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(Also of note: Some of the names in this story are currently still those of real people working in real places, doing the actual work described here, and some of what they do in the story could be taken pretty negatively - I do not intend to publish the story with these names and/or characterizations as they currently appear; this is my first draft. I am not trying to slander anyone.)
“Travel used to be so difficult,” his deep voice resonated with the roar of the plane’s engine, but was never close to being lost to it, “even with great wealth, everything had to be scheduled around the sun.” His long, supple fingers teased gently through her golden tresses. She lounged softly against him, head in his lap, more lulled by his comforting voice than attendant to his words. She liked the feeling of his hands in her hair, and remembered the ferocity with which he pulled it in lust with a longing fondness. “These recent decades have finally allowed me to ignore that blight in the sky and truly conduct myself globally with ease.”
They had boarded the plane inside a private hangar, closed to the sun as soon as their limousine had entered, from luxury to luxury without risk. When the plane landed in Beijing, it would be dusk. It was an exaggeration to say the harmful effects of the sun could be entirely ignored, but when desired and when enough expense could be ignored, even incidental sunlight did not need to be tolerated. The fact that incidental sunlight was little more than an annoyance, and the irrefutable evidence that he could spend an overcast day strolling in Central Park with his wife notwithstanding, he still felt triumphant conducting business day and night, anywhere in the world, the same as any other powerful CEO.
Without speech, the engine noise became like silence or emptiness, and their minds wandered. Her voice came softly into it, and with sadness. If he had not been gazing down at her face, able to read her lips, he might not have understood. “...do you really think they’ll be able to help us?”
“Dr. Daley could have helped us, or Lanza, or Melton and Eggan before them. Any of them ...” his voice was growing angry at the memory of their refusals, and he paused and tried to maintain his composure. He looked at her sad eyes, almost fearful to the point of tears, and took a deep breath. “All of them are capable of doing the research, and all of them need the money we’re offering to reach their own goals. Nuclear transfer to create new embryonic cells is cutting edge research, and with the government ban there’s not a lot of money being put into it in the US. The problem is that we aren’t merely asking to fund research for treating disease, and those ... those... cowards,” his voice was sure, stern, but without his earlier anger, “are afraid of the ethical problems of our situation.”
“Will these other doctors be any different? Will they help us?” Her soft voice was just a breath forced out between her trembling, soft lips, barely loud enough for his excellent hearing to make out. It was what she’d been asking every step of the way. She’d asked after Daley had refused them at Harvard. She’d asked after Lanza had thrown them out in Worcester, as they flew across the country. She asked again now, as they turned from the experts at UC San Francisco to those at Beijing University, and he still didn’t have a better answer. He had to leave it up to Li and Dong; they had to choose for themselves. Genius was not genius under their mind control, and they needed true and inspired genius to achieve their dreams.
“If they turn us down at Beijing University, we can go to Xinhua Hospital, and if they turn us out there, we can appeal to Dr. Zheng at Rui-Jin Hospital, or to the Ministry of Public Health directly. China wants to lead the world in biotech. Our success would mean so much more success for them, it doesn’t make sense to turn us away.” He was trying to sound as confident and assured as his words were meant to be, and while this was no challenge to him in a board room or business meeting, he only knew how to be emotionally honest with his wife. “And if China doesn’t want to help us, I’m sure Dr. Hwang would leap at the opportunity to clear his own name with the sort of work we’re asking for.”
“He’s our last resort before I hole myself up and try to do it alone.” She smiled, imagining him in a white lab coat, bent over a microscope, playing the scientist instead of the businessman for a change. “And you know how silly that would be.” He smiled, too.
They didn’t bring the subject up again for the duration of the flight, instead recounting their favorite memories of their previous visits to the Far East and trying to keep their minds on pleasant thoughts. Effectively distracted, the long flight vanished as though put in proper scale with their long lives, and they soon disembarked, hand in hand under darkening skies.
