Mix and Match
1
The doctor held up the test tube.
“Son or daughter?”
“Boy.” She said sitting forward in her chair.
The doctor turned to the man sitting next to her. “Mr. Jacobs?”
Jacobs nodded. The doctor continued. “Once you complete the life chart we can have him ready in a month.”
“Do we need to provide anything else?” Asked Mrs. Jacobs.
“Only the life specifics.”
“Well can we give them now?”
“One moment.” He pulled a hanging screen towards them. After pressing a few buttons, the survey lit up, awaiting further input.
The doctor read a serial number from his file, and the parental details came up on screen.
Questions began flashing up on screen.
Ethnicity
“Same.” Mr. Jacobs answered.
TEMPERAMENT
“Calm, but fun.” Mrs. Jacobs answered.
PARENTAL FEATURE BALANCE
“Her eyes and head structure, my jawline nose and height.” He said.
“My hair.” She added.
FAULTS / ISSUES / COMPLEXES
“None.” She answered.
Mr. Jacobs glanced over at his wife, then returned his gaze to the screen.
FUTURE CAREER
“We get to choose this?” She asked.
“Yes,” said the doctor, “It’ll be instilled in his mind as an interest and path of life. He will have the requisite skills needed to be successful in whatever field you choose.”
“Engineer.” She said.
“What about sportsman?” Asked Mr. Jacobs.
“He needs a proper job.”
“Being a sportsman isn’t?”
“How about we skip this one for now and come back to it later?” interrupted the doctor.
“OK. What’s next?” Asked Mrs. Jacobs.
SEXUALITY
“Straight. We want grand kids.”
Mr. Jacobs said nothing.
LOVE AGE
“What does that mean?” asked Mrs. Jacobs
“The age at which he’ll fall in love.”
How will you work that out? Asked Mr. Jacobs
“We have other families with stated records. We can match you up with them.”
“Ok, let’s see them.” Mrs. Jacobs said, restless in her seat.
They went through pages and pages of data on different families – images of people who weren’t even born yet, but how they would look, what their lives would be. Lives that hadn’t even begun yet, but were already planned out until the end.
Something rattled loose inside Mr. Jacobs.
“Honey, do you have a minute to talk?”
“What for? We’re almost done here.”
“Let’s go outside for a minute,” He looked back at the doctor, “Will you excuse us?”
“Take your time,” said the doctor, “It’s an important decision.”
2
They stood in the hallway. Mr. Jacobs hadn’t noticed it before, but it was too clean, sterile. He didn’t want his son to be created here.
“What is it? She asked.
He looked up and down the hallway for others, nobody was around. The stars blazed in the blackness of space through the circular windows.
“Are you ok with this?” He asked.
“Absolutely. We’re going to have our own little boy.” She reached out to stroke his face. He pulled back. Her smile disappeared. “Aren’t you?”
“I don’t feel...” he trailed off, looking out at the stars. “You know. People used to think their future could be told to them. They said it was related to their star sign. They said that you could tell a person’s character depending on what time of the year they were born.”
She looked out of the window into space. “That sounds stupid.”
“Yeah. Now we know for sure what everyone will be like.”
“But it’s better this way.”
“Is it?” He asked.
“Yes of course. We can keep him safe, he won’t get any diseases, or hurt, or have his heart broken. Nobody will pick on him, or hurt him. His life will be perfect.”
“Perfect.” He said, eyes narrowing as he looked out at the universe.
“Yes, he’ll not want for anything.”
“But isn’t that what makes it better though?”
“What better?”
“Life.” He stared at her, thinking how to organize his words. “What about you? Was everything perfect?”
“We’ve been through this before, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Shouldn’t he get to choose?”
“I didn’t choose what happened to me.”
“But you chose how you reacted to it.”
“But it’s too dangerous! There are diseases, and bad people.”
He shook his head.
She grabbed his shoulders. “We can’t let him be exposed to that.”
He pushed back. “It’s what made us what we are.” He took a breath to steady himself.“If we choose everything, it leaves him with nothing. No chances to grow. He’ll never make mistakes and learn from the consequences. He needs to get his heart broken to know when he’s got it good.”
“But I don’t ever want him to get hurt.”
“Neither do I, but we shouldn’t control that. We can guide him, teach him as best we can, but we have to let him be his own person. If we make all his decisions for him, we take the life out of his…” he looked for the word “…life.”
Her eyes welled up as she looked out at the stars. “I just want everything to be perfect.”
“Are you perfect?”
A tear ran down her face.
“He won’t be our son if he is perfect. He’ll be science’s son. Let him live his way.”
Sniffing back the tears, she nodded and smiled. “So what do we do now?”
“Let’s go. We can get a permit and do it the old way.”
3
The doctor buzzed reception.
“Kathy, are they still out there?”
“They left twenty minutes ago.” She answered
He sighed. “Alright I’m on lunch then.”
“The Linekers will be here in forty minutes.”
He looked through the doorway at growth station. The Lineker baby, along with hundreds of others, floated in their vats. Holograms related specifically to their futures danced around them, all in preparation for their tailored lives.
He pulled out a sandwich and started eating. His eyes peered out into infinity.