Genesis: A science-fiction short story. Read online

  Genesis

  A science-fiction short story.

  Jenna Inouye

  www.howtolivewrite.com

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  Genesis: A Science-Fiction Short Story

  © 2014 Jenna Inouye

  Electronically published on May 11, 2014.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  It began, as surprisingly quite a lot of things do, with a double murder homicide. On April 23rd, 2022, a 46-year-old Milwaukee man named Brett Winston discovered that his 33-year-old wife, Catherine Winston, was pregnant. Knowing that he was infertile and that the child could not be his, Brett immediately accused his distraught and extremely confused wife of having an affair.

  Catherine’s tearful pleadings were not enough to sate her husband’s rage. The very next day, Brett shot Catherine and her 31-year-old co-worker, Sam Donner; both died immediately. He then returned to his home and shot himself three times in the heart. Brett remained in intensive care for six days and three hours before he expired.

  Of course, no one would connect this to Genesis, not until much later. When it occurred, it was only a brief side note, located in an unread magazine column regarding rising increases of domestic violence following the particularly harsh and cold winter. The column went on to accuse economic woes and continuously shifting of gender roles for the dramatic but not entirely unusual event.

  The first instance of what would become the most momentous development in the entire history of mankind simply faded away in the tear-filled eyes of family members and acquaintances. They would never know the truth; they had only a sequence of formless typography designed to fill the whitespace for their solace.

  The first known case of Genesis was actually the 489th instance of it. That was when the world truly began to change—though perhaps it just became more of what it already was.

  Sylvia Rider taps her the stylus against the pad, nervously. The transparent plastic protective screening on the decade-old device is worn and peeling at the corners. It is old technology, the type typically reserved for governments and public schools. She wishes she had done more research, now, but there’s no more time; she simply has to do as best as she can.

  All of the data of her life is displayed before her on the screen; her income, her debt, her medical history and her state of mind. The essay portion stands alone: is it too long? Is it too short? Does she have any comma splices? Did they want the Oxford comma or not? She isn’t used to this, not even after her first two children. They change the rubric every quarter, to coincide with the current state of the world.

  And then there are the things that she can’t control: that her salary hasn’t increased with inflation, that she now has more mouths to feed, that she got into a motor vehicle accident earlier (minor) and that she was still paying off her medical bills (major). That she’s short, a little shorter than average, and that she’s gained some weight with age.

  In the back of her mind, of course, she’s hoping that none of this will matter; that she can neatly sidestep the protocols. But, deep down, she knows that isn’t a possibility. It wells up inside of her, a sickening, twisted feeling.

  She steels her resolve and taps the button at the bottom of the screen; it is final, and it is done. The small saving icon appears in the middle and rotates, stuttering slightly as the device struggles.

  Sylvia blanks out her mind. She can’t think about it any longer; it is out of her hands. She walks up to the small, narrow window and pushes the pad in the slit of the glass, looking away. At the other end of the window, an older man impassively takes the pad from her.

  “You’re now number 23, please wait your turn,” he says, not looking up from his touch screen. Sylvia nods, sits down on the hard plastic, 3D printed chair, and waits. She shifts in her chair; it seems that they make them to be intentionally uncomfortable.

  There are over two dozen other women in the room; a few with men, but most not. They are all aged between 21 and 29. Some of them look worried, some look frightened; some look bored, and some look eager.

  Sylvia knows that the way they look signifies very little regarding what is actually going on in their mind. She has been in this room enough, now, and apart from two other women, she appears to be the oldest.

  “12,” calls the man over the intercom system; an antiquated relic that crackles and pops. “12.”

  A young woman with light brown hair and deep brown eyes jumps up, nervously, almost spilling the contents of her purse. She wears a small, yellow sundress and despite her age she looks barely out of her teens.

  She collects her things and then races up to the window; Sylvia can hear here talking now, but can’t hear the contents of the conversation. She doesn’t really want to; she’s just so nervous that she’s grasping for anything to do.

  Most of the women around her are looking at their phones, or speaking with their partners—if they have a partner present. No one speaks to each other. There is nothing they could say to each other that they don’t already know.

  The girl disappears into the back, led down a small hall of cubicles. She bounces lightly; Sylvia wonders if that’s the way she looked, her first time.

  “13,” calls the man over the intercom system, and then he stands and waves another clerk over to his desk. The other clerk, a younger man, takes over automatically. “13.”

  Her name had been Kathleen Cardoff, and she was 27 years of age. That, of course, wasn’t the remarkable part. Kathleen Cardoff had, in her life, never been with a man; she did not doubt this as it had been quite an emotional blight upon her for some time.

  It wasn’t that she was very unattractive, or very overweight or very shy. It was simply that she was a little unattractive, a little overweight and a little shy. These things together had created the perfect storm of imperfection. She could hardly point to a part of herself that she was satisfied of or confident in.

  When she began displaying the tell-tale signs of pregnancy, she had no choice but to write it off as motion sickness at first, and then the flu much later. The irregularity of her menstrual cycle was not unusual for her, and it was only when she began to show, she became alarmed.

