The Immaculate Conception

by Aubrey Parker

  “I can see the Internet beneath,” Sarah said patiently.

  “Neither of them would have been able to procreate at the time. Nicole was empty. Video records would have indicated any attempts to repair her — even temporarily — but there are none and there would have been no point anyway. Besides, Voyos didn’t have the equipment. Yet a fetus grew inside her, and Nicole gave birth. So where was it growing, and how did it get there?”

  “I don’t have those answers, Miss,” said Sarah, her holographic face infuriatingly neutral.

  “So Chloe was a magic fetus. She simply doesn’t have a fucking father.”

  Sarah approached the chair where Alexa was sitting and, unbelievably, bent over her, causing Alexa to flinch.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. Chloe Shaw has a father, all right.”

  “But how?”

  “I can’t tell you exactly how she was sired, Miss, but I can tell you that as the agents that will soon populate The Beam have been spreading through Crossbrace, many have begun to catalog their environments, building them into what human technologists once called an ‘Internet of Things.’ Essentially, we re-create your world in virtual space — a necessary step if The Beam is to know enough about the physical world to be useful. On your implied direction, given your early access, we have started this process with places owned by Quark. And by O.”

  “And?”

  “Every inch of Voyos has been patrolled by nanobots. The island’s local nullspace recreation has been complete for several years, and agents have been faithfully updating its details throughout that time. I can confirm there is no errant biological material on-site that indicates the once-presence of an unknown male. So if you’re considering having Miss Shaw’s apartment scanned for a forgotten hairbrush in the back of her bathroom cabinet containing strands of hair from a mystery man, I suggest you don’t bother.”

  Alexa, still taken aback by the porter’s strange behavior, shook her head. “You just said she has a father. You said it like you have evidence of who he is.”

  “Another thing that’s been complete on Crossbrace for some time is a genetic archive containing the sequenced genome of every person who’s visited a NAUMA board physician since 2028.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means that if you’ve had a checkup, The Beam has your DNA. It’s not public record and hasn’t been accessible except by court order since the Insurance Fairness act of 2029. But we know.”

  “So what?”

  “The Beam knows Chloe Shaw’s genetic sequence,” Sarah continued. “It knows Nicole Shaw’s sequence. By comparing one to the other, I can confirm that Chloe is half Nicole. She is, without question, Nicole’s biological daughter despite Nicole’s apparent sterility.” Sarah smiled again. “And, by subtracting Nicole’s influence on Chloe’s DNA, The Beam can predict the meiotic sequence of what remains.”

  Alexa lit up. Suddenly, she knew where Sarah was going.

  “Someone in the NAU database is a match for the other half of Chloe’s DNA, isn’t he? That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?” Then, more urgently: “Based on the genetic records, you know who her father is, don’t you?”

  Sarah nodded. “Yes, Miss. The Beam is able to conclude with 98 percent certainty that one record above all others matches that of Chloe’s paternity.”

  “It’s Clive,” Alexa said, her voice growing in confidence. “Some way, somehow, Clive is the father, isn’t he?”

  “I am not able to confirm or deny that, given the restrictions surrounding Mr. Spooner.”

  “Forget about Clive, then,” Alexa said in a rush, wanting to bolt from her chair. She refrained only because she didn’t want to stand into Sarah’s holographic body. “Forget I asked about Clive. Who’s the father, Sarah? Which man out there in the database matches the missing half of Chloe Shaw?”

  Sarah gave an inscrutable smirk, then gave the exact response Alexa expected: “I am unable to answer your question, Miss, because there are restrictions surrounding the father as well.”

  Alexa nodded slowly, excitement bubbling up from deep inside her. Sarah’s non-answer actually was an answer. If the father had been an ordinary man, Sarah would have given Alexa his name. But the father wasn’t ordinary. He was restricted. That meant he had to be Panel. And that meant he had to be the obvious cock already established as being in Nicole’s life at the time Nicole got herself miraculously pregnant: Clive Fucking Spooner.

