Engineering Infinity (4 page)

Suze is special. Dolly’s not.

Car door slams, footsteps rapid.
He’s mad. She cringes as he opens the screen door. It slams too.

Buries her head in Dolly’s yarn
hair.

“Account’s overdrawn again,” he
says, no
hello
, no
how’re my special
girls?
no
where’s my Suze
? Just something
sharp and important. (
Mommy and Daddy need to talk, hon
,
he’d say if she was downstairs. She tries to be upstairs when he comes home
now, so she doesn’t see the look on his face - all pinched.) “I’ve been monitoring
the transactions. How many freakin’ lattes do you need in a day? They all go to
your ass anyway.”

“Me?” Mommy says. “If you were
monitoring, you shouldn’t’ve let it get overdrawn. And look at your own damn
ass.”

Suze tucks Dolly under one arm,
climbs out of the window seat, goes to her special corner. Ignores the
child-sized piano, goes instead to the music. The door’s already closed, even
though Mommy says she should never close the door. But she does now, just
before Daddy gets home, has since this “account” stuff started, since he says
the word “lose” a lot, about important stuff, like “house” and “car” and “everything.”

Suze leans against the wall,
wishes (again) for earbuds - not even the built-in ones, just the ones she
could put in. But they’re dangerous, Daddy says. Mommy says Suze needs them,
but Daddy says all in good time. Mommy won the first few fights anyway, he
says, the music fights, and he’s still not sure he agrees.

Suze looks at the digital readout
on the wall, sees her favourite word -
shuffle
-
presses “start.” She never looks at the name of the song, doesn’t care really,
because as the music starts, the notes dance in front of her.

Nobody else can see them, Mommy
says. It’s a special program, Mommy says. Only big name musicians get it
permanently, Mommy says. Suze’s is for practice only.

And Mommy makes Suze touch behind
her ear, shutting it off when she goes outside. Special program’s for family
only, Mommy says.

Notes everywhere - light blue for
flutes, red for trumpets, purple for piano, black for vocals. Words running
along the bottom. Daddy says the best thing about the program is that it taught
Suze to read.

Mommy says Suze can read not just
words, but music. And if her sight-reading skills improve, she can play any
piece of music from anywhere, the score in front of her, as she lets the sound
whisper in her ear.

That’s why
you need built-in buds, baby
, Mommy says.
Next year.
We’ll convince Daddy to do it next year.

With built-in buds, she can take
a chip and stick it on her lobe, listen to music so soft no one knows it’s on,
and play at the same time, following the notes.

Mommy says there’s a better
program, more advanced, more expensive (Suze hates that word). If Suze just
thinks the name of a song, she’ll see the score dancing in front of her eyes.

She’s watching scores right now.
Watching the piano part, watching the vocals, letting the sound overwhelm her
senses.

“Didn’t you learn anything when
we were kids?” Daddy screams. “Money is finite. And it can go away. Where the hell
did you learn how to spend like that? Where the hell did you get the idea that
we’re entitled? We can’t fucking afford it. We can’t -”

Suze turns the music up, holds
Dolly close, wishes Dolly could see the notes too. They’re dancing, dancing,
dancing. Painting the air with each and every sound.

Nils dates Madeline’s insanity to
the first moment of her pregnancy. Maybe all the way back to the moment his
sperm burrowed into her egg. Certainly back to the moment she knew, when they
stood over that little stick covered in urine, telling them they were going to
have a baby, telling them which doctor could guide them through the pregnancy,
telling them to choose attributes now, before it got too late.

Attributes: He wishes he had
never heard that word. His parents tell him that back in the day, they could
test for abnormalities in the DNA if fertilization happened outside the womb.
The abnormal foetus wouldn’t be implanted. In the womb, more tests for
abnormalities - monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. But no choosing attributes.

No one talked about IQ or
athletic ability or artistic skill. Parents, his told him, were happy to know
the gender before the baby was born, so they could paint the nursery the proper
pink or blue. They were happy to know that the baby would grow up healthy, that
potential problems could be avoided.

