Launch: Chapter 30

  In the waiting room beyond the security door, Markus found Brakus and Amber sitting in waiting room chairs and talking.  When they saw him, they both stood up to greet him.  “How are you?” they both managed to say at exactly the same time, then both nervously laughing a little at having done so.

  Markus thought about it earnestly and then answered, “I’m okay…  I think we’re okay,” he said, glancing over his back.

  “Well, I’m going back in there,” Brakus announced.  “Amber, good to see you again and Markus, I’ll see you later on tonight.”   At that he nodded over to the same person behind the counter, who promptly unlocked the security door for him.   Once he was through and the door closed behind him, Amber and Markus stood together quietly for a few moments.  Things felt awkward, but Markus wasn’t sure why.  It might have just been that they’d already done the last hugs and goodbye forever thing, yet… here they were.

  “Want to get lunch?” Amber finally asked.  Markus found that yes; he was indeed hungry after having had only a light breakfast, so the two of them went to the hospital complex’s nearby food court.   Following Markus’ wrist scroll, they made their way to the large circular food court on the fourth floor.   A good third of it was a simple and relatively inexpensive cafeteria, with a ring of commercial fast food restaurants encircling it.  Some of the store fronts were entrances to full service restaurants hidden away behind the restaurants facing the cafeteria in the middle.

  Markus and Amber got some pizza and drinks from one of the vendors at the food court and found themselves a booth to sit down at.  Markus paused to smell the relatively fresh pizza and savour the strong scent of the peperoni.  He adored pizza.  Around them there was a constant dull murmur which was irritating at first but their ears soon adjusted to it.

  “Did you have a good visit with your mom?” Amber asked.

  “Yes,” Markus answered listlessly, “well, as good as could be expected I mean…  She asked me to do a serious reconsidering of my decision to go on the mission, to go over it all over again and make absolutely certain that I don’t want to stay here and start a… well, start a family or something I guess…”

  “Oh,” Amber responded a little sharply.  “And… what did you tell her?”

  “I told her that I would, and I… I intend to, although I don’t see what could change my mind or what might you know, tip the balance for me.  In the beginning?  When I was first selected?  Oh I was full of doubts; I really don’t think I wanted to go at all at that point.  But since then… especially since seeing the ship and… and standing on it, I… I just know that it’s what really want.”

  “You know… if you really are serious about reconsidering, even if just to be sure… then maybe there’s something you should know…” Amber uttered a little sheepishly and while looking down.

  “What’s that?” he asked, eying her suspiciously.

  “Well it’s just,” she pleaded, “I didn’t expect that you’d have any reason to know until after you were well on your way!  You have to know that, and… and you… and you have to believe that!” she insisted as she reached over the table to put her hand on his.

  “What?  What is it?” Markus asked, increasingly concerned.

  “Well, a couple of weeks ago, I… I took a sample of your cells to a fertility clinic, and… and I had them turn those cells back into stem cells, and then into sperm cells.   Then I… I fertilized one of my eggs with them, and… well, voila!” she exclaimed shakily with comically feigned excitement, gesturing towards her midsection.

  “You…”  Markus was aghast.  “You wha…?  How, how could you do that?” he blurted out involuntarily, “what a… what a violation!!” 
“Markus, dearest, you have to understand, I know it sounds crazy and horrible, I know what a violation it must feel like, but… well I was very hurt when I realized that you were really going, and I… I wanted to keep a piece of you with me.  I was never going to ask you for anything, I… I knew you were going away forever.  I… I wasn’t even sure I was ever going to tell you at all, but… but definitely not until after you launched…” she admitted.

  “Amber, this is…” Markus was shaking with emotions which felt very powerful, and many of them seemed to sharply contradict each other.  Under different circumstances he might have been impressed by her newfound resolve and deceptiveness, but not today.  Not with this.

  “I, I only tell you now because of what you told me your mother said, because of what she asked you to do.  I never expected anything of you Markus, but I… I do love you, and I would adore the chance to start a family with you.  I must admit that… that I’ve always secretly wanted this for us, whatever I may have said to the contrary in the past.”  She was looking down.  She was ashamed of herself.

  “But it’s important for you to know that,” she continued, “that if you really want to consider it, the situation is just… just waiting for you if… if you want to have it with me.  Or not, you don’t owe me anything; I just though you should know you had the option available to you, so… so now you know.”

  Markus was stunned; he had no idea what to say.  What could he say?  He was angry at being so violated, and in so proprietary a way!   The intersection of deception and genetics was where he lived, not her!  Or so he narcissistically imagined…  He thought he was happy that he would be a father, but if he was it was despite himself.   He hated her for doing this but at the same time he found the idea of playing family with her for the next thirty or forty years to be appealing in its own twisted kind of way.  Sure he might hate her today, but he knew from years of experience that hate between them today would be strong dislike by next week or next month, and merely disdain by the same time again after that.

  He was a bioengineer himself; he couldn’t help wondering what had been done to the genome in that lab.  ‘Damn it!’ he thought, “if I’m going to have an engineered child it should have been ME engineering it!!’ he silently exclaimed.  Genetics research and pre-natal gene therapies had cured most heritable defects, and had even made modern humans more robust and injury resistant, but impacts of these research areas and subsequent modifications had far wider implications which were yet to be realized or understood.   Now parents essentially had the capability and by custom the right as well, to genetically select and design their babies.  Everybody for the most part does a basic health screening, but many opt to personally select every single characteristic they possibly can, from physical appearance, to mental strengths, to sexual orientation.

  “I have to go,” is all he could say, and go was all he could do.