The Breeding Tree

by J. Andersen

  How is this possible? I never authorized my eggs to be used. I certainly didn’t apply for a child; even if I wanted to, there’s a minimum age for motherhood, and it’s not seventeen. It must be a mistake. A huge mistake. The problem is that The Institute doesn’t make mistakes, much less big ones. But there has to be some explanation. Like a student wrote down the wrong number. More than anything, I hope this is the answer.

  An inkling of peace washes over me knowing this particular fetus has been marked for disposal. In any case, I won’t be a mother. But The Institute will try again, I’m sure. They always do, until they’re successful. It’s the way of things around here. But what does that mean for me? Are they going to start creating children and assigning them to the parents before they’re even wanted? Heck, I’m not even married. Who would raise the child? Me or the father?

  I stop at the thought. Who is the father? I didn’t recognize the ID number, but then again, I didn’t look closely.

  What am I going to do? How is this possible? Questions race through my mind in a rollercoaster of emotions, and fear sweeps over my body like the wind. Then it all comes to a screeching halt. I suck it up, wipe my face of the tears that rolled onto my cheeks, and stand up. I hold the wall until I’m sure I can walk without passing out. The shock is still flowing through my veins, and I’m afraid I’ll fall over if I can’t get a hold of myself.

  The records room sits in the back of the lab, which means I’ll have to walk through the third trimester room, seeing all the fetuses lined up. Each one with its tiny face and fingers. So perfect. Taking a cleansing breath, I push through the door, keeping my eyes on the exit at the far end leading to the second trimester room.

  I rush through so I don’t have to look at the growing babies because the thought makes me wonder what this child of mine would look like. But when I reach the door on the far side leading to the last room, I pause. He’s in there. Or she. In one of those growing chambers.

  It’s no big deal. I tell myself. The child will be disposed of. I filed the paperwork myself. It’s not like I have a connection to it. So it shouldn’t be difficult to walk through the room it’s in.

  The Code of Conduct and Ethics for The Institute—Sector 4, USA Section 4, Article 7.8: Familial obligations are the backbone of our community. Quality time with family members creates a safe, loving environment necessary for raising children.

  What about raising the children who were never meant to be? Do I have obligations now?

  Buying another minute to collect myself, I take a deep breath and work on the whole coat-buttoning, scarf-tying ritual, which serves to calm my spirit again. But while I’m standing in front of the last lab door, fighting with a stubborn button, I hear a noise. The door’s propped open with a pencil.

  A dim pink glow filters through the window. It’s not bright enough to be from the room itself. As I peer closer, it moves, flickering through the darkness.

  Someone’s in there.

  I look through the glass pane of the second door and into the darkness. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust, but soon, I see the source of the stream of light. It’s a flashlight held in the mouth of a hunched figure. The light coming from the end is filtered red, hence the pink glow I observed. He’s standing along the far wall where the Petri dishes are stored. The door to the storage unit is open. He doesn’t appear to sense me watching him, so I inch the door open to get a better look at the intruder. Suddenly, my foot connects with something and sends it skidding across the floor. The pencil.

  The figure shoves something in his pocket and turns to face me. He’s about to make a break for it past me when I see his face.

  “Micah?”

  “Kate?”

  His stance instantly relaxes and turns casual, and his gait morphs into a saunter as he crosses toward me like there’s nothing weird about this situation at all. Doesn’t everyone sneak around the lab with filtered flashlights after dark? It’s perfectly normal.

  “What’re you doing here?” I ask.

  “Me?”

  I look around at the lack of bodies in the room before I say. “No, all the other guys with flashlights in here. Yeah, you.”

  “I forgot my keys earlier. Got all the way home before I realized it.” He pulls them out of his pocket and jangles them in front of my face.

  I purse my lips and raise my eyebrows. “And you needed a red, filtered flashlight to look for them?”

  He smiles slightly. “No need to turn on the lights or filtration system. I was only going to be a minute. He looks at me and smiles wider. “But I think I’ll stick around now that you’re here.”

  “Right, because everyone I know carries filtered flashlights in their pockets for just such an occasion.”

  “Hey,” he mutters, “when you’re the lab assistant, you’ll learn all sorts of tricks like this.” He changes the subject. “What about you? Why are you here?”

  “Me?” The way I say it makes me sound like I have something to hide. I didn’t. Not until I came here and discovered I have a child. Even though I’ve done nothing wrong, I find myself wanting to cover up the secret. “Filing.” I pat my bag holding my compact. “For Limbert.”

  Micah makes a sound of understanding, and his eyes flick around the room like he’s looking for something. Or someone. He shoves his keys deep into his pocket. “I was just heading out.”

  “Don’t let me stop you from leaving,” I say.

  Micah turns back and holds the door open like a gentleman. I step through and walk into the hallway. I don’t feel like being pampered with doors held open for me at this particular moment. I just want to get home and try to figure out this whole fiasco. Being tired and cranky doesn’t wear well on me.

  “Can I walk you home?”

