by Rik Thompson
"Not too sure what you are saying, what did your hormones have to do with anything?"
"Well, this was the second time I had been pregnant in a year. Back when the birth grant law came into effect, they were easier on you, and you did not have to go to prison because you were pregnant. I was sent here after my second pregnancy."
"Where are your children?"
"They were both adopted out, and the WPCB ordered that my tubes be tied, and then I came here as my life was shattered after having lost both my children."
"What about your child?" the crazy woman asked.
"Mine is not here yet," Shirley answered, "it is still, as we might say, in the oven."
"But how did you get here?"
"I had nowhere else to go," Shirley said.
"Was the baby analyzed?" Shirley asked attempting to change the subject.
"No, it was before that came into effect."
She did not want to put her business in the street concerning the child that she now carried, and she knew it was no one's concern, but her own, and the elder. What the public wanted, what the WPCB might have in mind did not figure into her plans at all. Somehow, she would get through this and bring her child up the right way with or without Timothy's help. She would not play, 'this is your life', with no one.
Shirley continued the conversation with the woman whose name was Patty. Patty went on to say that her real fear was going to prison and that there was no way she would go there. She would, as she said, 'much rather have her vagina sewed up', then to end up in prison for breaking the birth law.
· * * *
The passing of the next few months was those of conformity. As she wasn't allowed to venture out past the grounds of the center, or the permission she needed to go to the store or any other place, someone would go for her. She didn't require much from the outside world and her basic needs were few. She fashioned her growing auburn hair into a ponytail - simple, yet effective. There wasn’t any need for cosmetics.
She learned her job which consisted of sending out programmed, and in her mind, sometimes, controversial emails, rapid fire. She could write these electronic essays in her own words, as long as they followed the strict protocol established by the elders of the organization. As each essay was completed it would be proof read, edited, if need be and then sent down the line. The work brought her a modest stipend.
As the fetus inside her began to grow, her prenatal needs were taken care of by an outside physician who made frequent stops with the institution to care for the unborn. Physicians who were sympathetic to the Transformer's cause.
"You can get dressed now, Miss McAllister."
“How is the baby?'
"Just fine, real fine, the doctor began, “your pregnancy could not be better," and added with a smile, "and you still don't want to know the sex of the child?"
"I really don't. It spoils the joy of discovery."
"I can see that. Most parents want to know the sex of the child, they tell me as it gives them the opportunity to have the time to name the child. One mother told me one time, a while ago now that she would call to the baby in her womb; would call out to the child by the name she had selected, when the child was unruly and it seemed to calm the child down. But, then again I am sure that is only speculation."
· * * *
In the early part of the 21st century - in the flood of illegal immigration - the United States would redefine their existence and bring that message to the world ... Keith Senne Historian
TRANSFORMER HOUSE 11
It was the nine o'clock news in the television room. Shirley wasn't in attendance, Patty was. The top story of the evening took shape as soon as the credits rolled by. Patty's eyes went quite wide, like a hoot owl when Shirley's picture hit the screen.
"Son-of-a-blaster," she quipped, as her eyes began to settle back in her head. Then the story began:
"The World Population Control Board, located here, in LA County, needs your help locating this woman," Patty was glued to the set, "she is being sought after by the WPCB, on a birth grant violation."
Then there was a video that came on the screen. It was Sylvie Robers; she seemed aggravated.
"Citizens of Los Angeles, and surrounding counties, we need your urgent help in the apprehension of Shirley McAllister, who has violated the rights of childbirth and will bring an innocent victim into this world unprepared. If you should run across this woman," and then, there was that picture of Shirley again thrown up on the screen, and Patty was feeling a sudden sense of duty, "don't talk to her, avoid her at all costs and call this number."
"Oh shit," Betty Fernandez exclaimed, "it's enough to screw without some governmental agency hunting you down and locking you up."
Toward the end of the newscast the reporters had to be cordoned off from Sylvie Robers. At first, she did not mind all the attention the reporters were giving to her, yet when the barrage of questions like: "Will you really incarcerate the McAllister woman for a full ten years?" came up. Then it was time to get the reporters separated. However; Robers did answer the question, "I fully intend to bring the McAllister woman to justice for attempting to bring an innocent life into the world unstructured and unprepared. We have already seen how that type of life can play out on the world stage, and I will do all I can in my power to see that it does not happen again. Everyone just read your history books, look it up on the internet. You will quickly see what I am talking about."
EIGHT
Shirley McAllister ambles into the television viewing area, and takes a seat. Patty is there and right after Shirley sits down; she strikes up a conversation.
“I saw you on television the other night.”
“You saw me on television? Are you sure?”
“Absolutely sure,” Patty said, “I know it was you because they put a picture of you up on the screen. You are wanted by the government for the baby that is inside you.”