“What you’re asking for is exactly what the public is worried we’re doing.” Their conversation was comfortably in Mandarin, and while Professor Li had been put somewhat at ease by the couple’s provincial accent - not at all like foreigners, they sounded almost more like natives than half his colleagues after all their studies abroad - it did not overcome the ethical dilemma they were asking him to overlook. “Our government wants us to break new ground, to develop new therapies and technologies and to get out of reach while the giant lays sleeping. But you go too far. China is not ready to pursue human cloning.”
“We aren’t actually discussing human cloning, as such. What we propose is simply a radical response to extreme reproductive failure.”
“I can see that,” Li did not set down the extensive documentation they had provided about their situation and their goals, his eyes never even left the pages to give them an accusing look. He was totally absorbed by the advanced work they had already gathered, the background that so closely overlapped his own as-yet-unpublished work. “Have you considered trying to clone only the reproductive organs, using something like Tepha’s biodegradable polymers, and then using the resultant organs to proceed to normal IVF?”
“Flip to the blue tab, on the bottom,” Li turned to the indicated section and his brow furrowed as he read, “Unfortunately, as you were probably already aware, ovaries and testes are somewhat more complex than the heart valves they’ve been growing at John Mayer’s laboratory.”
“So I see...” his eyes were scanning through the extensive details on their mounting failures, “... and this research is ongoing?”
“At great expense, yes. This is despite the lack of functioning cells to do the cloning from in our personal situation. We’re still interested in the possibility of helping others.”
“Ah, yes, I see that even if the technique proved successful,” he turned back to where his bulbous finger was holding the page he’d left off at, and began reading again as he spoke, “it would be of no use due to the nature of the challenge at the cellular level.”
“Yes, and we’ve found that although the cells do not behave normally and do not reproduce on their own, their nuclei contain intact and apparently normal DNA. Even the mitochondrial DNA is normal. There has been some success with nuclear transfer already, but none of the people we have available have the experience and background with stem cells and creating viable stem cell lines that you and your team do.”
“Strictly with somatic cells. The data is in the last section, the striped red flag at the back.”
Pages turned quickly, Li’s fat fingers not even bothering to mark his progress. His head scanned back and forth, back and forth, as though shaking a defiant ‘no’ to the wealth of information before him. When he had signed the non-disclosure agreement just to get a look at their documents, the thick binder stamped with “Eyes Only” and “Secret”, Li had never guessed that one couple could have done so much, put so many experimental techniques into practice, and explored so many avenues of bleeding-edge research for their own private problem. Each scientist had reacted the same way when presented this overview, engrossed and excited and eager to see more. As Li looked at the exhaustive reports and data, pages crackling in his excited hands as he paged through a bit too quickly, he nearly became excited enough about the prospect of working for such a dedicated and apparently endlessly wealthy investor that he forgot about his ethical concerns. “This is... This is astounding. You’re so close.”
“We believe that your team, with my resources and the ten times more background research that that we’ve already done, could have the two viable embryos we’re looking for within a year.”
“If the team that worked on this joined us,” Li held up the data in his hands a little higher, finally looking up for a moment in excitement, “we could do it in six months.”
“That would be wonderful,” he felt his wife’s hand tightening on his own as the conversation seemed to be turning their way, “and I can have the rest of the data released to your team by morning if you--” Li spoke up, cutting him off.
“Nothing we’re doing is based on publication. This is all private, although of course your lab would keep any equipment, upgrades and certainly all experience for future research.”
“We can’t do it.” He closed the report and began straightening it up after his wild ride through it before returning it to its originating binder. “I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time, and I wish you luck, but I can’t become involved in this research. Beijing University can’t become involved in this research.”
“That’s not the point. I’ve already told you, it goes beyond modern medical ethics into untested waters, and we aren’t prepared to find out whether human cloning is grounds for capital punishment, or a celebrated breakthrough. We aren’t going to be the first.” Professor Li stood up and handed over the re-sealed binder as he ushered them out of his office. His mind was made up.
“We appreciate your taking the time for this consultation, Professor. As discussed, our Foundation will be making a donation to your research as our way of saying thanks.”
“That will not be necessary,” he was practically pushing them down the hall toward the exit, now. “If you never return, that will be thanks enough.”