  His face shines an eerie red in the glow of the exit sign above our heads. I’m about to say no, but he’s got this innocent look on his face, and maybe being with another human being, even for a few moments, might help clear my head. Before I can catch myself, I hear my own voice as we step into the hallway. “Sure, that’d be great.”

  The heavy door clanks shut behind us, burying my secrets behind its thick metal.

  It’s dark, so when Micah says, “It looks like something’s bothering you,” I wonder how he can even see it. Am I that transparent?

  “Do you ever wonder if we have any control over our lives at all?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I guess I feel like things are happening around me, and I can’t control them.”

  “Actually, I’m pretty sure we make our own choices.”

  “But what if we don’t?” The clomp of our footsteps along the pavement taps a rhythmic pattern that comforts my chaotic mind. “Think about it. Fishgold and the other leaders make decisions for the entire community all the time. They can choose what they want, and we all have to live with it. Not that that’s a bad thing. I’m sure they make good decisions for the success and health of us all. But what if they don’t tell us all the things they do to keep our community safe? Whatever they do, we are forced to deal with the consequences.”

  His hands still in his pockets, he leans a little closer but doesn’t reach out. “Sounds like you’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. What’s got your mind churning?”

  I tighten my coat against the chilly night air and look at the stars above me. “Nothing. I guess I’m just struck by the idea that one decision someone else makes influences all the choices I have to make.”

  “But,” he says, “no matter what comes our way, good or bad, we have the power to choose how we respond. No one can make those choices for us.”

  “Unless they use torture.” I glance at him wide-eyed, knowing my mistake. “I mean, I know that sort of thing doesn’t happen around here, but theoretically speaking.” I wish I could get ahold of my tongue around Micah. The way he is around me … so comf
ortable … so easy … I want to tell him every secret I’ve ever known.

  Silence slips between us, and I swear I can hear my heartbeat in my ears.

  Then he says, “The hardest part is staying true to who you are no matter what other people do. Even under duress, the choices we make are ultimately ours.”

  With my house just around the corner, we stop to part ways.

  “Whatever you’re thinking about, Kate, I’m sure you’ll make the right choice.”

  I shove my hands deep into my coat pockets. “What makes you so sure about that?”

  “Gut feeling.”

  It takes a minute before I’m able to look at him, and when I do, there’s a slight crinkling around his eyes. “You’re a strong woman, Kate. One I’m privileged to know.” He bends low to kiss my cheek. “Now, you better go before the patrols catch us lingering here too long.”

  Only a few steps away, I turn around. He’s still standing there. The way he watches me reminds me of how my dad makes sure my mom is safely inside a building when he drops her off. Protective.

  “Micah?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Kate.”

  ***

  By 9:15 when I finally trudge through the door to my house, my mother has dinner picked up and the kitchen cleaned. Not that it takes that long to throw away the containers our dinner comes in.

  “Hey, Mom.” I set my bag on the chair by the front door. She gives me the look, the one that says, If you leave that bag there, I’ll destroy you. “I’ll take care of it after I eat. Promise.” This is how Mom and I are. Her facial expressions say so much more than her words, so half the time she negates her need to speak with one well-placed look.

  Flopping onto a seat at the counter, I practically melt into it, watching as my mother bustles around, pulling a tray covered with aluminum foil from the refrigerator. She peels back the foil and folds it neatly into a square before tossing it into the garbage. Then she places the plate into the microwave. While it’s heating, she takes out a fork, a spoon, and a glass, setting them in front of me, fork on my right side, spoon on my left. Anything else would not be acceptable. This is my mother, for whom the world is black and white. Right and wrong. There are no shades of gray.

  Probably why Mom, whose glaring looks and ability to interpret others’ expressions, works in the Justice Department as a Criminal Interpreter.

  What this boils down to is that I can’t keep anything from my mother. She’s like a dog sniffing out lies and truth stretching, which is why, when she asks me what’s bothering me, I can’t just say, “I’m tired.” She’s trained to see otherwise, to read beneath the surface of the words.

  “I found something interesting at the lab today.”

  “Oh?” She puts the plate in front of me and leans against the counter, wiping her hands on a towel.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” She knows something’s up, but there’s no way I can tell her what I discovered tonight.

  “Everything okay?”

  No. Definitely not. “Yeah. No big deal.”

  “Kate. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind? It’ll make you feel better.”

  I should have known she’d persist. She doesn’t give up easily. So I fib to get her off my back. “Just a challenge at the labs, Mom. I’m trying to figure out this procedure in my head.”

  She refuses to let it go. “Kate. Just tell me. Maybe I can help.”

  The tone.

  She’s as good at that as she is at the look. If she doesn’t sap all your secrets with one, she’ll use the other. An absolute master.

  Normally, I’d tell her. But until I figure this out for myself, I’m not breathing a word to her. “Where’s Dad?”

  The sigh. Usually, when the look and the tone don’t work, the sigh does it. It’s her last effort to figure out what’s going on with me, but I hold steady, not breaking our stare down.

  “Upstairs in the den.”

  Without another word, I grab my plate and fork and head toward the stairs. Maybe my dad will know what to do. I hear another sigh behind me.

