The First Conception_Rise of Eris

by Nesly Clerge

This was why I had to succeed. So that such a need for protection from men ceased, finally and forever.

  I managed to eat a slice of toast with my coffee and waited for Lauren’s security aunties to arrive at seven thirty.

  Prompt as usual, they called first to confirm they were at the door then entered.

  Lauren sat up, rubbed her eyes and yawned. She kissed Irish Too on the snout then slid from the bed. “I want oatmeal with cinnamon for breakfast.”

  “Lauren,” I said, “you know the proper way to greet people is to say hello first.”

  She stopped in her tracks, mouth agape, and fixed her blue eyes on me. The twinkle she gets in her eyes flashed. She straightened her spine and said, “Hello first.”

  As anticipated, she got a laugh from all of us. I kissed her goodbye and made my way to the office to check e-mails and so forth. Twenty minutes later, I headed to down to my lab.

  The women were already busy at their workstations. I scanned the room.

  “Where’s Chloe?”

  CHAPTER 93

  Faye frowned and said, “Chloe’s still in bed, sleeping like there’s nothing to do.”

  Gretchen nodded. “Ja. Her work, it be less than it should be lately. You talk to her, ja?”

  “I’ll talk to her all right.”

  I started toward the sleeping quarters, relieved that Chloe was still here. That relief lasted another two seconds, when another thought crossed my mind. What if her sleep was the eternal kind? We certainly had a variety of tranquilizers on hand for the chimpanzees. She wanted out, and likely realized what an impossibility it was that we could allow her to leave.

  I sped my steps, flung open the door and stopped at the threshold. Her form was indeed under the covers, head to foot, in the last bed near the far wall. Her usual toiletries and miscellanea cluttered the nightstand to the left of her single bed.

  “Chloe. Time to get up. We need to talk.”

  No response.

  A second, more pronounced tremor of fear radiated from my chest to my stomach. I forced my feet to propel me forward. Once at the side of her bed, I poked her back, surprised at the level of give.

  I yanked the covers away, impressed with how carefully she’d constructed a representation of her form with clothing and towels.

  No report had come from Connie about Chloe’s movements or disappearance during the night. Suspicion crept up my spine.

  I returned to the lab and said, “Chloe’s gone. I’m going to find out what I can, if anything. Please continue with your work. I’ll join you later.”

  I left as the volume of their comments increased, partially from excitement, partially because most of them hurried toward the quarters to gape at the bed.

  Once in my office, I called Connie. Before she could say a word, I said, “I need to see you immediately.”

  “On my way.”

  Tense minutes later, she entered my office and I shouted, “Chloe’s gone.”

  “Yep. Problem solved. Permanently.”

  I collapsed into my desk chair. “What have you done?”

  “Saved your ass and saved WAM in the process. She was doing a runner. You know as well as I do we couldn’t allow that.”

  Perspiration beaded on my scalp. “What am I going to tell the others?”

  “Tell them I found her wandering the grounds last night, blathering nonsense. Tell them she’s had a complete mental breakdown, or whatever the proper lingo is. Tell them I got her placed in a safe, secure hospital—make that rest home—and staff are taking good care of her. No expense too great. Yada yada yada. And that there’s little chance she’ll ever be the same.”

  “They’ll ask why I didn’t know about this when I showed up for work this morning.”

  “Blame me. Tell them it happened on my watch and I didn’t want to disturb you and Lauren, since I was handling it. That I meant to tell you first thing, but because I was up until dark-thirty getting her settled, I didn’t wake in time to tell anyone.”

  “If they’ll even buy that story.”

  “My security team did. But then, they aren’t prone to asking questions.”

  “My scientists are all about the questions.”

  “Then you’d better make this explanation sound good.” Connie sighed. “Look, is my story plausible or not?”

  I exhaled hard. “It is. It has to be.”

  “Since it’s the one I put out there, we have to stick with it. You’ll tell them only what I told you, right? No alterations?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’re in the clear.” Connie waited a moment then added, “I understand how you must feel. I’d feel the same way if one of my team went off the rails and became a threat to us.”

  “Would you take the same action in that situation?”

  “I’d have to. I wouldn’t like it, but I’d do what I was supposed to—protect you and WAM at all costs.”

  I scrubbed my forehead with my fingers. “I had a similar thought just this morning, but about something else.” I turned my gaze to her. “Thank you, Connie. For looking out for Lauren and me. For all of us.”

  “We’re a team.”

  “We’re more than that.” Understanding registered in her eyes, and I added, “If you truly are in need of rest, get some. I’m sure someone can cover for you for a few hours.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me. Fix that attention of yours on the bull’s-eye.”

  She left, and I took a few moments to splash cold water on my face then returned to my lab, where I repeated Connie’s fable as fact.

  Gretchen patted me on the arm. “Too sensitive, was Chloe. That is never good for lab, ja?”

  I nodded.

  Faye put an arm around my shoulder. “Probably had mental illness in the family that skipped a generation, which would explain her recent behavior. She probably didn’t even know about it. You know how family is about keeping skeletons in the closet.”

  Gretchen shrugged. “Anything, it is possible.”

