With the data we had generated now in the hands of Project Revitalize, and Dr. McTacish, we had essentially finished our part of the work.
Yes, I know I had originally decided to let the scientists in Nowhere decide when to go to human testing, but seriously, there was virtually nothing that could go wrong. Sure, it might not work, but that was the worst that could happen.
With that in mind, I messaged Jessi to ask for a virtual meeting. It took her a ‘virtual’ eternity to answer, though, in the real world, it only took around six minutes. That is the disadvantage of being in high-compression cyberspace.
But finally, for me at least, she appeared in the simulated comfortable office that I had set up for this.
No outrageously big desk to impress any visitors, just a couple of comfortable chairs, a low table, a ‘window’ showing vistas from all over the solar system, and some abstract art on the walls.
“Hi Jessi. Sit down, please.”
“Oh hi Vivian. Sorry, but I don’t have much time. We are now finalizing the design for the first-aid pack. So… whatever it is, I hope it is quick.”
I was a bit confused. We were at 60:1. She should have had more than enough time for a minute or two to talk to another of the officers of Enki. But whatever.
“Ok, I make it short. You remember that I was asked to work on the Folly, right? And that I had something of a breakthrough. Well, we got a bit more than the last time we talked about it.”
She cocked her head.
“More than this ‘key of life’ that the rats have?”
I smiled.
“That all mammals, except humans, have you mean?”
It took her a moment to piece my sentence together, and honestly, if I had not just had the meeting with Danielle, and seen how fast she was, I would not have been a bit disappointed, but right then… yes, it wasn’t fair, but it was like coming from an invigorating discussion with an adult and then try to explain the world to a three-year-old.
It took all my willpower to not show my discontent, but somehow I think I managed it.
“You mean that… we are supposed to have this ‘key of life’ but thanks to the Folly we don’t any longer?”
“Mostly. What is different from species to species are the two components that form the key. No wonder, this is what prevents inter-species hybrids. For humans, what the Folly did is randomizing those two components.
Not enough to make us completely sterile, but enough to give us a roughly 1:180 chance of the resulting protein actually kicking off the cell division.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head.
“After all these years, and we finally know where to look. This is big, very big. I am surprised that you did not tell Vandermeer about it.”
I chuckled.
“I did. I also gave him access to all the data. Enki has it of course also, just to mention it. He has already put his best geneticist on it to hopefully find a cure for it. But… in the process of testing it, we… the scientists from Nowhere and I, we tried to look what happens if we introduce the full key into the ovum. And it works. It does not have to be from the combined proteins, it just has to be present to start the division.”
She frowned.
“Wait… you are saying that just injecting this key along with the sperm will make the zygote viable?”
I shook my head.
“No, of course not. There are too many factors that determine if a zygote is viable. But it starts the division and makes it so that the other factors come into play in the first place.”
She rubbed the bridge of her nose with both index fingers.
“So, we could, theoretically, offer to perform a harvesting operation, followed by an artificial fertilization, and then implant the new zygote into the mother?”
I shrugged.
“We could, and I guess if the natural way just won’t work we should, but I used a nano-bot to introduce the key into the ovum. Then I modified it a bit and used it on test clones. The new design, with around $100 of nanobots, will for around two years, insert the key into each ovum that leaves the ovaries.
Which is enough to start the division.”
“So… you are telling me that you have created an injection that makes a woman fertile for around two years? And it costs 100 bucks? Why are you telling me this?”
I took a deep breath.
“I gave the nano-bot design to Vandermeer as well, of course. But nothing stops us from using it as well. But so far I only have the research clones as test samples, and I contaminated the results by forcing the clones to ovulate once a day instead of once in 28 days.
But the result with that was that it gives a 90% chance of pregnancy. The risk of complications is, in my opinion minimal, as it is a marginally modified standard medical nano-bot design that creates the key and then encapsulates it until it is placed into the ovum, but… you are the doctor here.”
I looked her in the eye.
“Do we have the moral right to offer this to our employees? Do we have the moral right to not offer it to them? What will be the consequences of doing so? What the conditions? I honestly have no clue what to do with this now, what is the right thing to do.”
She closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths.
“Fuck! You are right, that is a moral problem. There is no harm in testing it on the research clones, of course. And I guess the big brains in Nowhere will start with live human testing pretty soon. But considering how the annual clone lottery is such a big thing… I really don’t know. It is not right to simply test it on humans. But it is also not right to keep that from our employees. Fuck… we have to call Michael. This… this is too big for any of us to decide.”
I sighed but guessed she was right. I mean, the news that there was something that could give people children and somebody held it back would cause riots in Nowhere where Project Revitalize did expend several thousand credits per couple to give them the best chance.
Here? Cities would burn. With that in mind, I send a message to Michael that I needed to meet with him as soon as possible.
Apparently, being the CEO of a double-A corporation did not mean that he had much to do, because he messaged me back that he could meet immediately.
And indeed, it only took him around a minute to appear, though for Jessi’s sake, I had reduced the compression to a moderate 15:1, and we talked about how the treatment should work, and what possible side effects were to be expected.
Our meeting with Michael on the other hand was pretty short. Yes, we had the time to explain what the situation was, and what question we needed to be answered, but after that, after only a few seconds, Michael declared that this was too big for him to decide on his own. Again.
That meant the next thing I knew was that he called an emergency meeting of the whole C-suite.
For in 30 minutes. And he asked me to be physically present as well. Ugh… sure, a quick shower and wardrobe change was not that hard, but he could at least give me a bit more time.
Fortunately, it took not even ten minutes for the Merc to fly to the Enki-HQ, And I was still the last one to arrive. About a minute before the meeting was to start.
Maggie grinned at me, and sweetly commented: “Nice of you to come too, sometime.”
I shrugged while I took my seat.
“If you had to change out of your work clothes, and then fly here within 30 minutes, you would not be very early as well.”
That made her smile even wider.
“I am in my work clothes. We can’t all work from a cushy couch, lying on our back all day, you know?”
I smiled back, recognizing it as harmless banter, something I could not do even a year ago.
“You could, you know. You just don’t want to.”
She chuckled.
“You got me there. With the telebots, we really could. Well, most of us could.”
“Yeah, I get it. You just don’t want to put in 480 hours of work on an eight-hour salary, admit it. You are just lazy.”
“Yeah, fine, you got me.”
Not that that was the truth, mind you. For one, she, like the rest of the execs in this room, had a share of Enki, in addition to their salary, and she did spend quite some time each day in cyberspace. Not as much as me, but honestly, who did?
Michael shook his head.
“If you two are done playing, can we start?”
“Sure boss, whatever you want boss, you just have to say it, boss.”
Ever the irreverent imp, Maggie seamlessly turned her witt towards Michael, who rolled his eyes.
