Caeli Widger - Mother of Invention

But how things could change in just a handful of years. Luke leaned back in the driver’s seat, keeping only his fingertips on the wheel as the Elan’s autopilot software held the car’s speed at a perfect fifty-three miles per hour on Highway 1, navigating its curves like a seasoned, confident chauffeur. Out the window, the rising sun burned through the fog lining the hills, bringing them into focus, and Luke felt his own mind sharpen and clear, his spirit rise alongside the brand-new day.

Soon, they would no longer laugh. Not the reporters or the tech bloggers or the social media influencers. Not his superstar peers like Moose Lodha or the millions of LikeMe users who still worshipped Reed and thought Luke was a joke.

Insect milk and the rest of his failures may have deserved their laughs. Now that Luke was on the other side of those mistakes, he could admit this. The mockery no longer bothered him. Not since he’d embarked on his newest venture, Targeted Embryonic Acceleration Technology, TEAT for short. When the world learned that Luke had designed a way to safely reduce the duration of human pregnancy from nine months to nine weeks, no one would be laughing. Of this he was completely certain.

Luke exited Highway 1 and switched the Elan into manual mode as the road grew narrow and winding. The fog reappeared and blotted the sun. Out his window, horses grazed behind a fence.

He slowed as he approached the entrance to the Seahorse Center, a wrought iron security gate flanked by a thick hedge. The Center’s landscape was strategically designed to obscure visibility from the road, its hedge outfitted with a wireless security system.

“Everything that happens,” said the nun, “happens today.”

“Yes,” said Luke, lowering the car window and offering his palm to the square black sensor affixed to the guard booth. “Yes, it does.”

The palm-recognition software flashed its green light of approval.

“Good morning, Luke Zimmerman,” said the digital voice of Zeus, androgynous with a slight British accent. Zeus was the Center’s custom AI tool, a far-superior Siri, named through an employee vote.

The two halves of the iron gate began to retract, and Luke eased the Elan through. Directly ahead, the twin domes of the Seahorse Center—known by staffers as East Lobe (clinical) and West Lobe (corporate)—rose like bronze mountains. Luke parked the Elan and sat for a moment, watching the peach blush of morning sunlight on the surface of the buildings. It was just after 8:00 a.m. One hour until his meeting with Tessa. Four hours until the three women of Cohort One were scheduled to report to East Lobe for orientation.

Today was the day. The Trial. The end of his period of “failure.”

2021

Tessa arrived at the Seahorse Center an hour before she was due to meet with Luke. She wanted to check in with the Cohort first. She parked in the staff lot, hoisted her wheeled suitcase from the trunk, and followed a footpath to the building’s entrance, feeling soothed, as always, by the Center’s lovely grounds: acres of lush grass studded with sprawling live oaks and curly-topped pepper trees. Topiary and bright flower beds. Outside the building’s entrance was a fountain in a round pool, surrounded by western coneflowers, their deep purple heads protruding like gothic strawberries from toothy green leaves. Tessa paused to skim her fingers through the cool water of the fountain. She shivered against the morning fog. Here, along the peninsula’s coast, it commonly became all-day fog, hemming in the Center three hundred days a year, enhancing its sense of privacy.

Ahead of Tessa, the twin domes of the Center gleamed through the mist. The burnished exterior was derived from a combination of copper cladding and smoked glass. At the center of the conjoined buildings was the image of a fetus protruding from the metallic surface, a sculpture rising out of the smooth planes of the building like an artful tumor. Tessa loved the building; sometimes, out of nowhere, a stray glance at it would shoot tears to her eyes. And how many times had she gazed at it? Thousands.

Today, the tears rose. Tessa swallowed them down and summoned a firm smile for the uniformed security guards standing on either side of the Center’s main entrance, guns snug at their sides. They were both former Army soldiers. Both had served years in Afghanistan. Both were muscular, tall, stone-faced. Luke had spared no expense when it came to guaranteeing the safety of the Center, its workers and visitors. Reprogenetics was a hot-button field.

“Morning, Dino,” Tessa said brightly. “Morning, Michael.”

“Morning, Ms. Callahan,” said Dino. Michael gave his customary grunt-nod, and the Center’s doors, military-grade reinforced glass, opened to admit her.

Inside the Center, Tessa felt, as always, the sense of arriving home. It was the interior’s unobstructed space, ironically, that made her feel secure. Reassured her that the Center could accommodate the activity inside it, no matter how big or radical. Above her, the central cavity opened like a wide throat, eight stories up, creating a sense of soaring inner space. The labs and offices were constructed around the inner periphery and connected crosswise by a network of clear tubular hallways. People could be seen moving from one side of the floor to the other. The footbridges were so transparent that they appeared to be walking on air. Elevators peeled up and down the interior walls like zippers. Tessa stepped into one at the base of East Lobe and took it to eight, the Residence Floor, where she and the Cohort would live during the Trial. Kate, Gwen, and LaTonya had arrived yesterday. They were required to stay through the delivery of their babies, plus an additional postpartum week, before heading to Bonding Camp for a month of intensive connection-forging with their newborns. Tessa could hardly wait to see them.

The elevator opened right into the common living area of the Residence Floor, where Kate Lavek was curled under a blanket on one of two sleek white couches facing one another, reading The Economist . She wore fashionable violet-framed glasses and her shiny blond hair was pulled into a perfect French braid. Tessa had seen Kate construct that braid in under a minute, while doing a host of other things: leading a teleconference, drinking iced coffee through a straw, evaluating a spreadsheet. She was a gifted multitasker.

“Tessa!” Kate tossed the magazine onto the coffee table. “Thank God.” Kate hopped off the couch and gave Tessa a fierce hug, her petite body hard with muscle beneath her stylishly fitted Seahorse Solutions Center tracksuit, in midnight black; Luke had provided an array of branded “couture comfort-wear” for the Cohort to wear during the Trial.

“How’re you feeling, dear one?” said Tessa, hugging Kate back, then settling onto the other couch.

“Perfect,” said Kate. “Physically, at least.”

“And otherwise?”

“Oh, you know. Right on the edge. Still wondering if I’m batshit for doing this. Still getting texts from my mom telling me I am . Along with the usual insults from Damon. Was I really ever married to that person?”

“You’re not anymore,” said Tessa. “That’s what matters.”

“One or the other, I could handle. My mother or Damon. But having both of them in the We-Hate-Kate Club—”

“Neither of them hate you,” Tessa cut in. “They’re both just extremely limited people. We know that. It’s best not to engage with them.”

Kate sighed. “I’m trying .” She sat back down on the couch and drew her knees to her chest. “But my mother’s so infuriating. She refuses to acknowledge that for practically my whole childhood, she openly complained about her AOF. That she whined all the time about her miserable pregnancies, all the miscarriages, how badly she wanted more children. How much I deserved siblings, blah-fucking-blah.”