“Your own scientist said that type of atmospheric concentration was impossible. Could never happen.”
“We didn’t know then what we do now. We didn’t have the tools in place to sense it, to reverse it.”
“You say that like you could have. That was God’s will.”
“Humans as a species have always found a way to persevere and overcome, and this is one of those times. By creating a stronger womb, the Peralta Protocol prohibits the particulate pollution from reaching the embryo, that is its simplicity. Now, I sympathize with those who have turned to their God in these trying times. The depopulation of the planet was well underway due to the devastation brought on by the ecological effects of global warming and the wars that followed, and now, with the world shrinking by a half billion a year… Well, indeed the very existence of our species is at stake. We need to fix the air we breathe, with the rain, with the dome, pray if you like, pray for us all, but science, not your God, will be the salvation of the human race.”
The host jumped in, “You bring up a good point, Professor Wright.”
“Thank you.”
“What do you say to those that believe doctors should not play God?”
Troy quickly stood and spun, “He’s nuts. I can’t watch this.”
“Which one?” Leana asked.
“Both of them, all three,” he said raising his hands to his hips and pacing back toward the window.
“You know,” Leana said, “my grandmother snuck me into the church to be baptized.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I remember. I was already four, I think. She was watching me, for whatever reason. She drove me to the church and took me to the altar and baptized me herself.”
“And why’d she do that?”
“Because my mother wasn’t going to baptize me,” Leana said. “She didn’t think a baby needed to be saved. She didn’t believe in original sin. I guess I don’t either.”
“Neither do I,” Troy said.
“I know. But you were baptized.”
“My grandfather was a minister.”
“Ah. Right. Was he a nut?”
“My grandfather was a good man who believed in charity and helping people.” He stopped at the window and thumbed away the new layer of wet that had already collected. “He certainly didn’t believe he needed a beard or five wives because his god told him so.”
* * *
Troy’s attention was drawn from the window by the approaching click of heels. He spun from the window to see one of the hospital staff, a lithe blonde in a cerulean blue dress that matched her too blue eyes. She was a Syn of course, one of the many replacements for the rapidly depleting human workforce. He knew what would happen next, even marveled at the consistency of the entrance. He guessed it was scripted, some type of greeting program. The Syns always acknowledged Leana first, with the same expression on their faces as the girls used to have when they gathered around a mother-to-be, envy masked in aspiration. He understood that the point of the fake expression was to comfort Leana in some way, but it was an oily expression just the same. Then, once the mother was at ease, they would cordially address Troy. He thought he heard the faint sound of servos running beneath the Syn’s cheeks as they forced themselves up and back. He had to remind himself that the reference was outdated. Beneath the fabricated flesh, the façade continued. Piston and gear had long been surpassed by muscle and tendon. Grown and sewn was cheaper than steel.
“You appear so close to real,” Troy said aloud. He had a tendency to do that. Let the inside voice slip out, to speak in that absent tone. His eyes darted to Leana as she rolled hers. The candor that he once used to seduce her had long ago lost its charm.
“I assure you, I’m real,” the blonde Syn said. “Do you believe you’ve been hallucinating?”
“I know you’re real. I meant… you appear human, but you’re not.”
“Of course not,” the Syn said politely. “The doctor will see you now. Please follow me.”
The Syn returned her attention to Leana, affirming Troy’s place as a guest of secondary concern, and then she led the two out into the hallway and down a set of corridors they’d only accessed one time, months before, when they first entered the trial. There were several checkpoints and electronic doors, but the troopers manning them recognized the parents of Baby Jane and expedited their passage to the Birthing Gallery.
Troy’s fingers were intertwined with Leana’s. Hers were trembling, just as they’d been on their initial walk through the Birthing Gallery, a corridor lined on either side by glass-walled rooms. On that first visit those rooms were occupied by other couples in the trial, and each doorway was a window of possibility.
Troy and Leana had almost not qualified for the trial.
He had no real advantage. He had no great wealth. He was a bureaucrat, a city planner among dozens.
He’d leveraged some favors, owed some too, and at the last minute, they were let in.
A serendipitous fortune, for them, and for all of mankind.
Because each of those other dozen rooms, one by one, had gone dark, until only the single gallery space at the end of the corridor was left lit. The space reserved for their child.
There was a toll to pay for that lit room.
With the news of each failed protocol, the heavy weight of their two lost pregnancies, the stress, the strain returned. With each darkened void Troy would hold Leana in the frame of their nursery door. The nursery they had furnished and never remodeled.
As more galleries went dark, so went Leana, so that every new shadow cast on the corridor was cast back at them and eventually Troy couldn’t bring himself to walk from his office to the nursery door. It was too much for him to bear that the next light to go could be theirs.
They’d never been the same after they lost the first and were worse after the second. Then trying for a third… He was surprised they passed the psychological testing for the trial. Then again, Troy was aware that as long as he didn’t outright say he was preparing his death, he was good to go. And even if he told them that, they wouldn’t think him crazy. Hell, that was the new normal, they’d even help do it. He and Leana just wouldn’t have gotten into the trial.
