The Only Ones (33 page)

I throw in the cryoPak carrier as a Bonus and cut a deal with this guy. They drop me off near some beach but I got no time to look around. I just make my way around a bunch of burnt-out blocks till I find a shaw and take it to the nearest pod connection—I’m not messing around with any sailbus, especially what a mess it is out here. It took a while before I got Signal to tell Rauden I am still alive. And you can be sure Rauden is like, thank God, thank God. This guy! He worries all the time.

But this was a great trip, and this broker is going to give us more business. Next time I could just meet him at the pier at Boston where the Lifeboat docks before it heads to Reykjavik, and if this lot gets a good price in Reykjavik, there will be a Bonus. So I am going to Boston next! See what’s left of Boston!

We have to put the first payment back into Project expenses but the next time we will clear a profit. Next time, I will also bring fresh-scraped endometrial product to sweeten the deal. For now I still need some other paying work to cover my regular expenses. Then I have new expenses because I have to keep upgrading the new Reader so Armory could reach me in more locations in case of emergency—these days who knows where I’m going to be. So I have to take extra cleaning to cover that. That cuts into my worktime upstate. I also do the oldies’ chores plus a little local deCon and I will tell you by the time Ani gets off the Armory van Fridays, I was pretty tired. I still tried to be upbeat.

“Ani, my new income is almost coming through. Just wait a little more. I promise we will get you out of Armory. I will put you in a really good school—better than East Side Girls.”

She said, “If you put me in one more really good school, I promise I will hate it too.” She just went into her room and stayed there pretty much till Monday morning, when I took her by shaw to the van, put her on it, and waited till I saw it go off to the bridge to the Bronx. Then I went over the same bridge, made my way to the Yonkers MagLev, crossed by bridge at Beacon, and if Rauden can’t pick me up in Newburgh, I must wait for the hybro, though I could sometimes get a lift part of the way to the Farm. I hardly even say hi when I get there. I just suit up and go straight to work.

I think about the difference between this time and the times before, when Rauden did the work. I’m not saying it wasn’t exciting too, when Rauden did it. I always wanted to see what happened. But this time, I was, I don’t know. Not proud, exactly. It’s like, satisfied.

The first time, with the Madhur group, when I didn’t know anything, it was interesting because I didn’t know anything. But this time around, it was more interesting, because I did.

Like I am sitting in the room waiting for Rauden to say NOW from the closet. And I start to think I forgot everything, this will not work. It’s like I never did it before. Then he says NOW. And I remember—right! It’s always like I never did it before. To tell the truth, I didn’t. Not exactly. It’s different every time.

Sometimes when Rauden talks me through it from the closet, that thing he does, when he gets so still, before he goes NOW! I sometimes got still too. Totally still. I even shut my eyes. Then boom! I am poking the stick
exactly
when he says NOW! I don’t know how I knew.

Once he had to go answer the Alert just when we are about to start? I did it all myself. I didn’t even need him coaching me. I got good numbers too. I liked it more when he’s there, though. It was more interesting.

I never told Ani that. That I found it interesting. Well, I hardly really told her anything. It’s true I needed the income and even true I liked doing a good deed for the Parents who were going to get children who would stay alive—well, it was good for the kids too, because they will
be
alive. I liked that it was a Project. I liked that with Ani too. I never told her that. I tell you that.

What I’m saying is, I loved Ani. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the work. I loved Ani, I enjoyed the work. Sometimes I think I even loved the work. Rauden did too.

At Armory, they do some serious follow up on those blood checks. They send the labwork way out to a Westchester County lab that is so SOTA, they figure out she is a Creedmoor hardy.

She is fifteen years, seven months old! She doesn’t want to be a Creedmoor hardy. None of the other girls are Creedmoor hardies.

“Ani! You should be proud!” We’re walking home from the Friday dropoff. “Do you know what people pay for product as hardy as that? You’re even hardier than a Creedmoor hardy. You are a Sylvain hardy. Ani, with all this hardy in your file, what are the chances you could not be a Tech?”

Well that didn’t work. She didn’t say anything all the way home. But when we got inside, she just says, “Who was my Dad?”

I said I didn’t know.