“Now, I have called you here because I… well, Vivian really, has news, and we have a decision to make. So, Vivian, if you may?”
That put me smoothly on the spot. Thank you very much, Michael.
“You know, you could have warned me that you want to throw me to the lions. But whatever…” I sighed dramatically.
“It’s actually more than one news item though. So the easy things first, my project for Vandermeer is finished. In other words, I am available again for our projects, if you need me to do something. Then, Maynard, I have a whole stack of mammal species where you can try the new anti-vermin project on.”
I made a short pause.
“You probably already understand that those are not important enough news to call an emergency meeting. The thing is, I did not just find what causes the start of cell division in other mammals, I found what is broken in humans so that it doesn’t.”
That brought gasps from the others.
“I also found out what we have to include to unbreak it.”
Another round of gasps, this time accompanied by loud expressions of surprise and joy.
“We have, at least in the petri-dish, managed to successfully fertilize around 25 thousand human eggs. That means we can at least in-vitro almost certainly ensure that it works.”
That brought hungry looks from Alena, Tiffany, and surprisingly, Eli. With Maggie stammering:
“Wait… does that mean we can…”
Michael saved her from finding the words:
“Yes, it means exactly that, if I understood Vivian right. We can indeed give each of you a very high chance of parenthood. But she is not yet finished.”
I rolled my eyes.
“As Michael so eloquently stated, I am not finished. We tested this in-vitro method for most of last week. But it had a high enough chance of working that I designed a nano-bot that will hopefully do that in-vivo.
It does not matter if we inject the substance, incidentally, it is the same ‘key of life’ as for rats, into the egg before or after the sperm enters it. As soon as both the key is present and the acrosome reaction has happened, division starts. And if anybody has not yet figured it out, Sanderson’s Folly crippled the key of life.
What my new nanobot should do, is inject the key into every egg that leaves the ovaries. How long it will do that depends fully on how many bots are in a dose. My rough calculation says for around $100 of nano-bots, our costs, we can make a woman hyper-fertile for around two years.
Hyper-fertile means that it is irrelevant if the key component of the father is crippled or not, and if nothing else makes pregnancy impossible, she should catch almost immediately.”
After I had said that, it was impossible to understand anything, as the people around the table all babbled excitedly. That did go on for a couple of minutes before Michael rapped sharply on the table.
“Settle down. I understand this is important. More so for some of you. But the point here is, we have this bot-design. We are not the only ones, mind you, Vivian has given them to Vandermeer and this project in Nowhere. They have set their best geneticist working on maybe curing the Folly with that information. But that could happen tomorrow, in a year, in ten years, or never.
Right now, we have a probable, albeit untested, treatment. It works in research clones with later harvesting of the eggs and then in-vitro fertilization, but we don’t know if it works in the natural way.”
For a moment there was silence before Jessi spoke up:
“The thing is, while there should be no side effects of this treatment, we can never be 100% sure. Everything we know is that the worst that can happen is that it doesn’t work. And even that is unlikely. But we could be wrong about that. That means for the first women who test this, there will be a small, but real risk. And we can’t test this on rats, because rats are not, yet, suffering from the Folly.”
That made everybody sober up. Michael then continued:
“But that is also not really a reason for an emergency meeting. And no, there is no need to decide if we develop that thing or not. That is a no-brainer. No, the thing is, do we offer this to our employees? On one hand, we can’t simply use our employees for human testing. But on the other hand, can we really keep that from them? Do we have that right?”
Marcel tapped on the table with a finger.
“It is just a matter of time before we can give that to our employees, right? So why the rush?”
Jessi sighed.
“Because, as much as people don’t really acknowledge this, the Folly is one of the big reasons why our world is on a shit creek without a paddle. The instinct to procreate is one of the strongest in humanity, all living beings really. Just below surviving really. It does a real number to people to know that they most likely will never have children.
That is unfortunate, but acceptable if it is a small fraction of the population. But thank’s to the Folly, it is not a fraction, but the vast majority. The damage to society is… insane. If we can turn that around… we have to.”
Marcel shrugged.
“Sure, I get that. That was not my question though. My question was why do we have to tell them now, when it is not yet tested? We can test it and then give it to our employees, and we won’t have any moral quandary.”
Michael shook his head and sighed.
“Do you remember the riots in Boston in 42? That happened because the people there learned that some official rigged the clone lottery. Not even massively, but just a bit to give his… patrons a significantly higher chance of winning.
So, if people are willing to burn down whole neighborhoods because somebody changed their negligible chance of winning a clone child, what do you think they will do if, no when they learn that we had this for some time and did not give it to them immediately?”
I saw Marcel, along with almost everybody else grimace when Michael said that.
Marcel just nodded.
“Ok, yeah. That would be bad. But as you said, we can’t just test it on our employees.”
Naveen spoke calmly:
“Not without informing them, no. But why don’t we put the decision in our employees' hands? Inform them that we have this bot that we believe can give them children, but we have not tested it, we don’t know if it really works, and we don’t know if there are side effects. Give them the option of making an informed decision. I mean, how much of a risk is it, really?”
I shrugged.
“Honestly, all but negligible. We are talking of a minor variation of a standard 12th gen medical nano-bot. Those are well-tested and known for not causing any trouble. The ‘key of life’ will be encapsulated until it will be injected into an egg, to prevent the body from breaking it down.
Even the chance that it doesn’t work is minute. As I said, it works in the petri dish. In more than 90% of the cases. For all purposes, if there is nothing else stopping a pregnancy, it should work. But we simply can never be 100% sure in those cases without testing.”
Naveen nodded.
“Yes, I thought so. In other words, all of our ‘we have to test it’ is mostly to be sure, right?”
Both Jessi and I nodded.
“So, explain that to the people, and let them decide. If they forgo getting the bot, it is their decision, and they can’t hold us responsible. And in the unlikely case that something goes wrong, it was also their decision. Especially if we recommend for them to wait for the results of the human trials.”
Michael sighed.
“That is a bit cynical, isn’t it?”
Naveen nodded.
“Yes, it is, but it is in my opinion the best of a group of bad options. This is something that, no matter how we handle it, can explode into our faces. That means we have to take the cynical approach, or whatever our decision is, it will probably backfire.”
Michael rubbed his temples.
“Yeah, I get that. I don’t like it but I understand it. Well, Eli, what do you think about that approach? Is it legal?”
Eli scoffed.
“For real boss? We are an AA-tier corp. Unless Ralcon or Enertech put their noses in, legal is what we decide it is. Not even the other triple-As could make us trouble there. It would be legal, and unfortunately fully in line with how double and triple A-corps act for us to simply test it on our employees and not tell them.
