CHAPTER 20
Sabrina huffed and puffed as each step toward Aberdeen Park increased her labor strain. This cinched it – in what sane world would a couple hours result in a month’s worth of fetal growth?
“Sorry, Sabrina, but this is the best place for you to stay. Anywhere else could just be another nanobot-infested trap.”
That was probably wrong, knowing Jane’s track record, but she’d take what she could get. What mattered was the availability of an obstetrician who wasn’t prone to wreaking havoc on her and the child. God, how did I get here?
Could this really be a simulation? The farther along she went, her knees buckling under the weight of something more stressful on her body than all her past pains combined, the more real it felt, so lifelike as to be impossible for Marshall to have planted into her psyche with a machine.
Yet the opposite was just as preposterous. No one gives birth only a few days after the fact.
Jane caught Sabrina’s arms in its own at the last second before she could collapse onto the barren ground. “Come on, just a few hundred more yards.”
“And then what?” She let herself lie gently, wishing she could spit acid in that beautiful yet hopeless face of Jane’s. “What is this all for, Jane? Even if I knew why you’re trying to help me, you’re doing a terrible job of it. You don’t know how to deliver a baby. No one on this godforsaken planet does anymore because of your bastard of a boyfriend!”
“I’m doing the best I –”
“Well do better!” Sabrina fended off Jane’s attempts to stand her up. “You wanna help out? Then here’s something you could do. Leave me here, don’t let me slow you down, and go find some antiseptic and any written resources on childbirth. You can disable any robots in your way with your hand, right?”
“Zolnerowich disarmed that gun, but in an emergency I can use a backup.” She looked away. “I can’t read though.”
Of course. Keep down the powerless by keeping them illiterate. Sabrina moaned in exhaustion.
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“You have no choice, Jane! I appreciate the concern, but good intentions aren’t gonna get this baby out safely.” She felt like a cannon was ready to launch out of her as she hyperventilated. “Look, our only hope is to find Dennis. He at least has some medical knowledge.”
“Last I saw him, he was heading back to Livingston’s house.”
“What? Did he take an overdose of his stupid pills? Marshall will cage him there for sure!”
“He knows that, but he said there was something really important there that might help revive everyone.”
“Get him. Now.”
Sabrina lay awaiting the explosion, her face contorted and sweat merged with the heat of midday to form an obscuring veneer over her eyesight. “Where are you, Marshall?” she shrieked.
Jane’s graceful strides led it out of Sabrina’s view. Not once did it turn back.
The contractions peaked in intensity, sending stabbing aches that let her know there was no time for delay. Calling herself an idiot for not having Jane do it sooner, Sabrina plowed through the pain to remove the dirty, tight pants and undergarments.
Please, God …
There was no need to push. In a burst of what might as well have been a million tooth-pullings, a tiny, wet, red head emerged. It was screaming almost as loudly as its mother, a shrill, alien cry that demonized it.
Even as the physical stress faded, how was she supposed to proceed? She had no clue how to sever the cord properly, for starters. With her luck, the poor thing would suffer the same fate as most babies delivered by insufficiently sanitized doctors’ hands, back in the Dark Ages.
Sabrina kept the child on her legs as she tore off a part of her shirt. She swaddled the baby in the cloth and pressed it as close to her as possible. They were still tied on an organic level.
The baby calmed as much as Sabrina did, but it seemed to share her silent distress.
Perhaps some of Sabrina’s tears were of elation – it was her child, a remarkably healthy one at that – yet she still felt a sense of horrific unnaturalness about both the baby and the way it had entered the world. The infant really was an “it” to her, so much did her curiosity about its sex pale in comparison to the logistics of its development in less than a week. This simply wasn’t normal.
Not that it, or she, ever asked for this. What kind of monster was Marshall Patterson?
Welcome to your life, Sabrina, virtual or not.
It wouldn’t have been possible for the child to nurse, but it showed no signs of desiring to do so. More muffled wails erupted as it lay on its mother’s swollen belly, and she could not help giving it the warmest smile she could manage in her weakness.
The anguish that had melted into fearful joy took a new form as the phantom of the moon peeked into Sabrina’s view behind the child. The partial circle reminded her of Marshall, and how this affair had arisen from her choice, if that really was what it had been – no, his choice, she wasn’t going to let him make her believe this was her fault – to betray his lover. Disregarding the oxytocin Sabrina knew was creating bias, Jane had become more of a person than her first child.
Her first son.