I took a look at the numbers and whistled. One-stop shopping for Superkid. My poor little non-genius blob probably wouldn’t be considered good enough to shine his shoes.
A tall man appears through the peach-colored damask curtain. He has very white hair combed straight back, and a tan, outdoorsy complexion. Overall he seems quite fit, though he has to be pushing seventy. He’s wearing a thin, expensive navy pullover and tweed slacks, with a narrow maroon tie that must’ve belonged to his British great-grandfather. “Good afternoon. May I help you?”
I think of a half-dozen verbal missiles I’d like to fling at this mercenary monster, this fiend in Anglophone form. What comes out is: “I’d like to know a little about your business.”
He nods. “Well, we specialize in what are popularly called designer children. Dr. Harriman has pioneered a number of useful techniques in the field. We offer personal engineering, with the emphasis on health first and traits second. We also offer cryo-storage. contracts with surrogates, all licensed and bonded, and placement contracts in certain other situations.” His accent is solidly upper-class British. In spite of my self-righteous fury, I liked his eyes—clear, light blue, steady gaze.
“What are placement contracts?” His mouth curves in a smile of genuine pleasure. “They’re our top-of-the-line adoptions. They are quite expensive, and we don’t do a large number, but customer satisfaction is substantial—significantly higher than modified sperm, which is our biggest seller.”
‘“Placement contracts’ sounds so much nicer than slave-trading.”
The smile disappears, and in its place is a look of frosty dignity. “If you wish to buy a… person, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“I don’t wish to do any such thing, and I believe you know that.” My glare could melt his frost at a hundred paces. “People like you have the intelligence and the resources that could be put toward real adoptions for poor children, but instead you’ve found this loophole in the law so you can traffic in human flesh. Improved human flesh, no less. You’ve made eugenics profitable and reinstituted slavery. You’re about as vile as a person can get, and I’m here to tell you I’m going to put you out of business. I don’t know how, but I will do it.”
The blue eyes meet mine squarely. “I see. Do I take it that you wish your children to be better off than yourself?”
I give him a fractional nod. “A foreign concept to you, no doubt. I’ve read George Orwell—‘Freedom is slavery, slavery is freedom.’ You should stamp that on your credit cards.”
The door opens and a young woman comes in. She’s beautiful in an elegant, understated sort of way, and she’s wearing the lovely but careless silks now so popular in Net culture. “Gil! I never expected to see you here!”
“Sally? Sally Jastrow?” It takes me a second to recognize her, and then I realize that’s her picture in the window. The last time I saw her was just before she got busted for peddling homegrown cigars. What a mess—she’d gotten off with a plea and rehab, and then she’d disappeared.
“In the flesh,” she says with a light laugh. “I got a job as a software engineer for Howard Systems.”
My opinion of her circumstances revises upward logarithmically. “That’s madder!” She’s three years older than me—in grade school, she was the only friend I could talk to like I talk to my journal, the one who never made me feel like a nerd. “How did you…?”
Sally grins. “You mean, how did someone headed for the gutter manage to get a job at the most competitive software firm in the country? Just ask Jamie.”
“Jamie who?”
“Him. Mr. Jameson. Hasn’t he gone over the contract with you yet?”
“Which contract?”
“The Biological Parent-Child Rights, Responsibilities, and Reimbursement Contract. You’re pregnant, right?” Sally glances at the proprietor, who’d retreated behind the counter. “Really, Jamie, I thought you’d show it to her immediately.”
Jamie clears his throat delicately. “Er, Ms. Jastrow, we haven’t discussed—”
“I don’t believe it.” I give her a look that would crash a disk drive. “You got pregnant, and you sold your kid into slavery. That’s how you got through school!”
Sally sighs. “Really, Gil. I expected a more intelligent response.”
“Oh. Well, pardon me for being dumb enough to think pregnancy shouldn’t be profitable.”
“It shouldn’t be anything else if you do it right,” says Jamie, holding up a perfectly manicured hand. “If you will permit me to explain…”
“Go ahead, knock yourself out.” I smile. “It should prove an interesting exercise in rationalization.”
“If a woman is going to have a healthy child which she cannot afford, and is considering abortion because the father does not want it, I will contract with her to pay for birth expenses. I then broker the baby to a good home for a high price, of which she gets 60 percent. That money is an incentive for her to take good care of her investment.”
“What a calculating word investment is. Surrogates get reimbursed, too, but anything beyond expenses makes it slavery.”
Jamie seems unimpressed. “Whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, resources poured into something for long-term benefit are investments. Should you not be compensated for the length of time it takes to produce this person, as well as the risk to your life from carrying the baby to term? And the morning sickness, the weight gain, the probability of stretch marks, the inconvenience and general upheaval of your life?”
I feel queasy just listening to him. “Well, sure. That part makes sense. But you’re still paying someone to produce a human being, which you then sell to the highest bidder.”
He gazes at me with those clear blue eyes. “I believe it is slavery to be forced to risk your life, your body and your time for nothing. I also believe that a child is most people’s biggest investment in the future, and that it pays dividends not countable in Newdollars. Tell me, do you wish your child to be better than you yourself—smarter, taller, better-looking?”
I remember a line from my favorite poem of Joel’s, “quasar, quasar, warm my interstellar bone, galactic brazier to the far-flung alone…” Quasar and brazier don’t exactly rhyme, but it was certainly creative, wasn’t it? “I don’t care about looks, but I would like my kid to be smarter than I am.”
“Then you believe in eugenics. If you don’t like artificial selection methods, that’s a matter of personal preference. Now, have you ever owned a cat?”
“Sure. Her name’s Chairman Mao—Mao is Chinese for cat.”
“Did she ever have kittens?”
“Twice, and then I had her fixed. I was lucky to be able to give them all away. Except two of the ones I gave away died a few weeks afterwards.”
“Mm. Do you suppose if you’d been able to sell those kittens, they might’ve gone to better homes? Ones where they might’ve received better care?”
He had a lot of nerve, lecturing me on how to find good homes for kittens. “I did the best I could.”
“I’m sure you did. Home evaluations are difficult and complex. Who do you think would provide a better home: the person who got a free kitten, or the one who paid a high price?”
“Well… the latter. Except sometimes the rich are bastards, too.”