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  The woman on the other side of the room spoke into a console on the wall. “I need someone down here right now. Yes, double the dose at least, maybe even go higher than that.” She paused and looked at Sarah again. “Think we’ll need to operate sooner than usual.”

  Sarah was vaguely aware of more white uniforms around her, unknown faces…a pain in the arm, then nothing.

  Day 7

  “You understand why it had to be this way don’t you? It was never going to be easy for either of you.”

  Sarah leaned forward a little and scratched her forehead before answering. “Yes…there was no alternative. I think I understand now.” She hesitated, trying to shake confusion from her thought processes. “It’s just very hard you know? Very hard. Where is Robert?”

  “How are you feeling Sarah?”

  “Tired. How long have I been here?”

  “A few days now. Look Sarah, time’s a great healer – it’s a terrible old cliché but it’s true. You should be out of here in a few days’ now.”

  She took a tissue from the small table next to her and wiped the corner of each eye, emotions beginning to crescendo inside her again, thoughts re-exerting themselves although they weren’t making any sense.

  “Look we can break for a while if you like. I can see this is very difficult for you.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s ok.”

  “Take your time.”

  Dr Pike scanned over his notes, more for distraction than for the necessity of reading them. He made a hastily written annotation to his scribblings and watched as Sarah drank in large gulps from the tumbler of water also stationed next to her.

  She noted the date on a clock above Pike’s head and finally made eye contact again. “It’s the twelfth today is it?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Our third wedding anniversary. I hadn’t even realised. She shook her head and peered into the liquid of the tumbler, swirling it slowly as she did so. “Doesn’t really seem appropriate to think about that sort of thing right now.”

  “Well perhaps not right now but…”

  “Time’s a great healer?”

  Dr Pike forced a smile, predominantly on one side of his mouth, before nodding. “Yes, Sarah, it is. Would you like me to get you some more water?” He started to get up from his chair.

  “No, I’m fine, really. Never been in any sort of counselling before, that’s all.” She paused and motioned to the side of her head. “Feeling a little sore here.” Scanning the room, she looked at the wall to her right and let a deep breath calm her. Nothing interrupted her gaze until see saw a painting of Christ on the cross; she stared at it for a long moment, imagining the tiny brush strokes that had been required. The detail on the anguished face looking skyward and the adorning crown of thorns. She looked away again towards Pike.

  “That’s probably a side-effect of the medication. According to these notes you’re on a fairly heavy dose of phenobarbital amongst other things.”

  “Yes, they say it helps me to relax. I remember some other doctors in here with me a few days ago. Were they helping me to relax too?”

  Dr Pike nodded and glanced at his notes again before replying. “That’s right, Sarah, they were. You hit your head quite badly and we’re helping you to get ready to leave here. You’re making really good progress understanding everything that happened last week.” He smiled, hoping Sarah would be prompted into speaking again but when an awkward silence had lasted a few more uncomfortable seconds he continued. “Ok, let’s carry on from yesterday. We were doing really well. Why don’t you tell me again how you and your husband ended up coming to see us here. What would it be, just under a year ago now?”

  “Well, we’d been married a couple of years. Met at work, got engaged in New York at a restaurant next to where the Empire States Building used to be. Robert was on a secondment over here when we got together and we were on a trip to the east coast where his parents live. I think he secretly wanted his family’s approval before he got down on one knee. Did we speak about this before?”

  “And you were happily married?”

  “Yes, we…we were.” She paused for a moment. “Sorry, my memory’s a bit slow at the moment.”

  “It’s ok, there’s no hurry Sarah.”

  “Yes, we were happy I think….and had a very good standard of living. Robert was working hard with long hours but that’s what stood us in good stead before we came here. We had a property down at the beach, could afford decent holidays and so on. Our genetic credits were at maximum I think.”

  “Ninety-six percent, according to the paperwork here.”

  “Ninety-six, that’s right, I remember Robert mentioning that figure now.” She paused again to finish the remaining water in her glass. “I guess Robert’s background helped there too. I mean his parents are both academics. She’s an emeritus Professor now at Stanford and his father’s still contributing to the law literature and he’s well into his seventies.

  “And you’ve not done too badly for yourself, right?”

  “Well, I’m not quite at their level but….”

  “Teaching physics to school leaver level isn’t bad Sarah - you shouldn’t feel down on yourself.” Pike paused again observing her closely. “You know that these things just happen sometimes. Even now, when we think we’ve got all this stuff under control. The reality is we’ve known the structure of DNA for what, about 80 years now, and we’re still learning about these things.” Dr Pike’s tone was calm and measured, although she suspected it had been well rehearsed to become so. He stood and poured another glass of water from his own table before bringing it the short distance across the room to Sarah.

  “Thanks.” She wished the room they were in had a window but it had none. Just something to look out of for a second to gather her thoughts, something to distract her. Perhaps that’s why they had painted the walls such a bright white colour – an attempt to give the impression of lightness in what felt to her like an emotional mausoleum. She ran a finger across an eyebrow and took a sip of the now full again glass.