But in this case, Naveen’s idea would be legal even for a C- or B- tier corp. If we don’t simply inject them, but inform them about what we think it will do, and that we don’t know if there are any side effects, or what those might be if there are, we are golden.”
As usual, I was disgusted about how much power the USA, well, most nations really, gave to the corporations. And that by now we were part of this power structure. But at least we tried not to abuse it.
Frick, we could have just tested in on the employees as Eli had explained, and nobody would have raised an eyebrow about it. In the eyes of most of those elites, the overwhelming majority of our employees were just cattle after all. The only reason they had not yet exterminated most of them was that they needed customers.
Even perennial poor customers bought coms, with data and voice plans. They needed electricity, and as a rule, lacked the several million dollars it took to buy even the smallest fusactor. They needed clothes, and guess who owned virtually all of the cheap fabbers in the poorer areas?
Heck, even the buildings were often owned by a corporation, though not in Queens. All that was very easy to understand when one began looking for it. What I did not understand though was where the masses got their money. I had once asked Ben about it, and he essentially explained that at least in Queens, shadow-mercs drove the economy.
Virtually everything here was geared toward fleecing those who were paid by the corporations in their shadow wars. But that could not be all of it. But whatever, I had already pretty much accepted that I would never understand it.
In my musing, I did not notice that the others had already voted, and when Michael softly nudged me with his elbow, I was a bit confused.
“Uh, what? Sorry, I was thinking about something.”
Michael facepalmed, while Alena smiled and answered:
“We noticed. But we are waiting for your vote.”
“My vote? There was seriously a vote? I thought Naveen’s idea is the only viable option.”
I was still confused looking into the round when Michael said:
“And with that, it’s unanimous. Alright, I will prepare a message for our employees.”
He stood up and promptly left the room, while the rest of us slowly began to follow him.
I took a deep breath and closes my eyes, trying to clear my mind. I flinched when I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I looked up, I saw James standing there.
“I wanted to ask, what were you thinking so hard about? Are any new products in the works?”
“Hu? No, well, at least not that I know. You have to ask Maynard and the Minions about that. No… Eli’s comment… it hit me. I had to think about how much I despise this corpocracy we are living in. And how utterly evil virtually all the rich and powerful are.”
He smiled sadly.
“Oh yes, that is… I sometimes do the same. And now I am COO of one of the 20 biggest corporations in the US. I am part of that corpocracy. It’s sometimes hard to wrap my head around it.”
“You are part of it? Frick, I own 80% of this top-20 corporation. Most of our products are based on my inventions. You are part of the corporation, without me, there would be no corporation here.
You are part of the machinery. Powerful and rich beyond belief, at least compared to 99.99% of all humans, but I am part of the so-called super elite.
People in your strata of society are usually… not good, but don’t go out of their way to be evil either. People in my strata do. My ‘peers’ are the problem. What do you think that does to my head? And I can’t even do anything against them, because while I am rich and powerful, so are they. And they are many.”
He nodded, still smiling sadly.
“The only thing you can do is what you are doing. Do your best to remain good, and be fair. Help people. Make their lives easier. Honestly, I don’t think anybody in the last 100 years has done as much good as you. Just keep doing what you are doing, and don’t grow bitter. Don’t let the world destroy you.”
I looked him in the eyes and then sighed.
“I’ll do my best.”
“That is all anybody can expect from you.”
With that, he left me alone, mulling over what he had said.
On some level, I knew he was right. But unfortunately, those pesky emotions did not agree with him. For way too many years, felt centuries really, I was firmly on the other side, doing everything I could to bring down big corporations. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was on the right side, that the corporations needed to go away.
I felt my righteous anger burning brightly and proudly. And now… I could not help it, I felt like a traitor. Yes, intellectually, I knew that was nonsense. That I was still on the right side. Enki was doing its absolute best to help the people around us. And most times, that part of me was all that was there.
But sometimes, like right that moment, the angry little voice deep in my mind that declared me a traitor came to the forefront. And demanded with fury that I destroy everything. The whole system. Rip it apart.
Fortunately, like always this descent into madness cleared soon. I managed to calm the nagging doubt eating on me, pacify the blazing rage burning in my heart, and soothe the bitter hate that always threatened to overwhelm me.
And again, it had been a tiny bit easier than before. Over the last year, I had gained a measure of composure that I had not even believed possible. I was less and less a victim of my anger.
Still, it took a couple of minutes to control myself, before I sluggishly stood up. I had no physical problems, but my mind was… exhausted. My experience told me it would take a few hours for me to recover.
And unfortunately, I had no clue if I was needed in the HQ any longer or not.
When I walked through the door, Svenja, who was walking a couple of steps behind me said softly:
“You should not think too hard about it, ma’am. Your family has, for the last 200 years, helped humanity again and again. Your family is the reason the great war ended. It is the reason humanity could survive the idiocy of the politicians and the ravages of the night of the falling stars. Your family is the reason Project Revitalize exists in the first place. And your family is the reason the Commonwealth has Apollo and no uneducated sheep.
And now, you’ve beaten the Folly, the one thing exterminating humanity. No, you don’t have to worry, you, like all of your ancestors, are a force of good.”
It was, strangely balming the hear her say it. I knew all of that in a purely information-type of way. And maybe if I said it to myself often enough, one day I would believe it as well. But right now, it was a struggle.
“Thank you Svenja. And, again, please call me Vivian. I feel uncomfortable if somebody calls me ma’am.” I knew, of course, what her answer to my request would be. We had this same argument often enough.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that ma’am. It would be disrespecting.”
And there it was. From what I learned, there were mostly four types of Vandermeer military personnel.
First of course those that saw it as a way to make money. Better mercenaries really. And I had learned that those people were not particularly trusted in the Vandermeer hierarchy. I had not met one of those yet.
Second those who saw Vandermeer as a way to power. As long as Vandermeer could provide that path forward, they could be trusted, but as soon as that stopped… well, those types of soldiers were used, but never in a critical position. Major Burke was a very good example of that.
Third, those who actually believed in what Vandermeer, the corporation, was doing. They made up the core of the Vandermeer military, and the vast majority of my security detail was drawn from this stock.
And lastly, some saw the Vandermeer family members as something like something of religious icons. In their eyes, were almost the paragons of goodness. And a couple of the security detail, including Cpl. Svenja Ingridsdottier came from that background.
I could maybe have been angry about that if Vandermeer had done anything to create this belief.
But after some long discussions with Lt. Thomson and Sgt. Reynolds, it was clear that this… cult had simply looked at the historical information, information that as far as I could discern was completely true, and drawn the conclusion that my family was sent to Earth to redeem humanity.