“You just bought his product without even meeting him?”

I said I would tell her another time. Go to bed.

And when she did, I just locked the front door to keep her safe, then triked up to the Little Neck Board to check in on the latest viables, see what happened to the ones that worked. They’re still alive. Then I triked home, tiptoed to her room, and checked if she is still alive.

She’s still alive.

And by the way, at Armory Prep? She does not do her work.

All in all, I got 100 viables. That’s including multiples Rauden showed me how to make with the sound-wave process, so you get four from one. Believe me, I didn’t have 100 eggs, even with the solos on ice. In fact the Harvest is way low. Maybe they stimulated me too much all those years. I have to get on Rauden’s case, up the goddamn dose, R. But he’s afraid this ovary is going to break like the other one did.

We don’t know much about what’s going to happen after the sale. I think sometimes the brokers have a contact for a Host. Maybe the Parent sets it up. Rauden says somebody has to of figured out how to make better tanks, or maybe they got Compatibility under control and human Hosts could work. Something did work in Santa Sofya and Grozny. Anyhow, I didn’t have to worry, would they change their mind like Rini Jaffur, and give the kid back to me. It just was a whole different marketing structure. The broker brings the viables to the Life auction in cryoPaks, then they go somewhere else to gestate. It could be pretty far away. Wherever it is, I’m two or even three or more steps from the Parents. If the Parents change their mind, that’s their problem.

Don’t take this the wrong way. At this point in my life, I’m just not in any position to bring up another child. It was just a different time.

When Ani comes home for her weekend, I am in a good mood but she is so quiet I am like, oh, look, I found a new tabletop, hey, they put a food cart on the golf course, whatever. She doesn’t say anything. Something seems different about her. Like, she does not even eat. She does not watch the TV if it works. In the mornings, I could hardly even get her out of bed. Now I really start to worry. This is not going to work. I have to find a new school ASAP. Lorena Hutz says there is a really good regular school nearby in Nassau County, we could use her address. It is not even that far. Like, Nassau County, City Line northeast, two different worlds but we could walk there. Even if their system is a little SOTA, I could probably work my way around it. But I am worried if we could sneak in so easy, how safe could it be?

I finally got Lore! She was still alive. They all are. Migan already transferred to another school, Country Day, in Connecticut. They all moved up there so Migan does not have to do sleep-away. Lore tells me who to contact and I find out this new school is a unique educational Opportunity. They do not even have walls because the school is so far in the middle of nowhere you don’t have to worry is your kid safe—in fact Lore says Ani’s safer there than my own neighborhood, from vigilantes anyhow. Ani would have to do sleepaway even on weekends but think of all the extra work I could get done at the Farm.

The person at Country Day sets me up for Interview for next month and says send them a link to Ani’s files. I’m not going to tell Ani yet. I’m going to keep it a surprise. If I make some sales in the next weeks plus my regular cleaning, by the time she would start school, I could have enough saved for some kind of downpayment. With the extra hours of work from her being gone, my income could practically triple—the school investment will practically pay for itself. I finally persuade Rauden to megadose, because I really got no time to spare.

If I double up on my cleaning to clear my schedule for five days of hard work at the Farm, I will go to the Boston Life dropoff with a really big load of cryoPaks and do the sales there. I timed this very close. I give myself the extra shot early Monday before Ani wakes up, and by the time she gets up I am so puffed and ready to burst. I could hardly wait to see her on the van at seven Monday morning and get on my way. It’s not that I don’t miss her. I’m just ready to burst.

As soon as I wake up on the Newburgh OBGYN’s RV table, I know something went wrong.

The OBGYN is looking at me, and Rauden is looking at me too.

I ask, how many eggs?

“For God’s sake, I,” he says.

Oh, man. Bandages and blood. I try to sit up.

“Will you fucking stay down. We could of lost the whole shebang.”

That means they didn’t. So I could still have eggs.

Rauden is shaking his head. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into the megadose, with your history.”

Shit! I’ve been off Signal for hours. Mrs. Ridenhour is buzzing me. I never told her I couldn’t scrub her Dome. Shit! Rauden wants me to rest but I need to take this job. Country Day is buzzing me. I get dressed fast and say you are right, R. I’m going home to rest, I will come back later in the week to start the viables at the Farm. He really doesn’t want me to take the long trip back to Queens, but how could he stop me?