Troy glanced at over at Leana. He saw that far final light at the end of the corridor sparkling in her eyes.
She tightened her trembling grip.
There were times in their relationship when they had forgotten each other, and then a simple spark from her reminded him that the grip she shared was a promise to never let go.
He didn’t know how to process that they’d been singled out, that the slight adjustment to their protocol was the right one, that if their child could be conceived this way, then humanity would be saved. The gestation period had seemed an eternity, but the day had finally arrived. They were the only couple to have successfully completed the Peralta Protocol. He should’ve felt special, but he didn’t.
A mop slid into the corridor from a darkened door to Troy’s right. His eyes darted up to catch the silhouette of a janitor, bent forward, handle in hand. The worker glanced up toward Troy, and though the features of the man’s face were hidden in shadow, his eyes glowed brightly blue. Like their guide, another Syn. The entirety of the menial labor force was Syn now too. “To think we’re leaving the world to you,” Troy said as he passed. The janitor didn’t respond.
“What’s that?” Leana asked.
“Nothing.”
The blue-dressed Syn stopped at the final door and raised her arm to invite them in. Leana entered the gallery first. A small gasp escaped Leana and her body jerked slightly. When he joined her by her side, he understood why. Everything around him disappeared with the exception of what lay beyond the glass. He became all at once overwhelmed, and all doubt that had poisoned him was replaced by a relentless optimism. He realized that the trembling in his lovely wife’s hand had escalated to a quaking that stemmed from his inner core, a sensation so deep and foreign and new, a love like he’d
not ever known, an unconditional love. He had to raise his free hand to wipe away the uncontrollable flood of tears that welled into the corners of his eyes, to better take in the translucent womb beyond the glass and the tiny little human inside.
* * *
Troy had his arm around Leana. She too was openly sobbing and wiping away the flood that had been held back so long. He realized they’d not cried since… since they lost the first… and he wasn’t even sure if they’d cried then. All of the emotion held in. Saved. And it wasn’t tension or anger or depression — it was love, saved up for this amazing child floating in the glowing pink embryonic fluid of that transparent veined sac. “Our baby’s in a robotic womb,” Troy said. “It worked. The robotic womb worked.”
“It’s a Syn womb, Troy,” Doctor Peralta said in a soft voice from the doorway. She came into the room and gave Leana a huge hug before offering her a package of tissue. She was a darling of a woman, thought Troy, a small genius in pink scrubs, who was about to save mankind.
Doctor Peralta designed the protocol. She’d removed elements of Leana’s womb, synthesized a new one, and then strategically placed the couple’s in vitro fertilized eggs into their new and improved home. Leana masked the trauma. “It’s from me but not me,” she’d said of the womb.
“All in your head,” Troy said. “Let’s be thankful the doctor found a way.”
Doctor Peralta had indeed found a way, using the same technology used to create other Synthetics. Syn organs were cloned from other organisms — pigs, plants, mollusks, and beetles. Even the Syns themselves were synthetic parts pieced together to replicate a mortal.
Before them was their child in a womb synthesized from Leana.
“You did it,” Doctor Peralta said. “You are the only couple to have successfully inseminated a synthesized womb.”
Leana slid her fingers tighter into Troy’s intertwined grip. She was sobbing. “Why us? What was so different?”
Troy had longed to ask that question and his mind raced to echo his wife, Of the thirteen couples, why did only our baby survive to term?
“It was the protocol.”
“The others?” he asked, regretting the words once they slipped.
“We were lucky.”
Troy bit his lower lip and nodded in agreement.
“I mean,” Doctor Peralta said, “there were originally a dozen different protocols. Not only one. Each protocol was designed to create a womb and placenta with a cellular structure that would filter out the particulates. We didn’t have enough lab animals for the appropriate tests so we surveyed the DNA and bio samples from thousands of couples and found the dozen with the closest match and highest chance of success.”
“You said a dozen,” Troy said. “There were thirteen.”
“No. There were thousands in the first round, hundreds in the second, and then twelve, and then, there were the thirteen. The computer examined the first twelve inseminations and then produced a viable thirteenth protocol.”
“After?”
“Yes, based on information from the first twelve — critical factors not accounted for in the first round came to light. Actually, I was surprised there was only one additional protocol, but here we are. And that’s good, right?”
“Yes,” Leana said, “of course.” Troy had a puzzled look on his face. How close they had come, but no matter.
“So,” Doctor Peralta said, “this will all happen pretty quickly. The procedure will be like a natural birth, with both parents in the room—”
“How will I… I don’t see the––” Leana began to ask just as a birthing bed was wheeled in next to the womb. “Oh,” she said.
“Yes,” Doctor Peralta continued, “the plan is to place the womb over yours and, well, you’ve had the training. Breathe and pretend to push, and Troy, you’ll stand by my side.”