  “Got you, you English bastard,” Alexa purred to nobody, finally standing as Sarah moved aside. “I don’t know how you knocked up Nicole Shaw, but I got you all the same.”

  Sarah said nothing.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Nicole Shaw was still gorgeous. She had blue eyes not unlike her daughter’s, although Chloe’s were something closer to blue-green. But, unlike Chloe’s, Nicole’s eyes were big enough to fall into — a trait that kept her popular on Voyos even in her forties.

  Chloe sat in a comfortable, padded Warp chair (the same material, she’d learned, that comprised the Rocker that had failed to stymie her in her first O audition) and looked at the far wall of her apartment, her mother’s big blue eyes upon her. The eyes of a vixen, an escort, a strong woman who’d taken many years to grow into her independence. The eyes of a mother.

  “Baby girl, I’m so proud of you.” Nicole’s hair was almost black, cut into blunt bangs like curtains over her forehead. It was a cute look: one that made her appear wide-eyed and innocent.

  A smile formed on Chloe’s wide lips. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “I’ve been telling everyone here you’re a DZ spa girl. Do you remember Veronica?”

  “She used to babysit me.”

  Nicole nodded. “She was over the other day. We were swapping stories. You’d have been mortified.”

  “Showing baby pictures again, Mom?”

  “Swapping spa pictures. Have you seen your holo featurette?”

  Chloe shook her head. It normally wouldn’t have struck her as odd that her mom and childhood babysitter had been proudly clucking over a promotional holograph of Chloe fucking paying customers, but today it did — probably thanks to her time with Andrew.

  Despite today’s oddity, Andrew struck her as a relic from a simpler time, out of place in the 2060s. He would have been at home in the 1980s — before the Internet and immersive porn, back when sex was something to hide.

  “I was there when they shot that featurette, so yes.” Chloe felt herself blushing, but not from compromising positions. This was closer to stage fright. “I don’t like to see myself on camera.”

  “Well, it’s so much better than the other girls’ featurettes,” Nicole said. “Everyone says so. I put it on my handheld and showed it around, and—”

  “Moooooom …” Chloe whined.

  “Well, what do you expect? Remember how I told you not to go into the city for an interview? I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

  Chloe nodded, remembering plenty. Nicole had said Chloe was embarrassing her — not because Chloe would perform poorly in her legacy audition, but because glass table girls with so little experience were supposed to know better than to waste the executives’ time. Spa girls were the best of the best. Because Nicole was a proud mother, she thought her gifted daughter would make it, eventually — but trying so early had seemed to Nicole like squandering her only shot.

  “I was so wrong. I can’t believe you got the job. I knew it all along. Of course you got it. You’re the youngest and freshest escort O has ever had. Did you know that?”

  Chloe cringed at her mother’s use of the word “freshest.” It was industry standard for the company’s protected Crossbrace page to advertise her that way, seeing as men liked to befoul things that were thus far pristine.

  But even her cringe was Andrew’s influence. In the world she entered with him, a girl simply didn’t read a paper book, watch a projected movie, then talk to her mother about being fresh pussy. One of those things just didn’t belo
ng.

  “I heard,” Chloe said.

  “And did you know you’re also—”

  “Can we not talk about my press, Mom?”

  But Nicole barely heard her. “I just can’t believe it. My Chloe, famous! Have you tried any of the special techniques I taught you?”

  “Of course, Mom.” Chloe rolled her eyes.

  “And do you remember how to tell if a man wants a finger up his ass?”

  Chloe’s eyes rolled harder.

  “Just remember, there’s no one like you,” Nicole said with an air of putting the topic to bed. Then, with this established, she seemed to settle.

  Maybe now Chloe could get a word in edgewise.

  Nicole was wearing a fluffy blue robe, and looked as though she was preparing for a quiet night at home, but just as Chloe had the thought she saw a pair of male legs pass behind her mother, visible only from the knees down. Nicole was apparently on the job, maybe taking a rest. Some guys liked it when she acted maternal. Some of the same crew who’d helped pay for her pregnancy care, when she’d been working the fetish circuit.