  “So you’d been married a couple of years…”

  “Yes, so we were married and then, naturally, the question of kids came up.”

  “Hadn’t you discussed it before?”

  “Kind of, but in a fairly light-hearted way. You know, it was more like a conversation we would have properly when we were all married and grown up.” She smiled at Pike for reassurance and he reciprocated, although his eyes were fixed and emotionless. “I never got the feeling that Robert was really keen. No perhaps that’s not fair, he was ambivalent I guess. Like I said, he was putting in long shifts at the office…”

  “But you wanted to start a family, is that fair to say?”

  “Yes…perhaps if I’m honest I thought it could help bring us closer together.”

  “And how did Robert react when you told him you wanted children?”

  “Well, non-committal as I said but I think when he realised how much genetic credit he had and how much we could put towards a child of our own…I think that changed things for him.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “It changed from being another young married couple following the predictable route of getting a house, having kids and so on to….how can I describe it….to having our own special science project if you like. As soon as he looked the GenKids website, his attitude changed. He could see just what was possible and that really excited him.”

  “Go on.”

  “Can we take a break? My head’s kind of hurting”

  Dr Pike spoke into the communication console on the wall for a brief moment. “We’ll have someone come down with some pills.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You were saying that Robert was excited….”

  Sarah sighed and was silent for a few seconds before continuing. “Some couples just get to choose the standard stuff right? Eye and hair colour, height, sex obviously, and that’s about it. But….we could afford to go virtually the whol
e way - enhanced intelligence, for example, and actually tailor where the intellectual strengths would be. Robert’s always been good with numbers so the genome was manipulated to enhance logic and numeracy. Peter would….” She stopped.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing…I’m not used to saying his name. Took us ages to agree on it.” Her voice began to break as she spoke. “Peter…”

  “It’s ok, carry on…” Dr Pike was interrupted as a young male nurse entered carrying a small paper cup. “For your head Sarah.”

  She took the pale green pills on offer and swallowed them slowly. The nurse was already half-way out of the room when she offered a whispered thanks.

  “Try to focus on the potential the two of you had as parents Sarah, that’s what we’ve been looking at these last few days. Think what you’ve achieved. I know it’s hard. Ninety-six percent genetic credit, I mean, that’s amazing….”

  Sarah continued, her gaze unmoving. “Athleticism, anger control, high levels of emotional intelligence, empathy, they were all there in him….”

  “You achieved something truly amazing Sarah. Both of you, you and your husband.”

  “My son, my beautiful little boy….” Dr Pike nodded in agreement and smiled at her.

  “It was sad what happened but you must be so proud.”

  “I was proud…and really happy, probably for the first time in ages”. She bit her lip as she began to nod slowly. “For a few days we were one happy little family. And then…and then you killed him.” She was calm as she said the words and then put her hands to her mouth.

  “Sarah…you knew…”

  “You murdered my one-week-old son.”

  “Sarah...”

  She paused and looked to the picture on the wall again. Single tears started to flow down her cheeks as she spoke again in a near whisper. “All I’d wanted was a child of my own. I didn’t give a damn about the GenKids project. He would have been perfect just born naturally.” She stared now at Pike who had turned to the communications console next to him. She could feel anger starting to course through her body, her head clearing of fogginess, prohibited memories flooding back into her mind. “Do you know what happened to Peter? Do you!?”

  “Sarah, please try to relax, you’re clearly still very agitated…”

  “I’ll tell you what your company did. We’d only been home for a few days after the birth. Peter was asleep in a cot in our room…I remember now, it was a mild night and I’d opened a window to let some air in. I remember Robert waking me. He looked scared. He must have known there were people in the house…”

  Dr Pike spoke hurriedly into the communications console as she continued, but Sarah didn’t listen to the requests he was making into the mouthpiece.

  “…he got up, told me to stay with Peter….he’d not even got to the bedroom door when they were on him. There were four of them, beating him. He tried to crawl over to Peter’s cot but…..but he couldn’t get there. They just carried on hitting him. I tried to pull them away but I must have hit my head when they pushed me. Then they saw Peter and he was crying by now. I couldn’t get to him.…”

  “Sarah, stop. It had to be that way. We’ve discussed this.”

  “Why? Because he wasn’t perfect like all your other ‘products’?”

  “Because his genome was unstable. It didn’t show for the first few days in the hospital but when he was screened again it became clear that his final genotype wasn’t authorised under the rules of the Senate. He had to be…” Pike put his head in his hands. “Christ, I thought we had this!”

  Sarah continued to talk, her voice becoming increasingly frantic “He was murdered! Your men put a pillow over his face. I watched them do it. Two of them held it down over his face. All I could hear were his screams and then one of the men punched the pillow. He stopped screaming then and...” She choked on her words as she spoke “…and then there was silence.”

  “Sarah, you were told about the sort of problems that have happened when a child grows up with a post-engineering anomaly. That’s why they have had to be controlled, contained.”

  “And that justifies killing a baby!?”

