Dangerous by Default

41. Gone

"Are you ready? I can't believe I haven't shown you this before."

Mina held Caine's hand as she slid her ID card along the backlit slit. The wall panel swung open and they giggled flirtatiously as they ran inside. The light turned deep blue. Mina saw the look in Caine's eyes, his boyish wonder for all things technological and flashy cracking through his strong face. She was happy to see him smile after seeing him in such a weird mood at the workshop. His grey eyes fixed on hers and his face became sincere.

"Mina, are you sure you want me to see this? I don't have to. I know how excited you are right now, but I also respect the privacy of what you are doing here. I don't want you to regret this.."

"Shut up Caine Blue, and let me take you for a tour. A tour of, given a few months more of testing and research, plus 9 and a half months of gestating and growing, where I will be giving birth to our brilliant and adorable baby."

The heavy metal door swung open as if it had been lifted by a cloud. Caine stepped into the medical lab. His eyes darted from room to room. He grabbed her hand as if afraid he'd float away.

Gravity feels lighter in the future Caine thought.

They were whisked up the elevator one at a time and Mina introduced Caine to the most important object in the entire building. Ami's future womb, cradling it in her arms protectively.

"It's so soft."

"It's meant to reduce shock for the mother, and expand as the baby grows. The tissue is as durable as kevlar. We haven't tested it, but in simulation it can withstand a bullet. The armored car of Uteri."

Caine shook his head pretending to be impressed. His lips scrunched in a way that Mina knew well. His mind was exploding in front of her, and he didn't have the right balance to know which emotions to present. So he was mimicking how he was pretty sure he'd feel once he landed back on earth.

"It's so tiny! And what's this little device here on the back?"

"It's the canal. Inside the device is almost everything the baby would need to survive its entire gestation period, from the tiniest embryonic stages to the moments before delivery. The Nectar, we call it. It can divert some resources from the mother's digestive tract, but is meant to be self-sustaining. When it detects that an egg has become fertilized, it links to our system and begins transmitting vitals in real time. If at any point there's a problem with the homeostasis of the environment, we are able to intervene almost immediately. We are like the doula in that way. When the baby is ready to come out, the tissue aids with contractions and helps the little one out of the canal. In theory, at least. In Ami's case, she opted for a C-Section from the beginning so we haven't developed that feature fully."

"This is amazing Mina, but..."

Mina had a feeling what Caine would ask next.

"So as far as I know, we, uh.."

"Both XY?" Mina said, referring to the chromosomes of people who are male at birth, as opposed to the XX chromosomes of females at birth. Mina's eyes grew wider with a cheeky grin that let Caine knew he was about to learn the hidden secrets of the universe.

"Remember how Ami's background is in genetics?"

Caine nodded, and he leaned in a little further to help his brain absorb the what he was about to hear. When Mina was on a roll she was unstoppable, and he just hoped he could keep up.

"All human tissue is created by a set of instructions called DNA. It's like the cookbook for the entire human body, and each cell carries a copy of it. So, if each cell has the instructions that determine the entire human body, then why couldn't you ask the cell to read the instructions from a different part of the book!"

Caine nodded, his mouth scrunching again. He felt like he was pressed against the glass of a spaceship rocketing out of orbit.

Please god don't let go.

"Through techniques originally developed at the University of Kyoto, Ami discovered a way to make any cell in the body a reprogrammable stem cell."

"Reprogrammable?" Caine was starting to understand. "So the instructions to build an egg, or a sperm cell, can be added later."

"Exactly! So imagine that your sperm doesn't work. We originally developed the technique to allow men and women who were naturally infertile to be able to reproduce using any other cell in their body. A scraping from your skin could become totally viable sperm, for example."

"This is incredible."

"But Ami and I had another idea. If we could totally reprogram any cell, it meant that we could also enable reproduction for any couple, regardless of their birth gender."

The words hit Caine like a ton of bricks. This would transform society. It made instant sense. There was nothing stopping his and Mina's genetic material from mixing and creating a new life.

"Wait, could it be?"

Mina's eyes fell on her desk. There was a small vial of goop in a glass container. She picked it up and inspected the yellowish liquid closely. It was marked with a small piece of orange tape, a star written by a felt magic marker.

"Actually, where is Ami? Bathroom break?"

"Can I surprise her?" Caine asked with boyish enthusiasm.

"She told me she'd quit if I ever did that to her again. I can't tell if she was joking."

Mina pulled open the glass doors of the lab, when a hooded figure in a crimson robe dropped down onto the floor from the corrugated steel above. Perplexed, Mina's hand instinctively clutched the glass vial tighter, edging the valuable sample protectively behind her back.

A natural mother, Caine thought.

The hooded figure produced a large buck knife from behind their cloak, their shoulders slinking aggressively as they looked at Mina.

"Hey babes, got something for lil old me?"

Mina inched her feet backwards into the lab. Caine stepped in front of her protectively.

"Who the fuck.." was as far as he could get before the hooded figure lunged at them with an unexpected swiftness. His arm caught the brunt of the knife which slashed a tender piece of flesh over his wrist in two. This person wasn't playing around. They had nowhere to go.