated, “Well, tarbosaurus was discovered in this area, but these arms have three fingers, so we know it is not a tyrannosaurid.”
Doctor Ming-Zhen nodded with approval, “Very good, Jia Ling.” Of all the students he had ever guided, she had been his most promising; not because she was necessarily smarter than any of the others, but because she had shown the most patience. Probably the best example of this was her endless dedication to the hunks of earth they brought back after the excitement of digging them up was over.
Whenever possible on a dig, a large fossil was lifted away by heavy machinery as part of the sediment in which it was contained—as a giant, multi-ton chunk of plastered ea
rth. Loaded onto a huge truck, it was carried to a museum or other facility where the sediment was meticulously drilled, air-blasted, chipped, and brushed away until the fossil was fully exposed and analyzed. This process often took months or even years of exhausting, tedious labor.
For Jia Ling, though, it was the thrill of the hunt. Long after all the other students had bored of this mind-numbing work, she would toil into the nights, picking away endlessly under hot overhead lamps.
As a result of her tenacity, she had once discovered a cluster of eggs within a six by six rock that they had thought only to contain a fossilized adult. These eggs had revealed several interesting aspects of behavior: among them that the dinosaur had carefully laid its eggs in a spiral, and that the young would be born with fully functional claws and teeth, quite ready to kill.
Doctor Ming-Zhen rewarded her dedication by taking her under his wing and devoting special attention to her welfare. She came from a poor family and her father had died in a construction accident when she was young so she had no money to visit her mother in distant Chengdu. At Doctor Ming-Zhen's invitation, she frequently spent evenings at his home with his wife and pre-teen daughter. Doctor Ming-Zhen and his pupil had become very close. So close, in fact, that Jia Ling was a second daughter to him in everything but law.
“Could it be a carcharodontosaurid?” another student asked.
Jia Ling said, “No, these arms are too long.”
The other student shot back defensively, “There isn't a fossil of carcharodontosauridae with arms, so how would you know?”
Jia Ling looked down, defeated, “Well, in the depictions I've seen I think it has shorter arms.”
Doctor Ming-Zhen contributed, “Actually, the holotype[2] of the most famous carcharodontosaurid, tyrannotitan, has a partial ulna and a scapulocoracoid[3]. The depictions are based on that.”
Jia Ling asked, “What about an ornithomimosaur?” Ornithomimosaurs, known casually as “ostrich dino's” were small headed, frequently sporting beaks. They were known for their long arms, though most of them were small.
Doctor Ming-Zhen said, “I believe you are on the correct course.” He said this because he actually recognized these fossilized limbs: he had seen a matching, eight-foot pair before, in a Barcelona museum. With three two-foot-long fingers tipped by gigantic claws, the fossil at the museum presented such a frightening prospect that the original discoverers had given the new dinosaur the Greek name for “terrible hand.” He provided his students with a hint, “What other dinosaur was discovered in this province, something terrible.”
Jia Ling smiled, “Deinocheirus!” She pronounced it dino-KY-rus.
Doctor Ming-Zhen said, “You are correct.”
Jia Ling leaped into the air and jumped up and down with a squeal of excitement. Chao embraced her and kissed her soundly.
Doctor Ming-Zhen shot Chao an icy stare, clenching his jaw in anger. The most recent target of Chao's philandering had been Jia Ling, and she had thus far ignored strong warnings to avoid him. Doctor Ming-Zhen was not sure how far their relationship had gone, but he knew one thing for certain: Chao wanted her for only one thing. He was not going to get it while Doctor Ming-Zhen was around.
Chao returned Doctor Ming-Zhen's gaze by cocking his head in triumph and planting another kiss on Jia Ling's mouth.
Doctor Ming-Zhen's blood boiled as he stepped forward.
Pleasant Plains Elementary School
Wesley was sitting at the front of the third grade classroom. His forty-five students were taking a test. To pass the time, he turned to his phone. Innocently, he sent a text to Sienna:
u bored like me?
Her reply was quick:
y these emails nver end!
He responded:
was just thnking how much I love u babe
so glad u said yes
*blushing
u know wht I want?
wht?
i wnt to pick u up
a date? cool
seafood?
perfect. thn wht?
a movie
cool, thn wht
home
and? ;)
whtver u wnt
i wnt to make ur baby
com get me
He felt a rush, looked up from his desk at the kids. Cute little things had no idea how their little lives began.
Of course he didn't leave the school right away because he couldn't. But he was practically breathless by the time he did reach home. She was waiting for him.
