by Elin Peer
“I’m sure you’re more gifted than her in many areas,” I said. “I’ve met her and she’s not that special.”
“You’ve met her?” His smile grew. “What I wouldn’t give to spend an hour in her company. I was blown away by her inventions giving photographic memory to ordinary people. Of course, brain implants have been considered risky since so many had their implants hacked during the war. But Shelly’s contribution to the modern implants is extraordinary. If it were legal here in the Northlands I would consider it. Imagine having your eyes being your camera and to have access to everything you’d ever seen. It changes photography, doesn’t it?”
Marco gave me a nod of recognition. “Sounds both scary and brilliant to me.”
“Yes, I can’t wait to see what else we’re going to be seeing from Shelly Summers.” Robert was moving around his office. “Anyway, I’m sure you hear about her all the time because of your name.”
I shrugged. “It happens.”
“Well…” The doctor gave me another genuine smile. “You might not be a genius like her, but you’re much prettier and if it makes you feel better, I’m sure all the Nmen would pick you over her any day.”
“Why?” My polite smile stiffened.
Robert squatted down in front of a shelf to locate something. “Oh, just because no Nman would enjoy feeling inferior to his woman. We’re proud men.”
Marco avoided eye contact with me and even the doctor picked up on how tense he was when he stood back up. “Relax, Marco, we’ll have an answer for you in no time. Let’s start with a urine test and a blood test, shall we?”
“Yes.”
“After the tests I can examine you if you’d like.” Roberts eyes darted between Marco and me. “Of course, Marco will stay in the room and make sure nothing inappropriate happens.”
“How many female patients do you have?” I asked.
“Four.” The doctor sounded proud. “I’m very curious about women and I’m hoping to get more patients. It brings variety to my job and new challenges.” While talking he was collecting what he needed and handed me an oval-shaped cup. “If you can urinate in this one, please.”
“Where?”
“Ehm, wherever you’d like.” Both men were looking at me as if I was supposed to pull my dress up and pee in front of them.
“Do you have a bathroom?”
“Of course, just outside the room and to the left.”
Marco followed me and only stopped when I asked him to stay outside. “I don’t need you to help me pee.”
He was still standing guard outside the door when I was done. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Good.” Marco was tense and kept close to me. “Do you want me to take it?” he asked with a nod to the cup.
“No, I can carry my own pee.”
The doctor was smiling and took the cup with both hands like it was precious. “Have a seat. It’ll just take a few minutes before we have a result.”
I sat down as instructed while Marco paced the floor.
Robert turned back to us, took off his gloves, and gave us a smile. “I did the test. Now we’ll have to wait two minutes for the result.
The atmosphere in the room was heavy from Marco’s pacing and I didn’t know what to do about it.
“What are the most common causes of death in the Northlands?” I asked Robert to make some light conversation.
Robert raised both eyebrows. “I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that. Are you worried about your safety here?”
“No, I’m just curious.”
“Okay. Well, I suppose you Motlanders think that Nmen die violent deaths and I would say that it used to be that way with all the wars and rebellions our country has suffered through, but not any longer. Now, people die from disease and accidents mostly.”
“What kind of accidents?”
“Oh, there’s a long list of hunting accidents that involves falling from great heights and getting shot. Many are active outside and think they’re immortals; last week I had a patient who died because he insisted on rock climbing without the right safety gear.”
“Are the two minutes up yet?” Marco asked with impatience.
Robert turned to the test, lowering his head to see.
“Accidents related to sports, you say?” I said in a desperate attempt to prolong the time before the doctor could give the answer that I was afraid of getting. “What else?”
“Oh, you know. Suicide happens too often up here. The dark winters are the worst.”
“Just tell me what the test says!” Marco exclaimed, his voice high-pitched.
“Be patient, Marco.” Robert waited the five seconds until the timer made a sound and then he picked up the test. “Congratulations, it’s positive.”
My whole body stiffened, the world going into slow motion and my eyes fixed on Marco.
“You sure?” he asked the doctor and looked like he wasn’t breathing.
“Yes, you’re going to be a father.”
“Are you completely sure?” Marco asked.
“These tests are very accurate. Of course, we should still do a blood test and an exam but yes, Marco, I feel confident that your wife is pregnant like you suspected.”
“Fuuuck.” Marco leaned his head back, looking up at the ceiling before his eyes closed.
Robert laughed. “I know it’s a huge thing. I can’t wait for it to be my turn. My wife and I have been trying for almost a year now.” The doctor was patting Marco’s shoulder. “You’re a lucky man.”
Marco nodded and the doctor turned to me. “Congratulations to you too of course. It’s must be so exciting.”
My eyes were tearing up, and I whispered a low “I’m sorry” to Marco but the doctor misunderstood.
“There’s no need to apologize for being emotional. I know we Nmen have a reputation of being tough, but I suspect I might tear up a bit myself when it’s my time to get great news like this.”
