Jessica backed away from the desk and the family and looked for a place to sit. But there was no waiting area. No chairs or couches, either. Nothing to interrupt the expanse of the vestibule other than a few potted trees and an island of holograph terminals. A genderless, computer-generated face hovered in one of the holograms.
“Welcome to Artemis, the most advanced reproduction facility in the eastern United States,” the face said. “Here, aspiring parents of all kinds can seek help with every possible form of parenthood—from natural fertilization and gestation in one of our next-generation artificial wombs to cloning and genetic enhancement.”
The holograph showed a time-lapse video of a baby developing inside an artificial uterus. Then the image shifted to show a man eating at an outdoor cafe with a boy who looked identical to him except for his skin, which was the same color blue as the midday sky.
The face reappeared. “We also offer artificial lactation treatments for all biological sexes so that everyone can participate fully in the experience of parenthood.”
“Ms. Brantley?” said a voice from somewhere behind her.
Jessica turned and faced a younger man than she had expected.
“Taylor Hayden,” he said, offering his hand. It felt smooth and cool, but not feminine at all. He had a strong grip. His brown eyes caught the light of the morning sun outside.
“Jessica,” she said, shaking his hand. “Thanks for meeting me, Dr. Hayden.”
“Please, call me Taylor,” he said. “And it’s no problem. I have a few minutes before my first client today. My nephew was excited to hear that you were interviewing me. He has to read the news for homework, and he loves your pieces. He’s very interested in the politics of cloning.”
Oh, great. Here it comes.
Hayden smiled. “I think he has a little crush, too.”
Jessica laughed. Not what she’d expected. “How old is your nephew?”
“He’s twelve. One of the first cloned children in North America.”
“Oh, wow,” said Jessica, bracing herself for a remark about the clone pedophilia article. But again, no accusations of bias. His brown eyes remained empty of any kind of judgment, good or bad.
Why am I so damned touchy today?
Her own mind supplied the answer in the form of a disemboweled pig.
“Do you have children yourself?” she asked.
Hayden laughed uncomfortably, and Jessica’s heart sank. Had she crossed a line? But then he seemed to recover and gave her a genuine smile.
“No,” he said. “I’m excluded from child permits because there’s an elevated risk of genetic disorders in my family history.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Jessica. She could kick herself.
“It’s not a problem. And I comfort myself in the knowledge that I’ve used my talents to help a lot of people who otherwise might not be allowed to have children. You know how the government is.” He smiled. “Besides, in my line of work, there isn’t a lot of time for kids, anyway.”
“I understand that,” said Jessica, wondering what he meant by that remark about the government. But the lobby wasn’t the right place to catch him off guard with personal questions. She’d need to get him comfortably engaged in private conversation first. “Should we—?”
“Actually,” he said. “Before we discuss the issue that you want to talk about, I thought I’d show you something. Come on.”
He led her past the reception desk to an expanse of blank wall. Then he pressed his open palm against a small, black glass square on one of the granite panels. A blue light flickered through the square, and the panel popped free of the wall with a pneumatic hiss.
“Fancy,” said Jessica.
Dr. Hayden grinned. “Top secret stuff in here.”
The panel opened to a brightly lit hallway lined with doors. Jessica stepped through first, and Dr. Hayden pulled the panel shut behind them. A mechanism in the wall hissed again as the door latched shut.
“This way,” Dr. Hayden said, stepping past her and down the hall. He turned left at a junction and led her down another identical hall. Each door had a black handprint reader like the panel in the lobby. No doorknobs. “Just a little farther.”
At the end of the hall waited a desk with three nurses. Hayden waved, and one nurse came down the hall to meet them, smiling.
“You get to see mine,” she said, her smile widening into a grin as she reached out to shake Jessica’s hand. “I’m counting down the weeks until I get to take him home.”
Jessica looked at Hayden, who shrugged.
“I thought before we discuss the case you’re following, you’d like to see a fetus the same age as the one in question,” he said.
“A fetus,” said the nurse, rolling her eyes at Dr. Hayden. “His name is Antonio.”
Hayden ignored her. “Mel has kindly agreed to let you come and see hers. But no pictures.”
“I don’t mind if you—” Mel began.
“No pictures.”
Jessica looked first at the doctor and then at Mel. The woman obviously liked the idea of her baby’s picture or a video holograph ending up in the news, but Jessica needed this interview. No sense in antagonizing the good doctor yet. “My editor wouldn’t let me run pictures anyway. It might bias how people read the article.”
“We wouldn’t want any bias to show up in the news, would we?” Dr. Hayden said, but he winked. “Please scrub your hands.”
Jessica put her hand under a sanitizer dispenser on the wall and scrubbed. The other two did the same. Then Hayden put his hand on a palm scanner and opened a door. Warm air flowed out into the hall.
The room inside was dark except for a pale orange glow from the gestation capsule in the middle.
“Go on in,” said Mel.
Jessica had seen pictures of an artificial uterus before, but she'd never seen one in person. Its pedestal, which was made of some kind of white plastic, stood about three feet high with the oval-shaped capsule at the top. The top third of the oval was made of some kind of clear shell. It looked a little like the canopy of a jet.
“Ain’t he beautiful?” said Mel. She stood by the pedestal and clasped her hands together.
Jessica stepped forward, feeling suddenly like she had at altar call in her grandmother’s Pentecostal church, which she hadn’t attended since she was eight years old. The muscles in her thighs trembled a little, threatening to let her fall. Suddenly she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to approach the capsule.
“You okay?” said Dr. Hayden.
She couldn’t tell him about the irrational fear that gripped her heart. The fear that instead of seeing a baby in the capsule, she’d see a pig’s face.
“I’ve always been—”
—nervous around kids, she tried to finish, but then she saw the fetus move and forgot about everything else. She had expected it—him—to be curled into a ball, asleep, but this baby was fully awake. His eyes were open, and he was looking right at Jessica.