Authors: Carola Dibbell
Ten viables are on ice to thaw as needed. They will use five, to start. Each will have its own section so he can take out any that die without touching the others, but there was a sort of layer they would share, a track made of plexi, the soft kind. The section walls are plexi too, and the whole thing looked a little like an orange, the sections of an orange, except there were just five sections. They’re not calling it an orange though, or even Host. They call it the tank.
They had a frame for it to hang from, which was on wheels, so you could move it, and there were springs. Henry put a thermometer outside the tank so you could read how warm the tank is. It had to be warm. The lights mattered. It had to be dark in the room. But you had to see a little, so they put in special orange lights. The backup generator worked. The backup for the backup generator worked. It still required manual override in case of an outage, but this is not a problem. Someone would be there all the time.
The Port Jervis stuff is thawed and in place. They set me up on IV and did a few dry runs with my blood.
They gave me a shot.
There was a problem with some of the tubing. Rini had arrived but couldn’t stand the suspense and while Lucas got a replacement, she went off to Goshen. She would come back to witness the implantation. Man! She had her own hybrocar!
Ok, the new tubing worked. They called Rini in Goshen.
The Port Jervis OBGYN and Lucas are already in the tank room with Rauden when she gets there, looking very pale. Henry was called to Albany sudden on a job, so it is just those three. She went up to the window with those great big steps she takes, and Rauden showed her the viables through the window, in dishes. He wore a bubble suit. So did Lucas. The OBGYN wore a green suit and mask. Rini nodded at all of them, then extra to Rauden, and he starts.
She already picked the names out. She made Rauden write them on the tank.
Ani, Berthe, Chi-Chi, Lily, and Madhur.
Rini sat on the sofa with me.
The first part will take a few hours. They will squeeze the viables down tubes, till they get to the tank. One viable to each section. They got no idea how long the next part will take. We’ll only know when the wire lights up. If it does. Each section got a special wire that Henry dreamed up. It isn’t regular, but who’s going to say no to that? The regular way, you got to wait a long time to find out if the nesting worked.
Lily died right away. Rauden thawed a new viable and squeezed it down a new tube but she died too. So it is a problem with the section. They left it empty. I was really worried that Rini will be mad with grief but she was ok.
Ani, Berthe, Chi-Chi, Madhur.
She even was ok when they had to replace Chi-Chi. They called the replacement Chi-Chi. Rini took my hand.
Janet Delize put sandwiches on the card table. The OBGYN came out for a break and ate one. Rini ate nothing.
I had to eat my sandwich with the hand she didn’t hold. I took a nap with her holding it.
Berthe lit up first.
Rauden said that’s when he knew it’s going to work. Janet says it is bad luck to say that, but what did she know? What did any of us know? We never did anything like this, none of us, even Rauden. Even Lucas, when it comes down to it. We don’t even know when Ani and Madhur stuck, like, one minute nothing, the next, they stuck. They lit up.
Now everyone is getting excited. Will it work with Chi-Chi? We’re not supposed to shout. When Chi-Chi lit up though, we did, even me.
Everyone really liked Chi-Chi!
Four lights showed in four sections of the tank. “They all goddamn worked!” said Rauden.
Except Lily.
Ani was mine. Rini was ok with just three. I could still have one, she says. Unless one of the others die. Then Ani will be hers.
We weren’t supposed to go into the room for five days, then Rini was allowed to pay a visit. I wasn’t supposed to go into the tank room at all because I might bond, but I went in with Rini because someone had to.
They made us wear masks, in case we give the viables something even though the tank was airtight and come on, these are Sylvain hardies even if you couldn’t see them. It was hard to see anything. It was nice in the tank room though. It was so dark and warm.
Rini seemed happy when she came out, but she was nervous still. Rauden was nervous too. He kept working but his hands shook. Lucas and Janet Delize was all right. I was all right too. I was excited.
You know how I been saying, it’s interesting? Horses, meat-loaf, cows? Nothing since I ever got up here been as interesting as this.
Rauden was so interested he was dropping things. He was so interested, Henry had to come back from Albany to help. The Port Jervis OBGYN already left. Henry was around a lot.
We all sat in a row in the rec room, watching the monitor. We drank coffee and Beverages. Donuts, chips.
“Like watching the grass grow,” Henry said.
