Asimov's SF, January 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “Part of the time.”

  “Still, are we just going to document and process, let the forensic genetics lab have a look for the case file, and then throw him into long-term care?”

  “I can't recommend him for foster, Dr. Steller. There's too much risk of exploitation or abduction for a child with his memory difficulties.”

  “How is he with other children?”

  “Judging from his roommate, normal enough. Minnie says he doesn't forget anything until the next adult comes in.”

  “Minerva,” Grace corrected, and the other woman stared at her. “She goes by Minerva now. Look, Langford, Daniel would be miserable in a perm-ward. You'd essentially be throwing a naive boy into a group of disturbed, unpredictable kids for the first time every day. If not every hour...” Grace tapered off, and Langford didn't reply. The two women regarded each other.

  “C'mon, Grace, I like the little guy too, but there's no lasting harm,” said Kafouri.

  “Yeah, he's self-cleaning,” Grace muttered, and stalked past Langford to empty her coffee into the sink with a splat. “Thanks for your time, Dr. Langford. Bob, I'll go double-check the patient now that I know what you're looking for.”

  “You'd have seen the evidence if there was any,” he said, shrugging his coat on and adjusting his tie. “It's up to the gene guys now.”

  * * * *

  Grace stood at the door to 408, peering through the glass. She thumbed the monitor button and listened to the occasional clink of Minerva's fork against her plate. Daniel wasn't in view, but she thought she heard his feet slapping against the vinyl tile near the door.

  “I wouldn't,” Minerva said.

  “I want to find Jimmy,” Daniel's voice replied.

  The girl pushed the visor back on her head. “You won't. It's a big hospital and they don't like us guppies wandering around it.”

  “What's a guppy?”

  “I am. You are. Toys someone made wrong.”

  Daniel walked into Grace's view and stood at the foot of Minerva's bed. “What do you mean, toys?”

  She picked at the edges of her mountain of beef stroganoff with her fork. “I've explained it to you before, but it took a long time and you forgot it anyway. Just learn the word ‘guppy.’ It's not nice, but it means us.”

  The boy stood on tiptoe at the window, pink heels disappearing into the baggy pants.

  “You can sit on my bed if you want. You'll see better.”

  Daniel glanced at the door, then climbed up and kneeled, looking out. “Will Jimmy come back?”

  “Probably. He brings lunch and dinner, most days.”

  “What will I do if he doesn't come back?”

  “I think you'll recover.”

  Grace opened the door and the monitor clicked off behind her. Daniel twisted around to see who'd come in, and his eager face turned blissful. “Hello! What's your name?”

  “Dr. Grace,” Grace said again, with a rueful smile.

  “Back again?” said Minerva. “I thought his initial exam was filed.”

  “My shift is over, but you're very well-informed.”

  The girl tapped her computer headset. “What else am I going to be?”

  Grace looked at the walls around Minerva's bed, covered with pictures cut out of hand-me-down magazines. A long poster of the stages of a cheetah's lope was taped along the vent under the window and fluttered occasionally. National Geographic maps were stuck to the wall below her TV. Daniel's side of the room, by contrast, was blank. He looked so new in his hospital-issue clothes under his hospital-issue blanket. He hadn't touched his dinner. She tried to remember Brandon Macauley's room, recalled a line of art postcards—Sargent, maybe—and photos of courtyards at the Alhambra, cathedral naves.

  Minerva interrupted Grace's thoughts. “Ever since you ordered Daniel's IV out, he's been trying to follow people out of the room.”

  “I'll set the door to auto-lock then, okay?”

  “I'm not going anywhere.”

  “Would you mind if I read to him?”

  “Go ahead. I'll warn you, though, it loses its novelty appeal soon enough.”

  “What's ‘novelty'?” asked Daniel.

  “Something new, unexpected. Everything, for you.”

  Grace sat down, pulled out her board and cleared her throat. The boy flopped across his bed onto his elbows, the picture of attention. Minerva bent each earbud down and flipped her visor over her eyes. “This story is called Charlotte's Web,” Grace began. Daniel kicked his bare feet together in the air as she read, forgot to close his mouth, looked like any kid absorbed in a story.