After doing a blood test and promising us an answer the next day, the doctor again offered to do a pelvic examination on me. He looked deeply disappointed when I told him I’d get one in the Motherlands on my next visit.
“Are you sure? I’ve studied the female anatomy very carefully and it really would be a great honor to perform my first pelvic examination.”
“What exactly is a pelvic examination?” Marco asked.
When I explained he narrowed his eyes at Robert.
“Maybe some other time,” I said with a forced smile to the doctor as we walked out the door that Robert was holding open for us.
“Just let me know. And again, congratulations to you both on the good news. Now you can go home and talk about what to name your baby.”
CHAPTER 20
Alternative Ways
Marco
Everything had changed within the last twenty-four hours.
I was supposed to be fighting for Louisa today. And chances were that she would have picked me and we would have been starting a family together.
Instead, I’d already started one with Shelly.
“I’m sorry,” Shelly repeated for the third time since we’d gotten the result. I’d taken her to one of my favorite places outside the city and we were sitting on a large rock with our feet dangling. The lush meadow was full of wildflowers and the calming sound of water running in the small creek below us. We’d taken off our shoes and walked upstream to sit on the rock, so far tiptoeing around the inevitable subject of the child growing inside her.
I didn’t comment on her apology; instead I was trying to digest that I was going to be a father. This could be the best thing that ever happened to me or it could be the worst – it all depended on whether or not I could convince her to let me be part of the child’s life.
This place was tranquil, and sudden visions of seeing my kid play with the water like I had as a child made my heart race faster.
“I used to come here a lot as a boy.” I threw a small stone into th
e stream and pointed to the right. “My school was less than a mile that way.”
“I’ll bet you were a cute kid.”
“Who knows? As I remember it, I was a troublemaker.”
“Why?”
“Too curious for my own good and convinced that I was smarter than our mentors.” I smiled a little. “I was the master of pranks. That skill has served me well, though. I’m always a step ahead of my students when they try to pull a prank on me.”
Shelly smiled. “Remember that time you told me to check my bed before crawling into it?”
“No.”
“We had the night shift and you told me that the boys had acted funny and that you suspected they were up to something.” Pulling her legs up, Shelly wrapped her arms around her knees. “You offered to check my room for me, but we’d been bantering that day and I was too proud to let you. I wanted you to see me as an equal.”
Vague memories came back. “What happened again?”
“I found a snake in my bed and I freaked out.”
“Why didn’t you ask me to remove it?”
“Because I didn’t want to look weak or childish. For a long time, I stood in the corner of the room, terrified that the snake would move, but it stayed curled up in the middle of the bed. After I overcame the worst of the fear, I found a way to move the snake without touching it or getting too close by gathering the four corners of the sheet.” Shelly demonstrated with her hands. “I twisted the sheet until the snake was trapped. After that it was easy to hold it out of the window and release it from a safe distance.”
“You could have just picked up the snake and thrown it out the window. Or better yet, put it in one of the boys’ beds for revenge. You know they did it, right?”
“To be honest, I wondered if it might be you.”
“Me?” I pointed a finger to my chest. “You just said that I was the one who warned you to check your bed.”
“And if I’d said yes and you’d found the snake, I would have been indebted to you, wouldn’t I? Could have been an easy plot on your part.”
That had me laughing. “Lady, you have trust issues.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me it wasn’t you.”
Cupping Shelly’s chin with my left hand I looked deep into her beautiful eyes. “I swear that I didn’t put that snake in your bed.”
Her eyes squinted and she held my gaze. “Did you have someone else do it?”
“Nooo.”
“Hmm…” She sounded skeptical.
Holding up my palms, I grinned. “All right, I’ll admit that I had forgotten about the snake thing, but the truth is that I knew it was there.”
“Aha!” Shelly poked her finger into my chest. “It was you.”
“I spotted William and Plato leave your room snickering, so obviously I went in to check. At first, I was going to remove it, but then the idea of you asking for my help grew on me. That’s why I warned you instead.”
“And when I didn’t ask for your help?”
I released her chin and pulled back. “I was disappointed of course.”
“Why would William and Plato try to hurt me? I always thought they liked me.”
Turning my head, I threw another small rock into the water. “They weren’t trying to hurt you. That snake was harmless. If it’s any consolation, I made sure they got their punishment.”
“I thought they liked me,” I repeated.
“Hey, you really shouldn’t take it personally. The boys messed with all us mentors from time to time. To them it was nothing but a fun prank, and I assure you that I did stupid things like that all the time when I was a kid.”
Shelly sat for a while, her head leaning on her knees, which were still pulled to her chest. “Would you describe your childhood as a happy one?”
“Yeah, I would say so. I mean, I’ve taken my share of spankings and physical punishments, but it shaped me to be resilient and strong.”
“Violence is wrong.”