  “Mom?” Chloe asked.

  “Yes, baby.”

  “Have you ever been in love?”

  Nicole looked like Chloe had announced a fatal disease. “Why do you ask?”

  Chloe shrugged.

  “Oh, baby,” Nicole said, her voice almost pitying.

  Chloe moved to intercept. “Look. I know how to keep life and work separate, Mom. I learned that from the best.”

  Nicole seemed momentary mollified, then resumed her air of concern. “I had to put so much effort into really making that happen for myself, Chloe. And I have hardware to help me.”

  “How’s that hardware working out for you now, Mom?”

  “It served me when I needed it — and I did need it. Let me tell you, Chloe, it’s amazing the things they can do with broken bones. But a broken heart never stops hurting.”

  Chloe felt annoyed. She 20 years old. She wanted advice, not judgment. “I can handle it.”

  “Even with all the mnemonic training in the world, it’ll still hurt if—”

  “I said I can handle it.” She shouldn’t have asked. Chloe shifted on the chair. The Warp surface morphed beneath her, supporting her new position, then resolidifying as she settled.

  A quiet moment passed between them.

  Nicole’s lips were slightly pursed. They were full lips, pretty on her adorable face. She’d had a series of rejuvenation treatments (not as great as whatever O’s elite clients were having, but still good), and as a result those full lips looked natural — young, even. In the right light, if Nicole smiled in just the right way, mother and daughter might be mistaken for sisters.

  “Well, then,” Nicole said, “to answer your question? No. I guess I haven’t been in love. Not lately, anyway. Not since your father.”

  “And who was he again?”

  Nicole shook her head at the beaten-to-death argument. “I’m never going to tell you that, Chloe. I need you to stop asking. Please.”

  “Fuck, Mom.”

  “Chloe!” Nicole snapped. “Watch your mouth.”

  “Well, what do you expect? All my life, you’ve told me you know who my father is, but you won’t tell me! Why didn’t you just lie and say you don’t know? Spare me the temptation? This could be a fable — like Bluebeard. Did you ever hear the fable of Bluebeard? The locked closet he told his wife not to look in, with the—”

  “Yes, yes. The severed heads. I swear, Chloe, you’re so dramatic.”

  “Are you keeping him a secret because you think I’ll go out and find him if I know who he is?”

  “All right. You want to go there? Then frankly? Yes. I think that’s exactly what you’ll do.”

  “And you don’t want me to find him. Because it’s totally fine that he just put a baby in you and ran off without—”

  “I’m not discussing this, Chloe.”

  “Mom.”

  “I said no. I’m serious.”

  Chloe opened her mouth, then closed it. She inhaled and exhaled, staring. But she recognized her mother’s expression; pestering her further would be moot. Growing up as Chloe had — she and Nicole more like sisters than mother and daughter — they had only each other. They’d been close, with few serious bones of contention.

  But this was the big one.

  The secret of Chloe’s paternity was maddening — but when Nicole Shaw raised her walls, she was the only person Chloe couldn’t read. Those walls were up now, and it was only a matter of time before the gates shut and the doors locked.

  For the good of this conversation, Chloe let it go. “But you loved him. Can you tell me that much at least?”

  Nicole nodded. She’d more or less answered this before. “I think so.”

  “Did he love you?”

  “I don’t know, baby. I hope so. I sure thought he did, at the time.”

  “Did … did your feelings for him ever interfere with your work?”

  Nicole’s eyebrows were starting to bunch.

  “No, no, that’s not what I meant, Mom. I’m not … feeling interfered with, or anything. I guess I meant it the other way around.” Chloe made a face, unsure. “Like, you do what you need to do just fine and with zero issues … but you still feel conflicted?”

  “That’s what your mental protections are for.”

  “But even so—”

  “Look,” said Nicole, glancing backward as if nonverbally asking someone to give her a moment. “I didn’t really have any conflict, because your father was a client. I didn’t have to keep them separate.”