“Pardon me, but we have a meeting with Dr. Dong in just a few minutes. I believe he is waiting for--”
“Dr. Dong is unable to meet with you at this time. He sends his apologies.” Li all but literally kicked them out through the secure doors and into the night, without another brusque word.
In the end, he had been right about Dr. Hwang’s acidic interest in completing his research, though neither of them really believed his name could be cleared within the scientific community. Luckily for Hwang, his new investors only cared about results, not reputation, and they had the money to set him up in complete isolation from public science and scrutiny. No peer review, only the watchful eyes of the man who probably could have done the research for himself, and the woman with whom he shared a love that motivated their work.
She had been resigned about working with Hwang for his lack of scruples, but it was not long before that became an effective lubricant toward their progress. The man had pressured his own lab assistants to donate their ovum when he couldn’t obtain enough through the appropriate channels. He had duplicated and massaged data in order to make his successes appear more successful and to minimize the appearance of failure. He had published these unethically generated, heavily manipulated papers in prestigious peer-reviewed journals, perpetrating fraud against dozens of peers and thousands of readers. He was not an ethicist, and she did not want to be defrauded herself.
Still, when he needed human ovum to work with and below board sources were suggested, he did not balk. When his investors personally escorted dazed young women into the lab in the middle of the night and told him not to worry about the paperwork, he did not bat an eye. When things became even more abbreviated and he was allowed to harvest whole organs without bothering to anesthetize before or close them after, he saw it as a sign that his investors were serious about getting results. The women never cried out in pain, and Hwang never saw what became of them when he was through - he took what was needed and everything else was out of his hands, off his mind. At long last, he had found an environment where he could move science forward without concern for such trivial matters.
Within three months, Hwang had over a dozen new, viable embryonic stem cell lines from human cells, all created via nuclear transfer. In another month, with help from research from another lab - whose technicians Hwang was never allowed to communicate with directly, only receiving their data and conclusions - and with a few secrets he had considered unfortunate accidents in his own research, he was able to create any number of apparently normal blastocysts from each of the new lines without destroying them. More dazed and compliant young women were brought in, implanted with these blastocysts, and kept in dormitories on site to monitor their development in detail. A growing staff Hwang did not know and barely communicated with did most of the hands-on work, and Hwang was only ever needed to handle the most difficult and complex parts of the operations.
By the time Hwang finally got his hands on the cells with which he was supposed to be the most concerned, he was beyond being surprised and too short-sighted to see anything more than challenges to overcome. There was no bigger picture to piece together, no supernatural stories to recall, only samples of cells unlike anything he had ever seen, and he buried himself in his work. He dedicated weeks to becoming an expert in everything that had already been done with the unusual cells. He stopped working on new lines, forgot about the tiny harem of women growing miraculous, unbelievable new lives, and nearly forgot basics like eating and sleeping as he dove headlong into the challenge.
There were aspects of the problem that were like dealing with long-since-expired cells, though Hwang did not question that these were the cells of his investors rather than the exhumed samples of another couple. The thought did cross his mind that it might have been easier to clone Einstein, Hitler, and Madam Curie whose DNA must be badly damaged by radiation exposure than to work with these abnormal cells. It was true that most of the cells contained well-preserved DNA, but their other functions seemed to be largely absent. Mitosis simply did not occur. Most of the organelles, which in other people performed important tasks to maintain cellular health and carry out normal cellular activity, in these unusual cells seemed either to be dormant or to be missing entirely. There was no decay, somehow, but many of the techniques normally used in the lab to coax cells into desired behaviour simply would not work.