  Through the crack in the door, I see my dad hunched over some paperwork. He doesn’t hear me as I enter. “Dad?”

  “Wha—?” He jumps and papers scatter across his desk. Quickly, he gathers them together and tucks them into a manila folder, sticking it at the bottom of the pile that sits on the corner of his desk. “Oh! Kate. I thought you were your mother.” Seeing it’s me, he relaxes into the chair and puts his feet up as if he wasn’t trying to hide anything just then. “What’s up?”

  I sit on the edge of his desk and finger through the pile of files. His face flashes nervousness for a second, but he quickly pulls himself together and looks at me. He’s hiding something, but one quick glance at my face and he knows I’ve got something going on too. Cocking his head, he pulls his feet off the desk and leans forward toward me, whispering.

  “What’d you find out?”

  Dad and I have this thing going. We’re “two peas in a pod,” Gran used to say. I swear we share more with each other than he and Mom do. So he knows when I’ve stumbled upon something I shouldn’t have. Just like I know he’ll tell me what’s in that folder he was trying to hide.

  “Saw something at the lab tonight.” Dad doesn’t say anything. Instead, he waits for me to continue. “In the Creation Unit.” Why is this so hard? I’ve told him things I’ve found before, and he always knows what to do about it, but for some reason, I can’t bring myself to say the words.

  “It’s something big, isn’t it?” he asks, pulling on his beard. I nod. “Go on.”

  I drum my fingers on the pile of folders. “I was filing papers for infantile disposals. Some stupid job Professor Limbert gave me just as I was going to leave. I was almost done when I came across something.” I can’t bear to actually look at him. It’s not like I’ve done anything wrong, but this shouldn’t be the way I tell him he was almost going to be a grandpa. I haven’t processed the idea myself, so telling someone else is all the more difficult. But this is my dad.

  Just then, my mother pops her head in the door. Both of us jump, and Dad fidgets with his compact, closing something so she can’t see. “You coming to bed, honey?”

  “Yeah, in a few,” Dad says. “You go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  She looks from Dad to me and back again and walks off shaking her head. It must seem like we have a secret club or something, but she wouldn’t understand. If she were to stumble on something like this, she’d report it to the authorities immediately. But Dad and I have to figure it out first. See if it’s worth the hassle of letting the proper authorities know. Some things are better left unsaid.

  Once Mom is out of hearing, Dad turns back to me. “Katie-Did, what on earth did you find?” The way he looks at me with concern on his face makes the caramel color of his eyes seem to melt.

  Glancing toward the hallway, I’m convinced Mom isn’t listening. “I had to record the ID numbers. When I wrote down the number—” I can’t do this. I can’t tell my dad. My hands are shaking, so I hold them together in my lap.

  “—It was yours.”

  When I look up, the sympathy in Dad’s face is palpable. How does he know? He answers my silent question. “I work in Data Collections, remember? I noticed your number.” His hand taps my leg, telling me to move as he grabs the pile of folders next to where I’m still perched on his desk. “When I saw it, I didn’t know if you knew or not,” he says, taking the folder off the bottom of the pile and handing it to me. Inside is a print of what I registered earlier that night. On top is a note in my dad’s handwriting. Unauthorized is all it says. “I don’t think I was supposed to find out either. I would know you didn’t authorize this, and it would raise a red flag if I saw it.” He shakes his head. “There has to be so
me sort of mistake.”

  “But The Institute doesn’t make mistakes.”

  Taking the folder from my hands, he says matter-of-factly, “Then someone meant for us to see this.”

  It’s all too overwhelming, and as hard as I try, I can’t hold back the torrent of tears that floods my eyes and pours onto my cheeks.

  SEVENTEEN

  THE MEETING

  SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY is almost unbearable. And, of course, it’s not a classroom day. We’re in the labs … again. Pretty much every day now. So by this time, it shouldn’t be a big deal, but today, as I pass the innumerable pods lining the room, I examine every fetus, wondering if it’s him. Or her. One of these babies belongs to me.

  Is it this difficult for the adults who work in the creation lab? The ones who’ve applied for children. Once they submit the application, do they have access to which one is theirs? Maybe that information is kept confidential. I would assume so, but if it were me, I’d want to know which one was mine. I’d find a way to know. I guess, I never thought about how that might work in the future when I am married and applying to have my own children created. Probably because it was supposed to be so far in the future. I shouldn’t have to even consider which one of these children might be mine because I’m not supposed to have a child. I’m not supposed to know who feeds the baby or who tests its blood. I’m not supposed to be able to watch it grow because I’m not supposed to know I have one.

  But I do.

  Today’s job is to mix and administer food to the fetuses, and I’m paired with Devin. He could be a decent guy, I suppose if he weren’t so touchy-feely. By the end of today, I know I’ll need a shower just to get the feeling of violation off my skin. It’s his attempt at flirting, and he tries to be subtle about it, but his subtlety feels like a rhinoceros lumbering through the lab.

  First it’s his arm brushing mine as he reaches for the equipment. “Kate, can you hand me that?”