Stupid, I know, but as much as I had no particular fondness for any religion, I also believed that everybody had the right to believe what they wanted. And so here I was, confronted with a few people who saw, and worse, treated me as if I was some holy messenger sent down from the heavens. Talk about disconcerting.
It is even worse. Until about three years before, my father, Julian DuClare, still defamed as a traitor, was seen as a demon who corrupted the pure, and holy maiden, Rebecca Vandermeer, to end the holy family.
Until… if I had even had the slightest idea that it would make my father into some sort of saint, I would have thought twice, maybe even trice, before I publicized the truth about him. No, not really, I wanted the truth to be known.
But now those people believed that the ‘evil Knowles and Dalgons’ conspired to break the family. That my father was an honorable man, destined for greatness, cut short through betrayal. That in itself was of course kinda the truth. But they promptly elevated him to a saint.
I also learned that this cult was overjoyed that my mother was still alive, even if she was damaged severely. But they were, almost constantly, petitioning Nate to have her impregnated, to continue the bloodline.
I was, honestly, rather glad that so far only a handful of them, who additionally were sworn to secrecy, knew that I existed. But I could see the time that my anonymity ended quickly approaching.
I mean, the name DuClare was now no longer reviled by those folks, and sooner or later, somebody would realize that the small, redheaded K4-Pure with the last name DuClare, who looked quite a bit like Rebecca Vandermeer, and who worked closely with Vandermeer, might come from the Vandermeer family.
Another reason to be happy that I was here, in NYC, and no longer in Seattle.
In my office, Svenja naturally took the anteroom, and I dove into cyberspace, to clear my mind. Not deeply, only 2:1.
I had noticed that it was counterproductive to accelerate any meditation. At 2:1 I got most of the benefits of meditating while doing it essentially twice as fast. But at higher compressions, the gains fell dramatically. 2:1 was the point of diminishing returns. So unless you were in a hurry, it was mostly wasted effort to meditate in more than that.
And seeing that ‘being in a hurry’ and meditation are things that simply don’t work well with each other… I did not think there could ever be a reason to meditate in high compression. Why spent subjective four hours doing something when you get the same benefit for subjective 30 minutes of the same work, and both in the same 15 minutes in real-time?
Still, when I had managed to regain my composure and some of my mental energy, I surfaced back into the real world, only to be greeted by a general message from the CEO.
Yes, I generally knew what he would say already, but I still listened to his message to everybody working for Enki.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, valued employees of Enki, I talk to you about a positive, if very hard decision, I, and the other officers of our corporation made just today.
I won’t insult your intelligence with some hollow platitudes about how we are a family or such meaningless drivel. You know as well as I do that Enki is a business. Still, we at the top try to do the best for all of you. To bring you the greatest possible benefit.
That is not always possible, and even if it is, it is rarely easy, but we founded this corporation on the idea that we want it to be a force of good.
But just today, we ran into a decision where there are no really good answers. Our own Dr. DuClare has been asked by the Northwestern Commonwealth to look into the most common cause for the lack of children. Something that the Commies call ‘The Folly’. It is, as some of you might know, the result of a bioweapon used during the great war.
The good news is, she discovered what exactly the Folly does. Why it prevents us from having children.
And from what I understand, the Commies are already beginning on creating a lasting cure. But during her research, she found an untested way that we believe will treat the infertility caused by the Folly.
Not cure, only treat. And here we come to our decision. We would not, could not, in good conscience keep that possible treatment from you. But on the other hand, we could not simply test it on you.
Legally, we have that right, but morally, we can’t make ourselves do it.
We believe that it is effective and that it is otherwise without side effects. But we don’t know for sure.
It is a derivative of commonly used medical nanobots, so everything we know tells us it is harmless, except for very rare allergies. But unfortunately, whenever humans are absolutely sure of something, it has the tendency to bite us in the ass.
That means we place the decision into your hands. We will not prevent you from getting the treatment, but we advise you to wait until we managed to run at least a few basic tests.
If you decide that you want the treatment immediately, there are some rules we have to insist on.
For one, it has to be the woman of the couple who gets the injection. Simply because it is insanely easier to fix a single egg, than millions of sperms.
Second, along with the treatment, we will inject her with a BOU. For those of you who do not know what that is, a BOU or bio-observation unit will allow us to medically observe her constantly, regardless of where she is.
That is not because we don’t trust you. It is in case that something goes wrong. Then the BOU will immediately alert us so that we can send help. What it won’t do though is spying on you in any form. Unless there is a medical emergency, no human will even get to see those observations.
Another point is that you understand that we can’t guarantee that you get a child. Even before the great war, before the Folly, some problems prevented pregnancy. And the treatment will do nothing against those problems. If it does anything at all. So far, we only believe it will, and we might be mistaken.
But what it also means is that if, within three months, no pregnancy is forthcoming, we have to insist that we examine both parts of the couple. Many of those additional problems can be solved with modern technology, and if it is something that we can easily fix, we will do so.
And lastly, even if it is no longer common knowledge, to create a child, there needs to be a man and a woman in the relationship. We can’t give two men this possibility and neither two women. At least not without cloning.
That said, we implore you to think carefully about what you want. If the treatment works as we believe it will, you will get it some time in the future anyway. It will, unfortunately, take more than a year to carry out the tests, simply because we have to have examine children conceived with the help of the treatment to make sure that it is absolutely safe.
Until we have done that, we are simply unable to guarantee you a good outcome.
With that, I wish you all a good day.”
Hmm, a bit overdramatic for my taste, but as much as we tried to help them, most of our employees were a bit… simple.
It did convey the message though. And it seems that Jessi had added a bit to the protocol. Not that I disagreed with us using the BOU.
But I had a sudden realization. Our medical facilities would not be enough if a large number of our employees decided to partake in the test.
When I left the office and collected Svenja, she beamed with pride.
“Does that mean that we can look forward to the next generation of Vandermeers, ma’am?”
I stopped suddenly, pretty confused, turning to her.
“Huh, where does that come from?”
“Well, now you do not have to gamble on Project Revitalize to help you get pregnant.”
I rolled my eyes and sighed.
“Svenja, I am a K4. If the treatment works as we believe it will, all it does is give other women what I have had from birth. I never had to face infertility. On the contrary, I am probably the first woman in generations who uses contraceptives.
The only thing I have to do to get pregnant, except what I am doing anyway is order my implants to let an egg ripen.”
She frowned.
“But… if you can do it at any time, why did you not do it?”
I closed my eyes, rubbing over them with my left thumb and index finger.
“I may be physically able to get children, but not mentally and emotionally. The way I grew up… it left scars. I am healing, mind you, and while I am not ready, I can at least think it through without flying into a fit of rage, but I fear I have a long way to go.”
Then I smiled.
“Not that I am under any sort of pressure. Again, I am a K4. I have no biological clock.”