There were other aspects of the problem that were like dealing with an advanced malignancy, and these aspects took the work well outside Hwang’s range of experience. When the cells were damaged, or when exposed to certain elements in the environment - and most of this information Hwang had from the pre-existing research - they suddenly sprang into action. It was almost as though all their normal dormancy was just saving up energy for these bursts of activity and growth. Damaged cells would trigger surrounding cells to multiply and multiply, though not through any familiar process. The new cells grew rapidly and not always as copies of those they seemed to originate from. Skin cells could respond with muscle cells, white cells, even strange chitinous cells forming barriers, and in a quick, choreographed action any damaged cells were removed or reabsorbed, any foreign material was forced out and away, and any of these new cells which no longer had a purpose were likewise either sloughed off or absorbed. The entire process occurred so quickly that high-speed photography had been required to accurately describe it, and new equipment and techniques for careful handling of all cells had been developed to prevent such reactions from destroying any ongoing work. Hwang became an expert in these techniques as quickly as he could, and by the end of another month he was able to work with their cells without his work being suddenly and unexpectedly undone.
In order to attempt nuclear transfer, he needed to completely isolate a single cell without damaging any nearby cells in the process. It was grueling work. Then the cell’s nucleus had to be extracted unspoiled as the cell disintegrated around it, apparently trying to be re-absorbed upon destruction. His proprietary process for stripping away the original enzymes and coaxing helper RNA extracted from samples of the future host to re-coil the nucleus while tagging it with its own enzymes and markers worked just as well on their DNA as it had for the first dozen successes. When the re-packaged DNA was then inserted into a waiting ovum whose own nucleus had been extracted previously, it accepted it as though it were its own. The second process which allowed Hwang to be so successful where others failed was a triumph born out of failure. In his often publicly-harangued earlier work, many ovum had been nudged into parthenogenesis without fertilization or nuclear transfer, which was at the time a previously unseen feature of human cells, and yet only served as another layer of embarrasment for his team. As he had languished in the obscurity of infamy Hwang had studied the process which had triggered parthenogenesis, and now used his singular understanding to cause target cells to undergo the same experience. Hwang directly implanted these new and rapidly growing clusters of cells into two more of the women who had been provided to him as easily and as often as he asked for them.
These women he monitored closely. He knew that all the other women he’d implanted with clones were progressing normally. Other labs typically experienced from 95% to 99.99% failure rates when implanting blastocysts generated via nuclear transfer from adult cells in animal tests from rats to cats to sheep and cows. Well explored areas of research, experienced labs, and carefully selected cell lines could get these failure rates down into the 70%’s and 80%’s. Hwang’s close monitoring of these two developing cell clusters were based on those standards and on his own experiences in past trials - he hardly noticed that this new, private lab, with his radical new procedures developed from his investors’ extensive prior research, had somehow got the failure rate down to 0% in its first human trials.
He watched them, and he waited, filling his spare time with activities that seemed trivial and easy to him now. Creating new stem cell lines, standardizing the processes and documenting things explicitly, gathering data as though for publication, it was all just to pass the time as he monitored these two key mothers’ development rather than the inexcusable hassle it had seemed in his previous work. By the end of the first trimester, when it seemed clear that everything was going to go perfectly through birth, Hwang had grown confident enough to petition his investors for a proper setup to conduct publishable research, and means to gather ova and hosts ethically. They were more than happy to transfer him to one of the existing labs to reproduce these private successes under the supervision and protection of their corporate umbrella.
They kept him updated with a continuous stream of information about the absurdly normal pregnancies he’d created for them, and he produced reputable, revolutionary research that would be worth billions to them and would repair his reputation.
“I wish I could nurse them myself,” she was rocking the tiny copy of herself gently in her arms, “a mother should be able to nourish her child with her own body.”
“That isn’t your child, love.” He had the little boy who shared his genetic code in his own arms, and was marveling at his smile and at the strength of his tiny hand, gripping a single finger so tight. “She has a mother, and he has another, and they’re both producing the perfect food for each. You haven’t lactated a day in your long life, and if either of them managed to extract a mouthful of fluid from your body we’d have to start over from scratch.”
“You don’t have to remind me, we’ve been through that before. I don’t ever want to have to destroy another eternal infant.” A shiver coursed across her body, just thinking of it. “There’s just something horrible about a child who can never grow up.”
“I didn’t know I was this beautiful as a child. It’s hard to believe this is what I looked like.”
