Page 84 of Across the Universe (Across the Universe 1)

“This,” I say. “Her. ”

The doctor squirts clear lube jelly on the woman’s stomach, then rubs a flat-bottom handheld instrument across it. I think, at first, that he’s doing an ultrasound, but there’s no screen to show a fuzzy black-and-white picture of a fetus. Instead, a small monitor on top of the handheld device beeps.

STATUS: HORMONE LEVELS OPTIMAL

GENETIC LIKELIHOOD OF PHYSICAL DEFORMITIES: MEDIUM

GENETIC LIKELIHOOD OF MENTAL DEFORMITIES: MEDIUM-HIGH

INCESTUOUS INFLUENCE ON GENETIC SEQUENCE: HIGH

“Well, Filomina, looks like you are pregnant!” the doctor says as he puts away his device.

She sighs with contented delight—the only real emotion she’s had the whole time.

“How do you know?” I say.

The doctor turns to the table by the bed. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“They’ve only been doing it for like a few days. Don’t you have to wait a couple weeks before you can tell someone’s pregnant?”

The doctor wipes off the lube jelly from Filomina’s bare stomach, then rubs her skin with something that smells of rubbing alcohol. He reaches down and o

pens a drawer from the cabinet beside the stirrup bed and pulls out a syringe as long as my forearm. The long glass cylinder is filled with amber liquid. Near the plunger is a tiny label; I can tell words are written on it, but I am too far away to read them.

“Her hormone levels indicate that she’s got a good chance at fertilization. And if she wasn’t pregnant before, she will be after this. This will sting a little,” the doctor adds to Filomina, who doesn’t seem to care.

Then he stabs her with the needle, ramming it deep inside her—into her uterus, I’m guessing.

I shrink back in horror, my own stomach clenching at the sight, but Filomina just gives a tiny uh! of pain, and then it’s over. The doctor pushes down on the plunger, and the amber liquid shoots into Filomina.

“That stuff is there to change the baby,” I say in a choked whisper.

The doctor looks at me, still depressing the plunger. “It makes the baby stronger, better. ”

My mouth is dry. I remember what the girl in the rabbit field said about the “inoculations. ”

“Is that why all these women are so odd? Because you changed them before they were born?”

“All I did,” the doctor says as he starts to pull the needle from Filomina’s abdomen, “is give this baby additional DNA sequencing, so that the part of its DNA that’s weaker because of incest can be remade. I’m not affecting its personality. ”

“If you change it, you are. ”

The doctor pulls the needle out. I can’t stop staring at the tiny jewel of blood rising from the puncture.

The doctor drops the needle in a waste bin and finally turns his full attention to me.

“This is all perfectly normal,” he says, stressing each word. “There is nothing wrong here. This is the way normal people are. ”

“Oh, yes,” Filomina says in a flat monotone. “This is normal. I’m normal. ”

I back away, fumbling with the doorknob. I spill out of the room and run down the hall. The women stare at me silently as I race past. And even though I know their eyes aren’t interested in me, the soullessness of them fills me with a dread I cannot explain.

48

ELDER

“TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE BAT. HOW I WONDER WHAT you’re at. ”