With the data we had generated now in the hands of Project Revitalize, and Dr. McTacish, we had essentially finished our part of the work.
Yes, I know I had originally decided to let the scientists in Nowhere decide when to go to human testing, but seriously, there was virtually nothing that could go wrong. Sure, it might not work, but that was the worst that could happen.
With that in mind, I messaged Jessi to ask for a virtual meeting. It took her a ‘virtual’ eternity to answer, though, in the real world, it only took around six minutes. That is the disadvantage of being in high-compression cyberspace.
But finally, for me at least, she appeared in the simulated comfortable office that I had set up for this.
No outrageously big desk to impress any visitors, just a couple of comfortable chairs, a low table, a ‘window’ showing vistas from all over the solar system, and some abstract art on the walls.
“Hi Jessi. Sit down, please.”
“Oh hi Vivian. Sorry, but I don’t have much time. We are now finalizing the design for the first-aid pack. So… whatever it is, I hope it is quick.”
I was a bit confused. We were at 60:1. She should have had more than enough time for a minute or two to talk to another of the officers of Enki. But whatever.
“Ok, I make it short. You remember that I was asked to work on the Folly, right? And that I had something of a breakthrough. Well, we got a bit more than the last time we talked about it.”
She cocked her head.
“More than this ‘key of life’ that the rats have?”
I smiled.
“That all mammals, except humans, have you mean?”
It took her a moment to piece my sentence together, and honestly, if I had not just had the meeting with Danielle, and seen how fast she was, I would not have been a bit disappointed, but right then… yes, it wasn’t fair, but it was like coming from an invigorating discussion with an adult and then try to explain the world to a three-year-old.
It took all my willpower to not show my discontent, but somehow I think I managed it.
“You mean that… we are supposed to have this ‘key of life’ but thanks to the Folly we don’t any longer?”
“Mostly. What is different from species to species are the two components that form the key. No wonder, this is what prevents inter-species hybrids. For humans, what the Folly did is randomizing those two components.
Not enough to make us completely sterile, but enough to give us a roughly 1:180 chance of the resulting protein actually kicking off the cell division.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head.
“After all these years, and we finally know where to look. This is big, very big. I am surprised that you did not tell Vandermeer about it.”
I chuckled.
“I did. I also gave him access to all the data. Enki has it of course also, just to mention it. He has already put his best geneticist on it to hopefully find a cure for it. But… in the process of testing it, we… the scientists from Nowhere and I, we tried to look what happens if we introduce the full key into the ovum. And it works. It does not have to be from the combined proteins, it just has to be present to start the division.”
She frowned.
“Wait… you are saying that just injecting this key along with the sperm will make the zygote viable?”
I shook my head.
“No, of course not. There are too many factors that determine if a zygote is viable. But it starts the division and makes it so that the other factors come into play in the first place.”
She rubbed the bridge of her nose with both index fingers.
“So, we could, theoretically, offer to perform a harvesting operation, followed by an artificial fertilization, and then implant the new zygote into the mother?”
I shrugged.
“We could, and I guess if the natural way just won’t work we should, but I used a nano-bot to introduce the key into the ovum. Then I modified it a bit and used it on test clones. The new design, with around $100 of nanobots, will for around two years, insert the key into each ovum that leaves the ovaries.
Which is enough to start the division.”
“So… you are telling me that you have created an injection that makes a woman fertile for around two years? And it costs 100 bucks? Why are you telling me this?”
I took a deep breath.
“I gave the nano-bot design to Vandermeer as well, of course. But nothing stops us from using it as well. But so far I only have the research clones as test samples, and I contaminated the results by forcing the clones to ovulate once a day instead of once in 28 days.
But the result with that was that it gives a 90% chance of pregnancy. The risk of complications is, in my opinion minimal, as it is a marginally modified standard medical nano-bot design that creates the key and then encapsulates it until it is placed into the ovum, but… you are the doctor here.”
I looked her in the eye.
“Do we have the moral right to offer this to our employees? Do we have the moral right to not offer it to them? What will be the consequences of doing so? What the conditions? I honestly have no clue what to do with this now, what is the right thing to do.”
She closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths.
“Fuck! You are right, that is a moral problem. There is no harm in testing it on the research clones, of course. And I guess the big brains in Nowhere will start with live human testing pretty soon. But considering how the annual clone lottery is such a big thing… I really don’t know. It is not right to simply test it on humans. But it is also not right to keep that from our employees. Fuck… we have to call Michael. This… this is too big for any of us to decide.”
I sighed but guessed she was right. I mean, the news that there was something that could give people children and somebody held it back would cause riots in Nowhere where Project Revitalize did expend several thousand credits per couple to give them the best chance.
Here? Cities would burn. With that in mind, I send a message to Michael that I needed to meet with him as soon as possible.
Apparently, being the CEO of a double-A corporation did not mean that he had much to do, because he messaged me back that he could meet immediately.
And indeed, it only took him around a minute to appear, though for Jessi’s sake, I had reduced the compression to a moderate 15:1, and we talked about how the treatment should work, and what possible side effects were to be expected.
Our meeting with Michael on the other hand was pretty short. Yes, we had the time to explain what the situation was, and what question we needed to be answered, but after that, after only a few seconds, Michael declared that this was too big for him to decide on his own. Again.
That meant the next thing I knew was that he called an emergency meeting of the whole C-suite.
For in 30 minutes. And he asked me to be physically present as well. Ugh… sure, a quick shower and wardrobe change was not that hard, but he could at least give me a bit more time.
Fortunately, it took not even ten minutes for the Merc to fly to the Enki-HQ, And I was still the last one to arrive. About a minute before the meeting was to start.
Maggie grinned at me, and sweetly commented: “Nice of you to come too, sometime.”
I shrugged while I took my seat.
“If you had to change out of your work clothes, and then fly here within 30 minutes, you would not be very early as well.”
That made her smile even wider.
“I am in my work clothes. We can’t all work from a cushy couch, lying on our back all day, you know?”
I smiled back, recognizing it as harmless banter, something I could not do even a year ago.
“You could, you know. You just don’t want to.”
She chuckled.
“You got me there. With the telebots, we really could. Well, most of us could.”
“Yeah, I get it. You just don’t want to put in 480 hours of work on an eight-hour salary, admit it. You are just lazy.”
“Yeah, fine, you got me.”
Not that that was the truth, mind you. For one, she, like the rest of the execs in this room, had a share of Enki, in addition to their salary, and she did spend quite some time each day in cyberspace. Not as much as me, but honestly, who did?
Michael shook his head.
“If you two are done playing, can we start?”
“Sure boss, whatever you want boss, you just have to say it, boss.”
Ever the irreverent imp, Maggie seamlessly turned her witt towards Michael, who rolled his eyes.
