Authors: Carola Dibbell
“Ma.
We’re Sylvain hardies.
I’m not getting anything.”
“Please do not do this test.” So that is one more difference between her and me. If it was me, I would not bat an eye.
So what? Either way, she did the filo series. And she’s so mad at me for intervening, she doesn’t contact me for a really long time. The City Line blockade did loosen up and I could take a message at the vidBoard there again but nothing comes. I have no way to message her. I’m like, that’s it. It’s over—she did the filo series and got something, the Sylvain hardy thing is not in the genes. I could hardly even move, I could hardly even walk till I finally got the message blink at the library Board and made the vidContact, she’s still alive. And I could see her face! The screen worked!
She goes, “Ma!” Her hair has grown. “Come on, Ma. I passed with flying colors!”
So this time I’m like, very good, how special is that but would she be a little careful what she gets into?
She’s like, “Ma! We’re Sylvain hardies. What! I’m going to die?” So that is one thing we do have in common. I was just like that when I was her age. Sixteen and a half years old!
Still alive.
She’s back in Vermont.
Still alive.
It sounds like she’s looking for a Host farm. Is this a different life or what? Maybe you are wondering, what happened to selling viables? Why does she need to be a Host? Weren’t the Seal Room tests to verify the, you know, track record so her viables would sell?
Well, it’s hard to believe, but it starts to look like Rauden and I are the only ones in the whole Northeast who could bring nuclear Transfer off and for now she is looking for whatever work she could get.
So I’m on the Nassau County vidPhone, on my break, trying to show, you know, Support. To tell the truth, I’m worried she won’t keep in touch if I give her a hard time but I can’t help it. I know when I was her age I been on the Mound for years. I already lost half my reproductive system and was like, whatever. Now I’m so panicked she is going to try for Host, I could hardly even talk. But I manage to say, oh! Very good—but is Hosting a little dangerous?
She’s like, “Ma, we’re hardies and should get really good rates for Donor work. But no one I meet knows how to make viables from me. The solo egg is a really hard sell, even of hardy product. What I get paid for Hosting, Ma! I’m halfway to India. I could even be a virgin Host!”
Now maybe you are thinking, man, with all the time I put into school this, school that, do the work, very good—and she is going to be a virgin Host? To tell the truth, well, right, I would of rather she was a Tech. But what happened now, I will tell you, Ani made history.
Not at first. At first she didn’t even make a sale. She was all up and down the sticks for months trying to pitch product, let alone find clients who want her for Host. At least she finally found one Board that sent good vid. She really looks different! Her hair got really long and she has a, I don’t know, scarf. Not like the scarf I wore so Dan won’t notice anything when she went to East Side Girls, but to keep warm. She says she chose the scarf because it’s plaid, like the furniture in the garden apartment. She needs a warm scarf because she is at some goddamn Host farm in the middle of nowhere, what they call, Northeast Kingdom. She has the hardy Proofs from the Seal Room tests and I guess the clients she finally hooked up with was open minded because they like a hardy Host for the viable they carried in a cryoPak they already bought from someone else, and they sign a contract and make a promise and Ani does too.
And they don’t know how lucky they are how it turned out. First they ran more tests, then they have two shady OBGYNs who blew a viable to Ani’s uterus and ok it didn’t stick at first but they tried again and then they try again and just before her seventeenth birthday they found out it worked! Seventeen years old! She was a Sylvain hardy who could Host a child! She was the only one I ever heard of who could. And these guys—clients, brokers, OBGYNs—they don’t even know how unusual that is. They don’t even know she made medical history. They don’t know what a Sylvain hardy even is or how lucky they are she is one.
Because it turns out one of these new lesser flus is not as lesser as they say, in fact some people say it is such a slatewiper, it’s going to be another Big One. Well it is not as bad as that. It was bad though. When it came down from Canada, the deaths are quadruple digit, which in that part of Vermont there was not a whole lot more than that to start, but when it’s over Ani’s still alive. The kid inside her too.
