The Price to Climb

“Danny! Get you head out of the clouds and get this order over to the family with the brat on four!”

The dream faded, and Chardonnay (Danny for short) Wilkins came awake. She sighed, and levered herself to sit on the edge of her increasingly familiar bed. In the dream, she had once again been working at the diner, dreaming of greener pastures and literally higher living.

The diner had been on the 53rd level, society’s ground floor, and a bare step above the subterranean slums – not even the robo-patrol went lower. If a body was crazy or stupid enough to descend to 50, they were on their own. Declared dead, their ID chip disabled – trapped beneath society’s reach.

Six months ago, Danny had worked double shifts, seven-days a week in that diner to scrape rent. That was before a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. No one was offered the opportunity to ascend 270 levels, and never from ground to the 300s.

Danny wandered from the bed to the full length mirror hanging between two giant windows that allowed real, non-simulated, sunlight to flood the room. Danny stared; her too-thin frame had filled out now that she didn’t skip meals. She looked rested.

And I should, Danny thought. Now that I spend a majority of the time idle.

She no longer worked sixteen-hours a day. Her once hollow face had filled out. Her eyes were clear and bright. Her eye-color had been described as whiskey-rich when she had been a little girl, for the first time she could see “rich.” Her cinnamon-colored hair gleamed and her amber skin glowed.

As Danny’s eyes traveled downward, they came to rest on the biggest change – perhaps her salvation from poverty and scraping an existence from the bottom of the proverbial barrel.

Her belly protruded, six-months pregnant today. Danny had found selling her body for invitro-surrogacy far more palatable than selling skin.

“That’s if I had had a figure to capitalize on,” Danny murmured to her reflection. “But I didn’t. Maybe I’ll be able to keep some of these curves when the pregnancy is over…”

That was how Danny thought about her condition, the pregnancy. She consciously avoided stroking her hands over her burgeoning belly; determined she wouldn’t get attached to the life growing inside her. The child she was growing would never know the struggle of lower-level life, the child was fated for the utmost privilege.

“And that is comfort enough, I can remain detached and take the money.”

The money had been key. Twenty-thousand creds up-front, a cushy 40 weeks, and a possible windfall of at the completion of the pregnancy. While the sum wasn’t enough to buy Danny a life in the 300 levels, it was still a life changing. When she added the money to the 200s Education and Career Training Academy sponsorship, the fertility company provided as part of the package, Danny was happy to rent-out her uterus.

Danny turned from the mirror to get dressed for the day. She had an appointment with the fertility company’s doctor in a couple of hours.

***

I swear, the stares get worse and worse.

Danny had thought herself accustomed to the stares of the 300-Levelers. When she had first joined the fertility program, Danny had thought the stares were due to her obviously mixed race heritage. The many races were represented in the upper echelons of the towering glaze and metal spears that covered the surface of the planet; however, from what Danny could see, they didn’t seem to marry and procreate between each other very often. Still, she was increasingly convinced that the stares hadn’t been on her, but rather at her belly.

I know I have seen other pregnant women. What is so strange about me, Danny wondered.

Danny crossed the mezzanine that existed between the building she currently called home, and the one housing the fertility company’s offices. On entering the large spinning doors of the building, the guard at the security desk nodded in her direction and held up three fingers before pointing to the lift bay. Danny crossed the lobby to Lift 3. She didn’t wait more than a couple of seconds before the gate raised, opening the capsule.

Checking her reflection on the glossy interior of the gate, Danny fidgeted with the curl that insisted on hanging over her right ear. Giving up on her hair, she leaned against the rear wall of the lift. After another moment, the walls flashed from gilt to green indicating she had arrived at her destination – not that she ever felt the lift move.

Danny stepped up to the gleaming entrance to the fertility company’s office and waited. A red light flickered on door sensor. It held for a moment, then blinked to blue before the doors swung open. Danny didn’t bother checking with the receptionist – that was done the moment she had been cleared for Lift 3. She briefly debated which seat to take in the waiting room.

“Miss Wilkins,” a raspy voice spoke from the corner of the waiting room.

Danny turned to find the doctor’s assistant waiting, holding the door to the back office open with his shoulder. “Mr. Tolt,” Danny nodded in greeting.

“Please, follow me. Doctor Barga is ready for you.”

“Already?” Danny’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “He must be running ahead.”

“Unusual…but I suppose everyone is entitled to breaking trend,” Tolt commented.

When Danny drew abreast the older man, she saw the doctor’s assistant attempt to glance surreptitiously at her stomach. Once Tolt stepped ahead, Danny allowed her eyes to cross behind his back.

You work for a fertility company, there is no reason for you to be giving my belly weird looks. Thrown off by the assistant’s odd behavior, she almost missed that he turned to the left at a fork in the hallway.

“This way,” Tolt called. “You are to be weighed and measured later. Dr. Barga wants imaging first.”