  “So I’ve discovered,” I said.

  I scanned their faces as they watched me and waited for whatever I might say. “We wish Chloe well where she is now, but it’s time to aim for what’s possible and necessary.”

  They took turns hugging me then returned to their workstations. As they walked away, I repeated silently what Fra Luca Pacioli had said, “A thing may endure in nature if it is duly proportioned to its necessity.”

  Chloe had negated her necessity.

  Connie had deleted Chloe.

  I inhaled a deep breath, held it several moments then released it.

  It was time to get back to work.

  CHAPTER 94

  Our latest formula designed to calm men and weaken them physically, but only slightly, succeeded once we adjusted the dystrophin protein, the lack of which results in muscular dystrophy. Naturally, it wasn’t our intention to go that far, nor did we. It took several attempts to devise a way to make this formula attracted solely to Y chromosomes then reduce the protein by fifteen or so percent. I blended this formula with the anti-conception one, added in the one to calm men, using the same Y chromosome attractor factor for the latter one. Once results with the chimps proved satisfactory, I gave our other scientists the revised formula.

  The head scientist studied the formula on the printout. “The men at EPA approved this?”

  “I don’t see any reason to burden them with making a decision about it. Let them think it’s the same product. My contact there knows. That’s all that matters.”

  “Yet another reason Patricia singled you out.”

  I patted her on the arm then returned to my workspace.

  By 2014, it had been three full years since any human had conceived, with the exception of one fluke—Amber Lake. Progress about her pregnancy, which was announced later in the year, was updated each Friday evening on all news programs around the world.

  I’d commented to my scientists how much I wished I could run tests on Amber to determine how sh
e’d bypassed effects of our formula, but that was out of the question.

  We celebrated my thirty-third birthday in April, Lauren’s fifth in May, and Mada’s second during the first week in December. Mada’s party included banana cake for everyone, including the chimps, though we regretted the clean-up that followed.

  While enjoying the festive occasion, we reminisced, especially because getting Mada to this age was a hard-won success.

  Nature’s design is for the mother to nurture and care for her offspring until old enough to fully separate. Chimps reach puberty around age eight or nine, can deliver a first infant at age eleven or twelve, and by age fifteen, males demonstrate social maturity. Initially, they learn from their mothers, and then from other chimps in their grouping as they mature.

  Mada’s mother, for all intents and purposes, was her father, Michael, who had no clue about how to tend to a newborn, nor demonstrated interest. And there was the breastfeeding matter to contend with—there was none, for obvious reasons.

  The females remained curious about Mada, including the female whose egg contributed half of his DNA. But as the inherent processes had not been present to establish an immediate bond at a natural birth, she’d demonstrated no interest in taking care of him either.

  This care had become our task.

  Research assisted us, and we’d kept careful charts as to what Mada was supposed to do development-wise and when. It also meant each of us had taken turns wearing him in a harness strapped to our chest. Mada also wore diapers, as all our chimps did, our least favorite chore. Giving him a bottle proved the most pleasant.

  At two months, he’d begun to suck his thumb, reach for objects, struggle to get out of his harness, and when large enough, began to stand upright by holding onto the legs of the person whose charge he was in that day.

  The next month, he began to wobble on his feet and push and pull on us, developed his first tooth, and enough coordination to grab objects and hold on. This, of course, quickly became problematic.

  He took his first steps at five months. That’s when we put him into a cage adjoined to his biological mother’s. It delighted us to see she took more interest in him then, especially when he began to imitate her facial expressions and grooming habits, which amused her. She’d make faces, watch him repeat them, and do her version of a chimp laugh in response. He also began to climb the sides of the metal cage.

  Gretchen put her plate and fork down. Frowning, she walked to the cage of our latest impregnated male. Her shoulders sagged. Shaking her head she said, “Three this makes to die.”

  I joined her and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Out of eight, five are thriving. That’s something. The odds are in our favor.”

  “Better odds would I like.”

  “So would I. We keep going until we have a one-hundred-percent success rate of gestation and birth.”

  Faye joined us with the sole infant sleeping in the harness she wore. “We’ve got four impregnated chimps now.” She patted the bottom of the one she carried. “And one recuperating. If all goes well, we could find ourselves needing to recruit infant-tenders if the others are delivered and survive. Otherwise, we’ll be spending more time on infant care than anything else.”

  I smiled at her. “That’s what they call a good problem to have.”

  “In the wild they aren’t weaned until age five. Will we keep them that long? Even keep them as test subjects?”

  “I’m not certain about that yet.”

  “Like I said, we could get overwhelmed.”

  “Let me worry about that.” I glanced back at the chimp that had died. “Take care of him in the usual way. Then it’s back to work.”

  CHAPTER 95

  At 5:21 p.m., January 7, 2015, I was still in the lab, but getting ready to leave for the day. My cell phone vibrated. I read Connie’s text message and said, “Something’s happening.”

  Faye, nearest to me, looked up. “What is it?”

  “Connie said to turn the TV on now, on the Global Media channel. Some big news is coming on after the commercial break.”

  We clustered around the big-screen TV. Remote in hand, I pressed the on button and watched the screen come to life.

