Outlier

by Kyle Harris

  “I did not wish death upon him then, and I do not now, but sometimes these things take care of themselves. The forces of nature always seek to remove imbalance.”

  Chaz shook her head. “Fate’s bullshit. That block could have squished anyone.”

  “Not fate,” said Okocha. “Fate implies a conductor. When I look at the universe, what I see is a struggle for balance. Gravity is from this imbalance. And wind. The heat of our sun. The reasons we are alive are all products of imbalance.” He opened his arms. “Then why must good and bad not operate the same way? You see?”

  “Yeah, sure. But maybe this is my imbalance.” She swallowed her decision down like a pill. “I have to fix it.”

  “And there is nothing I can say to change your mind?”

  “You can blow my brains out, right here.” She meant it as a joke, but it came out dry and sober. It hardly sounded like her.

  Okocha was silent for a moment. Then: “I still cannot do what you ask. You are not this person.”

  “Fine.” Chaz rose from the chair. The rejection didn’t sting all that much the second time around; really, it just added another step to her plan. “I’ll get a gun some other way.” She started for the door, then stopped.

  “Another thing?” he asked.

  She turned to face him again. “Okocha.” The two poisonous sacs in her lower abdomen wanted her to feel sentimental; she briefly regretted tossing out her estrogen blockers. “I probably won’t be coming back from this. I thought I should tell you, in case you try to reach me again and I don’t answer.” Her gaze fell to her shoes.

  Okocha stood. “Then I request one last thing from you, Chaz. If it will not be too difficult.”

  She looked up at him.

  “A proper farewell. And good luck to you.” He extended his hand.

  Chaz shook it, thanked him, and left the Starry Palace for maybe the last time.

  Foley Women’s Center didn’t look much like a clinic from the waiting room—olive-colored walls, an arrangement of couches for seating, tables affixed with free-to-use entertainment screens, and a kid’s area in the corner with a miniaturized plastic jungle gym. Two toddlers were engaged in a rambunctious game of tag. Or maybe it was the other game that was exactly like it: screaming and running around for no fucking reason. Kids loved that one.

  The woman at the reception desk looked up from a game of sudoku on her tasker. “Can I help you?” Her eyes did the full sweep in a way that reminded Chaz of Pruitt: What are you supposed to be?

  One of the kids screamed. A woman—probably the mother—ordered it to hush up.

  “Hope so,” said Chaz. Long, deep breath. “I need to get an abortion.”

  “Are you over eighteen?”

  She nodded.

  The receptionist closed the sudoku puzzle. “You will need to fill out a form. Is this your first time here?”

  “Yep.” Chaz accepted the connection on her tasker and downloaded the document.

  “Fill it out with all your contact information. Current medications. Drug allergies. Vaccination history. Current employment. You will also be required to fill in things about the pregnancy. If you don’t know everything it asks, don’t worry.” She took a drink of mineral water. “There is a seven-day waiting period after we get you confirmed. This is required by city law and not something we can waive. If you decide to not have the abortion while on the seven-day waiting period, you will be issued a fine. There is a link at the end of the form that takes you to the Department of Health website where it goes into more detail.”

  Chaz nodded. About what she had expected. It meant another week of that fucking alien roosting somewhere near her bladder, but at least it would be gone before she started to bloat up. Her belly had already begun to curve out a little. Nothing that anyone else would notice, but it was still fucking hideous.

  “Also,” said the receptionist, “before we get you too far into the process, Foley does not accept insurance through city welfare or other government assistance programs. I saw your wrist, so I’m just getting that out there. The form lists all the insurance policies and payment methods we accept so there is no confusion.”

  “No problem,” said Chaz, scrolling through the document. “I’m paying it all up front.”

  The receptionist had a face like she’d heard a humorless joke.

  “That it? Anything else I need to do?”