  “Fern couldn't take her eyes off the tiny pig,” Grace was reading when the door clicked and swept inward. She and the boy both glanced up, but all they could see was the airplane-patterned sleeve of Nurse Biggs's scrubs as he stood behind the door. “'Oh, look at him! He's absolutely perfect,'” Grace continued over the murmur of voices in the hall.

  “No, Dr. Das said two more days,” the nurse said loudly.

  Daniel didn't look away from Grace's face, and she smiled as she read, “She closed the carton carefully. First she kissed her father, then she kissed her mother. Then she opened the lid again—”

  “So get her some ointment!” Nurse Biggs said and bustled into the room, letting the door swing shut behind him and tearing the backing off a drug patch. The boy looked up and beamed into Biggs's face. Grace paused with her finger at her place in the text, watching Daniel gaze across the room at the man.

  “You'll have to start over, of course,” said Minerva as Biggs lifted her sleeve and applied the patch, moving carefully so he wouldn't jostle her arm out of the grow solution. “I read him a whole chapter of that book after lunch.”

  Grace locked the board and stood. “I have to get going. Have a good afternoon, both of you.” She paused in the doorway.

  Daniel clambered off his bed and padded over to Biggs. He tugged on the man's scrubs and Minerva sighed at the inevitable. “Who are you?”

  * * * *

  A few days later, Grace was alone in the women's dressing room. She leaned her forehead against the cool metal of her locker and hauled on the ends of her ceremonial stethoscope, feeling it taut against the knots in her neck.

  The door squeaked, and she raised her head to see Langford, early for a night shift. “Tough day?” she asked, and Grace nodded. “Too bad, it was beautiful. Summer-bright but not summer-hot.”

  “Saw it out the window a few times.”

  “Sorry for bringing it up.”

  “Have you ever noticed we get more voluntary surrenders when it's nice out? I figure the opters look outside and think of all the fun they'd be having if they didn't have to take care of this kid.”

  “That's pretty harsh,” said Langford, stowing her bag in her locker.

  “Opters are usually the worst kind of people to parent a kid who needs special care. They wouldn't have sprung for illegal opts if they didn't cut corners, if they could accept what life gave them.”

  “There are other reasons why people have a made baby.”

  Grace suppressed a grimace over the phrase. “Sure. Besides the perfectionists, there are stage parents trying to live out their thwarted dreams.”

  Langford watched Grace. “You sound so bitter.”

  “I've been here eleven years, Langford. That's enough to make anyone bitter.” She stood up, opened her locker and started pulling off her scrubs. “Or maybe it only takes one day like today, when a couple brings in their optimized baby for voluntary surrender because she's ‘not right’ and it turns out the opt was perfect, they just gave her brain damage shaking her when she cried.” Grace yanked her shoelaces loose, avoiding Langford's eyes. She sighed. “Can we talk about the other day, Thea? I feel like I came on too strong about Daniel.”

  “You noticed that too?”

  “Yeah. Maybe I owe you a mocha to apologize. I just want to make sure somebody takes care of him.”

  “He'll get taken care of wherever he e
nds up.”

  “A kiddy ward may keep him healthy, but they won't try to accommodate him, give him a life.”

  Langford gathered her braids back and looped them into a bun. “He'd be a good subject for a grant, and it might get him his own environment, special care.”

  Grace looked up, dangling one sneaker.

  “I can ask around my department, try to get someone interested. Research is the best way to leverage your way out of here, after all.” Langford closed her locker and stood with her hand on the latch. “You know, in this place, you have to know when to care, Grace. And how much.” She pushed open the door and disappeared into the hallway. “Be well,” Grace thought she heard her call. She wondered if Langford would report her, if she already had. They'd listen to a psych specialist, and there was no room in her file for another administrative intervention.

