Frameshift

by Robert J. Sawyer

  It was the Friday night of the Labor Day long weekend, the last holiday of the summer. Most everybody was out of town or at home enjoying the time off. Molly and Pierre met Burian Klimus, Dr. Gwendolyn Bacon, and her two assistants in Klimus’s office, and the six of them headed downstairs.

  Pierre kept Klimus company outside as Molly lay on a table in the theater. Dr. Bacon—a gaunt, tanned woman of about fifty, with hair as white as snow—stood by as one of her assistants administered an intravenous sedative to Molly, and then Bacon herself inserted a long, hollow needle into Molly’s vagina. Monitoring her progress with ultrasound equipment, Bacon used suction to draw out sample material. The hormones she’d been treating Molly with should have caused her to develop multiple oocytes to maturity this cycle, instead of the usual one. The material was quickly transferred to a petri dish containing a growth medium, and Bacon’s other assistant checked it under a microscope to make sure it did indeed include eggs.

  Finally, Molly got dressed, and Pierre and Klimus came into the theater. “We got fifteen eggs,” Bacon said, with a slight Tennessee accent. “Good work, Molly!”

  Molly nodded but then backed away from everyone in the room, rubbing her right temple a bit. Pierre recognized the signs: she clearly had a headache, and wanted to put some distance between herself and others to get some mental peace and quiet. The headache was no doubt brought about by the uncomfortable procedure and bright lights, and had probably been exacerbated by having had to listen to Dr. Bacon’s doubtlessly intense and clinical thoughts while performing the extraction.

  “All right,” said Klimus from across the room. “Now, if you people will leave me alone, I’ll take care of…of the rest of the procedure.”

  Pierre looked at the man. He seemed slightly…well, embarrassed was probably the right word. After all, the old guy was now about to whack off into a beaker. Pierre wondered for a moment what he was going to use to help him along. Playboy? Penthouse? Proceedings of the National Academy? The semen could have been collected weeks before, but fresh sperm had a 90 percent chance of fertilizing the eggs, versus only 60 percent for the frozen variety.

  “Don’t fertilize all the eggs,” said Dr. Bacon to Klimus. “Save half for later.” That was good advice. It was possible that Klimus’s sperm had low motility (not unusual in elderly men) and would fail to fertilize the eggs. This way, if need be, some eggs would be in storage to try again later with a different donor, saving Molly from another round of needle aspiration. Once Klimus’s sperm was added, the mixture would be placed in an incubator. Klimus would return tomorrow night at this time to check on what was happening: fertilization should take place pretty quickly in the dish, but it would be a day before it could be detected. He’d phone Pierre, Molly, and Dr. Bacon with the results, and assuming they did have fertilized eggs, they would all return the following night, Sunday evening, by which time the embryos would be at the four-cell stage, ready for implantation. Dr. Bacon would then insert four or five directly into Molly’s uterus through her cervical canal.

  If none implanted, they’d try again later. If one or two did implant, a standard pregnancy test should reveal positive results in ten to fourteen days. If more than that implanted, well, Pierre had read about a procedure called “selective reduction”—another reason he hadn’t been keen on having his own sperm generate embryos for IVF. Selective reduction was done many weeks into the pregnancy by using ultrasound to target the most accessible fetuses, then injecting poison directly into their hearts.

  “Well,” said Bacon, after scrubbing down and removing her gown, “I’m going home. Keep your fingers crossed.”

  “Thank you so much,” said Molly, sitting on a chair across the room.

  “Yes, thank you,” said Pierre. “We really appreciate it.”

  “My pleasure,” said Bacon. She and her assistants left.

  “You two should get going, as well,” said Klimus to Pierre and Molly. “Go out to dinner; keep yourselves occupied. I’ll call you tomorrow night.”

  The phone rang in Pierre and Molly’s living room at 8:52 the following evening. They looked at each other anxiously, not sure for half a second who should answer it.

  Pierre nodded at Molly, and she dived for it, bringing the handset to her face. “Hello?” she said. “Yes? Really? Oh, that’s wonderful! That’s marvelous! Thank you, Burian. Thank you so much! Yes, yes, tomorrow. We’ll be there at eight. Thanks a million! See you then.”