  At first, Kathleen suspected that she might have some form of tumor; her medical practitioner, naturally, immediately saw the classic symptoms of pregnancy.

  An older man who valued his clients as though they were friends and family, he gently explained to Kathleen that not all methods of birth control were effective. To him, this happened all the time; young women who were just a little too unaware of their bodies.

  An inkling of doubt rose up in the doctor’s mind when he discovered that Kathleen was still physically a virgin; but that wasn’t actually entirely unusual, in his experience.

  Much has been said, won and lost over virginity for thousands of years, but it’s always been a fairly nebulous thing; as a doctor, he knew, that it was rare but possible that Kathleen had simply not ruptured her hymen during intercourse.

  The doctor tried to assuage all of Kathleen’s nervousness and anxiety by letting her know that she was going to have a healthy child. Kathleen, naturally, could not accept the fact that she was having a child at all.

  Kathleen went home that day feeling confused; she had no idea why this was happening to her and, when it came down to
it, she wasn’t certain if she was scared or pleased. She had always wanted to have a child, but the opportunity had never presented itself. Perhaps, she thought, this was meant to be.

  Five months, two weeks and eight days later she gave birth to a small but healthy baby girl who had her eyes.

  In fact, the child had Kathleen’s everything.

  The child was a perfect clone.

  “23,” calls the man on the intercom. “23.”

  Sylvia Rider immediately jumps up in her seat. She had been expecting it, of course, but now that the moment is upon her she feels quite unprepared.

  She waves at the man behind the glass as she walks up, nervously, but he doesn’t look up. Instead, she picks up her pace, navigating through the chairs of the waiting room, and rushes herself to the glass.

  “Sylvia Rider?” he asks, still looking at the screen. In the boy’s eyes, she can just barely make out the reflection of her profile.

  “Yes,” she says, handing over her phone, on which is displayed her identification documents.

  “You are 28 years of age?” he asks. “You are having your third child?”

  “Yes,” she affirms. The young man scans her ID, and then hands back her phone.

  “Please go down the hall to desk 24, to your left,” says the man.

  “Thank you,” says Sylvia, adjusting the strap of her now heavy bag and turning to walk down the long, linoleum-covered hall. She feels slightly ill and slightly dizzy, and she isn’t certain whether it’s the pregnancy or the location.

  At the desk, Sylvia is met by an older woman; she is in her late 50s or early 60s, with gently graying hair. She wears a stern, black suit that is somewhat reduced in severity by her rounded features. She looks up at Sylvia and gestures to the chair; Sylvia sits down.

  “Ms. Rider?” the woman asks, studying the thin silver screen in front of her, turned away so that Sylvia cannot see it. Sylvia looks over at the woman’s plastic name tag; it says Charlene Woodrow.

  “Yes,” said Sylvia. She begins handing over her phone, but the woman waves her away.

  “Alright,” says Mrs. Woodrow. She takes a few moments, raising her hand and scrolling through the data on the screen. “This is your third?”

  “Yes,” said Sylvia.

  “Is there any particular reason you didn’t sign up for the Bulls?” asks Mrs. Woodrow.

  “I didn’t—I didn’t really think about it,” says Sylvia. It’s not a real excuse; it’s just the first thing that enters into her mind. If she had given the truth, it would have been a list of considerations; she had labored over the decision for quite some time.

  “Well, too late now, I suppose,” says Mrs. Woodrow. “My niece is in Bulls, you know. It’s quite fair, what they do there.”

  “Of course,” says Sylvia. She thinks to herself that she probably knows more about it than Mrs. Woodrow does; her research had been quite extensive.

  “Okay, then, I have good news and bad news,” says Mrs. Woodrow, turning away from the screen and leaning over her desk. “Now, the good news is that we aren’t going to opt to terminate. While you have had three children, it looks like you’re over the coverage cap in your class. That said, you’ll need to undergo sterilization after your third; you’re not going to be allowed another dependent.”

  “Okay,” says Sylvia; she had already known that was coming. She takes a deep breath and then continues. “But actually—I was interested in termination. This time. I mean, I was hoping to terminate this time.”

  The woman leans back behind the desk and blinks in surprise, then looks at her screen.

  “You opted for sterilization?” she asks, tapping at her screen again and looking up and down. “I don’t even see the request forms. Were you rejected under medical grounds? When did you opt in?”

  “Well—no—I didn’t,” admits Sylvia, briefly taken aback by the fusillade of questions. The woman’s expression immediately turns from concern to consternation. Sylvia’s words rush outwards. “But I had intended to, if you look at your records, you’ll see that I was in the hospital for six months after my second. There were complications. And then there was this accident. I just didn’t have time to put the paperwork through before—“

  “Oh, well honey, it’s too late,” says Mrs. Woodrow, shaking her head. “We’ve already run everything through; the pregnancy is viable and has been marked to proceed.”