That's the way it had been since their wedding day. After the rings went on, the gloves came off. It was mind-blowing, marital Shangri-La. They were desperately, passionately in love, and their youthful sexual energy had exploded like a piñata. They had fun, tried everything, drank deep of love.
But it didn't work.
This time, like every time, the test showed negative. As she stared at him sadly from the toilet, the stick in her hand, Wesley said quietly, “It's been a year now.” He swallowed, “I think we need to see a doctor.”
She wiped a tear from her cheek.
“I'm sorry, baby,” he said. But he couldn't bear the look on her face. He wanted to fix this.
An x-ray and some tests rendered the verdict: it was impossible for them to conceive.
Their perfect American dream had come crashing to a halt.
So, like true Americans, they sought a quick fix. This landed them at the sleek, modern office of a fertility MD, who wasted no time in unleashing an onslaught of probes, collections of fluid, and tests. Then, they met him one day to hear what he had to offer. He said simply, “I can get you pregnant, and I bet I can do it within a year.”
Wesley looked at Sienna, shocked. Then they both exhaled with a relieved laugh. Wesley asked the doctor, “You're sure?”
“Oh, yeah. That's not the question. The question is what kind of baby will you choose?”
The Doctor's name was Kenneth Angel. He looked no older than forty, though they knew him to be in his seventies. Barrel-chested, he wore a tight-fitting shirt with mini sleeves to show off his biceps. He had a deep, baritone voice and spoke with authority, sounding almost paternal, "These days infertile couples have options. A test tube baby isn't just a test tube baby anymore. Now it's a test tube baby on steroids.”
He smiled, “We can perform all kinds of amazing miracles now, so much so that we are helping everyone make babies, not just the infertile. In fact, I would say thirty percent of the couples I help do not have any fertility issue at all. They just want me to work my magic.”
“Those are probably people who have a lot of money,” Wesley commented.
“Maybe.” He leaned forward, “Or maybe they are people who don't want to leave their child to chance, they want to choose their baby—and they can. You can . . . .
“Listen, if you went to buy a car and the salesman said 'pay me 16,000 dollars and we'll bring you a random car from our lot,' you'd say he was crazy, wouldn't you? So why would you come in here and be happy if I gave you a random baby from your genes when it's totally within our power to choose what's best for your family—and most important, what's best for your child?”
Wesley and Sienna stared at him blankly.
“Okay, I can tell this is a little abstract for you, so let's talk specifics.... We could choose mom's or dad's eye color. Sounds simple, but let's say you want more options. Not a problem. I could even let you choose from a range of color options, free of charge." He held his hands out, "The possibilities are limitless. Of course, eye color is a matter of preference, but eye shape is what determines attractiveness. If you want this boy—”
Wesley interrupted, “Who said it would be a boy?”
“Sienna said so, on the phone.”
“But isn't sex a roll of the dice?”
“Of course not,” Doctor Angel replied, deadpan. “Those are choices now: male or female, homosexual or bisexual. Your pick.” He shrugged with annoyance, “Now, what I was saying was, if you want this bo
y—or whatever you choose—to have really beautiful eyes, there is an array of shapes we can choose from—and they don't even have to derive from either of you. Right now almond-shaped eyes are all the rage, but if you want him to have the more bulgy, surprised look like you, dad, we can go with that.
“And dad,” he chuckled, “I don't want to get personal here, but have you been entirely happy with . . . size?”
Wesley blinked, “What size?”
“You know, downstairs. Now let's be honest here, no keeping secrets from your doctors these days. I know you're only average, a little smaller than average, actually. I have the numbers right here. But wouldn't you like to give your son the opportunity to really impress in the bedroom? Don't you want his girlfriend to be wowed in the bedroom? Why let him be average when he could be more than average? You wouldn't want to condemn him to disappointments in the bedroom, would you? The truth is size does matter.”
“I haven't had any disappointment,” Wesley asserted with confidence.
Doctor Angel rolled his eyes, smiled, “Despite what you might have been told, the truth is size has a lot to do with performance. A lot. Studies prove it.” He shrugged, “But the point is that this is just one of the things we can help your son with now, before he becomes sexually active; before he is even born.”
Suddenly a gigantic screen inlaid in his desk flashed to life. At dizzying speed, he tapped through a number of scenarios with a program called "Conception." By selecting different physical traits, he showed them examples of what their baby could look like at birth and what he could become as he grew.