He and Rauden began to giggle.
The suspense was too much for Rini. She went for a drive.
The feeding traffic was arranged like this: They stuck the IV in my arm, with two sites, which ran both ways, out, then in, attached to bags. One bag took my blood, which got things in it to nourish the viables. The other bag brought the used blood back from them.
Rauden said, “The child doesn’t exactly eat the product that comes in. It doesn’t use its mouth. Even when it has one. It takes the product in and turns it into, ahem, itself. Herself. The product is like letters of the alphabet. She turns them into words. The words say what her body is. Well! Who knows who says what?” Everyone tried to ignore Rauden when he talked like this. It was interesting though.
The used blood got hung in its bag from my IV and piped back into me. I couldn’t keep giving blood without getting blood back. I had to stay alive too, or it wouldn’t work.
Well, we been doing this for three weeks now, and I am.
Ani, Berthe, Chi-Chi, and Madhur too.
It’s November. There is early snow. I am allowed to go upstairs and look. Henry made a loop of my heartbeat for while I’m gone. Janet thought anybody’s heartbeat would work, but Rauden didn’t want to take the chance.
When I got back downstairs, I conked out on the sofa. I was so tired.
Five weeks in.
“I! Come and see!” The viables got tails. Rini is at the monitor. She says they look cute. Henry said they looked like shrimp. I never saw a shrimp, but who cares? Just let me lie down.
“It’s the hormones, bro. How bad she feels is a good sign.” Rauden worries I am going into shock.
“It’s regular!”
Rauden would like to filter the blood coming back to me, but that would mess with the hormones. The hormones is a message the viables send to me, like, “I! Conk out. Breast! Hurt very bad.” It worked.
“Don’t worry, bro,” Henry pats Rauden’s hand. “She’ll stay alive.”
So far, so good.
Rini had a business emergency and went back to Toronto. Henry rigged up a special vidPhone in the rec room so she can call night or day.
It’s December.
We got an emergency too—an unknown van sets off the old system alarm near the gate! It’s an Inspector! Rauden says everyone be quiet as a goddamn mouse. Shuts the rec room door tight and went out to deal with things. Janet got scared. Henry got silly. He wheels right up to the window and is whispering to the tank, “Chi-Chi! I heard that. You are so grounded.” Everyone got the giggles, even Janet, but after that she was spooked and did not want me to leave the basement at all, in case somebody sees me and asks questions. She wants me to stay downstairs the whole rest of the time, so no one will know. She even wants to lock the basement door.
“For God’s sake!” Rauden says. “You can’t lock a person in a basement for nine months.”
Henry said, “Afraid she’ll get sick, bro?”
That got a good laugh.
It snowed again.
Rauden sent Lucas off. He was getting on everybody’s nerves, how much staring he been doing. Stares at me then at the viables’ picture on the monitor. Then me. Then viables. Then into space.
When he’s gone, Janet starts doing it!
“Oh, not you too, Janet!” Rauden goes. “Janet, they are as different from her as I am from Henry. If they’re her, I’m Henry. Yes! We have things in common—there is a certain predisposition. But that’s all it goddamn is.”
She kept doing it though.
“What do you think, I?” Henry asked. “Are they you?”
Henry called me I. Lucas did too. Rini called me Inez. Janet did not call me anything, most of the time.
I just said whatever. I don’t even know what the big deal is, who is who? They could be me if they want. Why would they want?
Rauden could sleep on the other sofa now Rini’s not using it, but he does not seem to sleep. I would see Henry sometimes sleeping in his wheelchair. Rini woke us all up, anyhow, calling at all hours, are they still alive?
Yes, Rini. They’re still alive.
Sometimes she just wants to change her mind about who will get what child. She was the only one who thought they will all be born.
And to tell the truth, just before Christmas, the one called Berthe died. Nobody even knew why.
She was ten weeks in.
Rini wanted to come down from Toronto but Rauden said what is the point? He put what is left of Berthe in the freezer.
So there were three left. And none of them were mine. Henry went to Quarryville. He had a job. It snowed.
I missed Berthe. Man! I cried. Rauden says it is the hormones. When Rini asked me how I feel, I cried. Why would I miss Berthe?
Twelve weeks in.