“We’re taking pictures, you know. Recording everything. And I’ve had my own people double and triple-check Hwang’s work; these are definitely our twins. At this point in their lives, this is certainly what we would have looked like.” He carried the newborn across to the waiting nurse who silently disappeared as soon as the boy was returned to her care, then crossed back to sit at his wife’s side. “Of course, with advances in nutrition, medicine, and totally different environmental pressures, it won’t be long before they seem more like our actual children than our twins. That little boy will probably be three or four inches taller than I am, just by avoiding the deprivation I had to endure in my youth.”
“Life in this family is like the opposite of deprivation. It’s a fine line between providing for and spoiling children. We don’t want another Ariana on our hands, or ...ugh, Bruce is still a thorn in my side.”
“These aren’t just any children, though. Not just some orphans we’ve adopted or children whose parents we ate and you felt sorry for.”
“You hated him. You ended up resenting him because you were never able to look in his eyes without seeing his father’s limp body. It was no wonder he ran away. But these two are special, they’re different, and they mustn’t run away or be mistreated. We’ mustn’t resent them for being alive.”
“Why would I?!” She finally looked up from the angelic face of the peaceful newborn in her arms, “They’re giving us the chance we’ve never had, to have a life, a real life together, the way we never could. Why would we resent them?”
“For living. For having what we can’t. They aren’t giving us the chance to live, they’re living their own lives, and unless you want to turn them into prisoners or mind-control slaves, there’s even the chance they won’t want to follow through in the end.”
“If we raise them well, they’ll love us, and love each other, and they’ll want to do it. We know well enough how to be a loving family, to bring up children who respect their parents and share our values and our dreams and know how to keep even the biggest of secrets.” She looked back down to the gurgling newborn, warm in her cool arms, “and if they outright refuse, then yes, we’ll use mind control. Yes we will,” her voice became the soft, cooing voice of too many a new parent, coddling a baby she knew didn’t understand her words, “won’t we? Yes we will, yes we will!” The tiny, ignorant girl smiled and almost laughed, knowing only that she was receiving attention and positive energy and light.
“Well, we’ll see how you feel about that in twenty years. Right now, it’s time for supper, hers as well as ours. I don’t want either of you getting ideas and trying to eat the other. Now give her here.”
“You have the worst sense of humor,” she lost her smile, handing the child over to be taken away, “why is it I stay with you after all this time? Is it the money?”
He handed the still-smiling child off to a nurse who had appeared as if by magic just as he was crossing the room. She was part of his eager, dedicated, full time staff who -through generous compensation and compassionate treatment- didn’t need to be mind-controlled to devote themselves entirely to their service. She disappeared without a word, without a sound, knowing what was expected of her and glad to exceed expectations on a daily basis for the only boss she’d ever had who seemed to genuinely care about his employees.
She smiled, stood, and surrendered softly into his secure embrace, comforted by the familiar stillness of his chest. “Oh,” the way his ribcage didn’t rise and fall and rise again against her as she pressed into him, “yeah,” and the way no thumping beat broke the perfect, silent stillness of their intimate embrace. Even with an uncanny strength that equalled his, she loved the feeling of being wrapped up inside the gentle strength and protection she felt in his arms. “I’m so happy.”
“This isn’t a dream.” His arms squeezed her somewhat tighter against him, pressing them together like two halves of the same whole, “This is real. We’re really doing this.”
“It’s so hard to believe. After all this time...” She shook her head slightly, subtly, against his hard chest, “not in hundreds of years did I really believe we would be this close. All those orphans we took in over the years, I thought that was the best I could hope for, but now I see they were just preparing us for this. I thought I was learning to be a mother only in pantomime, but now...”
“Don’t let your other children hear you talking that way, or they’ll get jealous and think they aren’t your favorite.”
“They can’t all be my favorite, Prince. And after this, they all really will be second best.” She tipped her head back and he leaned down and kissed her smiling lips, “well, maybe third best. Thank you, for making my dreams come true.”
“I just thought you ought to know, ma’am.” The woman had worked in one capacity or another for the Pallas family for over fifty years, currently as the private tutor a la governess for the junior Prince and Penny. Mrs. Pallas’s reaction was not, however, the shocked or disturbed one she had been expecting.
