Both of us became pre-pregnant together. We gave each other shots of Follistim to stimulate our follicles and Cetrotide to stem the tide of ovulation. And when it came time to mix our eggs, we flew to Australia, and in a hotel room loaded up the so-called “trigger shot” of chemicals extracted from the urine of pregnant women. We giggled and made jokes about pissed-off fat ladies. Then we counted to three and pulled the trigger together.
They put us under during the egg extraction. By the time we awoke in adjoining recovery rooms, our sides aching from the puncture wounds of long needles, the lab techs were already at work, trying to get our girls to pair up: one set of chromosomes from Mikala’s eggs, one set from mine. Twenty-nine of these hybrid eggs fertilized. The doctors chose the dozen best prospects and put the second-stringers in the freezer. Then, on the third day, a catheter slid into my vagina and shot the lucky eggs into my uterus. The catheter, satisfied, immediately dozed off.
We flew home. For the next two weeks Mikala and I waited for an egg to implant and start growing into our girl. We were so nervous. We’d traveled so far, and sacrificed so much, that we could not admit that we’d made a terrible mistake.
I don’t know now whether Mikala even wanted children. She told me she did, but it was clear to both of us that my desire for a child far outstripped hers. I was older, and my longing bordered on a biological imperative. For a long time I thought that she went through the process with me—shot by shot, appointment by appointment, over the course of a year—to make me happy. But that wasn’t it, exactly. She wanted to prove she could make me happy. Mikala did not permit herself to fail at anything.
As for me, I powered forward on the plan with the certainty that a child would be the final catalyst to bind us together permanently, the last link in the benzene ring. Those two weeks after the implantation were the happiest I’d experienced in a long time, and the most nerve-racking. On several nights, Mikala and I fell asleep holding hands.
Then, nothing happened.
All but one of the eggs failed to implant, and that sole survivor clung to the placental wall for days before, inexplicably, letting go. They’d warned us that pregnancy was unlikely. We were scientists, and understood statistics. But the loss struck me like a judgment, like its own proof.
I went into mourning, but I didn’t recognize it as that. I took a job as a fixed-term instructor at Loyola and stopped coming to Little Sprout. The lab didn’t need me, and neither did Mikala. She’d become consumed by NME 110.
This latest iteration was performing amazingly well in animal tests. The rats refused to die or develop tumors, and in fact were prospering. They were happy, energetic, and smart. Memory tasks, especially visual memory, became trivial for them. They navigated mazes as if someone were whispering in their ear.
Months after, when it was too late, I realized that Mikala had been in mourning too. I understood why, when she saw those happy rats, she tried the drug, and why, after she had tasted it, she decided to use it again. Just a little touch of the God. A glow that told you that you weren’t alone, that you were connected with all living things. And once that door to Heaven opened a crack, who could blame her for pushing it wide?
It was in February that I went out to dinner with Edo—without Mikala or Gil. Edo was excited about the progress with NME and wanted to sell; he’d already entered talks with Landon-Rousse and Kensington, Inc. Gil was ready to cash out, but Mikala and I had always said that we would remain in control of the intellectual property. We’d lease development and manufacturing rights, but the IP remained with us—even if it cost us millions in lost revenue. When we first enlisted Edo he’d said he was fine with this, but that was when our chance of success had been minuscule. I think he always assumed that if Little Sprout produced something viable, he could talk us into selling.
And he was right.
“The marriage is over,” I told him.
Edo expressed shock, then sympathy. He was always good at social niceties. But he was a businessman first, and immediately understood what this meant for him. He tried hard to tamp down his excitement. “Of course you must take care of yourself,” he said. “Do you think this would change Mikala’s mind—make her vote with us?”
“Never.”
Edo nodded. He had expected this answer. It did not change his plans, however; with my vote we did not need Mikala’s.
“I need a favor,” I said.
“Of course,” Edo said. He knew I’d demand something for my agreement, because that’s what he would have done. I told him the amount I needed to borrow from him, and that I needed it now.
“May I ask what for?” he said.
“Ransom money,” I said. He laughed, thinking I was joking.
Edo sent me the paperwork the next day. He was too much of a shark to trust our deal to a handshake. In return for the loan, I gave him the right to vote as my proxy, without relinquishing any IP rights. The money immediately transferred to my account. Two days after that I paid for the release of seventeen frozen eggs.
* * *
I woke to a hand shaking me. “Trouble,” a voice said.
“Gloria?” The room was dark, but the angel glowed with artificial light. “You came back.” It was embarrassing how happy I was to see her.
“It’s Ollie,” she said, and pointed toward the bathroom. A sliver of light shone at the bottom of the door.
I sat up, pawed for the clock, finally lifted it in both hands: 2:45 a.m.
“Ollie?” I called. I pulled myself out of bed and made my way to the bathroom door. “You all right?”
Ollie said something I couldn’t catch. The door was unlocked. I pushed it open and squinted against the light.
She sat on the edge of the tub, arms on her bare legs, staring hard at the floor. She’d laid out scraps of toilet paper. No, not scraps, shapes: stars, squares, triangles, cigar rolls. She’d arranged them on the tile in the small space according to a scheme I didn’t understand.
“Whatcha doing, sweetie?” I asked gently. It was the voice you’d use on a growling dog as you reached for the door.
“I’m your gun,” she said without looking up.
“What?”
“You brought me here to kill Edo.”
“What? No!”
She looked me in the eye. “Of course you did. You got me out of the hospital and brought me here and loaded me up with clues—and now you’re going to aim me at him. Bang. You get the girl, and I go to jail. But no one can put this on you, because I chose to shoot.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Then what’s the plan?” Ollie asked. “What are you going to do when you meet him? What are you going to do with the girl?”
“I don’t know! There is no plan.”
“You’re lying. You know what I used to do. You brought me here to do it again.”
“I don’t know what you used to do—you never told me.”
She squinted at me. She opened her backpack and brought out a silver pistol with a black grip.
“Jesus, what are you—?”
“This is a Sig Sauer P226 with an E-squared grip. It’s my favorite sidearm. I’ve had it since Toronto.”
I didn’t know what was more alarming, that she had a gun, or a favorite.
“It’s that she’s got a gun,” Dr. Gloria said.
“I don’t blame you for bringing me,” Ollie said. “You were probably afraid that you wouldn’t have the strength to do it when the time came.” She smiled tightly. “I can be your strength.”
“Look, sweetie … no.” I leaned toward her. “That’s not what I—”
Ollie put her hand on the gun. I sat back on my heels.