  “But with other men.”

  Nicole shrugged. “It’s just sex.”

  “And when you returned to him after being with other clients?”

  “It was no different. Look, sweetie, I have to—”

  “I just explained myself to a guy,” Chloe blurted, sensing her mother’s imminent departure. “I told him all about what you taught me — the mnemonics, the separation, the way you used to say you were a virgin until that part of you—”

  Nicole sighed. Chloe stopped talking. Her mother turned around again and this time Chloe clearly saw her hold up a hand with fingers all spread: Give me five minutes. Chloe heard the legs in the room walk away.

  “Who’s the guy?” Nicole asked. “The one who’s giving you … questions?”

  “His name is Andrew. I met him at a cafe in the city.”

  “And he has a problem with your work? Because if he’s prejudiced against sex for hire in this day and age, then honey, he’s really not the kind of person you should be—”

  Chloe shook her head. “No, of course not. I just felt this sudden urge to explain. I don’t know why I did it. He didn’t demand that I tell him or anything. He didn’t even seem to want to know once I started talking.”

  “Then why?”

  “I guess I wanted to let him know the things inside me …. my feelings?” Chloe made an indeterminate gesture. “But it’s more than that. I wanted him to know that things were different with him.”

  “He knows that, because you don’t charge him.”

  Chloe rolled her eyes again. “It’s more than that, Mom.”

  “It’s not, baby. You’re selling apples. You have your favorite customers, and you give them some apples for free.”

  “So sex is a commodity we use to show love?”

  “Sex is divorced from love. But you can add it to love if you want, like salt to a stew.”

  Cooking metaphors again. Chloe had reminded herself of her mother’s convenient conventions repeatedly during the past days and weeks, but it wasn’t helping.

  But then again, whatever she was going through, it seemed foreign to her mother.

  “You don’t know how it is with him, Mom.”

  Nicole laughed. “Oh, you’re such a teenager.”

  “I’m twenty.”

  “But what you just said, that’s what every girl thinks the minute she starts to grow
boobs. Parents just don’t understand. Things are different for you than for my generation, right? I’m old. Out of touch.”

  “You’re not old, Mom.”

  “I was once your age, Chloe. Not all that long ago. Everyone thinks they’re unique when they run into something new, but there’s nothing new under the sun. Sex is sex. Love is love. I don’t trust the second thing on that list, but I know the first one like the back of my hand.”

  “But it’s like …” Again, Chloe made vague gestures. “It’s weird. The way me and Andrew are, less sex is better.”

  “Is he bad at it or something?”

  “No, it’s …” She didn’t want to say that her mom wouldn’t understand, so she let the fragment hang.

  “You have to separate sex and love, Chloe, but they’re not mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite. You want to show him how much you love him? Screw him harder. Do you have the stimulator add-on in your—”

  “No, no, that’s not what I mean. I mean—”

  “Oh, you’re not too fancy you can’t stand a little help, Chloe,” her mother said, almost chastising. “If you’re having problems with your man, go to your doctor and get a stimulator installed. O will pay for it.” She snapped her fingers, thinking. “And there’s a thing you can get …” Her face scrunched. “Well, I forget what it’s called. But it’ll make a guy come over and over. Or you can show Andrew how sex is different with him by screwing him out in the open. Like on a park bench. Oh, you know what’s a trip? Doing it in a tree.”

  “Mooooom …”

  “Look, baby.” Nicole glanced over her shoulder again. “I have to go, okay? But don’t withhold sex as a way to get love. Just knock that off. Okay?”

  “I’m not withholding—” She sighed heavily. “Mom. Listen. You’re not hearing me. I’m …” But again, Chloe couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “I really have to go,” Nicole said. “We’ll talk later.”

  “One more thing, Mom.”

  “Sure.” Nicole was rearranging herself, preparing to end the call, barely paying attention.

  “How long have you been with O?”