“Oh, that’s such a relief! I knew they’d like each other! I’m so glad,” she was practically beaming, “I bet they were so cute! Were they just the cutest thing?”
“Oh, I’ll have to review the video feed! Their first kiss! They’ll probably want to remember it forever!”
“Oh, Deirdre, I suppose we’ll have to tell you everything, now. Prince thought you should have been told ages ago, but ... well, I thought you might not understand.”
“Understand, what, ma’am?” Deirdre had been younger than Penny had appeared to be when she’d started working for the Pallas family, and she had been worn down by time and taken on wrinkles and grey hairs raising three generations of adopted Pallas children without Penny seeming to age even a day. She had been through so many strange things, lived in so many strange, nocturnal homes with blackout curtains in every room, seen the comings and goings and sometimes comings without goings of countless unusual strangers while working for the Pallas family that Deirdre doubted there was much about their lives that would truly fall outside of what she could understand. She simply sat steadfast, properly prudent as she waited.
“Well, about little Prince and little Penny.” Penny’s voice was uncertain, as though she were about to reveal something she was ashamed of, or some state secret. “You see, they’re very special children, not like any of the others we’ve played parents to.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ve been very aware of the extra attention you give them, both you and Mr. Pallas. They’re very special to you.”
“Yes, well, and... And you mustn’t repeat what I’m about to tell you, not to anyone but Prince and myself.” She considered briefly, one long canine tooth biting down outside her lip in way that seemed simultaneously youthful, alluring, and somewhat dangerous. “Well, and the children, but I don’t think they’re old enough yet to really understand it all.”
“Alright, well, here’s the truth: Little Prince and little Penny aren’t exactly adopted. They’re...” She leaned in slightly, her voice dropping despite the guaranteed privacy of the residence, “they’re clones of Prince and I.”
“I know what clones are, ma’am, but I thought that was just science fiction. Aren’t we decades away from being able to clone even single organs?”
Mrs. Pallas was taken aback for a moment, and her head cocked slightly to the side in a nearly involuntary but quizzical gesture.
“Pardon me, ma’am, but my late husband had a rare condition that made it impossible for him to receive a transplant. We examined all the literature, trying to find a way to get him new organs he wouldn’t reject, but no one could clone even a single complete organ. He hung on as long as he could, ma’am, but...” As a tear fell from her eye, Deirdre recalled her proper place in the conversation, suddenly switching back to a professional tone, setting the memory of her husband again aside for the time being. She cleared her throat curtly. “I only meant to say that I’d done some personal research on the matter, ma’am.”
“Oh, well, yes, well. The corporation has been doing quite a bit of private research on the matter and...” Her words were stifled, unable to overcome a certain guilt of ignorance washing over her with all the inevitable, unstoppable force of the tides. “Oh, Dierdre, I never knew. Why didn’t you say anything? We could have helped.”
“Don’t worry, ma’am, I haven’t allowed this matter to interfere with the upbringing of the young ones. It was in the spring, when you took the children to Japan to see the cherry trees blossom. Your absence allowed me plenty of time to oversee the necessary arrangements.”
“Oh, but Deirdre...” Mrs. Pallas found herself with nothing useful to say. To describe the recent successes Prince Pallas Industries had been having with cloned organs, stem cell based treatments, and even more whole-organism clones would only serve to hurt her, to intensify her grief. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Deirdre deftly shifted the focus back away from her own family to one with vibrant life and a limitless future. “I can see that since the children aren’t actually siblings, there’s no harm in a little innocent peck on the cheek.” The imagined vision of the tiny version of herself leaning in, lips pursed, to lay a light kiss on the cheek of her husband’s younger visage did the trick, distracting all else from Penny’s mind.
“Do you really think letting them attend separate colleges is such a good idea, Prince?” Penny was fingering through the glossy brochures the schools had sent. Her fingerprints had long ago smeared away most of the gloss from the pages and about an inch of the text and images from the edges of the pages over the months since the acceptance letters had arrived.