  She finished changing and looked down at her clothes—tailored trousers with well-placed cargo pockets, button-up shirt—and wondered who she was pretending to be, every night and day on the train, what this Grace did on days off. She headed for the exit, but on impulse opened the stairwell door and headed up to Floor 4, alone with her labored breath. Room 408 was quiet and there was only one bed.

  “The perm-ward bus came today,” said Minerva. “Don't worry, I don't mean they took him. Some spots opened up on 2, that's all.”

  “I came to see you, anyway,” Grace lied.

  Minerva shoved her headset mike and visor up over her head. “You can sit down.”

  Grace did, easing herself onto the long empty foot of the bed, spread with a charity quilt. “I remember when your headset was held on with bobby pins.”

  “Yes, I much prefer having hands.”

  “How's number two doing?”

  Minerva jerked a velcro strap open to free her left arm. She shook it off to display a glistening, fully formed palm with five budding digits as well as the existing thumb in the crux of her elbow.

  “Congratulations!”

  “Almost done.” Minerva's smile was brief and tight as she sank her hand back into the viscous liquid.

  “Aren't you pleased?”

  “Yes, mostly. I've always dreamed of having hands, but they want me to have legs, too.”

  “That surprises you?”

  “I don't want to do it. It took me two years to grow these. Eating huge meals and running an IV, lying with my stumps in goo and having minor operations every week.” She lifted her right hand. “As far as I'm concerned, this is it. Two of these is all I need to pick things up, press buttons, lever myself out of a chair.”

  “But think of everything you'll be able to do. Walk, run, play games...”

  “It's not worth it.” Minerva snaked her hand into Grace's. “It hurts, growing limbs. Growing bone is the worst. I can barely sleep. Sometimes I get phantom limb pain, which I never have without the grow bath. And then there are the missteps, the amputations, the feedings—I had to gain over fifteen pounds for this arm, you know. I can't spend more years this way. I have to get out of this room.” She squeezed the woman's fingers, and there was appeal in her eyes.

  Grace wondered who Minerva's new wellness lead was, if any of her current team had asked her what she wanted. She looked at the child's hand, the skin lined with scars from stops and starts, the fingers already callused from computer controls.

  “You used to read me that story, Charlotte's Web. Do you remember?”

  “After you were surrendered, sure.”

  “A funny story to read to a guppy. Do you know why I cried, back then?”

  “I thought you missed your parents.”

  “A little. But mostly it was because I understood. I was five, but I understood—my parents took the guilty plea and the fine when I was two so they could get government assistance. They did the PSAs to get most of the fine waived. Then they waited. If you take the home care deal and give it a ‘good faith effort,’ you can surrender the kid to the government without the larger fine. A ‘good faith effort’ is three years. They turned me over at three years and one day.”

  “You were already smart at five.”

  “The ment-opt was the part that worked.”

  The two stared out the window at the train, lights bright against the dusk, pulling out of the Rapid station.

  “I've missed you,” the girl said.

  * * * *

  Grace slipped her ID lanyard over her head as she walked by the “Cleveland Regional Gene-Engineered Pediatric Inpatient Center” sign. She shoved the thick plastic card into a jacket pocket and zipped it closed, then hurried across the square to the Rapid stop to take a seat.

  Most of her colleagues didn't mind being asked about their work. Some seemed to relish the opportunity for dramatic anecdotes. But Grace changed out of scrubs and avoided walking out of the Center within sight of her train, so that no commuters would ask. In theory, GEPIC employees were supposed to welcome the chance to educate the public about the dangers of illegal gene-engineering. But knowing they were supposed to cheerfully embrace outreach didn't make the ghoulish questions—"What was your worst case?” “Do many of them die?” “Do you have the boy with two mouths there? The one from the ads?"—any easier to endure. She had applied for the job the same way she had volunteered to work at a free clinic in Mexico after medical school: full of shining hope. Even after eleven years, it was hard to listen to people's tabloid fantasies about it with equanimity.

  Grace read the Plain Dealer on her board. She found herself searching the local crime section for signs of a ring of kid-traffickers, amateur-detective style. She blanked the board and stared out the scratched window for the three remaining stops between GEPIC and her building.