His grandparents remained quiet
through those discussions. Just once, his grandfather - a crusty man ten years
older than his wife - said before she shushed him, “Hell, kid, we were just happy
if that squalling piece of flesh we birthed had ten fingers and ten toes.”

That, Nils knew, was primitive.
He couldn’t imagine going through nine months of a traditional pregnancy only
to have the wrong gender pop out, the wrong gender with some kind of syndrome,
missing an arm or a leg, or (God forbid) half the brain. Not to know what kind
of child you had - intelligence- and abilities-wise - for
years
,
after you’d invested time and energy and affection, in someone (some
thing
) not quite optimal.

The doc the test led them to was
one of the best - chosen, not just for his skill, but for their income level.
They could pay his rates, so he was advertising on their test.

They sat in his office - filled
with comfort pheromones and soothing colours and soft music - and listened
while he gave what had to be a spiel. And Madeline, still trim and still
looking like the woman Nils married, dark hair, dark eyes, smooth skin - all
unenhanced - leaned forward as the doctor spoke, looking displeased as he told
of the legislated limitations.

“What do you mean, you have to
work with our DNA?” she asked, question so sharp that Nils winced.

“We can’t add something that the
child couldn’t have had,” the doctor said. “Athleticism doesn’t run in either
family, we can’t add it to the foetus. We’re not allowed, by law.”

“Who made up that stupid law?”
she snapped, and Nils, used to her sharpness in private (once it was something
he admired about her), felt startled as she unleashed it in public.

“Congress,” the doctor said,
seemingly undisturbed by her tone. “Supported by the courts, of course, all the
way up to the Supremes. Everyone is afraid of full-scale genetic engineering.
Afraid that those who can’t afford upgrades will become less than human. Most
countries have something in place, to prevent a Master Race....”

Nils tuned out the rest of the
answer, but Madeline argued and argued some more, and finally, he had to put a
hand on her knee, their signal to calm down. He paid for that later.
What the hell were you thinking?
she snapped at him.
We want the best baby possible, and you’re accepting limits.

Maybe he was. Maybe he didn’t
want the perfect child. Maybe he wanted a child, slightly imperfect, with a gap
in her teeth, and a crooked smile. Some endearing flaws, just to make her
human.

Later, he learned the source
(sources) of Madeline’s fury. She wanted a child to fulfil her unrealized
dreams - exquisite beauty (there was none in their families, although the
doctor told them they would achieve pretty), brilliance (there both families
came through), and musical ability.

Madeline sang so badly she was
excused from choir at school. Nils couldn’t read a note, didn’t try, didn’t
even like listening to music. Neither family had any musical talent - no one,
in all the recorded history, played an instrument, sang with a choir, soloed,
or even appreciated music much.

Madeline wanted a musical child,
not for the grace and ability, the music itself, but because she believed that
music opened doors always closed to her - doors of fame, of importance, of
superstardom.

But the doctor refused, so
Madeline went to another, and another, and another, until it was too late to
tinker even if they found someone who could, which they didn’t. Not in America,
not in Europe or Asia or Africa. She found a doctor in Peru, whom Nils insisted
on researching before they travelled to Lima, a doctor who turned out to be a
catastrophic fraud. Had they gone, they would’ve lost the baby altogether.

Lost Suzette, who stole his heart
with her perfect smile, the way her little fingers curled around his thumb, the
mop of dark hair, so like her mother’s. They would’ve lost everything.

Sooner.

They would’ve lost everything
sooner.

He tries to tell himself it’s not
that bad. He tries to put a good face on the problems.

But his wife - his ex-wife - is
crazy, and his daughter, his daughter. His daughter might be lost forever.

He’s drowning in what his
grandfather calls a mound of bills. Grandfather had to explain it: bills used
to be paper, they used to literally mound up, like a small hill in the middle
of a desk, something that could - quite realistically - bury you.

