Krishna kumar Mani - SFS2 - Science Fiction Short Stories

Stephen waited outside the delivery room. He couldn’t bear to see his wife in pain and she understood. As he stood there, praying his words were interrupted by a baby’s cry. He smiled and thought about his wife. The doctor came out and said to him, “both are going to be fine.”

When Stephen saw the child it looked exactly like the 3D printed baby toy.

Soon they knew the meaning of parenting. Days ran faster. Today was the baby’s first birthday. The kid didn’t even care about his birthday. He simply lay on the bed playing with an iPad, drawing something.

“He’s not playing the tennis game on the iPad, all he does is draw,” said Mary.

Stephen laughed and thought to himself that the child was only one year old. She was too worried about the tennis game. The doorbell rang and broke him out of his thoughts.

A man and lady smiled and showed their ID cards to Stephen. They introduced themselves as being from Futurz Kids clinic. Stephen recognized the woman as he had met her previously.

“Welcome,” said Stephen. “We expect Jennifer will be here also. But the birthday party doesn’t start until later tonight. You’ve shown up a bit early.”

“This morning,” began the lady, “Jennifer noticed the birthday invitation and wanted to give the best gift she could so she checked on your baby’s statistics. The problem though is that she found an issue and she asked us to come here to you.”

“What issue? What’s wrong with my child?” asked Mary.

“She didn’t say exactly, but she did say that it was urgent and she wanted us here with you when you spoke to her,” said the man.

Stephen dialed Jennifer’s cell phone. She asked them to go with the man and the woman from the clinic back to the clinic and she’d explain there. The baby began to cry and the lady from the clinic began to soothe him.

When they were at the clinic, Jennifer greeted them and brought them into her office.

“I’m sorry. Just today we found that the baby was not designed per your requirement.”

“The appearance is exactly the same. How can that be?” asked Mary

“Is there a health issue?” asked Stephen. “Why is this urgent?”

“No. There’s no health issues. It’s a behavior and attitude issue only,” replied Jennifer. “It’s not what you wanted.”

“Yes, perhaps I can see that. He only draws. He isn’t playing the tennis game I got for him on the iPad. Is it possible to change this behavior?”

“It’s not possible. The behavior is hard coded into his DNA.”

“We’ve paid you too much! You weren’t careful. I want to change my baby’s behavior. He needs to play tennis!”

Stephen calmed his wife down and turned to Jennifer.

“We’re alright with how our kid turned out. The appearance is the same expected and that’s more than we can ask for. We’re going to go now. We don’t need your service any longer.”

He walked over to the lady he had left their baby with for the meeting but their baby was nowhere to be found.

“Where is our baby? We have to go”

“Sorry Stephen,” replied Jennifer. “We can’t give the baby back to you. Per our terms and conditions if anything is wrong in the baby’s specification we have to help you again to get the right specifications. It’s not optional.”

“What the hell are you talking about? This isn’t a mobile phone or an electronic gadget that you can just replace with a warranty. We need our baby. We love him. We’ve lived with him and can’t live without him. We don’t care about the behavior specification. Either gives us our child or we will call the police and have you crooks arrested.”

“Please calm down, sir,” replied Jennifer. “Let me explain first. The terms and conditions are binding. The police and the law could not help you in this. As per our terms, we have to give you a baby per your specifications. I already informed you that any issue in the first twenty four months was covered as per our warranty. We have to give you a replacement. But before the replacement, we have to collect the wrongfully delivered item. It’s on the 79th page.”

Mary suddenly started to cry. Stephen tried to calm her down. He called their lawyer on the phone and explained the situation and told him to arrive here urgently.

Once the lawyer arrived at the clinic, he took Stephen aside and said, “Listen, the police and the court cannot help us. I’ve seen these kinds of cases and maybe we might get a damage settlement, but we can’t get the baby that way.”

Mary joined in the conversation and said loudly, “We don’t need the money. We need our baby. I’ll pay whatever it takes to get that baby back.”

The lawyer was silent for a while. “Okay. You both wait in the visitor’s area. I will try to talk with a senior representative for the company. Maybe they know what happened exactly and we can get a settlement outside of any court proceedings. That’s our best bet.”

The lawyer went in and talked to Jennifer and asked to meet the person who had originally ordered the baby’s characteristics. Because although the baby looked like Mary and Stephen’s order, the behavior and attitude had come from another person’s order. Jennifer said that she couldn’t share the other party’s confidential information.

“While designing babies, you’re using behavior from your characteristic library, right?” asked the lawyer. “So what is the problem? If both parties are ready to agree, then the problem is solved, right? Otherwise just give us the baby back. It’s not a problem. Why are you so adamant about this?”

“No, this baby was built using special characteristic specifications which was provided to us from sample DNA. That’s why we cannot give the baby back. It will create problems in the future. This baby must be claimed as the son of the other customer.”

The lawyer thought for a second. “Listen, I understand your point but if the other customer agrees, we can do paperwork to solve the future problem. The root cause of the problem is yours but you’re not taking any steps to solve it. At least talk to the other customer on behalf of us.”

“Give me a few minutes. I will talk to them and get back to you,” replied Jennifer.

She left the room and the lawyer called Stephen and Mary in to the room. He told them, “I will definitely get the baby. If she says the customer will not give the baby I can find their contact information and I’ll meet them and explain the situation. They can always make another.”

“We need the baby now though. It’s time to feed him. I want to see him,” she said as tears filled her eyes. Stephen also looked distraught.

“Have patience. I will get your baby back for you permanently.”

The woman assistant came into the room and told them, “The customer wants to talk to one of you over the phone now.”All of them stood up, but the lawyer told them, “you’re too emotional. I will talk to them and bring you back the news.”

After the lawyer had left the room, Mary turned towards Stephen. “I don’t think we will get the baby. We need to ask for him temporarily and escape. We can leave the city. We don’t need anything other than our son.”

Stephen wiped away a tear that was rolling down his cheek. “Law and order are against us. We cannot run. Our lawyer will get our child back for us. I promise.”

When the lawyer entered the room again he was alone. His face was dull. Upon seeing his face, Mary understood completely.

“They’re not ready to give the baby. Let me talk to them. I will explain the pain of a mother. They must be moved by that. They will be parents or are going to be parents right? They will understand.” She started to get up and leave the room.