  Her apartment was on the sixth floor, with an unappreciated sliver of lake view. She slumped her bag by the door, levered off her shoes. The dent in her couch accepted her again as she hugged her legs, stared around for something to occupy her. There was dust on the books she'd already read, travel books and memoirs of teachers, humanitarians, biologists. There was a pile of dirty dishes blocking the screen of the entertainment set, and more attracting fruit flies in the kitchen.

  Her eye settled on an end table cluttered with gifts from her patients. She picked up a clumsy origami crane and an intriguing little abstract in clay, fingered a few loops of wooden beads that slumped against the bulletin board behind, the layered photos and crayon drawings. What good had she done them? She wondered if Daniel would draw her something, if he stayed with her for long enough. The Steller family mantel clock began to chime, and her stomach stirred in response. She unfolded herself and made for the kitchen without looking at the framed photo, at Brandon Macauley's uneven smile, or behind it at his sketch of her, done in short, sure lines between waves of pain.

  The phone rang shrill, the ID flashing Kafouri, R.

  “Good news in our little cherub's case.”

  “Daniel? What is it? Did you find the parents?”

  “No parents, but there's a distinctive pattern in the junk pairs—not seen in nature, as they say. Might be a byproduct of this lab's technique, and the boys think it might match up with some other high-end stuff.”

  “What does that mean for Daniel?”

  “He might be part of the nation's first high-end lab bust! Listen, I'll give you a call if we get any closer—so you can be sure and read that headline.”

  He didn't wait to see what she would say before hanging up. The phone went dark and Grace replaced it slowly, fighting the urge to throw it. She picked up the book next to it, a turgid historical novel that had seemed more promising in the shop, and sat down, trying to slow her breathing, focus on the page. She stared through the words for a minute or ten. With a jerk she pitched the book, which skidded to a halt on the kitchen threshold. It lay splayed and rumpled, and Grace watched without satisfaction as it settled its pages into creases, subsiding under its own weight as if with a sigh.

  * * * *

  The next week, Minerva was wheeling around a li
ght wheelchair in iridescent gold, tracing the long scuffmarks on the vinyl where Daniel's bed had been. “Did you pick the color?” Grace asked.

  “What?”

  “The chair.”

  Minerva shook her head. “Got ten digits though, and no extras.” She raised her left hand high so it caught the light off the building opposite and held the five new fingers wide. Their skin was red from rubbing the chair's hand rim, and her elbow sported a dressing. “I heard you came to see me yesterday. Walked in on my laser ablation?”

  “Didn't see the warning light.”

  “Did they make you go to the ophthalmoscope?”

  “I checked out.”

  “I had to go under the ‘scope myself once, years ago. They gave me too little anesthesia, and I woke up in the middle of one of the ablations. I went from a queasy dream to a bed ringed by adults in scarlet plastic hoods. I guess I was so terrified I failed to look down at the laser cauterizer working on my stub.”

  “So your eyes were okay then?”

  “Yeah. I kept telling them at the time that I felt fine, my eyes didn't hurt. I didn't believe them when they told me I could have a retinal burn without knowing, that there are no nerves on the back of your eye. I still thought my nerves were on my side.”

  “So this is it,” Grace said. “This is all you wanted?”

  “Ten fingers and a chair, yup.”

  “And they're not going to stop?”

  Minerva scooted into place next to her, facing the window. Pink-white fluff rolled up against the benches and shelter posts—there must be cherry trees nearby losing their blooms. “Some days I think they want the update piece in the news: ‘Whatever happened to the limbless baby?’ When I'm not being unkind, I think they want to feel they've done all they can.”

  Grace let down her ponytail and shook her hair out. “What do you want to do when you grow up? You said a scientist, but what kind? Don't you think you'll want, or even need, to walk?”

  “I want to clean and study dinosaur bones. In a lab. I've seen them do it, they sit the whole time.” She laughed.

  “How can you be sure? You seem so certain that this will mean a better life for you, but what if you're wrong?”