***

While imaging might be painless process, something about felt strange. She had been directed into an all-white, seemingly windowless room, Danny was positive that the walls were actually one-way glass. She had felt eyes on her, sure she had been observed removing her clothes and studied as the lights in the room flashed colors. When the scan had been completed – a voice came over an invisible intercom permitting her to redress as the door slid open.

Danny rubbed at her arms as she sat on a gel couch in one of the examination rooms awaiting Dr. Barga’s arrival. Just as she considered standing to pace about the room, the door opened and the white haired doctor entered. He had a digi-board with an old-fashioned small black notebook in one hand, and a palm-holo, currently scrolling through a series of strange symbols in the other.

Finally, he looked at her. Danny wished that the doctor wasn’t such a prick. He was the only person who would actually look at her normally, provided he had actually been a pleasant man to deal with.

“Well, Miss Wilkins, everything is progressing quite normally.”

There was something about the doctor’s tone on ‘normally’ that made Danny focus. She watched as he set the digi-board and black book on a side table. His gaze fastened to the still scrolling symbols on the palm-holo.

“Yes, quite normally. We will be expecting a perfectly normal male infant in just about three-month’s time.”

“A boy?” Danny commented.

“Yes, a boy.” Barga stated, flapping his hand almost dismissively as he pulled a scribbler from the breast pocket of his white coat, opened the black book and proceeded to jot down a few notes.

Curious, Danny opened her mouth to ask if there were any other details. But, before she could speak, there was a brusque knock on the door. Barga turned as the door opened revealing another man Danny had never seen before. He was close to Barga in age and dress: a long white overcoat over a plain dark suit.

The man stared silently at Barga until the doctor set down the scribbler, stood, and took the few steps to the door. Seeming to remember that she was sitting there, Barga looked back at Danny, “One moment Miss Wilkins.”

Though Danny strained to hear, the men’s voices were completely filtered by the closed door. Annoyed, Danny looked around the room. Her gaze fell on the little black book.

Scrambling up from the lounge, Danny pounced on the book, quickly opening it to the last written on page:

The genetic splicing procedure performed on Embryo A2 after implantation in Surrogate Wilkins appears to have been rejected. The fetus’ development is progressing quite typically for a full-human embryo. If the splicing procedure had been successful there would have been evidence apparent in today’s scanning.

Discussions with the funding conglomerate have reached the sensible conclusion and agreement; once the pregnancy is completed – the surrogate will be paid an additional 20K credit. The infant will be terminated as the experiment was a failure.

Danny slapped the book shut and swayed as she dropped back on the couch, words from the passage she had just read spinning around her head.

Experiment, Genetic Splicing…Terminate. Terminate. They are going to kill it – him. For the first time in months, Danny stroked a hand over her protruding belly. Beneath her hand, she felt as if she could sense a fluttering from within her own body, but not of her volition.

Danny saw the door begin to open and falling back on years in the service industry, quickly blanked her features.

“Miss Wilkins – My apologies, but there is a matter that needs my attention – another patient. Tolt will escort you back to reception. All is fine and progressing quite normally. I will have reception schedule you for another visit in a month.” Barga then stepped aside, turned, and left.

***

In a daze, Danny found herself back on the green mezzanine. She glanced toward the building that she had been calling home for the last six month, and walked in the opposite direction.

***

Marco had been called a thug ever since he was old enough to talk, he had retreated to the lawless 50th the instant he had been able to figure out the perimeter patrols’ timing on 51. He was now a medium fish in the underworld – he etched out his existence at the expense of the weak that found themselves sucked into the subterranean abyss, and he had caught a fresh target.

The woman was svelte, but her belly bloated. As he cornered her in what had once been an alley, Marco realized the woman was heavily pregnant. Not that it mattered to him. Though…

I suppose I could cut it out of her, and sell it. Marco considered the option. Deciding that was the easiest profit he could make, Marco reached for the blade he had strapped to his right thigh. As his fingers found the hilt, the woman turned toward him.

She didn’t say anything, just cocked her head to the side. The dim light from Marco’s dying torch bounced off her eyes. Inhuman eyes.

Marco stumbled backwards. The woman smirked and took a step forward. Realizing, he was the prey not the hunter for the first time in years, Marco quickly turned and fled.

“Mmmm, too bad.” Danny stroked a hand over her belly and felt her son kick at her hand. “I know,” she placated. “Don’t worry, there’ll be another in no time.”

Danny chuckled softly in the dark, as she moved once more to the mouth of the alley. Her son was nearly ready to make his appearance – any day now. “I guess, I should thank Dr. Barga, he made me quite perfect for this place. Made me able to protect you.”

Danny ran her tongue over teeth that had gone sharp in the weeks since she had stolen away from the sun into the subterranean darkness. Her eyes caught site of a figure creeping in the dark.

Perfect.