by Ashley Hibbert
The minuscule needle slices the fertilized egg, splitting
it, then again, and again. First there is one, then two,
then four, and eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, until
each sack is indistinguishable amongst the mass.
The cells are separated and placed on separate dishes.
From here in the laboratories deep within Salt Lake City
Genetic Research Centre they will travel across the face
of the globe. Their final destination will be sterile females
- a nameless participant of an IVF program - incapable of
producing a child of her own blood. A thousand children,
a thousand mothers - all with a single destiny -
#
The baby's first memory was a frozen ice-scape - the snow
falling to form a soft carpet on the frozen water.
She is three: a bud beneath her guardians' eyes.
Now she is a young woman - at sixteen and she has bloomed
into a rose; where once she believed in reason, now she
sees fractal sets, time to have fun.
As the organ sings its tune and she waltzes down the lane,
arm in arm with her father who wasn't her father, she knows
that even with children and a husband she will not be content
until she understands herself; for she has known from far
back that she was special in some strange way. If she is
right no one - not even her new husband - could help her.
#
The offer is a godsend. She's always wanted to become involved
in the study of human life, and she knows from her lecturers
she has what it takes to work alongside the best. Yet a
Geneticist - this is beyond her wildest dreams.
#
The E-Mail message waiting on her cyberspace doorstep doesn't
come as a surprise. In fact, it's reassuring - what she's
expected somehow since childhood: contact. The message:
she isn't alone. There are many more of her, indistinguishable
female humans possessing traits that made them extra-human.
Long before their zygotes had formed fetuses their genes
had been coerced into perfection.
#
He stands in front of her like a sentry guarding a priceless
artifact.
"You can't do this. It isn't right." He accuses
her.
"How can you be the judge of what is wrong and right
when you are imperfect? You have no idea of morals and you
will move out the way." Yet her words had no effect.
He would stop her from releasing the deadly virus even if
it meant blood on his hands. "Don't let it come to
this - whatever you do today will not affect tomorrow."
#
He was quicker then she'd expected. One swift strike to
the back of the neck severed her spinal chord. She fell
like a castle of jelly, dead before she hit the ground.
It was done - he had killed her.
He collapsed, his hands clutching his face - all he had
fought against he had become.
With back turned and his face washed with tears he failed
to notice the dozen figures that appeared in the doorway,
slowly approaching him.
All identical, all replicates of the woman he had killed.
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