“That’s it?” he asked. He made his best effort to hide how mundane he thought the ritual was. He and Leana had gone to the classes, derivatives of the Lamaze and prenatal classes they’d gone to years before. He didn’t see the point in the ritual. There was no biological necessity to the birthing bed — Doctor Peralta could conduct the procedure without them present — and each session was a harsh reminder to Leana just how foreign that procedure was to be. But there were those that thought differently.
“Remember, this Syn womb is partly organic, created from you. It will behave in a natural way when induced. Okay?” Doctor Peralta held her head to the side in a maternal matter-of-fact way until she was sure that Leana and Troy were satisfied, and then said, “It’s going to be a great day. Wait here and Nurse Lilly will be in for you shortly.”
As Doctor Peralta left the two, Troy put his arm around his wife and returned his attention to the child beyond the glass.
A tall blonde Syn that appeared exactly the same as the woman who greeted them, only dressed in the pink scrubs, was preparing the birthing room. “Nurse Lilly,” Troy said.
“Apparently,” Leana said. Troy could see her reflection on the glass. Her head was buried in his neck, her cheeks were rosy from crying — so were his, gaunt as they were — yet her grin could’ve been peeled from the Cheshire Cat. His was the same, plastered on, so foreign to him that he didn’t recognize his own thin jaw. The thought made him want to openly laugh, which only widened his thin face further.
“What?” Leana asked.
“I’m happy.”
“Me too.”
He kissed her forehead. The child in the bubble before them was indeed a miracle. Not just a child, but their little girl. And in a few moments, he would hold her.
“You know,” Leana said. “We haven’t discussed her name.”
Troy’s brow went high. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll tell you one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“It sure as hell isn’t going to be Jane.”
* * *
The first outside rumble was accompanied by a small tremor, a slight vibration. Leana lifted her head from Troy’s shoulder.
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
Of course he had.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I think that was outside.” A lie for her sake, he told himself.
Concern flooded him. He scanned the small room, unsure what he expected to find. All that was on their side of the glass were two small stainless steel carts and a few steel cabinets.
The next explosion shook the room.
A fixture fell from the ceiling, the wiring stopping it short above them.
Then the lights went out.
“That one wasn’t,” Leana said.
They heard a series of crackling pops, and then another. Troy would have liked them to be firecrackers, a lie for himself. He pulled his wife to the floor, again unsure why.
Klaxons began to sound all around them, first far off and then closer, as the alarms cascaded through the building. They heard more explosions, smaller ones that only caused the dark room to vibrate. And then loud single pops — small arms fire.
“They’re close,” Troy whispered into Leana’s ear.
“Will the doors hold?” she whispered back.
“I’m sure they will,” he said, but he wasn’t.
Then the dim red flash of an emergency light lit the corridor. There were two more shots, but they were distant, far away.
From where he was crouched, he could only see the dimly lit ceiling of the darkened birthing room and nothing below, nothing inside.
Above him, the dangling light switched on. His eyes winced and refocused.
The birthing room was lit again too.
He reached up to shift the light back and away from them as he lifted Leana and himself to their feet.
It was in that brief second, when Leana began to break into hysterics and scream, “Oh no, no, no,” that Troy felt his chest cave. His breath left him, the feeling one has before falling from a great height, or an unavoidable collision, the instinctive physical reaction to impending terror, when
one is overcome by the inner void.
Apart from the suspended light, the gallery and the birthing room were unharmed. But the womb, and their child, was gone.
* * *
Troy didn’t have to wait long before a mixed team of medical staff and the black-fatigued troopers burst into the gallery.
Doctor Peralta was among them. “Are you two okay?” she asked as she scanned Troy’s wife for injury.
Leana’s response was frantic, “My baby’s gone! Where is my baby?”
Another medic had his hands on Troy. “Sir, have you been hit?” he calmly asked.
“Hit?” Troy was disturbed. “No.” More than that, he was becoming angry.
The medic placed a stethoscope on his chest. “Sir, can you breathe slowly.”
“Where is the baby?” he heard his wife ask again.
“No,” Troy shouted, pushing the stethoscope away. “I’m not going to breathe slowly.”
“Sir, we just need to check you and we can—”
“No!” Troy shouted.
“Calm down, Troy,” Doctor Peralta said.
“Where’s my baby?” Leana asked again, her wide-eyed face close to Peralta’s.
“I’m not going to calm down. I want to know—”
The medic placed his hand on Troy’s shoulder. “Sir.”
Troy brushed it away. “I want to know where my child is.”
Peralta threw her hands up into the air. “Okay, okay,” she said. “Hardwick, step back. These two are obviously fine.”
“Of course we are,” Leana said, regaining composure. “What just happened?”
“I don’t know, really. It happened so fast. But we have to get you out of here.”
“You haven’t answered,” Troy said. “Is our baby safe?”
Peralta’s lips went tight. Troy had seen the expression before. If she could think of something else to say, another way to get around the truth, she would. But it wasn’t in her nature.
“I don’t know,” she said.
The Doomsday Chronicles (The Future Chronicles) Page 28