“So you Motlanders say, but in the Northlands it’s been that way for centuries and growing up I didn’t know it could be different.” I cleared my throat. “Things were simpler when I was a child. With the impenetrable wall between our countries there wasn’t a matchmaking program or integrated schools. All we had was the Northlands with ten million men and what?… a hundred females or so. Being named after role models from the past, we were raised to dream of greatness and taught to fight so we could become champions. I grew up surrounded by friends and we all wanted the same ultimate prize, a wife.”
“Statistically, few of you could achieve that dream if you really only had a hundred women.”
Pushing my chest out, I reminded her, “I’m a champion.”
“Sure, but for every five champions, only one gets married.”
“True.”
Shelly found the same lock of hair that she always twisted when thinking hard. Rolling the strands of hair around her finger seemed to somehow sooth her. “Marco, I feel guilty for coming between you and your dream.”
“Stop saying that you’re sorry. I’m tired of hearing it. What I need you to say is that you’ll marry me.” It came out in the clumsiest of ways and I rubbed my forehead with a sigh.
Shelly was unnervingly quiet while I battled my fear of being alone up here if she took our child out of my reach in the Motherlands. When she finally spoke, she sounded casual, like it wasn’t my whole goddamn future on the line. “You know what makes a genius?”
“Yeah, a high IQ.”
“You would think that, but it’s not true. Throughout history there were people with high IQ’s who contributed nothing of significance to the world. It’s not about that.”
“So what defines a genius then?”
“It’s a hard thing to define, but my definition is that it’s someone who is original in his or her thoughts and achieves something that hasn’t been done before. They see connections where others don’t.” She leaned back on the rock, placing her hands behind her as support. “Geniuses are often considered crazy for their wild ideas at first, but then when they turn out to be right, we call those ideas revolutionary. I wonder how many revolutionary ideas have been shot down by small-minded people because the idea didn’t fit the norm.”
“A lot,” I guessed.
“One thing that’s generally true about geniuses is that they are productive people who are blessed or cursed, depending on how you see it, with a mind that is spinning constantly. You know the saying, ‘The key to having a great idea is to have many ideas’?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Being productive is a component, but so is stamina and discipline. You can’t be lazy and go with the first solution to a problem you have. There’s always other options, you just have to explore them.”
“Not sure about that. Sometimes you’re bound and have no options.”
Shelly frowned. “Don’t be an elephant, Marco.”
“A what?”
“An elephant. You know, the giant animal with the long trunk.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of them.”
“There was a shameful time in human history where people would enslave animals and keep them for entertaining. You would think an animal that large and powerful would be impossible to contain, but humans enslaved their minds.”
“How?”
“By tying them up to a pole when they were babies. In the beginning they would try to get free but eventually they gave up and accepted that a rope around their neck meant they couldn’t move.”
“You lost me, Shelly.”
“You said that sometimes people are bound and I referred to the elephants because the restriction was all in their minds. There’re always more options, even though some of them seem crazy. Maybe what defines a genius is their bravery in thinking crazy thoughts and seeing connections between ordinary things that, when connected, become revolutionary. That’s what I did with the photographic brain implant. I didn’t come up with brain implants, photography, or the technology
to control things with your eyes. All those things were already invented. All I did was figure out a way to combine them in a way that makes it easier for humankind.”
“So you’re admitting you’re a genius? You used to hate it when I called you Brainy.”
“I prefer to be called a skilled thinker.”
I smiled. “A skilled thinker who’s a great tinkerer.”
“Funny, but do you get my point?”
Moving up a little higher on the large rock to be closer to her, I admitted, “I have no fucking clue. To be honest, I thought this was just another of your random lectures. Is there a point?”
“Of course, there’s a point.” Shelly shifted her position, pulling a foot up under her. “Your constant go-to solution is for us to marry. It’s like you can’t see other options, but marriage is only one solution, Marco. Let’s explore what other options we have.”
“Shelly, I wanna be a part of my child’s life.”
“I understand that.” Shelly placed her hand on mine. “I’m not trying to take that away from you, I just want to find the best solution for us. We don’t need to copy other people when there might be an alternative that suits us better.”
“So you’ll let me see our child?”
“Why wouldn’t I? People raise children together in the Motherlands without being married. If we go back in history there are plenty of examples of unmarried parents.”
I groaned. “The shitty thing is that Storm is moving out soon, but I’ll find another roommate, and I promise that I’ll work two jobs and do whatever it takes to make sure our child has everything he or she needs.”
“Storm is moving?”
“Yes. He was only supposed to stay for a month or two and it’s been almost five so it’s time, but I could use the rent money.”
Shelly smiled. “This could work for us.”
“How?”
“I’m renting a room with a couple. If Storm moves out I could rent a room at your place instead.”
I was so eager that I took both her hands and spoke in a high-pitched voice: “You would move in with me?”