Pump Six and Other Stories Part 27

"How long do I need to wear it before I can leave?"

"Three hours will give you most of the dose."

"Enough?"

"Who knows? Who cares? Already you avoid the best treatment. You will reap what you sow."

I don't have a retort. Dmitri knows me too well to feed him the stories I tell myself, the ones that comfort me at 3 a.m. when Justin's asleep and I'm staring at the ceiling listening to his steady honest breathing: It's for our marriage... It's for our future... It's for our baby. It's for our marriage... It's for our future... It's for our baby.

I strip off the backing, untuck my blouse and unb.u.t.ton my slacks. I slip the derm down under the waistband of my panties. As it attaches to my skin, I imagine cleansing medicine flowing into me. For all his taunts, Dmitri has given me salvation and, suddenly, I'm overwhelmed with grat.i.tude. "We owe you, Dmitri. Really. We couldn't have waited until the trials finished."

Dmitri grunts acknowledgment. He is busy prodding the dead girl's bloated pituitary. "You could never have afforded it, anyway. It is too good for everyone to have."

The squeegee hits me on the El.

One minute, I'm sitting and smiling at the kids across the aisle, with their h.e.l.lo Kitty and their Burn Girl filter masks, and the next minute, I'm doubled over, ripping off my own mask, and gagging. The girls stare at me like I'm a junkie. Another wave of nausea hits and I stop caring what they think. I sit doubled over on my seat, trying to keep my hair out of my face and vomiting on the floor between my shoes.

By the time I reach my stop, I can barely stand. I vomit again on the platform, going down on hands and knees. I have to force myself not to crawl down from the El. Even in the winter cold, I'm sweating. The crowds part around me, boots and coats and scarves and filter masks. Glittering news chips in men's sideburns and women with braided microfilament glo-strands stepping around me, laughing with silver lipsticks. Kaleidoscope streets: lights and traffic and dust and coal diesel exhaust. Muddy and wet. My face is wet and I can't remember if I've fallen in the murk of a curb or if this is my vomit.

I find my apartment by luck, manage to stand until the elevator comes. My wrist implant radios open the apartment's locks.

Justin jumps up as I shove open the door. "Lily?"

I retch again, but I've left my stomach on the street. I wave him away and stumble for the shower, stripping off my coat and blouse as I go. I curl into a ball on the cold white tiles while the shower warms. I fumble with the straps on my bra, but I can't work the catch. I gag again, shuddering as the squeegee rips through me.

Justin's socks are standing beside me: the black pair with the hole in the toe. He kneels; his hand touches my bare back. "What's wrong?"

I turn away, afraid to let him see my filthy face. "What do you think?"

Sweat covers me. I'm shivering. Steam has started pouring up from the tiles. I push aside the cotton shower curtain and crawl in, letting the water soak my remaining clothes. Hot water pours over me. I finally drag off my bra, let it drop on the puddled tiles.

"This can't be right." He reaches in to touch me, but pulls away when I start gagging again.

The retching pa.s.ses. I can breathe. "It's normal." My words whisper out. My throat is raw with vomit. I don't know if he hears me or not. I pry off my soggy slacks and underwear. Sit on the tiles, let the water pour over me, let my face press against one tiled wall. "Dmitri says it's normal. Half the subjects experience nausea. Doesn't affect efficacy."

I start retching again but it's not as bad now. The wall feels wonderfully cool.

"You don't have to do this, Lily."

I roll my head around, try to see him. "You want a baby, don't you?"

"Yeah, but... "

"Yeah." I let my face press against tile again. "If we're not doing prenatal, I don't have a choice."

The squeegee's next wave is. .h.i.tting me. I'm sweating. I'm suddenly so hot I can't breathe. Every time is worse than the last. I should tell Dmitri, for his trial data.

Justin tries again. "Not all natural babies turn out bad. We don't even know what these drugs are doing to you."

I force myself to stand. Lean against the wall and turn up the cold water. I fumble for the soap... drop it. Leave it lying by the drain. "Clinicals in Bangladesh... were good. Better than before. FDA could approve now... if they wanted." I'm panting with the heat. I open my mouth and drink unfiltered water from the shower head. It doesn't matter. I can almost feel PCBs and dioxins and phthalates gushing out of my pores and running off my body. Good-bye hormone mimics. h.e.l.lo healthy baby.

"You're insane." Justin lets the shower curtain fall into place.

I shove my face back into the cool spray. He won't admit it, but he wants me to keep doing this; he loves that I'm doing this for him. For our kids. Our kids will be able to spell and to draw a stick figure, and I'm the only one who gets dirty. I can live with that. I swallow more water. I'm burning up.

Fueled by the overdose of Purnate, the baby arrives in minutes. The mucky hair of a newborn shows and recedes. I touch the head as it crowns. "You're almost there, Maya."

Again, a contraction. The head emerges into my hands: a pinched old man's face, protruding from Maya's body like a golem from the earth. Another two pushes and it spills from her. I clutch the slick body to me as an orderly snips the umbilical cord.

The Meda.s.sist data on its heart rate flickers red at the corner of my vision, flatlines.

Maya is staring at me. The natal screen is down; she can see everything we wish prenatal patients would never see. Her skin is flushed. Her black hair clings sweaty to her face. "Is it boy or a girl?" she slurs.

I am frozen, crucified by her gaze. I duck my head. "It's neither."

I turn and let the b.l.o.o.d.y wet ma.s.s slip out of my hands and into the trash. Perfume hides the iron scent that has blossomed in the air. Down in the canister, the baby is curled in on itself, impossibly small.

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

Ben's eyes are so wide, he looks like he'll never blink again. "It's okay honey. It wasn't either. That's for the next one. You know that."

Maya looks stricken. "But I felt it kick."

The blue placental sack spills out of her. I dump it in the canister with the baby and shut down Maya's Purnate. Pitocin has already cut off what little bleeding she has. The orderlies cover Maya with a fresh sheet. "I felt it," she says. "It wasn't dead at all. It was alive. A boy. I felt him."

I thumb up a round Delonol. She falls silent. One of the orderlies wheels her out as the other begins straightening the room. She resets the natal screen in the sockets over the bed. Ready for the next patient. I sit beside the biohazard bin with my head between my legs and breathe. Just breathe. My face burns with the slashes of Maya's nails.

Eventually I make myself stand and carry the bio-bin over to the waste chute, and crack it open. The body lies curled inside. They always seem so large when they pour from their mothers, but now, in its biohazard can, it's tiny.

It's nothing, I tell myself. Even with its miniature hands and squinched face and little p.e.n.i.s, it's nothing. Just a vessel for contaminants. I killed it within weeks of conception with a steady low dose of neurotoxins to burn out its brain and paralyze its movements while it developed in the womb. I tell myself. Even with its miniature hands and squinched face and little p.e.n.i.s, it's nothing. Just a vessel for contaminants. I killed it within weeks of conception with a steady low dose of neurotoxins to burn out its brain and paralyze its movements while it developed in the womb. It's nothing. It's nothing. Just something to scour the fat cells of a woman who sits at the top of a poisoned food chain, and who wants to have a baby. Just something to scour the fat cells of a woman who sits at the top of a poisoned food chain, and who wants to have a baby. It's nothing It's nothing.

I lift the canister and pour the body into suction. It disappears, carrying the chemical load of its mother down to incineration. An offering. A floppy sacrifice of blood and cells and humanity so that the next child will have a future.

THE END.