“Now, I have called you here because I… well, Vivian really, has news, and we have a decision to make. So, Vivian, if you may?”
That put me smoothly on the spot. Thank you very much, Michael.
“You know, you could have warned me that you want to throw me to the lions. But whatever…” I sighed dramatically.
“It’s actually more than one news item though. So the easy things first, my project for Vandermeer is finished. In other words, I am available again for our projects, if you need me to do something. Then, Maynard, I have a whole stack of mammal species where you can try the new anti-vermin project on.”
I made a short pause.
“You probably already understand that those are not important enough news to call an emergency meeting. The thing is, I did not just find what causes the start of cell division in other mammals, I found what is broken in humans so that it doesn’t.”
That brought gasps from the others.
“I also found out what we have to include to unbreak it.”
Another round of gasps, this time accompanied by loud expressions of surprise and joy.
“We have, at least in the petri-dish, managed to successfully fertilize around 25 thousand human eggs. That means we can at least in-vitro almost certainly ensure that it works.”
That brought hungry looks from Alena, Tiffany, and surprisingly, Eli. With Maggie stammering:
“Wait… does that mean we can…”
Michael saved her from finding the words:
“Yes, it means exactly that, if I understood Vivian right. We can indeed give each of you a very high chance of parenthood. But she is not yet finished.”
I rolled my eyes.
“As Michael so eloquently stated, I am not finished. We tested this in-vitro method for most of last week. But it had a high enough chance of working that I designed a nano-bot that will hopefully do that in-vivo.
It does not matter if we inject the substance, incidentally, it is the same ‘key of life’ as for rats, into the egg before or after the sperm enters it. As soon as both the key is present and the acrosome reaction has happened, division starts. And if anybody has not yet figured it out, Sanderson’s Folly crippled the key of life.
What my new nanobot should do, is inject the key into every egg that leaves the ovaries. How long it will do that depends fully on how many bots are in a dose. My rough calculation says for around $100 of nano-bots, our costs, we can make a woman hyper-fertile for around two years.
Hyper-fertile means that it is irrelevant if the key component of the father is crippled or not, and if nothing else makes pregnancy impossible, she should catch almost immediately.”
After I had said that, it was impossible to understand anything, as the people around the table all babbled excitedly. That did go on for a couple of minutes before Michael rapped sharply on the table.
“Settle down. I understand this is important. More so for some of you. But the point here is, we have this bot-design. We are not the only ones, mind you, Vivian has given them to Vandermeer and this project in Nowhere. They have set their best geneticist working on maybe curing the Folly with that information. But that could happen tomorrow, in a year, in ten years, or never.
Right now, we have a probable, albeit untested, treatment. It works in research clones with later harvesting of the eggs and then in-vitro fertilization, but we don’t know if it works in the natural way.”
For a moment there was silence before Jessi spoke up:
“The thing is, while there should be no side effects of this treatment, we can never be 100% sure. Everything we know is that the worst that can happen is that it doesn’t work. And even that is unlikely. But we could be wrong about that. That means for the first women who test this, there will be a small, but real risk. And we can’t test this on rats, because rats are not, yet, suffering from the Folly.”
That made everybody sober up. Michael then continued:
“But that is also not really a reason for an emergency meeting. And no, there is no need to decide if we develop that thing or not. That is a no-brainer. No, the thing is, do we offer this to our employees? On one hand, we can’t simply use our employees for human testing. But on the other hand, can we really keep that from them? Do we have that right?”
Marcel tapped on the table with a finger.
“It is just a matter of time before we can give that to our employees, right? So why the rush?”
Jessi sighed.
“Because, as much as people don’t really acknowledge this, the Folly is one of the big reasons why our world is on a shit creek without a paddle. The instinct to procreate is one of the strongest in humanity, all living beings really. Just below surviving really. It does a real number to people to know that they most likely will never have children.
That is unfortunate, but acceptable if it is a small fraction of the population. But thank’s to the Folly, it is not a fraction, but the vast majority. The damage to society is… insane. If we can turn that around… we have to.”
Marcel shrugged.
“Sure, I get that. That was not my question though. My question was why do we have to tell them now, when it is not yet tested? We can test it and then give it to our employees, and we won’t have any moral quandary.”
Michael shook his head and sighed.
“Do you remember the riots in Boston in 42? That happened because the people there learned that some official rigged the clone lottery. Not even massively, but just a bit to give his… patrons a significantly higher chance of winning.
So, if people are willing to burn down whole neighborhoods because somebody changed their negligible chance of winning a clone child, what do you think they will do if, no when they learn that we had this for some time and did not give it to them immediately?”
I saw Marcel, along with almost everybody else grimace when Michael said that.
Marcel just nodded.
“Ok, yeah. That would be bad. But as you said, we can’t just test it on our employees.”
Naveen spoke calmly:
“Not without informing them, no. But why don’t we put the decision in our employees' hands? Inform them that we have this bot that we believe can give them children, but we have not tested it, we don’t know if it really works, and we don’t know if there are side effects. Give them the option of making an informed decision. I mean, how much of a risk is it, really?”
I shrugged.
“Honestly, all but negligible. We are talking of a minor variation of a standard 12th gen medical nano-bot. Those are well-tested and known for not causing any trouble. The ‘key of life’ will be encapsulated until it will be injected into an egg, to prevent the body from breaking it down.
Even the chance that it doesn’t work is minute. As I said, it works in the petri dish. In more than 90% of the cases. For all purposes, if there is nothing else stopping a pregnancy, it should work. But we simply can never be 100% sure in those cases without testing.”
Naveen nodded.
“Yes, I thought so. In other words, all of our ‘we have to test it’ is mostly to be sure, right?”
Both Jessi and I nodded.
“So, explain that to the people, and let them decide. If they forgo getting the bot, it is their decision, and they can’t hold us responsible. And in the unlikely case that something goes wrong, it was also their decision. Especially if we recommend for them to wait for the results of the human trials.”
Michael sighed.
“That is a bit cynical, isn’t it?”
Naveen nodded.
“Yes, it is, but it is in my opinion the best of a group of bad options. This is something that, no matter how we handle it, can explode into our faces. That means we have to take the cynical approach, or whatever our decision is, it will probably backfire.”
Michael rubbed his temples.
“Yeah, I get that. I don’t like it but I understand it. Well, Eli, what do you think about that approach? Is it legal?”
Eli scoffed.
“For real boss? We are an AA-tier corp. Unless Ralcon or Enertech put their noses in, legal is what we decide it is. Not even the other triple-As could make us trouble there. It would be legal, and unfortunately fully in line with how double and triple A-corps act for us to simply test it on our employees and not tell them.