“It’s Harvard and MIT, love. The campuses are within walking distance of each other. They’ll probably have lunch together.” Mr. Pallas put his formidable hands tender upon her overwrought shoulders, pressing tranquility into her skin with an experienced touch. An internal collapse and a sigh came quickly over her as though her body didn’t want to wait but to succumb to his fingers’ desire.
“Since when has that stopped young people from hooking up? You know what goes on in college dormitories, Prince, and at fraternity parties.” She threw down one brochure and picked up the other, angrily flipping to the College Life section and glaring at the smiling faces on the pages.
“They’re engaged to be married in the summer. They’ve been together their whole lives. They even got through their teenage years without experimenting outside the family.” He could feel her words before she could utter them, and responded. “And don’t try to tell me we don’t treat Anna like one of the family. And Prince and Penny even shared her, well, for as long as she held their attention.”
“Which wasn’t long.” He couldn’t see it, but her eyes had closed. He did feel her breath begin to come slower and deeper.
“Which wasn’t long. They love each other too much to see anyone else that way. Their relationship has almost two decades’ head start on anyone new. Who could compete with that? It would be like worrying about me falling for someone new.”
“If I were going to worry about you falling for someone else, it would be Penny. Men are always trading in their wives for the younger model, and you quite literally can. You could freeze her beauty in time, forever eighteen, then drive a wooden stake through my heart and leave me out in the sun to die. The world would hardly notice the change. They’d probably just clamor for the latest beauty rejuvenation technique from Prince Pallas Industries.”
“I could say the same silly thing about you running off with that young stud our little Prince has become. He’s much more fit and handsome than I was at his age, and I think he may be somewhat more intelligent as well.” His mind wandered briefly, “Which coincides with what our other labs are discovering about the depth of impact environmental influences can have on an organism’s development.”
“Oh, Prince,” she finally turned around and up to face him, placing her dainty hand upon his, still massaging her shoulder, “I could never love anyone but you. Not even if it was a perfect copy.”
She squeezed his hand, and he leaned down and kissed her softly, reassuringly. They stretched the still intimacy of the moment and of their contact beyond normal limits but well within their familiarity and history. Their love was statuesque, timeless, eternal. When their physical contact was broken, it would have been clear to anyone watching that they remained forever joined in a deeper way.
“Which means they’ve had their whole lives in our care to prepare for this. If we hadn’t done a good job, they wouldn’t have been top of their class or had their first choice of colleges. They wouldn’t have been so well treated and well-liked by their classmates and teachers. The school wouldn’t have gone against tradition and named them Prince and Princess of the prom if they didn’t know how to behave in a complex social environment and handle the brutal pressures and politics of high school life. They aren’t babies anymore, they’re adults now. We have to let them live their lives.”
“I know, I know, but that doesn’t mean I don’t worry about them. About what will happen to them. What if they’re overwhelmed? These schools are very competitive, they won’t be the only ones who were the top of the their class.”
“Neither one of them has ever had trouble when the going gets tough. They’re like diamonds; when the heat is on and the pressure is great, that’s when they really shine.”
“Your way of making everything sound like a platitude isn’t actually reassuring, you know.” She patted the back of his hand sarcastically.
“I know.” There was a trace of a smile on his lips, “but that doesn’t mean what I’m saying isn’t true. They’ll be fine. Just look at how they handled the press when the truth got out about them.”
“I still think we should have let PPI’s PR and legal departments take care of the whole thing quietly. Our children shouldn’t have to live in the spotlight.”
“They were always going to be in the spotlight, just like any of our children. The public is obsessed with power, money and success, and our family has it all. When the other clones were found out, it was only a matter of time. Penny’s idea of inviting Woodward to come out of retirement for an exclusive interview was genius, and his book is still on the bestseller lists three years later.”
“Of course. Both Penny and Prince already have a good mind for the business. I’d trust them to take over now, but I certainly prefer them to get a good education and make their own way in the world for a while rather than be forced down any path we laid out for them.”
“Well, sure, but they’d already have fulfilled that one if we hadn’t made sure they had an early and thorough education with regard to human reproduction and contraception. They certainly aren’t abstaining.”
