Vox(64)

He waits, watching me dress and comb out my hair. He waits an eternity before speaking. Then he pulls me close, whispering into my ear. “Okay, Gianna. Okay.” His voice sounds strong, but I know he’s praying to a god neither of us believes in that the genetic analysis comes back as a double X. A baby girl.

“Come on,” I say. “We need to get back. I’ll go first.”

The air is cooler now, and the few spare vacation houses cast shadows where, when I arrived at the shack, there were none. I click open the Honda, climb in, and think about what I would pray for—a boy or a girl. Stay or leave. Watch Sonia taken away from me, or, in a marginally more pleasant scenario, watch while some uniformed male nurse, following orders, injects her with a concoction that will take all her words away, forever. I don’t think I could stand it either way.

I pray to a god I don’t believe in for a girl, so I don’t have to witness any of this. And I pray to that same god for a boy, so I never have to leave my Sonia.





FIFTY-FOUR




Lin has not made an appearance today, the soldiers at the security checkpoint tell me as they pat me down for a third time.

“No, ma’am,” one says. He’s the same spit-polished youngster who frisked me when I left. The name above his left breast pocket is PETROSKI, W.

“I need to see Morgan,” I say.

“Who?”

“Dr. LeBron.” Calling him “Dr.” anything brings a nasty taste of bile to my mouth. He doesn’t deserve the title.

Sergeant Spit-and-Polish Petroski checks my bag, even though it’s already been X-rayed, and nods to his partner. After two rings, Morgan picks up.

“What?” he says.

The soldier picks up my key card, turning it over in his hands, reading my name. “Dr. McClellan says she needs to see you.”

“Tell her I’m busy.”

That strident voice, as squeaky as a lab rat’s, pierces the air between the soldier and me. It’s how I think of Morgan, as a rat, a foul and vicious, but not too bright, creature.

“Tell him we’re about to check on the mice,” I say to the soldier. “But I want to brief him first.”

Again, the squeak, this time tinged with a thin hopefulness, says, “Send her up. With an escort.”

Thirty seconds later, I’m in an elevator with a man—no, a boy—not much older than Steven. For no reason I understand, I think of what he might have been like as a college kid, sucking cheap beer through a funnel bong, pledging at a fraternity, dragging himself sleepy-eyed to an early-morning calculus class.

“Did you go to college?” I ask.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What did you major in?” I’m thinking poli-sci or prelaw or history.

He stiffens next to me but doesn’t turn. “Philosophy, ma’am.”

“They teach you how to fire one of those in Epistemology 101?” I say, nodding to the service piece on his hip. I expect him to clam up, tell me it’s none of my business. Move along now, ma’am. Nothing to see here.

But he doesn’t. Instead, his lower lip trembles slightly, and I see the boy inside Sergeant Petroski’s smart uniform.

“No, ma’am,” he says.

The old saying goes Keep a stiff upper lip, but as I watch his reflection in the polished steel walls of the elevator, I think that it isn’t the upper lip we need to worry about. The bottom one gives our terror away. Every single time.

I decide not to torture him with further questions. Petroski’s only a boy, after all, a kid who took a wrong turn at a sign somewhere along life’s road, not so different from Steven. Although Steven, after a brief detour, turned back. Maybe this one will, too.

“There’s still time,” I say, not really knowing whether I’m talking to the young soldier or to myself.

The elevator doors slide open into their hidden pockets at the same time a mechanical voice—female, it turns out—says “Floor Five,” and the young Petroski turns slightly, extending his arm, showing me out. It’s so quick, I almost miss it, the three measured blinks of his eyes.

Blink once for yes, twice for no.

Or three times for Not Pure.

I bat my eyes at him, a gesture that the cameras might pick up, or not, but if they do, I can make something up. A bug in my eye, a stray lash, strain.

“Let’s go,” I say.

On Saturday afternoon, the fifth-floor corridor should be a ghost town, all those generals and admirals out golfing or batting tennis balls or playing Axis and Allies in their basements. But every office door is open, and behind every door is a man at a desk, busy and focused.

The third door on my right after we’ve left the elevator bank has a brass nameplate with WINTERS, J. on it. Inside, the man behind the desk looks up from his work, scowls, and returns to reading. He’s the same one I saw yesterday afternoon, and the same name I read on the Gold team’s list last night.

“Here we are,” Sergeant Petroski says. He knocks—three sharp military raps—at Morgan’s closed door.

“Enter.”

Petroski turns on one polished heel. “Good luck, ma’am. On the project, I mean. I’ll take you back down when you’re ready.”

Morgan stands when I enter, offers me a seat, and punches a button on his desk phone. “Andy, bring coffee for two.” He looks at me. “Milk? Sugar?”