Nils wonders if that was better
than picking up his cell, having it tell him, the moment his hand makes
contact, that he owes two months’ payments and he has thirty hours until
cut-off. Or the dun notices that run in 3-D across his eyes when he tries to
watch an entertainment program on the wall screen, just to relax. Or the
sighing whisper of his bed, reminding him that payments are due, payments are
due, payments are due, harassing him until he can’t sleep at all.

The bills are in his name, not
Madeline’s. He was the organized one, the one who set everything up. She had
been the driven one, the one with the good job, the one who succeeded beyond
their wild imaginings.

Until the baby. Then the
ambition, the drive he loved, all got poured into the child. Madeline neglected
work, neglected him, neglected all but Suzette - and not Suzette, really, but
what she imagined Suzette to be. Suzette the Musician. Suzette the Talent.
Suzette the Meal Ticket.

He’d said all of that to the
judge and more. He’d paid for evaluations and custody hearings. He’d paid and
worried, and the lawyer said that he’d better hope they’d get a judge who paid
attention to the child and her needs, instead of Nils’ words, because they’d
become harsh toward the end.

Harsh toward his wife (
Lard ass
, he had called her more than once.
The first thing we’re getting you are enhancements
, he’d
said one particularly cruel afternoon.
I want my skinny
wife back
.) She’d let herself go in shocking ways, ways that a few cheap
enhancements would’ve improved.

It wasn’t until the financial
disclosure forms that he understood why. She’d been taking her enhancement
money and funnelling it to Suzette - for music enhancements.

Audio additions - no implants
yet, Suze was too young. But music appreciation adds, sight reading adds, piano
aptitude adds. Their daughter the prodigy. He’d approved one app for Suze, just
one. A music-appreciation app for babies. He would never have approved the
others. Some weren’t even for children.

When he agreed to the child-sized
piano, he thought Suze wanted it to tinker on. He didn’t realize his wife had a
plan for their little girl. A horrible, accelerated plan. For Suze.

His Suze, who hid in her room
when her parents fought. His Suze, who preferred a cloth doll to all those
life-like things that other people had given her. Who loved the doll because
her Grams had made it, because the doll was soft and huggable and never talked
back.

He should’ve known that was a
sign.

Now he stands here, in a
courtroom smaller than anything he imagined. His soon-to-be ex-wife stands with
her attorney on the other side, and rubs her hands together. Madeline no longer
looks like the woman he met or the woman he married. Her hair’s a mess, her
eyes wander, her hands are chapped from rubbing, rubbing, rubbing.

He doesn’t look the same either,
face grey with stress, always tired. He still fits into his suits, though, the
ones he had before the marriage, and he doesn’t obsess. He has time for Suze,
which is more than Madeline does.

Madeline, who only has time for
Suze’s projects.

His expert says that’s bad. She
has no expert to counter. His lawyer says that’s good.

Nils doesn’t know what’s good and
what’s not any more.

The judge sits behind the bench -
a stern man, with a screen in front of him. He will read the judgment, but
before he does, he looks at Nils.

“There were signs,” the judge
says. “You ignored them. You’re not blameless in the end of this relationship.”

Nils knows that. But his lawyer
seems to relax, as if the judge’s harsh words for Nils bode well. Nils holds
his breath, trying not to think about all the debt, selling the house, moving,
trying not to let it all affect his job - his lesser job, the only one he and
Madeline had had in the end, because she had become unemployable. From a
perfectionist to unemployable in five short years. From brilliant to crazy in
nearly six. He wanted to ask the doctor they’d seen first, the man who knew how
to “improve” a foetus in the womb, whether hormones could cause this or whether
it had existed back when Madeline’s parents had her foetus tested. Had they
missed a tendency toward insanity? Or had they ignored it, figured it wouldn’t
matter?

He’s concentrating so hard, he
almost misses most of the judgment. He gets Suze. Full custody. No visits from
Madeline, even, not for some time, because his psychologist and the
court-ordered psychologist say she’s dangerous, toxic to herself and to her
child.

You’re not
blameless. There were signs. You ignored them
.