Robin Hobb - The Inheritance and Other Stories

“Cecily, you know better than that. We all do. An exceptional donor doesn’t guarantee an exceptional child.” I was smooth. I didn’t bother to challenge her assertion that Cliff was a genius. “I’m sure you’ve seen Cliff’s genetic profile, and your own. Manic-depressives tend to assort. Left to themselves, they mate with other manic-depressives, increasing the child’s chance of mental illness.” I let her connect the dots.

She leaned forward to hiss at me. “That’s stupid! How can something that is genetically determined be called an ‘illness’? My moodiness should be seen as within the range of normal human development. If it wasn’t, why the hell would there be so many of us? Society used to allow for us. Look at all the Byronic poets with ‘melancholy temperaments.’ Can you tell me it’s right to silence an unborn poet simply because he may be a bit moody?”

I’d read the same article. It’s part of my job as a Social Interface. I have to keep up with all the crackpot metaphysics of horoscopes, wonder diets, and “give birth under a crystal-hung pyramid” fads. The ones who argue for a random conception usually spout the old nonsense about a need to guarantee genetic diversity, as if new embryos weren’t licensed every month. In the long run, it’s about selfishness, not diversity. It was all about the belief that my genes were better than anyone else’s, the same basic concept that is behind prejudice, racism, and even genocide. It’s amazing what otherwise rational people will buy into when it comes to reproduction. In Cecily’s case, she had found scripture to support her obsession. She’d cling to it no matter what. For old time’s sake, I made one more effort.

“A bit moody is one thing. A history of suicide, social maladjustment, and public violence is another. Cecily, you can’t have Cliff’s baby. You can’t expect society to support you in a bad choice. Choose another.”

“I don’t want another.”

I winced. I was sure the monitor would record those words and store it in her files. Her words would register her as refusing her choices. That counted as an abdication of her right to reproduce. The next time she came in to bully someone in Reproduction, she would find her options changed to a flat Choices Relinquished.

Perhaps she saw something in my face. She pushed back her chair. “Forget it, Chesterton. I shouldn’t even have bothered coming here. There are ways to get around this. I’ll have Cliff’s baby.”

I wondered what she was imagining. Did she have some of his sperm in an ice tray in her home freezer? Would she inject herself with a turkey baster? According to the netbloids, that happened every day. There were still random births. No system was perfect. But ours was close to it, because it now excluded the imperfect. I kept my voice level as I reminded her. “Ms. Kelvey, I suppose that is theoretically possible. But if you should become pregnant without a permit, all support benefits from the state will instantly cease, including your Basic Individual Maintenance. Neither you nor your child will ever be eligible for a housing allowance or medical benefits. Your child would be ineligible for citizenship.”

“That’s not fair!” she cried. The eternal objection of the citizen who wants only her own way.

“It is ultimately fair. Why should your neighbor’s taxes go to support a substandard child? Why should you be allowed to gamble genetically for the sake of your own ego? Suppose you give birth to an idiot, or someone with such a ‘melancholy temperament’ that he cannot become a productive member of society? Why should we have to extend health benefits to such a person, let alone continue to support him or her after you are dead? You are talking about a very selfish act, Cecily. I’m sure even you can see that.”

“Selfish act!” She leaned forward and hissed the word at me. A centimeter closer and she would have triggered the automatic security alarm. A cool part of my mind wondered if she knew that, if she had stopped just short of making a legally threatening move. She leaned back in her chair. She began stuffing her documents, willy-nilly, into her canvas tote. Furious words streamed from her as she thrust the papers in. “Selfish act, he says. Selfish act. From the king of the selfish acts.”

She stood up. She snatched her dark glasses off and for the first time in years, I looked into her pale blue eyes. They were rimmed red and were a degree too shiny. Whatever she was using wasn’t part of her monthly supplements. I had a duty to report that. But I just looked at her.

“You killed Cliff. When you destroyed the Flat Plats, you destroyed him. If you hadn’t betrayed him, he’d be alive today. And rich, and famous, and everyone would know what a genius he was. Women would be lined up around the block to get a Cliff Wangle baby. It’s all your fault, Chesterton. You were greedy and you were selfish. You had to go with the sure thing, didn’t you? You couldn’t take a chance, not on music, not on life. Well, look what it got you, just what the sure thing always gets you. A sure dose of nothing. Mediocrity.”

She stood up so suddenly that her chair crashed over behind her. She didn’t pause to right it. She shoved her sunglasses back onto her face and stormed out. As she went out the outer door, two security guards approached me. “Should we detain?” one asked me.

“I don’t think it’s necessary. I think she was able to vent her frustration at me. I don’t think she’s a danger to anyone at this time.”

“You sure?” the other one asked.

I knew my response would be logged and filed under “legal culpability.” If I were wrong, the security guards would be absolved of blame. I hedged my response.

“Reasonably sure,” I replied. I longed to push my “break” button and get out of my cubicle for fifteen minutes. But that would be an extra break right at the end of my shift, and it might prompt someone to scrutinize the transaction immediately before. Any break in a pattern was a cause for concern. I gave security a small wave to dismiss them, and green-lighted. Out in the waiting room, a young man’s face lit up with a smile and he hastened toward me.

The rest of the afternoon went well. I handled six more clients in record time, arranging good choices for all of them. After each happy customer, I offered myself a life choice affirmation. “I am good at my job. Because I am good at my job, I increase the satisfaction other people have in their lives.” I knew it was true, and every one of my last six clients thanked me, but somehow the affirmations didn’t work as well as they usually did.

My bus was late and filled up before I could get on, so I had to stand and wait for the next one. The early evening streets were filled with teens and twenties, some quietly studying palmscreens while they waited, others laughing and jostling and restless. I wondered who they would be ten years from now and wondered who they thought they were now. Sweet illusions of youth.

I thought back to my precareer days, when my whole life had been Basic Individual Maintenance, a Housing Allowance, and my music. I thought I had needed nothing more. I had been convinced that I was going to be rich and famous long before society mandated that I settle on a career choice. Mikey, Cliff, and I had lived together in an efficiency, using the extra HAs we saved to buy sound equipment. We had been at the crest of the retro-rock wave. We should have made it. Damn it, we had made it, until Cliff destroyed it. Cliff, not me. Cliff, who had to be wild and crazy for the sake of being wild and crazy. He always claimed it was for the music, but that was just crap. It was for the sake of Cliff Wangle. It had nothing to do with the sounds we made; he just wanted to be the star. He wanted to be worshipped as an old-fashioned rock bad boy.