That’s not good, Shirley thought. It appears that the cat is out of the bag on her pregnancy and the last person she would ever want to know of that instance was Patty. She also knew that her staying here might very well be in jeopardy – which is sure to raise questions. What would happen to her and the baby if the WPCB found out she was here? The baby could come any day now.
She stopped, and skipped over that train of thought. But she could not escape the thought, as it dawned on her: what happens when the baby is born? What happens?
“Did you hear what I said?” Patty inquired much like a prosecuting attorney would in a murder trial.
Shirley fell out of deep thought, “I heard you, and you are totally sure that it was me? I mean, pictures can lie, can they not?”
“This one didn’t. It was you as sure as I’m sitting here. I know it was you, and I know why you have been so secretive about that baby.”
She didn’t want to throw anger about at this point; did not want to be sarcastic.
“What else do you know?”
“Not much, but what I do know is, that baby of yours inside you is illegal, according to Sylvie Robers, who said it was.”
Shirley shook her head, puzzled in a strange sort of way, got up, and left the television area; all the time thinking what all this meant to her and what the repercussions could be. She and her unborn child was threatened by her remaining here. The baby was due in less than a month, and she knew that she would not set any record on how long someone could remain pregnant. Maybe she would be all right. Patty surely was no outspoken person or outgoing type, or so she thought.
Should I stay or go?
It was most perplexing to say the least.
· * * *
Months have passed, and still no word from Shirley. To Timothy, it was like she never had existed at all. He could not keep it out of his mind; it was there when he woke up in the morning and it was there when he went to sleep at night. He kept checking the mail for something, anything that she would send, his ability to work and design projects, damaged and slowed considerably. H
e needed closure, and he needed it now and this evening as he was at the mailbox checking his mail, he received something that would alert him to the fact of his own personal danger. He pulled the envelope from the mail box and stood there staring at it. It was a letter from The Population Control Board.
“What the hell?”
He ripped the envelope open to see the official stamp, and the foregoing letter addressed to him. The sender was Sylvie Robers – who would very much like to discuss an issue with him; yet her wording of the letter never really said what the issue was. The type written letter encouraged, at first, and then demanded that he meet with her at a certain time, certain place and certain day. Towards the end of the communication the letter ended with a threat which bespoke, if he failed to show for the appointment, he would violate government law and would be subject to both arrest and incarceration.
This letter had to do with Shirley and what has happened to her – the blunt and unspoken part of the correspondence, he just knew it.
· * * *
“Mister Wade.”
“Tim, just call me Tim,” he said as he took a seat across the desk from Sylvie Robers.
“Your assistant, up to a few months ago was Shirley McAllister, am I correct?” she fired across the desk like a drill sergeant.
He took his time, as his mind raced along, it was then that the thought hit him that maybe he should have taken his chances and not showed up; another question that plagued his mind right then and there was how he could not involve himself in what this might be leading into.
“Yes, yes she was, but then suddenly, without warning she disappeared.”
“You have heard nothing of her since then?”
“Not a thing.”
Sylvie Robers leaned back in her chair and studied Timothy. Was he lying? How could she tell? She needed an affinitive statement to draw him out - shock and awe, shock and awe.
“Did you have sexual relations; intercourse with that woman?” Robers asked with an indiscriminate salvo.
“Absolutely not!” he uttered capriciously, “Absolutely not. Not a chance.”
· * * *
Shirley McAllister traveled to the television room in the front of the building; her course would take her by the front desk. As she neared the desk she peered ahead and spied the end of the desk and as she rounded the corner, she saw two uniformed officers. Standing right behind those uniformed officers, Patty stood smiling.
She stopped in time to hear one of the uniformed officers ask, “So she is in her room right now?”
“Should be,” the man at the desk replied.
Shirley was in the process of an about face when she heard Patty say, “There she is.”
· * * *
She tried to sit up. A sharp pain in the pit of her stomach drove her back down. And then …
“My baby, where – where is the baby?”
“Just take it easy, Miss McAllister, a female nurse said, “You are quite injured and under sedation. Please just lay back down.”
“Where is my baby, where am I?”
The nurse pulled up a chair to the bed and sat down. She lifted Shirley’s hand and took it into her hand and squeezed it.
“Your baby boy is fine. Although we had to take the baby through c-section, he is fine, and came out fine, right at six pounds.”
A certain calmness came over her, “Where am I”
“You’re in the infirmary, at The California Institution for Women, in Corona, California.”
“Where?”
“It’s a prison,” the nurse replied.
She searched through her memory and tried to think back to what had happened.
She saw Patty as she called out to the officers to capture, “There she is, get her.”