  “One other thing: you will also need an affidavit from an officer of the court stating that the fetus’s father has given his explicit consent for the abortion. The seven-day waiting period doesn’t start until we have his and your signatures.”

  Chaz’s shoulders fell. “That’s not gonna happen, lady.”

  “I can put your information in, but it’s frozen until your boyfriend gives us permission—”

  “Boyfriend?” This fucking white-bread bitch. Chaz leaned over the counter. The receptionist’s nametag said ALLISON. “What are you, twenty-five or twenty-six? Yeah, I’m just the dumb fucking teenager, aren’t I? You probably think I had too much to drink and left my legs open. Oops.” Allison’s foundation was overapplied; up close she looked like a wax doll, sheen and all. “I didn’t catch the name of the rapist whose dick was inside me. So, now what?”

  Allison cleared her throat. “Exemptions can be made for sexual assault, but proof has to be provided.”

  “Proof.” Chaz felt the blood vessels in her neck pulsing. “Sorry, but I didn’t think to take a picture.”

  “If the incident has been filed with police, the report of sexual assault may be used in place of the father’s consent.”

  “Guess what? I didn’t do that either.”

  “If you didn’t tell the police, then how are we supposed to know that the rape actually happened?”

  This bitch was fast working up to taking one in the mouth. The problem with that, about half a dozen security cameras would capture it.

  “So,” said Chaz, “I’m stuck with this thing, huh?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Allison. She wasn’t. “There’s nothing I can do. Without the father’s consent or an official police transcript, it’s illegal to remove the fetus from your body prematurely.”

  “That’s pretty fucked up. Rapist knocks me up, and now he has the power to decide the rest of my life. Must be because he’s a man.”

  “It’s equal rights.” Allison fired back with a tone. “We need consent from both parents because a fetus contains DNA from both. It’s not just your choice to make. As I said, if you could prove a rape happened, we could get you an exemption.”

  “But it’s my fucking body.”

  “You voided that when you got pregnant.”

  “Listen here, you fuck—” Chaz chomped on her tongue before more came out.

  No point. It was over. Sandwich Mayo wasn’t going to remove whatever was wedged up her ass, and any other receptionist in any other clinic would probably give the same speech.

  “Equal rights, huh?” She snorted. “Must be why you were born. Mother got raped and couldn’t flush you down the drain.”

  “My father is a Catholic, and a good man,” said Allison in her best shouting-without-shouting voice. “And he would never take this kind of talk from a woman your age. He would say you need to learn some manners.”

  “First, you tell me that a rapist piece of shit has rights over my reproductive system, and when I say how fucking stupid that is, you tell me I need manners.” Chaz shook her head. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  “Of what?”

  “That women can be as fucking retarded as men. Because I forgot.”

  Looking around, Chaz saw that the heated discussion had gotten the attention of everyone in the waiting area. All women in their fifties or above. It looked like a book club for menopause and stupid fucking opinions. Or a midlife crisis convention. Hell, they all looked fucking distressed—maybe they were each here to browse options for assisted suicide.

  If so, Chaz was their biggest fan.

 
; On her way to the exit, she made eye contact with all of them and asked, “What the fuck are you hags looking at?”

  The pharmacy where Elliot worked had closed down. The sign in the window said: WE WILL REOPEN IN TWO MONTHS UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

  Motherfuck.

  And to think she had cracked a joke or two about it being one of the few remaining human-staffed pharmacies in this part of the city. The news agitated something in her lower abdomen. Because without Elliot, without her plump sidekick working on the inside…what now? No other pharmacy would hand over the baby-killer meds without an order from a doctor. Of course, there was another option: forging a prescription. But pharmas hired only the best cybersecurity contractors. She’d have the same chances of success robbing the fucking place.

  Chaz pulled out her tasker and opened some bookmarked research.

  The good news was that people had been detonating fetuses with all kinds of concoctions since the beginning of human history, so there was a lot of valuable information to sift through. Lots of tips and step-by-step instructions.