  After the commercial ended, Sasha Aspen, wearing spiked magenta hair this week, looking paler than usual, aimed tear-filled turquoise eyes at the camera.

  “Gotta be contacts,” Faye said.

  I shushed her as Sasha drew in a deep breath and announced that Amber Lake had miscarried.

  We listened to the remainder of the brief report. I turned off the TV as the others returned to their workstations. None of us said a word.

  I closed the files on my computer. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Heads nodded but stayed lowered.

  I understood their response. I was heading to my quarters.

  To be with my daughter, one of the last children born.

  Relief, sadness, and something I didn’t want to feel—guilt—engulfed me like dense fog.

  CHAPTER 96

  Two months later, perspiration dampened my underarms from the heat of the overhead lights inside the Global Media Studio located in San Francisco. I shifted in the chair positioned at a slight angle and to the right of Sasha Aspen’s usual chair. A few feet to my right were four cages. One held Mada, the other three each contained a pregnant male chimp. We’d hooked up opaque bags to the waste-collection tubes protruding from the chimps’ abdomens, so as not to upset viewers.

  Gretchen and Faye stood nearby but off-camera, in case they were needed. Connie and seven of her security team stood guard offstage right and left, but close enough to reach me in a hurry. More of her team had taken positions inside and outside the studio.

  Sasha leaned back and tapped her pen against her chin. “And you’re certain there’s nothing you can do that allows women to conceive again?”

  “As I said, we’re working on it. It’s easier to fix something when you know the cause.”

  She pointed the pen at me. “You honestly expect us to believe you created a way for male chimps to conceive and carry to full-term?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m certain our listening audience, which is most of the planet awake at this time, is as eager as I am to hear how you managed this.”

  I gave her a slight smile. “I’m afraid the methods are proprietary.”

  “Then how can you prove this miracle, for lack of a better word? Although,” she smiled at the camera, “scam is a word that comes to mind. For all we know, those three might be fat. Or maybe you inflated their abdomens with air or whatever, and it has something to do with those bags attached to them.”

  I withdrew a stethoscope from my lab coat pocket. “Follow me.”

  I led her to the nearest cage, where a pregnant male, who like the other two, lay prone on a long cushion.

  “What’s wrong with him?” She glanced at the others. “In fact, what’s wrong with all of them?”

  “Nothing is wrong. They’re in perfect health. I gave them sedatives so this experience would be easier for them to tolerate, especially the pregnant ones.”

  I opened the cage door and used the stethoscope to locate the fetus’s heartbeat. I kept the bell in place and handed the ear tips to Sasha. “Listen.” When her eyes grew wide, I said, “Even if you aren’t familiar with chimp physiology, you know the position of that heartbeat is too low to be his heart.”

  She handed the ear tips to me and turned to the camera. “It’s true.” She aimed her gaze at the control booth. “I don’t care who gets upset, I don’t want one commercial break until this hour is up. This is monumental news.”

  I introduced her to Mada, who lazily grabbed the finger I thrust through the wire mesh. He puckered his lips at me then nodded off. That netted a slew of questions from Sasha about care of the infants and other matters, some of which I answered, some of which I didn’t.

  “And you intend to transfer this ability to human males?”

  “Once the
process is perfected, we’ll arrange for human trials.”

  “So men will have chimpanzee uteruses plugged into them.”

  “I suppose that’s one way to put it.”

  “Why not transplant them in healthy women of ideal child-bearing age?”

  “We can’t risk having whatever systemic cause that affects double-X chromosome carriers affect, infect, or waste even one chimp uterus. That leaves us with males.” I gestured toward the cages. “As the evidence demonstrates.”

  “How much do you intend to pay these bold men?”

  “It will be on a voluntary basis only.”

  She looked at the chimps then into the camera. “It’ll be interesting to see who’ll step up.”

  During the last minute we had left, she said to viewers, “You heard it here first, folks. Dr. Katherine Barnes is working her way to a miracle for the rest of us. This is Sasha Aspen, who, though I’ve seen a lot in this job, can honestly say my mind is blown.”

  Thank goodness Connie had brought the security team numbers she had for our excursion. Otherwise, we would never have made it out of the studio and through the throngs waiting outside the building.

  Back inside our private lab, I made sure the chimps were okay and sleeping off the tranquilizer. I left Gretchen and Faye to share their interpretations of the event with the others.

  I found Connie waiting for me, seated in her usual corner of the sofa, arms and legs crossed.

  In response to her odd expression, I said, “What?”

  “You really think men will volunteer to do this?”

  “If they want the species to continue, they’ll have to.”

  One of Connie’s team burst into the room. “Turn on your TV.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Just do it.”

  CHAPTER 97

  I found the remote and aimed it at the big-screen TV mounted to the wall opposite the sofa. “Which channel?” I asked.

  She chewed on a cuticle. “Doesn’t matter.”

  A tall, thin man with a comb-over revealing more pink scalp than hair stood in front of a bank of microphones. The banner at the bottom of the screen listed him as The Right Reverend Stephen Jones. With a flourish, he removed a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his scowling, florid face.