Living Proof

by Kira Peikoff

  “Yes. The moderates are saying that’s a bigger priority than the DEP right now. And, personally, it’s hard for me to disagree. You know I support you, Gideon, but I don’t have to tell you that pregnant women are a dime a dozen, and your bureau hasn’t seen much action for a while. And yours is the biggest one in the state.”

  “But we just filed a class action lawsuit against a doctor—”

  “Small change, Gideon. Frankly, it looks like you’re grasping at straws.”

  “I can assure you that is not the case. We are every bit as productive as we’ve always been, if not more.”

  “I hope so, because there was some pretty ugly talk last week.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wasn’t going to mention it, but I guess you should know. Some are saying that DEP isn’t even necessary anymore—that basically nobody today has the training to manipulate embryos anymore, so we should start to phase out the department altogether.”

  Dopp gasped. “Are you kidding?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “But EUEs can still be killed!”

  “They could, and that’s why I’m still behind you. Although, what would be the point?”

  “Why do any murderers kill?” Dopp retorted. “Just because they don’t have a good reason doesn’t mean we should abolish the police force!”

  “It’s not me you have to convince. Maybe there’s something you could do to bring the DEP to the forefront of the conversation again? To remind us why it’s still worthy of taxpayer dollars?”

  Dopp fumed silently. If Trent had done his job by now, Windra would not be calling. But with or without Arianna, there was still a way to generate headlines. And if they could bring her down in the process, they would be set.

  “Realistically, how long would you say we have until the budget talks officially start?”

  “Well, the bribery investigation is set to conclude in a few weeks, and as soon as that happens, the governor will either be forced to resign or be cleared. In any case, the budget is going to be the first order of business. We’re all anxious to get it sorted out.”

  A few weeks, Dopp thought. Plenty of time to reap a payoff if he could summon the courage to act.

  “Windra,” he said, “I’ll get back to you. I think I have an idea.”

  * * *

  As soon as he hung up the phone, Dopp swiveled in his chair and faced his glass wall, staring at the dissipating morning fog. His idea would require extensive manpower, thus stretching the department’s already-thin budget. But, he reasoned, one must spend money to make money. If the department was to be a casualty of next year’s budget anyway, it made sense to use every last dollar now to fight for its existence. The plan would sound extreme to his colleagues, but Dopp was confident they would trust his management. And sure, it would generate headlines for a few days, but talk would fade unless the momentum continued somehow. Since Arianna was their only lead, the goal was clear: If they could find a shocking reason to shut down her clinic, no one in Albany could assert that the DEP was irrelevant or inactive. The media storm around a scandalous shutdown and court trial would be God’s ultimate blessing for the department’s future.

  And if anything else was clear, it was that Trent was useless. It was a shame; the zeal Dopp had recognized in Trent at the beginning of the case had plainly evaporated. The evidence had come in the form of Jed’s integrity control report. The report concluded with a paragraph that was painful—and embarrassing—to read:

  Trent’s lack of persistence is frighteningly apparent. He confessed that he hoped he was not wasting his time on a dead-end case, and then went on to reveal his own frustration about what he termed a worthless effort. At the same time, when the topic of Arianna’s clinic was broached, she perhaps protested too much about its growing popularity. Together, these conclusions imply an unstable situation for our department, one that ought to be rectified before any serious damage is done.

  Dopp reread the report on his computer screen, his agitation escalating with each word. By the time he finished, he could almost feel the rancid breath of Albany on his neck. No, he thought, there could be no more putting it off: the time to act was now.

  * * *

  Trent’s stomach tightened when his office phone began to ring. He dreaded hearing that booming voice, but answered the call after the third ring.

  “Come see me,” demanded the voice. Click.

  Robotically, Trent got up, brushed off his suit, and walked to the office he knew too well. The reason for this sudden meeting, and the icy tone, was no mystery: Dopp was frustrated with the case’s inertia. Something had to change. Trent could already hear the words, and in his mind, he practiced his forthcoming lie, one that cast Arianna in an innocent light. Would it forestall the inevitable, if only a little longer? The chances seemed slim: Dopp was determined to find fault with her, even if Trent’s hints appeared to indicate otherwise. And, worse, what if Dopp was frustrated enough to remove him from the case? How could Trent protect her then?

  By the time he reached the office, his heart was pumping at the base of his throat. He opened the door, and was surprised to see Jed sitting in one of the two leather guest chairs in front of Dopp’s desk.

  Dopp was nodding and muttering something, but when Trent walked in, he grew stern. “Sit down.”

  Trent nodded hello and sat. Now, he told himself, spit it out. He smiled, lips stretching to reveal his teeth.

  “I was about to come talk to you. I finally made some progress.”

  Dopp raised his eyebrows skeptically. “You did?”

  “Last night, I asked her point blank where she’s always going after work, since I never followed her anywhere interesting. I’m pretty sure she trusts me by now, so I thought it was about time to get to the point.”

  “And?”

  “And you would never believe how disappointing the answer was: the doctor.”

  “The doctor?”

  “She has a specialist in the East Village who she has to see regularly for treatment and monitoring.”