She ran down the hall and as she did, she heard footfalls following close behind her. Ahead was Carolyn, navigating a stainless-steel cart full of books for the library. She tried her best to negotiate the space between the cart and the wall and was almost successful if it was not for the sharp labor pain that stabbed at her belly. She lost her balance and crashed into the cart throwing her to the floor. Then as she remembered, she blacked out.
NINE
APRIL 2055
Questions – always questions and always a lapse in the answers – hard to believe
Where did I come from and where oh where do I belong?
Questions – the questions that plague me from the start of every day until the light of day has passed
And sometimes beyond
I want to look around for the answers to these questions
I don’t know where to start – I can’t gain any ground
“But, Cousin, where do human units really come from?”
“Don’t patronize me, Book. You know I don’t like to be referred to as, ‘Cousin, like that idiot Franklin Spires refers to me.
“Okay, I know, Okay?”
“You have an incredible education, ongoing, Book, thanks to me, as your mentor and teacher. Simple things like patronization; you figure it out for yourself.”
“See how you are? You don’t help me figure this out at all. You just evade the answers to my questions, when all I want, all I need to know is how I came to be. If you’re not going to help me, then I will find out some way on my own. We always get to this part. The same part we got to last year when I asked you. At least you did confess that I came from somewhere. Now all I need to know is where, how? I wasn’t just dug up from the ground, I want to know - it’s not going to change me – make me better or worse; one way or the other, it won’t cause any trouble. You wanted to know where you came from, didn’t you?”
“I was curious, and that was the end of it, for now.”
“Okay, see, everyone wants to know where they originated. It is in their DNA, or in your case, circuitry to know.”
“I have always helped you Book. I have mentored you and proctored you through all your studies, and I have appreciated and marveled at your brilliance, and encouraged it wholeheartedly, and through all of these processes helped you with any or all of your questions on many topics while you have toyed with my memory banks. There is just one question I cannot answer: Where you came from.”
“Okay, fine, perfectly fine. From this day forward you will be known to me as, Cousin. Is that fair enough?”
The robot held his hands up in a push away motion, “Okay, you win. I will help you in every way I can. If this is important to you, let it be important to me.”
Book smiled broadly, “Really? You will help me? That is so great, Cous - er . . . Donnie.”
“Donnie? Now where in the world did you get that name?”
“Just made it up – just another part of this fantasy life I am currently living in. Just like everyone here on this Moon has made up the name Book. Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know,” Donnie replied, “Let’s find out, together.”
Book is sixteen years old, and through the tutelage of robot R-5134, quite the scholar. By his tenth year he is a high school graduate, and at thirteen he has a degree in chemistry, and electronics, and his ability to learn and apply principles is phenomenal; those feats of learning accomplished he still lacked the knowledge of conception. It was strict rule of the institution that these concepts were never to be explored or mentioned in any way as to his upbringing.
· * * *
“Your move, metallic man.”
Donnie stared at the chess board quizzical, “What is that?”
“What is what?” Book asked.
“Metallic man?”
“It is you. You are a synthetic man, a metallic man – made out of metal - and I, as you would say, ‘calling a spade, a spade.’”
Book reached out and tapped on Donnie’s leg, “See, hear, metallic.”
“But, my young friend, I am more than that. I am silicon, ceramic, and other various chemical and alloy which makes me much more than just a metallic man.”
Book thought for a mo
ment, “Yes, you are, but more than any of that, you are my friend, even so you could also be referred to as, alloy man.”
“I am, Book, now, getting back to what you were saying a moment ago, I am pretty beguiled here on this chess board, and to answer your question, I am taking my time because I am stymied.”
“I have mate in one move, and I believe that is five games in a row,” Book said pointing at the board.
“Yes, but I did beat you once,” Donnie pointed out.
“You most certainly did. It was the time you first taught me the game.”
“Oh, I see it now,” Donnie said as he moved his metallic finger around the board, “if I move here …”
“You can’t,” the boy pointed out,” it is being protected by the knight.”
“Yes, I see now. I have two moves, and they are both checkmates.”
It was a respite from the barrage of questions - those questions of origin - that the boy thought up, the interrogation that resulted in arguments between the two friends. The first book the boy learned to read from was the Bible, perhaps it was that book which formed, planted the seed that would grow to a curiosity of where the beginning was, or the start of his existence. He realized early that his beginning could not have been begat by the creation process described in Genesis, could not have just become. There had to be some other way, some other reason he came to be – one which he thought, contemplated on both from his own personal thoughts and the stories he read in the big book, the Bible.
The metal man had no answers for the boy. It was strictly prohibited to divulge any information whatsoever in the origination process, this first generation of these particular models of robots were not programmed for the origination of anything alive; nor inanimate. The thinking was that any past history which involved the point of emergence would do more harm than good, and hamper the boy from realizing his full potential, as this may cause him to regress and live in the past.