  “Martial law has been in operation for months now. Something had to be done. As soon as Peter’s results came through an order was sent out. Where the hell are you!?”

  She saw that Pike was now yelling into the communications console. “Oh God, no”, she said as she held her hands to her head. “I want to remember, I want to remember everything that you’ve done! Where’s Robert, what have you done with him? Robert!” She got up and started to slowly walk towards Pike screaming as she moved. “Let me out, let me out of here!”

  Pike stood from his chair ready to make for the door but Sarah lunged at him. They both slammed hard against the wall next to the communications console and fell to the ground.

  “Sarah, no!” Pike desperately tried to remove the hands that now wrapped around his neck but Sarah was gripping tightly, squeezing with new-found strength, her face contorted with pain and rage. Pike gasped as the door burst open and three uniformed staff entered.

  “You killed my son! My baby! No, no, leave me alone!” Her screams reverberated around the tiny room as she was pulled away, still scratching at Pike’s reddening neck.

  She managed to struggle for a few seconds longer and then lost consciousness.

  Day 15

  “How do you feel today Sarah?”

  Silence. The head turned to meet the gaze of her questioner. It was bruised around the mouth and temples; the eyes looked through the other occupant in the room and then turned back to the picture on the wall. “I feel fine, thank you, Doctor.”

  “Good. Your husband may be able to visit you soon. That would be nice wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, I’d like that very much.” She turned back to Pike again, her words slow and slurring as she continued. “I’m glad that everything makes sense now.”

  “Perhaps you can see Peter too if you’d like to.”

  Sarah moved her hand to feel the stiches on the now shaven side of her head and smiled weakly.

  “Sarah?”

  She looked hard at Pike before answering. “Peter? I’m afraid he died Doctor. It was for the best though”.

  Pike made a note on the clipboard in his lap before looking back up at her “That’s right Sarah, it was for the best. You’ve made remarkable progress” They sat in silence for a few moments longer before Pike nodded decisively and got up to leave the room.

  “Dr Pike?”

  “Yes, Sarah?”

  “Thank you”

  Her body felt heavy where she sat and light-headedness comforted her mind. Now alone, she looked around the room again and smiled. But soon the smile gave way to laughter. Hysterical, uncontrollable laughter.

  The Teacher – Sandra Gee

  ‘She’s not mummy’.

  That was what he said. We were standing out of the wind, with our backs against the flaking brick wall next to the school’s iron gates. I was holding his small, cold hand in mine. It was a chill autumn day, and he had had no gloves or scarf. I’d said that mummy wouldn’t be long, he wouldn’t have long to wait. He had looked up at me as he spoke, his pale face serious, and I could tell he knew what he was saying. Even at eight, children can be quite matter-of-fact.

  I looked down at him, but before I could ask what he meant a car swerved across the road and jerked to a stop in front of us, tyres hissing on the gravel and scraping the kerb. As usual she flung open the door and left it hanging wide onto the pavement, showing the mess inside to the world.

  She was about twenty-five. Always dishevelled-looking, as if she’d dressed in the dark. Her blonde hair was black at the roots, dragged back with an elastic band. She wore an old blue sweater, with jeans, and grubby training shoes. She took Mihkel by his other hand, and began pulling him away, then stopped and turned back to me.

  ‘Thank you’ she said, ‘for this with … ‘ she seemed to forget his name, and ha
lted, until I finished her sentence for her.

  ‘Mihkel,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, Mihkel,’ she repeated. ‘Thank you’.

  She stared at me for a moment, as if she might say something else, but thought better of it. I watched her drive off, jerking through the gears. I could see him looking at me through the rear window, his dark eyes a contrast to his white face. I thought he looked afraid.

  At home that evening, I sat listening to the radio. Although it was one of my favourite composers, I found myself unable to concentrate. I was thinking about Mihkel. Why had he said she wasn’t his mother? She was registered as his mother at the school, although I have to say, I could see no facial resemblance. There was no father, so far as I could tell. There rarely was with women like that.

  He was a quiet child, arriving a few weeks after term had begun. It’s difficult for children to join a class where everyone has already made friends, particularly for a child from a different country, although he seemed not to mind. He spoke little, although clearly understood what was said to him. Staying largely in the background, he did not draw attention to himself. I noticed that his clothes were often a little - not soiled - but discoloured, as though everything was washed together, and his socks were sometimes unmatched.

  He was already in class when I arrived the next day, sitting alone at his desk, drawing. There were a couple of other children in the class, chatting together, whose parents started work early. That was unusual for him, but a good sign, I thought. Perhaps his mother – or whoever she was - was making more of an effort. I tried to see his drawing, but he covered it with his arm. I pretended to walk away, then quietly looked over his shoulder. It was a strange drawing – it looked like someone sitting on the floor surrounded by circles and squares.

  ‘Is that mummy?’ I asked.

  He thought for a moment, and shook his head. I wanted to ask what he meant about her not being his mother, but other children were starting to arrive. And children of course miss nothing.