  Dopp looked unimpressed. “If it’s as simple as that, why did she never mention it?”

  “She doesn’t like focusing on her MS,” Trent replied. “She usually refuses to talk about it at all.”

  “I don’t believe her. First of all, if she were sick enough to require such frequent doctor’s appointments, she would not still be going to work, even part-time. Second of all, Trent, you are very gullible. Did you forget that she has lied to your face in the past? She told you she was a Christian, do you remember that? And then she admitted to doing abortions! She is a total manipulator, and you fell for it again.”

  “You think so?” Trent said helplessly.

  “Give me one good reason not to take you off this case right now. You have done nothing to advance our agenda.”

  “I have,” he protested, racking his brain. “I surprised her with piano lessons! To make her think that I really care about her, so she will trust me and open up to me. Even you said it would take time!”

  “That did seem like a good move,” Jed said, nodding at Dopp. “She brought it up at our dinner and seemed really happy about it.”

  Trent threw Jed a grateful look. “I don’t want to let you down, boss,” he said. “Please just give me a little longer to work on this. I’ll keep following her to the doctor’s or wherever. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  “This is the kind of motivation I should have been seeing for weeks from you, Trent. Not your wishy-washy apathy. I know you’re bored.”

  “I’m not! I admit to getting a little frustrated here and there, but that was just my own inexperience, and I realize that now. You’re the boss and you know what to do.”

  Dopp’s face relaxed. “Look, Trent. I won’t take you off the case, but I’m not going to let you do it alone anymore either. It’s taking too long. We only have a few weeks until the budget talks start up again, and this case is too important to let slide on what you yo
urself called inexperience.”

  Trent chomped down on his lower lip to prevent himself from protesting. The taste of blood dribbled onto his tongue.

  “I didn’t think we would have to resort to this,” Dopp went on, looking from Trent to Jed. “But we have little choice if we want results. I am going to authorize a quiet sweep of all labs within the vicinity of the East Village. No public announcements, because we don’t want to give them time to hide anything.”

  Trent felt himself catch his breath.

  “But that’s not all. I am instituting a new policy for our bureau, which will cost extra manpower and money, but it’s our last resort and I think it’s a good one. Unless we do something to catch Albany’s attention again, they could cheat us out of a lot of money. So, starting tomorrow, we will begin a quiet new policy of random surprise inspections at any fertility clinic in our jurisdiction—all five boroughs. So when Banks shows up weeks ahead of schedule, Arianna will have no time to cover her tracks—and if she is stealing embryos from her clinic, we’ll catch her red-handed.”

  Trent’s head felt as if he were submerged in a deep pool of water.

  He said nothing, thought nothing.

  Jed was nodding his approval. “But I have a question, boss. Won’t the clinics have to submit the records of their embryo counts more often than once a month, then, if we can inspect them at any time? We’ll always need to know the most current counts.”

  Dopp smiled. “Yes. We will. Which is why we will now require them to submit daily, not monthly, counts of their embryo stocks. But we won’t announce this publicly yet—instead we’ll just let the news break naturally tomorrow after we start the inspections. And then we’ll issue a notice to all clinics with our new regulations.”

  “But the inspectors won’t have the most current counts when they start tomorrow, so how will they know if the embryo reserves are accurate?”

  “That’s very simple,” Dopp answered calmly. “The inspectors will flash their DEP badges. It’s not as efficient as the way we do it, but it will work: just like that, the doctors will have to open their own record books.”

  Numbly, Trent realized he needed to show interest in the plan. “How are you going to explain this to the rest of the department?”

  Dopp’s gaze shifted to him. Trent gnawed the raw flesh of his lower lip, hardly feeling the pain.

  “I will circulate an internal memo to the whole department,” Dopp said, brushing his fingertips against his chin. His eyes shifted to a spot on the wall above Trent’s head. “Look for it in your in-box before the end of the day. The subject line will be: ‘Crackdown.’”

  FIFTEEN

  Trent was staring at his computer screen when it happened: A box in the lower right-hand corner popped up with a ding. One new message.

  TO: undisclosed recipients

  FROM: gdopp@dep.gov

  SENT: Monday, January 10, 2028 at 4:26 P.M.

  SUBJECT: Crackdown

  To my trusted colleagues,

  Due to recent worrisome behavior at a number of fertility clinics, I am hereby instituting a new policy of random, surprise inspections. Every Monday, I will e-mail a weekly list of the targeted clinics and the agents who will be inspecting them. Starting tomorrow, these inspections will quietly begin. After the news inevitably breaks, we will announce to all clinics that we now require daily electronic filing of their EVE counts, rather than monthly, so that we can more closely monitor them. I regret that this means many of you will be working overtime, but let us pray this is a temporary measure until the situation improves.

  The list for this week is as follows:

  Washington Square Center for Reproductive Medicine—Inspector Banks

  Family Fertility Center—Inspector Hodges

  East Side Fertility Associates—Inspector Gordon

  Infertility Solutions—Inspector Freeman

  Queens Center for Assisted Reproduction—Inspector Jenkins

  Family Beginnings—Inspector Laughlin

  Please know that I will gladly address any of your questions or concerns. Lastly, please also note that this information is to remain strictly confidential within the department until further notice. I appreciate your full cooperation in this sensitive matter.