The Parents, no.
So the Host farm director, who is also still alive, is shady like most of them, and is going to sell the child to other Parents from some other state but Ani says, hello? I made a promise here. I do not Host this child for just anyone. So she ran off with the child!
This next part she is in Canada. She got through the border checkpoints and is in some kind of goddamn Haven that is promoted by the goddamn K of L, Canadian chapter. K of
C
L. Man! I guess Canadian vigilantes are doing better than ours because they have their own goddamn Haven. Still! What was she thinking? Who do the K of C L even need a Haven from? What are they, going to raid themself?
At least they have a good Board because I could finally see how she looks with the, you know, baby inside. Her eyes is like, I don’t know, milk. Her skin is like milk too, but puffy. She still has the scarf. It’s Canada. It’s already November. It’s cold. And there is a boy behind her I could see in the vid too, Ferron, some kind of, I don’t know, he looks like some kind of mutant but she is so proud. He is going to be the father! I don’t even know what she meant!
But she looked so proud!
They are not doing intervention, medical assistance, nothing, because it is a K of C L Haven, that is how the K of C L do things. Come on, the K of any L are out of their goddamn minds. She wants me to come for the birth, even though I don’t know anything about how that works, the regular birth. She says don’t tell them we are, you know. Just say I stole her. The K of C L steal babies all the time. This guy Ferron, who is going to be the father? The K of L had stole him, to start.
So I am figuring out how to get to Canada with my old hacked Pass that Henry fixed for me so long ago, but when I hear from her again she will get back to me, they have some problem with the Haven and she and Ferron have to flee.
So I am worried the K of C L are going to chase her on horses, if they could find a horse, and I am checking every day for messages, three times a day, and there is another problem at the City Line—they sealed the hole again! I am trying to scramble over the wall! I’m roaming all over for a better Board but I have to use Little Neck. It crashes all the time and even on a good day there is no vid there. By the time I reach her, she’s back in New York State. She is in some other Haven.
They call it Canastota.
Her plans for India are delayed. But when the kid is old enough to travel, she and Ferron will take it to India, show it to Rini Jaffur, if Rini’s still alive.
They have a really good Board at the Canastota Haven, and she says, Ma, try to get a good screen so you could see how big I look. She was so proud. She is still not doing intervention, even though this Haven would permit.
I go, Ani, it is so dangerous.
She goes, “Ma! It’s always dangerous. Come on. How I was born it was intervene this, intervene that. I just want to see what happens if we don’t. I just want to try the regular way for once.”
And she was right. It always is dangerous.
“Ma, are you angry?”
Now, I want to tell you here, they are going to say, the way it turned out, these poor nuclear Transfer kids, what they call clones, should never of been born because they will just die young. Well I will tell you this. I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s what it proves. It just proves the regular way isn’t safe either. It never was.
That doesn’t mean no one should do it the regular way, just because it is not totally safe.
Sometimes you really have to take a chance.
And sometimes it doesn’t work. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.
If you think you should be totally safe, no one would be born at all.
So I go, “No! No! I’m proud.” I mean, to tell the truth, I would prefer she do intervention. Maybe I should of told her, do intervention. Maybe she would of listened. But who knows? She probably would not of done what I said. And that is one more difference between us, I did what I was told. It was how I stayed alive. She did not have that in common with me. I just go, “I’m proud of you, Ani!”
And the way things turned out, I was really glad, of all the things in my mind, that was the only one I said.
So I headed to Albany on the MagLev with a load of things for the kid and by the time I got there it’s already snowing so hard I got lost and missed the windtram. By the time the next one left, the snow was so bad we got stuck in Herkimer for two days till the track is cleared. Then the wind went the wrong way. Then it went the right way. Then it stopped dead, and I have to walk a day to get to Canastota in the snow, then find the Haven in the snow, which I don’t even know what a Haven looks like till I saw the smoke, and I don’t even know why there’s smoke or where the smoke is from and by the time they told me, it was too late. It’s over. That’s it.