  Pierre was already on his feet, his arms around his wife’s waist from behind. She put down the handset. “We’ve got seven fertilized eggs!” she said.

  Pierre turned her around and kissed her passionately. Their tongues danced for a while, and his hands fondled her breasts. They collapsed back down on the couch, making wild, hot love, first licking and kissing each other, she taking him into her mouth, he lapping at her, and then, of course, the most important of all, driving his penis into her, pounding, pounding, as if to propel his own sperm through her blocked fallopian tubes, and at last exploding in orgasm, after which the two of them lay spent, cuddling together.

  Pierre knew that for the rest of his life, he would think of that spectacular lovemaking session as the real moment his child had been conceived.

  Craig Bullen came into the ultramodern office on the thirty-seventh floor of the Condor Health Insurance Tower in San Francisco. Sitting at his desk as he had every weekday for the past four decades was Abraham Danielson, the founder of the company. Bullen had mixed feelings about the old man. He was a crusty bastard, to be sure, but he had handpicked Bullen fifteen years ago, when Bullen had graduated from the Harvard Business School. “You’re the most rapacious kid I’ve seen in years,” Danielson, who was old even back then, had said—and he’d meant it as a compliment. Danielson had brought Bullen up through the ranks, and now Bullen was CEO. Danielson still kept his hand in, though, and Bullen often turned to the old man for reality checks. But today Danielson’s ancient face was creased more than usual, a frown deepening his myriad wrinkles.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Bullen.

  Danielson gestured at the spreadsheet printout covering his desk. “Projections for the next fiscal year,” he said in a gruff, dry voice. “We’ll still be doing fine in Oregon and Washington, but this new anti-genetic-discrimination law will be killing us here in Northern Cal. We got a raft of new policies this year from people we’d never have insured before, so that’s pushed the bottom line up a bit for the time being. But next year and in each subsequent year, many of those people will start showing overt symptoms, and begin filing claims.” He sighed, a rough, papery sound. “I thought that we were in the clear after Hillary Clinton fell flat on her face—the smug bitch—but if Oregon or Washington State adopt a California-style law, well, hell, we might as well close up shop and go home.”

  Bullen shook his head slightly. He’d heard Danielson go on like this before, but it was getting worse as the years went by. “We’re lobbying like mad in Salem and Olympia,” Bullen said, trying to calm the old man. “And the HIAA is fighting hard in D.C. against any similar federal regulation. The California law is an aberration, I’m sure.”

  But Danielson shook his head. “Where’s that steely-eyed realism, Craig? The days of profits in the health-insurance industry are numbered. Christ, if we could get the bottom line up enough, I’d sell my thirty-three percent and get the hell out.” Danielson sighed again, and looked up. “Was there something you wanted to see me about?”

  “Yeah,” said Bullen, “and it’s apropos in a way, too. We got a letter from a geneticist at”—he consulted the sheet he was holding—“the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He objects to our clause that encourages terminating genetically flawed pregnancies.”

  The old man gestured with a bony hand for the letter. Once he had it, he skimmed its text. “‘Bioethics,’” he said contemptuously. “And ‘the human side of the equation.’” He harrumphed. “At least he didn’t mention Brave New World.”<
br />
  “Yes, he did. That’s what the bit about ‘Huxleyian nightmare’ refers to.”

  “Tell him to go to hell,” said Danielson, passing the letter back to his protégé. “Ivory-tower guy—doesn’t know the first thing about the real world.”

  Pierre had had the copy of Chuck Hanratty’s rap sheet that Helen Kawabata had given him for eight weeks now. He’d been eager to talk to Bryan Proctor’s widow, but couldn’t bring himself to disturb her until a decent period had passed following her husband’s murder.