  The bad news? This wasn’t Earth.

  The majority of miscarriage potions required an herb or a spice. For instance, one of the most common methods involved parsley. Great. Except the nearest place to get real parsley was light-years away. The culinary fanatics in Crystal City used genetic hack-jobs, mainly celery leaves with an approximated taste. And cinnamon? Completely synthetic. Vitamin C? She was too far along in the term for that to work.

  And every other alternative was the same story: more ingredients that weren’t readily available, more ways that this would have been a fucking cinch on Earth but not here.

  Fuck!

  No. There was a way. Old school. As long as she could suck up a little pain.

  The path home took her through a market that reminded her of the maze-like bazaar on the Nova Atlas, jail cell-sized enclosures on both flanks. She came across a small clothing shop operated by a Chinese man, and she pretended to browse through the racks for something that piqued her interest.

  When he wasn’t looking, she took one of the wire coat hangers and went on her way.

  Chaz took a nail file and forced the pointy end between the base and dome of a Renell camera. After a few minutes of working the gap open, she was able to leverage and disconnect the two parts cleanly.

  Now, to see what she had to work with.

  A dime-sized circuit board. Couple wires. But, looking at some figures she had pulled from online, that stuff seemed to be part of the capsule’s color-changing feature. The camera itself—no larger than a pea—came integrated with its own tiny battery cell, and, although it was recharged through the circuit board, it would still work when not attached. It just required a small screwdriver to remove it from the tiny pan-and-tilt framework.

  Once she had it out, Chaz turned it on and logged in to her private server to make sure it still broadcast. It did, which filled her with relief. No wires to run electricity meant one less way to accidentally kill herself. Off to a good start.

  Next, attaching the tiny camera to a thirty-centimeter strip of wire she’d unbent and snipped off from the coat hanger. The Renell box came with replacement adhesive pads. She took one, cut off a tiny square, firmly pushed it down on the pea-sized camera, and stuck it to the metal wire about three centimeters behind the end. It had a strong hold. Should work.

  She went into the bathroom and brought back all of her bath towels. She laid them out on the floor near the wall. Then she started to undress.

  It was best, for her sanity and her body, to not think about it. Just do what the instructions said, follow the steps, and get it over with. Because the last thing she needed was doubt. Doubt was an unsteady hand. Doubt was the more or less hundred ways this operation could go south. Doubt was that frequently overlooked throb of humanity in her brain concerned with what the fuck she was about to do. For this, she had to ignore it.

  And if she didn’t do it now, that was more time for her body to mutate. After forty-nine days of confinement in Wheeler Correctional Facility, she couldn’t stand another hour of being under Pruitt’s shadow.

  First, this rotten thing in her womb.

  Then him.

  Then Juliet. Because the only way she could be trusted to keep quiet was to eat a bullet. Nothing personal.

  Or maybe it was. At least a little bit.

  Once the Pruitts were smoked, it would be Kennedy’s turn.

  But one thing at a time.

  Now naked, Chaz used a water-based lubricant to slick up her vagina. It wasn’t a requirement in any of the research she had, but she figured it couldn’t hurt. Sharp metal objects versus the inside of her pussy and such. When she was finished, she washed her hands, put on a pair of latex gloves, and took a seat on the pile of towels.

  If this were a clinic, a doctor would have used something called an autoclave to sterilize the tools. She had used soap and tap water. Rubbing alcohol had been on her mind too—she had some—but that would probably burn like hell. It was going to be painful enough as it was.

  The probe instrument was set. Entry point slimed up. Camera up and running and live streaming back to her tasker. Everything was good to go.

  Okay, you little shithead. Final notice before eviction.

  She took a few deep breaths and lined up the wire—and was rewarded with a high-resolution image of her crotch on the feed. The fish-eye effect of the lens made it look massive and puke-worthy.