She was seventeen years, eight months old.
ii
Why am I at the Farm?
I’m not at the Farm.
This is mixed up in my mind. The Farm came later. Ferron is there with a bag.
I think I’m running around in ashes in snow, going, “Where is Ani?” So this is still Canastota.
I think Ferron is in a message on a screen on a Board.
And I am in the snow.
“We could not do anything.” That’s the Haven person, in the snow too. “We could not force intervention.”
“She was the only one I ever loved!” That’s Ferron in the screen. He did not say she bled out.
The Haven person said she bled out. “We could not do anything. She bled out from the birth.”
“She is a Sylvain hardy.” This is me. “He did not need to burn her body for the Hygiene.”
“You’ll never make another Ani!” That is Ferron. That is why he burnt the body. He thinks I would try. I would never do that. I would not let anyone do that, even Rauden. They did not need to burn the body so I won’t.
They did not need to have the ceremony without me in the snow even though she died because they did not force intervention even though they could of tried. They really could of tried. They did not need to burn her at all because she was not sick, she died from the birth. I mean they could burn her for the ceremony if they think it is so important, even though they did not need to, but they could, if it is so important to burn her for the ceremony in the snow.
They could of waited till I saw her first.
They really could of let me see her once before they did.
I just would of liked to see her, even if it’s only once.
WHERE IS THE KID?
What was in that bag?
I’m really at the Farm this time.
Janet Delize is there, in ashes and snow. I told her Ani bled out from the birth. She took me home and was so nice I even wondered if she thought I’m someone else. I wish I was. I wish Ani was. I wish Ani was me. Then she’d still be alive.
I wish I was Ani. Then I’d be dead.
I don’t know how I even got back home. Alma Cho found me in the yard. I wish Ani was her. I wish she was anyone.
All those years, clean her, walk her, feed her. Keep her alive.
Seventeen years. Eight months. Four days.
That’s it.
I just would of liked to see her one more time.
iii
I stayed inside so long, when I open the door, it’s warm. That’s how long I been inside.
It is spring.
Grass is growing in the courtyard.
I walked across the grass. I went out to the street. 256
th
Place.
I did not remember caution tape was up.
I did not remember a Hygiene fire, but trees are burnt. I forgot if I smelled smoke. Alma Cho must of told me what it was about when she brought me the food I ate. But I forgot.
I turned on 61
st
Avenue.
Setauket. That’s it. Setauket. A slatewiper that crossed to Queens from Suffolk County and did terrible things in between. It’s going to end up a Pandy. One of the worst.
I walked to Little Neck Parkway. I walked up the hill. Burnt here too but some leaves on some trees. It’s a really long time since I been up this hill.
That good house with the patio was burnt. The patio is all that’s left.
The Board worked. I went in the shelter and ran UpDate.
April 8, 2079.
Then I walked back home. The last date I remembered from before was January 2, 2078. That was on my way to Canastota. More than a year went by since then. It’s one year, three months since Ani died there, in the birth.
I checked the date regular after that. I don’t even know why I did. I just know that is how I know it’s four years, four months after Ani died, and she’s still dead, and I’m still alive, and still at the garden apartment, looking out my window, when who’s that coming up across the courtyard? Someone who does not look familiar.
And who is that behind him?
Someone who does.
8 T
HE
O
NLY
O
NES
I DON’T KNOW YOUR NAME OR ADDRESS. I DON’T know your age or who your Parent is.
I don’t even know if I should send this. You could have a better life if I don’t.
Maybe you will be ashamed or scared. Maybe you will just be like, whatever, who cares?
I just think it’s going to come out one way or another. Something could show up in our codes. Maybe even yours. Maybe you already wondered. People got such stupid ideas about what we are. I just think you should hear it from me.
So now you did.
Remember Ani said, if it’s just another way to be born, why am I the only one I heard of? Now you heard. You’re not the only one. Neither was she.
Let me just say a few more things that you should know.