Maybe it was Ani I missed. She was still alive. But she wasn’t mine any more, because she had to replace Berthe. To tell the truth, I never took it serious, will Ani be mine. I didn’t even know what it meant.
On New Year’s Eve, Delmore heard horses and we shut the rec room door and Henry stayed with me in the room quiet as a mouse while Rauden waited upstairs with a shotgun.
False alarm.
There is also a false alarm about Mumbai hitting Ottawa, where Rini had gone for a meeting, but it took weeks till they figured it out and all that time she’s stuck in quarantine.
In Macau, it’s real. Mumbai took half the city.
Rauden rigged up a TV Signal to the monitor so we could follow the News. Taipei too. Then a big jump and Mumbai took out what’s left of Luzon.
Rini kept calling from Ottawa because what else is she going to do from quarantine? I told her Ani, Chi-Chi, and Madhur are still alive, but she wants to know how I am. I said I’m tired. She said put Rauden on.
He yelled at her. “Rini! She doesn’t want the goddamn child!” And he is right.
What am I going to do with a kid, the life I live?
I watched Ani very careful though. She moved. Sixteen weeks in.
Sometimes I thought about how it worked with Rini. How first she wanted gene-for-gene Madhur. Then Rauden talked her into my soma and her mitochondria. But when Rauden got viables from just me, she wanted them. Even the regular way, how it used to work, maybe you end up with a kid you didn’t plan. You changed your mind.
When Rini called, I told her Ani moved. She wants to hear about Madhur. I told her Madhur moved too. Chi-Chi too.
Between you and me though, Ani moved the best.
They are swinging on their, you know, the cord. They all got one and Rauden says how useful the cord is if you remember to save it, but nobody does. Ani did the swinging first. But now they’re all swinging. I showed Rauden. Is it regular? He looked it up and said it is. “No need to tell Rini, though.”
It snowed again.
It’s not a false alarm in Seattle, Washington. Two hundred cases confirmed. So it hit Mainland. But back in India, where it began, is worst. It hit all over again. It spread every direction.
Nineteen weeks in.
She was a little smaller than my hand. They all were.
Cases in Chicago.
It snowed and rained. Rained and snowed. I had a really deep sleep and when I woke up, Chi-Chi was dead in the tank.
Rini drove the hybrocar straight down from Toronto which took four days with border problems and the weather. When she got to the Farm she strode into the rec room like a big curtain, walked up to the window, and scratched her cheek till blood dripped on her clothes. It dripped on the floor. She tore her clothes. She began to walk up and down the rec room, holding up her bloody hands and making a noise. It was awful.
Rauden went upstairs. When he came down, he was drunk. “Get her out of here,” he said.
They hooked up my heartbeat loop and I went with Rini for drives. It was almost five months since I even went outdoors. We looked at scenery. It was cold and wet. When we got back to the Farm she was raving and moaning again.
It was like, when she looked at the ones who were still alive, she just saw the ones who weren’t. She seemed to get nervous looking at Ani and Madhur. Maybe she was thinking of Berthe and Lily. Maybe the original Madhur. Maybe the sisters.
They had heartbeats.
Rauden was drunk. He kept drinking even after Rini finally left. He was even popping pills. He was cold and sweating all the time. If you accidentally touched him, you would want to wash your hands, that’s how slimy he was from cold and sweat. Even Janet Delize was concerned, because if Rauden went off the deep end, the whole thing wouldn’t work. Sometimes he was totally out to lunch. I had to remind him to check the IV bags. I don’t know who had the idea, set him to work cloning again. I think it was Henry, calling from Albany. Henry said, give him a Project. That will keep him sober.
There were still viables in the freezers, twelve eggs from my Port Jervis Harvest and a lot of frozen soma. He had trouble getting it to work at first. That worked almost better—he had to be totally sober to concentrate. He tried conventional IVF with male solos twice. That never worked. He had to try two times before the nuclear Transfer worked. Then he got eight working viables, split those to multiples of four, and when it’s all done, thirty-two new viables went in cryoPaks upstairs.
Well, maybe you wonder, wait a minute. Thirty-two viables, just made to keep Rauden sober? How ethical is that? And by the way, what’s going to happen to them? Maybe they are not me, or Ani, or Madhur, but face it, they will be at least a little similar, right? Don’t I care if they are ever born? Well, I’m going to get back to you on that.