But in this case, Naveen’s idea would be legal even for a C- or B- tier corp. If we don’t simply inject them, but inform them about what we think it will do, and that we don’t know if there are any side effects, or what those might be if there are, we are golden.”
As usual, I was disgusted about how much power the USA, well, most nations really, gave to the corporations. And that by now we were part of this power structure. But at least we tried not to abuse it.
Frick, we could have just tested in on the employees as Eli had explained, and nobody would have raised an eyebrow about it. In the eyes of most of those elites, the overwhelming majority of our employees were just cattle after all. The only reason they had not yet exterminated most of them was that they needed customers.
Even perennial poor customers bought coms, with data and voice plans. They needed electricity, and as a rule, lacked the several million dollars it took to buy even the smallest fusactor. They needed clothes, and guess who owned virtually all of the cheap fabbers in the poorer areas?
Heck, even the buildings were often owned by a corporation, though not in Queens. All that was very easy to understand when one began looking for it. What I did not understand though was where the masses got their money. I had once asked Ben about it, and he essentially explained that at least in Queens, shadow-mercs drove the economy.
Virtually everything here was geared toward fleecing those who were paid by the corporations in their shadow wars. But that could not be all of it. But whatever, I had already pretty much accepted that I would never understand it.
In my musing, I did not notice that the others had already voted, and when Michael softly nudged me with his elbow, I was a bit confused.
“Uh, what? Sorry, I was thinking about something.”
Michael facepalmed, while Alena smiled and answered:
“We noticed. But we are waiting for your vote.”
“My vote? There was seriously a vote? I thought Naveen’s idea is the only viable option.”
I was still confused looking into the round when Michael said:
“And with that, it’s unanimous. Alright, I will prepare a message for our employees.”
He stood up and promptly left the room, while the rest of us slowly began to follow him.
I took a deep breath and closes my eyes, trying to clear my mind. I flinched when I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I looked up, I saw James standing there.
“I wanted to ask, what were you thinking so hard about? Are any new products in the works?”
“Hu? No, well, at least not that I know. You have to ask Maynard and the Minions about that. No… Eli’s comment… it hit me. I had to think about how much I despise this corpocracy we are living in. And how utterly evil virtually all the rich and powerful are.”
He smiled sadly.
“Oh yes, that is… I sometimes do the same. And now I am COO of one of the 20 biggest corporations in the US. I am part of that corpocracy. It’s sometimes hard to wrap my head around it.”
“You are part of it? Frick, I own 80% of this top-20 corporation. Most of our products are based on my inventions. You are part of the corporation, without me, there would be no corporation here.
You are part of the machinery. Powerful and rich beyond belief, at least compared to 99.99% of all humans, but I am part of the so-called super elite.
People in your strata of society are usually… not good, but don’t go out of their way to be evil either. People in my strata do. My ‘peers’ are the problem. What do you think that does to my head? And I can’t even do anything against them, because while I am rich and powerful, so are they. And they are many.”
He nodded, still smiling sadly.
“The only thing you can do is what you are doing. Do your best to remain good, and be fair. Help people. Make their lives easier. Honestly, I don’t think anybody in the last 100 years has done as much good as you. Just keep doing what you are doing, and don’t grow bitter. Don’t let the world destroy you.”
I looked him in the eyes and then sighed.
“I’ll do my best.”
“That is all anybody can expect from you.”
With that, he left me alone, mulling over what he had said.
On some level, I knew he was right. But unfortunately, those pesky emotions did not agree with him. For way too many years, felt centuries really, I was firmly on the other side, doing everything I could to bring down big corporations. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was on the right side, that the corporations needed to go away.
I felt my righteous anger burning brightly and proudly. And now… I could not help it, I felt like a traitor. Yes, intellectually, I knew that was nonsense. That I was still on the right side. Enki was doing its absolute best to help the people around us. And most times, that part of me was all that was there.
But sometimes, like right that moment, the angry little voice deep in my mind that declared me a traitor came to the forefront. And demanded with fury that I destroy everything. The whole system. Rip it apart.
Fortunately, like always this descent into madness cleared soon. I managed to calm the nagging doubt eating on me, pacify the blazing rage burning in my heart, and soothe the bitter hate that always threatened to overwhelm me.
And again, it had been a tiny bit easier than before. Over the last year, I had gained a measure of composure that I had not even believed possible. I was less and less a victim of my anger.
Still, it took a couple of minutes to control myself, before I sluggishly stood up. I had no physical problems, but my mind was… exhausted. My experience told me it would take a few hours for me to recover.
And unfortunately, I had no clue if I was needed in the HQ any longer or not.
When I walked through the door, Svenja, who was walking a couple of steps behind me said softly:
“You should not think too hard about it, ma’am. Your family has, for the last 200 years, helped humanity again and again. Your family is the reason the great war ended. It is the reason humanity could survive the idiocy of the politicians and the ravages of the night of the falling stars. Your family is the reason Project Revitalize exists in the first place. And your family is the reason the Commonwealth has Apollo and no uneducated sheep.
And now, you’ve beaten the Folly, the one thing exterminating humanity. No, you don’t have to worry, you, like all of your ancestors, are a force of good.”
It was, strangely balming the hear her say it. I knew all of that in a purely information-type of way. And maybe if I said it to myself often enough, one day I would believe it as well. But right now, it was a struggle.
“Thank you Svenja. And, again, please call me Vivian. I feel uncomfortable if somebody calls me ma’am.” I knew, of course, what her answer to my request would be. We had this same argument often enough.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that ma’am. It would be disrespecting.”
And there it was. From what I learned, there were mostly four types of Vandermeer military personnel.
First of course those that saw it as a way to make money. Better mercenaries really. And I had learned that those people were not particularly trusted in the Vandermeer hierarchy. I had not met one of those yet.
Second those who saw Vandermeer as a way to power. As long as Vandermeer could provide that path forward, they could be trusted, but as soon as that stopped… well, those types of soldiers were used, but never in a critical position. Major Burke was a very good example of that.
Third, those who actually believed in what Vandermeer, the corporation, was doing. They made up the core of the Vandermeer military, and the vast majority of my security detail was drawn from this stock.
And lastly, some saw the Vandermeer family members as something like something of religious icons. In their eyes, were almost the paragons of goodness. And a couple of the security detail, including Cpl. Svenja Ingridsdottier came from that background.
I could maybe have been angry about that if Vandermeer had done anything to create this belief.
But after some long discussions with Lt. Thomson and Sgt. Reynolds, it was clear that this… cult had simply looked at the historical information, information that as far as I could discern was completely true, and drawn the conclusion that my family was sent to Earth to redeem humanity.