  Now, to flush this turd out of—

  Wait. Cigarette. How could she have forgotten such a crucial step? She reached up to her desk and grabbed the Pall Malls and ashtray. She lit one and puffed on it until her brain began to swim a little from the nicotine.

  Now she was ready. As ready as she was going to be.

  The wire slipped inside, the mounted camera like a tiny rider at the reins. The thick application of lube didn’t keep out the chill from the metal. Over on VaginaCam, the lack of light had already made visual navigation impossible. She toggled the camera mode to night vision. No color, but at least she could see again. Huge, slick walls pressed in on both sides.

  She guided the wire in carefully so as to not snag it on anything.

  This was the easy part. She had to remind herself of that. Compared to where she was heading, the vagina was a wide city street. If the rest of the journey into the void was like this, there would be no cause for worry. Unfortunately—in this case, at least—evolution had chipped in to make sure the female reproductive system didn’t have a straight orifice to the outside world. Yeah, probably smart.

  The wire met resistance. Then a new sensitivity, not quite painful, but near enough to make her tense up.

  The cervix wasn’t really a wall like the diagrams illustrated. On VaginaCam, it was just a vertical crease that she couldn’t pass through. Applying any force to the wire gave her that same discomfort. She realized her muscles were tight down there, so she focused on relaxing them. Gradually the walls opened up, and the deepest end of her vagina came in—

  There was a butthole. A wrinkly, grayscale butthole.

  Proof that creationism is bullshit, figure one million and one.

  According to her research, that butthole thing was called the os, and it was the canal between the vagina and the uterus. During pregnancy it would dilate enough for a baby to slide through, but otherwise it was sealed up tight. Like an airlock situated in a bulkhead.

  Now for the fun part: she would have to force the wire through it.

  Chaz swallowed long and hard. Already her vagina had tensed up again, and the os was lost from view. She would have to focus on keeping her muscles relaxed. From everything she had read, this was where the pain happened. Once she had the os open, it was a straight shot to assassinating that fucking thing on the other side. But it was going to hurt. It was going to really, really hurt.

  And she couldn’t jam the wire in too hard; there was a risk of tearing the uterine wall. And she
had to hope the camera wouldn’t become dislodged. And if the wire was too abrasive against—

  No. No doubts. It would work. She just had to commit.

  Chaz sucked on her cigarette like it would be her last, and the fumes left a trail of fire down her throat. She let out the smoke and concentrated on what she had to do.

  With the target in sight on the tasker feed, she lined up her little battering ram. And shoved it in.

  A sharp, hot flash of pain. “Fuck! Fuck!”

  Yeah, the guides weren’t kidding about that part. It fucking hurt. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for it to pass, but it never did completely.

  After giving herself a moment, she looked down at her tasker.

  Shit.

  The camera was still looking at the os; she hadn’t gotten the wire in.

  “I’m getting through,” she told herself. “I’m getting through.” Repeating it like a mantra.

  Another charge. Same burst of pain, but she clamped her jaw to keep from screaming. This time she monitored what was happening on the feed: the camera was kissing the cervix, which meant the wire was poking through the os. Her foot was in the door. She just had to get it all the way through. Endure the pain, make it quick.

  Chaz began forcing the wire into the hole, doing her damnedest to will the pain to nonexistence. There were tears in her eyes. But no matter how much it hurt, she was going to do it. She had to, she had to, she had to.

  Down by her ashtray, the tasker feed had gone totally dark. She knew of three possibilities for that: one, the camera had been knocked off and was currently recording some dark, undiscovered corner of her pussy; two, the signal was blocked; or three, the os was just too narrow for the autofocus to properly work. If it wasn’t the last one, bad fucking news.

  After an hour—thirty seconds of clock time—of the most excruciating pain in all her life, light filtered through to the lens again. The camera was twisted around a little, evident by the wire no longer being straight up and down on the feed, but it had survived one hell of a spelunking.