  But now he regretted waiting—she seemed to have moved in the interim. He checked the address on the piece of fanfold paper again. No doubt about it: this dingy apartment building, a few blocks south of San Francisco’s Chinatown, was the place where Bryan Proctor had lived before Chuck Hanratty had shot him dead. But although there were twenty-one names on the buzzboard in the lobby, not one of them was Proctor. Pierre was about to give up and go home when he decided to try the superintendent. He pressed the button labeled super and waited.

  “Yes?” said a female voice through a very staticky intercom.

  “Hello. I’m looking for Mrs. Proctor.”

  “Come on in. Suite one-oh-one.”

  He heard a clunking going on inside the door, followed by an annoying buzz. It dawned on Pierre—of course! Bryan Proctor must have been the super; that’s why his buzzer wasn’t labeled by name.

  He made his way through the lobby. It was a run-down building, with worn and stained carpeting. Suite—if it deserved that term—101 was next to the single elevator. A large woman with one of those golf-ball chins fat people sometimes have was standing in the open doorway. She was wearing old jeans and a tattered white T-shirt. “Yes?” she said, by way of greeting. “The vacancy’s on the second floor. We need first and last months’ rent, plus references.”

  Pierre had seen the sign for the two-bedroom apartment when he’d pulled up to the building. “I’m not here about the apartment. Forgive me for coming by without calling first, but you’ve got an unlisted number, and I…well, I don’t know where to begin. I’m terribly sorry about the loss of your husband.”

  “Thank you,” she said guardedly, her eyes narrowing. “Did you know Bryan?”

  “No, no, not at all.”

  “Then if you’re trying to sell something, please leave me alone.”

  Pierre shook his head in wonder; he must look like Willy Loman. “No—no, it’s not that. It’s just that—well, see, I’m Pierre Tardivel.”

  Her face was blank. “Yes?”

  “I was the last person Chuck Hanratty attacked. I was there when he died.”

  “You killed that bastard?”

  “Umm, yes.”

  She stood to one side. “Please, come in. Can I offer you a drink? Coffee? Beer?”

  She led the way into the living room. It had only two bookcases, one holding bowling trophies and the other mostly CDs. There was a paperback book splayed open facedown on the coffee table—a Harlequin romance. “A beer would be nice,” said Pierre.

  “Have a seat on the couch and I’ll get it.” She disappeared for a few moments, and Pierre continued to look around. Copies of the National Enquirer and TV Guide sat atop a television set that looked about fifteen years old. There were no framed pictures, but there was a poster of the Grand Canyon held up with yellowing tape. There was no sign that the Proctors had any kids. Sympathy cards were lined up along the lid of an old record turntable.

  Mrs. Proctor returned and handed Pierre a Budweiser can. He pulled the tab, took a swig, and winced. He’d never get used to this cow piss Americans called beer.

  “It’s better this way,” said Mrs. Proctor, sitting in a chair. “Even if they’d caught Hanratty, he’d have been back on the streets in just a couple of years. My husband’s dead—but he wasn’t anyone important. They wouldn’t have given Hanratty the chair for that.”

  Pierre said nothing for a time, then: “Hanratty attacked me—me in particular. It wasn’t just a random mugging.”

  “Oh? The police told me—”

  “No, he was after me. He, ah, he said so.”

  Her piglike eyes went wide. “That a fact?”

  “But I’d never met him before in my life. Heck, I’ve only been in California for a year now.”

  “Color me surprised,” said the woman.

  “Sorry?”

  “You got one heck of an accent.”

  “Oh, well, I’m from Montréal.”

  “That up in Canada?”

  “Yes.”

  “One of our old tenants moved out, took a job in Vancouver. I wonder if you’d know him?”

  Pierre smiled indulgently. “Ma’am, Canada is bigger than the United States. Vancouver’s a long way from where I lived.”

  “Bigger than the States? Get out of here. States the biggest country on earth.”

  Pierre rolled his eyes, but decided not to pursue the point. “Anyway,” he said, “since Hanratty went after me in particular, I was wondering if he also went specifically after your husband.”

  “Can’t see why he would,” said the woman. “It was just a break-in, the police said. Guy didn’t expect my husband to be home. Probably figured, being super and all, that Bryan had a lot of power tools worth stealing. He did—but he kept them down in the boiler room, not here. Bryan apparently surprised the bastard, and he shot him.”