“Breathe, Penny, like they taught us in class.” She was squeezing down on his hand, and hard, crushing flesh and bone and nerves and blood and after the first sixteen hours it had become almost reassuring instead of painful. He could see and feel that she was straining too hard, holding her breath, and the doctors had told him not to let her pass out again.
She squeezed harder and screamed at him, “I AM BREATHING!” She pushed out a slow, hard, guttural breath as though it were the next word in the sentence and then did resume her ragged, exhausted, but otherwise regular breathing to her husband’s relief. She even let up a little on her vice-like grip.
She nodded and breathed in and out deeply and her body seemed to lose some of its tension, but there was still that wild look in her eyes which bespoke the undiminished intensity of her ongoing experience. There was still the frantic and incessant noise of the monitors, tracking her vitals and their child’s in bobbing lights and repetitive sounds. They had insisted on a natural birth, but had made concessions here and there, and if something went wrong there were world-class doctors standing by to help things go right.
“Are you sure you don’t want a little help from mom? You’ve been in labor for over thirty hours, Penny, and you said you’d let mom relax you if it lasted more than a day.”
“I’m not a quitter.” Her voice seemed relatively calm, if hoarse, though from the strength of her grip Prince knew she was in as much pain as ever.
“You aren’t quitting. We aren’t talking about surgery or drugs or even letting a doctor touch you. Just let mom come in and do her thing, and our little one will be in your arms in no time.”
“I don’t want to give up. I should be able to do this on my own.” She’d had more to say, but her words were replaced by a high, stuttered, whining cry her body forced out through any semblance of composure she’d grasped at. Her eyes, her entire face was clenched tight, and Prince could practically feel her upper and lower teeth inventing a new configuration to accommodate each other under such pressure.
He waited for her to relax a little, he knew her ears were probably ringing, and he tried to speak in reassuring tones, “you and mom are one and the same, Penny. When you let her help you, you’ll still be doing it on your own. It’s just like we talked about.”
Penny was breathing hard again, the fast, sharp breaths they’d practiced in the months of preparation for this, and even with her eyes closed, Prince could see her decision before she began nodding furiously at him, and he was already waving the other Penny in to the room when she began repeating, “okayokayokayokayokayokayokayokayokay” as fast as her breath would come, and then the woman who had always been mother to her was holding her other hand.
The feeling of calm reassurance that washed soothingly over the breathing Penny’s entire being did nothing to replace or diminish the intensity of her pain, nor did it hide any detail of what her body was going through from her mind. Penny opened her eyes and looked up into the mirror-like reflection of her progenitor’s face and when their eyes met, the reality of her perception bloomed and flowered in a not-totally-unexpected way.
“We’re so glad we decided to share this,” the words seemed at once to be the familiar voice of mother and a thought within her own mind. “We’re going to be just fine, now. Are we ready?”
“We can feel the baby, ready to move, can’t we?” As though every cell in her body were an independent, thinking, perceiving being and she were drinking the collective mind of the entire community that was her body and her child, Penny was pure self-awareness. “Yes, we do, and we know what to do. We don’t need to push, our body knows what to do, and the child wants to be born.”
Prince’s hand was pins and needles and the beginnings of shooting pain as it was released, relaxed, and held lightly, lovingly in his wife’s gentle grasp. He could see the look of pure love and peace on her face in profile as she stared deep into what were essentially her own eyes. He could sense that her entire body had ceased to fight against itself, and he could hear the beeping of the monitors suddenly reporting the steady, even rhythms of a meditating monk. He watched, and he waited, and he knew everything would be alright.
“Feel how our body adapts itself for this, how our muscles have stretched and realigned us to offer safe passage to new life. We can feel the powerful, undulating waves of our birth canal, ushering our child forth. We carry it safely from womb to world now, in a single continuous motion, and our waiting husband is already there to shelter and protect, even from the moment of birth. Feel how everything works in harmony, body at one with nature, every aspect part of the miracle, and now another wave of motion and we feel our placenta escape as well. Now we’ll just relax, stay here in peace a while, and our new father will put our new child into our arms for the first time.”