  Sylvia knew this already, she had only hoped. She nods to herself, blankly, and hopes that she filled out the forms properly. She flashes back to her debt; she flashes back to her accident, and to her health.

  Why had she consumed so much caffeine lately? She knew she shouldn’t have been eating so many coffee pods. This was definitely going to affect her, but how much? How many years?

  “Are we okay?” asks Mrs. Woodrow, with her eyebrows raised; she’s not being compassionate, she merely wants to know if she can continue with the meeting. Sylvia nods, numbly.

  “Well okay then,” says Mrs. Woodrow, with an encouraging but false smile. She looks back at the screen, and then continues. “Now, for the bad news. As I’m sure you know, your audit doesn’t look very good. Your household income has fallen. Am I to understand you’re now a single parent household?”

  “I was after my second, yes,” says Sylvia. “That was already—”

  “And your parents have passed, both of them?” asks Mrs. Woodrow. She swipes quickly at a small pad on her desk, entering in data too quickly for Sylvia to follow.

  “Yes, my father passed this year,” says Sylvia, caught off guard. She hadn’t realized that it would be part of the consideration process. She doesn’t remember the question being asked before.

  “No attempts at all at natural children?” asks Mrs. Woodrow, and now her voice is expectant. Sylvia can tell that now Mrs. Woodrow wants the answer as much for herself as for the paperwork.

  “I’ve really… I did try,” says Sylvia, and leaves it at that.

  “Income hasn’t changed?” asks Mrs. Woodrow, her eyes now studying Sylvia. Sylvia cannot tell if the look in her eyes is compassion or irritation.

  Sylvia wonders, to herself, why they ask them to fill out the paperwork only to verify everything later, in person.

  “Yes,” says Sylvia, reluctantly. She wants to explain, but she knows the explanation will fall on deaf ears. “I mean no. I mean… it hasn’t changed.”

  “And debt hasn’t changed?” asks Mrs. Woodrow.

  “Well—actually,” says Sylvia, hesitantly. “It has, actually—“

  “Yes, I see,” says Mrs. Woodrow, nodding to herself. She again enters something into the computer. “And have there been any other major life changes?”

  “No,” says Sylvia, automatically. She then thinks through the past couple of years; she really doesn’t know what constitutes a major life change.

  “But I see one of your children has been diagnosed with a mental deficiency, earlier this year,” says Mrs. Woodrow, her eyes raising upwards as though catching Sylvia in a lie.

  “No, that’s not what it was,” says Sylvia, leaning over the table. “They said that she’s developmentally abnormal, yes, but the abnormality was positive. She’s falling outside of the spectrum on the positive end; she’s advanced for her age. They were very clear about it not being a deficiency.”

  “I see,” says Mrs. Woodrow, entering something else into the computer. She finally turns to Sylvia.

  “Upon completion of your audit, which of course you can appeal, we have decided that your third child will need to be sterilized,” says Mrs. Woodrow.

  Sylvia nods; she had expected this. It was common enough; her second child had been sterilized as well.

  Mrs. Woodrow continues, “Further, we are afraid that we can only certify her until 31 years of age.”

  Sylvia’s heart drops; her mouth immediately dries. She wonders if she heard that properly, but a look into the woman’s eyes tells her that yes, she undoubtedly did.

  “What?” she
asks, and the voice comes out as a whisper. “I’ve never heard of—“

  “It’s new this quarter,” says Mrs. Woodrow. “We reduced the minimum certification from 35 to 30. It was not a decision the bureau took lightly, but it was necessary given the current global economic situation.”

  “I—that, you can’t do that,” says Sylvia, but she can already see that Mrs. Woodrow has shut down; she has leaned back in her chair and is staring again at her screen. Sylvia opens and closes her mouths before finding her voice again. “How do I appeal?”

  “You want to appeal?” asks Mrs. Woodrow, looking at her out of the corner of her eye. “I can tell you right now, the appeal process isn’t easy. Unless you’ve failed to tell me something major, you won’t win. You’ll just spend your entire pregnancy tied up in paperwork.”

  “I want to appeal,” says Sylvia, with conviction. Mrs. Woodrow reluctantly sighs.

  “What is your official email address?” asks Mrs. Woodrow. “It must be a government email address.”

  Sylvia gives the woman the information and the woman, with a few hard taps, sends along the requested forms.

  Mrs. Woodrow shakes her head, her tone changing immediately from casual to stiff; she doesn’t like it when people try to appeal, she feels that it is a personal slight.

  Sylvia leaves the office; she barely even sees the others she walks past. She is lost within her own mind.

  Kathleen Cardoff’s pregnancy would have gone entirely unnoticed if she had simply been quiet about it. Certainly, the child looked very similar to her—but children are supposed to look similar to their mothers. Certainly, she had maintained that she could not possibly be pregnant—but many women did exactly that.

  Like a terrier with its prey, however, Kathleen just couldn’t let it go. It wasn’t just about her; it was about her little girl. She couldn’t get past the fact that the girl looked just like her. She took out pictures, showing whoever asked; she told everyone she knew her story.