  “I suppose. But what if he was after your husband, rather than his tools?”

  “What on earth for?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I’m just wondering if he and I had anything in common. Hanratty was a member of a neo-Nazi group. It’s possible he didn’t like me because I’m a foreigner, for instance.”

  “My Bryan was born right here in the good old U.S. of A. In Lincoln, Nebraska, to be exact.”

  “What about his politics?”

  “Republican—although sometimes he couldn’t bother getting off his duff to vote.”

  “And his religion?”

  “Presbyterian.”

  “Did he go to university?”

  “Bryan?” She laughed. “He’s an eighth-grade dropout.” She held up a hand. “Doesn’t mean he was stupid, mind you. He was a good man, and he could fix just about anything. But he didn’t have a lot of school.”

  “And he was older than me, wasn’t he?”

  “Depends. You as young as you look?”

  “I’m thirty-three.”

  “Well, my Bryan was forty-nine.” She grew a bit wistful at the mention of the age. “There’s nothing worse than dying young, is there?”

  Pierre nodded. Nothing worse.

  Pierre looked over the counter in the lab. Ever since he’d been a little boy, he’d hated cleaning up after himself. It just wasn’t nearly as much fun putting things away as it was taking them out. But it had to be done. He’d spread beakers and retort stands all across the countertop. And some of the labware had to be carefully washed; a molecular-biology lab was a perfect breeding ground for germs, after all.

  He dismantled the retort stand and put it away in one of the cupboards. He then picked up a beaker and took it over to the sink, rinsing it out under cold water, then placing it in a rack to dry. Next, he got his petri dishes and put them in a special bag for disposal. He returned to the table and reached out for a large flask, picked it up, and watched it fall from his trembling hand. Shards of glass went everywhere and the flask’s liquid contents made a yellowish splash across the tiled floor.

  Pierre swore in French. Just tired, he told himself. Long day. Still a bit distracted from the meeting with Bryan Proctor’s widow. Need a good night’s sleep.

  He went to get the broom and dustpan, and began sweeping up the broken glass.

  Tired. Nothing more than that.

  And yet—

  God, would he have to go through this every time he dropped something? Every time he took a misstep? Every time he bumped into a wall?

  Damn it—he—was—just—tired! Tired, that’s all.
r />   Unless—

  Unless it was fucking goddamn Huntington’s disease, at last rearing its monstrous head.

  No. It was nothing.

  Nothing.

  He carried the dustpan over to the garbage pail and emptied it.

  Tomorrow, everything would be fine.

  Surely, it would be fine.

  C h a p t e r

  22

  Pierre and Molly stood in their bathroom early in the morning and looked at the test strip together. A blue plus sign blossomed into existence on its white surface.

  “Oui!” said Pierre.

  “Wow,” said Molly. “Wow.”

  Pierre kissed his wife. “Congratulations.”

  “We’re going to be parents,” said Molly dreamily.

  Pierre stroked her hair. “I never thought this could happen. Not for me.”

  “It’s going to be wonderful.”

  “You’ll make a terrific mother.”

  “And you’ll make a great daddy.”

  Pierre smiled at the thought. “Do you want a boy or a girl?”

  “You know, we probably could have asked Burian. He could have sorted his sperm, if we’d told him. There’s a difference between male-producing sperm and female-producing, isn’t there?” Pierre nodded. Molly paused, considering his question. “I don’t know. I suppose a girl, but that’s only because of my family life, I’m sure. My mother and sister and I were alone for a long time before Paul showed up. I’m not sure how I’d be with a little boy.”

  “You’d do fine.”

  “Do you have a preference?”

  “Me? No, I guess not. I mean, I know that every man is supposed to want a son he can play catch with, but…” He trailed off, deciding not to complete the thought. “Maybe having a girl would be simpler,” he said.

  Molly had missed, or was choosing to ignore, the undercurrent. “I really don’t care which it is,” she said at last, her voice still dreamy. “Just as long as it’s healthy.”