Stupid, I know, but as much as I had no particular fondness for any religion, I also believed that everybody had the right to believe what they wanted. And so here I was, confronted with a few people who saw, and worse, treated me as if I was some holy messenger sent down from the heavens. Talk about disconcerting.
It is even worse. Until about three years before, my father, Julian DuClare, still defamed as a traitor, was seen as a demon who corrupted the pure, and holy maiden, Rebecca Vandermeer, to end the holy family.
Until… if I had even had the slightest idea that it would make my father into some sort of saint, I would have thought twice, maybe even trice, before I publicized the truth about him. No, not really, I wanted the truth to be known.
But now those people believed that the ‘evil Knowles and Dalgons’ conspired to break the family. That my father was an honorable man, destined for greatness, cut short through betrayal. That in itself was of course kinda the truth. But they promptly elevated him to a saint.
I also learned that this cult was overjoyed that my mother was still alive, even if she was damaged severely. But they were, almost constantly, petitioning Nate to have her impregnated, to continue the bloodline.
I was, honestly, rather glad that so far only a handful of them, who additionally were sworn to secrecy, knew that I existed. But I could see the time that my anonymity ended quickly approaching.
I mean, the name DuClare was now no longer reviled by those folks, and sooner or later, somebody would realize that the small, redheaded K4-Pure with the last name DuClare, who looked quite a bit like Rebecca Vandermeer, and who worked closely with Vandermeer, might come from the Vandermeer family.
Another reason to be happy that I was here, in NYC, and no longer in Seattle.
In my office, Svenja naturally took the anteroom, and I dove into cyberspace, to clear my mind. Not deeply, only 2:1.
I had noticed that it was counterproductive to accelerate any meditation. At 2:1 I got most of the benefits of meditating while doing it essentially twice as fast. But at higher compressions, the gains fell dramatically. 2:1 was the point of diminishing returns. So unless you were in a hurry, it was mostly wasted effort to meditate in more than that.
And seeing that ‘being in a hurry’ and meditation are things that simply don’t work well with each other… I did not think there could ever be a reason to meditate in high compression. Why spent subjective four hours doing something when you get the same benefit for subjective 30 minutes of the same work, and both in the same 15 minutes in real-time?
Still, when I had managed to regain my composure and some of my mental energy, I surfaced back into the real world, only to be greeted by a general message from the CEO.
Yes, I generally knew what he would say already, but I still listened to his message to everybody working for Enki.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, valued employees of Enki, I talk to you about a positive, if very hard decision, I, and the other officers of our corporation made just today.
I won’t insult your intelligence with some hollow platitudes about how we are a family or such meaningless drivel. You know as well as I do that Enki is a business. Still, we at the top try to do the best for all of you. To bring you the greatest possible benefit.
That is not always possible, and even if it is, it is rarely easy, but we founded this corporation on the idea that we want it to be a force of good.
But just today, we ran into a decision where there are no really good answers. Our own Dr. DuClare has been asked by the Northwestern Commonwealth to look into the most common cause for the lack of children. Something that the Commies call ‘The Folly’. It is, as some of you might know, the result of a bioweapon used during the great war.
The good news is, she discovered what exactly the Folly does. Why it prevents us from having children.
And from what I understand, the Commies are already beginning on creating a lasting cure. But during her research, she found an untested way that we believe will treat the infertility caused by the Folly.
Not cure, only treat. And here we come to our decision. We would not, could not, in good conscience keep that possible treatment from you. But on the other hand, we could not simply test it on you.
Legally, we have that right, but morally, we can’t make ourselves do it.
We believe that it is effective and that it is otherwise without side effects. But we don’t know for sure.
It is a derivative of commonly used medical nanobots, so everything we know tells us it is harmless, except for very rare allergies. But unfortunately, whenever humans are absolutely sure of something, it has the tendency to bite us in the ass.
That means we place the decision into your hands. We will not prevent you from getting the treatment, but we advise you to wait until we managed to run at least a few basic tests.
If you decide that you want the treatment immediately, there are some rules we have to insist on.
For one, it has to be the woman of the couple who gets the injection. Simply because it is insanely easier to fix a single egg, than millions of sperms.
Second, along with the treatment, we will inject her with a BOU. For those of you who do not know what that is, a BOU or bio-observation unit will allow us to medically observe her constantly, regardless of where she is.
That is not because we don’t trust you. It is in case that something goes wrong. Then the BOU will immediately alert us so that we can send help. What it won’t do though is spying on you in any form. Unless there is a medical emergency, no human will even get to see those observations.
Another point is that you understand that we can’t guarantee that you get a child. Even before the great war, before the Folly, some problems prevented pregnancy. And the treatment will do nothing against those problems. If it does anything at all. So far, we only believe it will, and we might be mistaken.
But what it also means is that if, within three months, no pregnancy is forthcoming, we have to insist that we examine both parts of the couple. Many of those additional problems can be solved with modern technology, and if it is something that we can easily fix, we will do so.
And lastly, even if it is no longer common knowledge, to create a child, there needs to be a man and a woman in the relationship. We can’t give two men this possibility and neither two women. At least not without cloning.
That said, we implore you to think carefully about what you want. If the treatment works as we believe it will, you will get it some time in the future anyway. It will, unfortunately, take more than a year to carry out the tests, simply because we have to have examine children conceived with the help of the treatment to make sure that it is absolutely safe.
Until we have done that, we are simply unable to guarantee you a good outcome.
With that, I wish you all a good day.”
Hmm, a bit overdramatic for my taste, but as much as we tried to help them, most of our employees were a bit… simple.
It did convey the message though. And it seems that Jessi had added a bit to the protocol. Not that I disagreed with us using the BOU.
But I had a sudden realization. Our medical facilities would not be enough if a large number of our employees decided to partake in the test.
When I left the office and collected Svenja, she beamed with pride.
“Does that mean that we can look forward to the next generation of Vandermeers, ma’am?”
I stopped suddenly, pretty confused, turning to her.
“Huh, where does that come from?”
“Well, now you do not have to gamble on Project Revitalize to help you get pregnant.”
I rolled my eyes and sighed.
“Svenja, I am a K4. If the treatment works as we believe it will, all it does is give other women what I have had from birth. I never had to face infertility. On the contrary, I am probably the first woman in generations who uses contraceptives.
The only thing I have to do to get pregnant, except what I am doing anyway is order my implants to let an egg ripen.”
She frowned.
“But… if you can do it at any time, why did you not do it?”
I closed my eyes, rubbing over them with my left thumb and index finger.
“I may be physically able to get children, but not mentally and emotionally. The way I grew up… it left scars. I am healing, mind you, and while I am not ready, I can at least think it through without flying into a fit of rage, but I fear I have a long way to go.”
Then I smiled.
“Not that I am under any sort of pressure. Again, I am a K4. I have no biological clock.”