  Regards,

  Gideon Dopp

  Chief Supervisor, New York City Bureau of the Department of Embryo Preservation

  Behold, Children are a heritage from the Lord,

  The fruit of the womb is a reward. —PSALM 127:3

  CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic mail message contains information intended for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged and/or confidential. Disclosure of any content herein will result in appropriate legal action.

  Trent grimaced. For a time, he sat completely still, reading and rereading the e-mail, which he had dreaded receiving all afternoon. A single thought overwhelmed him: Do I have to tell her who I am?

  He knew he had to warn her about the impending inspection before it destroyed all their hopes. But how could he explain without revealing his identity? It was like rafting on a river littered with boulders; there had to be a safe route somewhere, but all he could see was danger. Tell her who I am, he thought, and risk her never speaking to me again. Don’t tell her anything; risk the inspection ruining everything.

  He felt his desperation climbing. No, he thought, there had to be a third option, and if only he could focus his mind on strategy instead of fear, he might be able to think of something.

  A copy of the Daily News lay on his desk, leftover from the morning’s subway ride. The headline on the cover quipped, BED OF MALES! The mayor of Newark had been caught having an affair with his male secretary; it was shocking and scandalous, exactly the stuff of tabloid newspapers. Trent turned back to the e-mail glowing on his computer screen. It was not exactly sexy, he thought, but it screamed scoop, and it could have a far greater impact on the public than some politician’s seamy affair.

  The pieces of a plan were coming together on the horizon of his mind—vague at first, and then sharper, integrated, whole. He grabbed the newspaper off the desk and stuffed it into his briefcase. For the idea to work, he could not enact it here or at home, where his computer was too easy to trace. A quick search online pointed him to the perfect anonymous office.

  On the wall, the clock hands pointed to 4:57 P.M. Trent jumped out of his chair, turned off his computer and lights, and headed out before any of his colleagues could stop by to speculate about the new policy.

  Ten minutes later, he walked into the Broadway Cyber Café, an Internet café in Times Square that accommodated both phone conversations and privacy; thick plastic slats separated the rows of computers. Tucked between a massive toy store and a famous theater, the café was narrow inside, but long. The place hummed with the patter of typing and the whir of an espresso machine. About ten people sat dispersed throughout the room, sipping coffee and staring at their screens. It cost $8.50 for a half hour. Trent paid cash and then selected a computer near the back of the café, on the end. No one was next to him.

  He signed in to his work e-mail and brought up Dopp’s note, even though he had unintentionally memorized it. Then he pulled out his phone, checked around for eavesdroppers, and dialed Arianna’s number. What if she was too weak to deal with this? The phone began to ring in his ear and he closed his eyes. What if her body couldn’t take the stress?

  “Trent!” her voice exclaimed. “I was just going to call you!” Exuberance burst through the line like champagne from a bottle.

  “You were?”

  “I just talked to Sam—and it sounds like they’re getting close to a breakthrough!”

  Trent felt himself gasp. “No!”

  “Yes! They might be almost there!”

  “How do they know?”

  “Remember I told you how they need to add the right combination of these molecules, these growth factors, to get the stem cells to
transform into this one type of cell that I need?”

  “Right. The oli-somethings?”

  She laughed brightly, clinks of a dozen crystal glasses. “Yes, oligodendrocytes. Well, the growth factors that they just tested spawned some oligos for the first time, as well as some other cells that weren’t the right ones, but still—they’re finally on the right track. Sam thinks they just need to tweak the combination now, and then once they manage to come up with pure oligos, we can transplant them into my spinal cord!”

  The joy in her voice was unbearable.

  “Arianna, wait.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yeah, I’m just bringing them new embryos. What’s up?”

  “I need to tell you something.” He took a deep breath.

  “What?”

  “I just got some upsetting news about the DEP. Remember Jed’s insider health source, the one who tipped him off to your clinic’s numbers? Well, that person just landed him a huge scoop: The DEP is going to change its inspection policy starting tomorrow, when they plan to begin random surprise inspections at whatever clinics they choose. Apparently, there was a list of clinics in an e-mail sent to the whole department, and Jed’s source sent him a copy of it. He immediately noticed that your clinic is on the list and called to let me know.”

  “What? Oh my God! Did you say starting tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “But there’s embryos missing from the clinic’s lab.… We weren’t going to have the clones ready until the end of the month!”

  “Is there anything you can do to get them?”

  “Shit, I don’t know—I can’t believe this.…”

  “There has to be something you can do.”

  “Wait, Patrick told me a while ago that they used Ian’s embryos to make clones. But I don’t know how many they made or how many we need.”

  “Go check your records.”

  “But I haven’t filed our monthly count yet—how is the inspector even going to know how many we’re supposed to have leftover?”

  “I don’t know all the details,” Trent allowed. “But I bet those assholes will find a way.”