I nap on the hybro from the bridge. I am a little dizzy so I stop in Yonkers at a Beverage Locker near one of those shady operations that does the Change. Then I buzz Country Day. They are really nice. They say they wouldn’t bother me but they are having a problem with my daughter’s files. I go, let me look into this but I’m so groggy, I forget. I just take a shaw back to Queens, head through the hole to Nassau County and though Mrs. Ridenhour went ballistic, she accepts my story that Ani had an emergency. So I scrub her Dome in the dark and drag myself home and man, I conked out. Next morning early I’m heading back upstate by the Bronx. Oh shit. I forgot to follow up with Country Day. I reach them from Yonkers. So I say, oh, sorry, and they say not a problem, our system is so SOTA we got her files only now it is saying she is twelve years old. Shit! They got Grozny. I do some hanky pank with manual override and blow the system out, message back and say, I do not understand what happened, they go, not a problem, our system is so SOTA we called her files up again only now it is saying she is thirty-five years old. I go, oh, must be some sort of anomaly. They go, no, we don’t think so. It looks more like it read her as you. So I go, oh, I accidentally put my own swipe in. Then I just blow the system out again.

Shit! Someone is buzzing me. I’m too busy to see who it is. I have to get back to Country Day. Oh, sorry, I tell Country Day. The systems are such a mess here.

They say, not a problem only it looks like you are sisters. This is intriguing, what do you know about your own origins? Can you find a pure code Reader and we will try to sort this out? Can you find a spit code Reader?

To tell the truth, I am not that far from Wappingers Falls, which is spit code central as well as they run every kind of sleazy operation but Country Day does not know where I am so I play for time and say, yes, I will try to find a spit code scanner but, you know, and I will tell you I was pulling the answers out of the air, in Diversity neighborhoods like ours, the scanners is few and far between, so it could be tomorrow before I bring it off.

They go, we really understand, and by the way, we are ready to offer better than Partial for the right Diversity.

So I’m like, great.

So I’m going up to Wappingers Falls and use their spit code Readers. Maybe I can put a jam on my ID.

Country Day says, oh, and do not worry about anomalies. Our system is so SOTA, we will be sure to check for anomalies, even in the telomeres. That should clear things up.

Ok. Like, oh! Great! Clear things up. How special is that!

They say, ok! We will look forward to reviewing your codes! We just want to make sure you’re who you think you are. For your own sake.

I’m sitting there, still dizzy, in the Board shelter of Wappingers Falls, and then it hits me, this isn’t going to work. Any jam I put on, they are so SOTA, they can knock it off. If they was just coming up with Grozny or Bucharest, I guess I could say well I bought her product from some broker who also made overseas sales, from multiples. But if my own ID is involved, they’re going to get suspicious. And this telomere business, how can that be good?

So that’s it for Country Day. They welcome unique kids but are they honestly giving Aid to a crime against nature? What will the other Parents think? With fees high as these Parents must pay, they are probably going to expect Ethics too.

I’m just sitting there in Wappingers Falls drinking my Beverage, looking at all the sleazy operations, wondering what I am going to do goddamn now, and then it hits me. I will get the Change.

I’m almost out of eggs anyhow, so as far as losing hardy egg sales, not an issue. Rauden has a lot of my soma on ice, enough to mix with the eggs still in storage.

While I’m at it, I could even wipe my files out, the ones that come up from my own swipe ID. So my own history will be gone.

Now that I think of it, if I am changing my genes, should Rauden scrape some extra soma? It is a long time since I left soma. Maybe I better scoot across the river and leave extra at the Farm. There is still time to get it done today. Then come back and do the Change in Wappingers Falls. Sleep in the Terminal and go back to the Farm Wednesday morning to finish doing the SCNT with whatever’s on ice.

I don’t even know why I never thought of this before. One of us has to be someone else. I always thought that should be her. It could be me. The Grozny business we could talk our way out of, though it is always going to be an issue. But between Ani and me? As far as who is going to be gene for gene the original me? Let her be the only one.