Oh, how they would discover, to their regret, what they had really done, what they had unleashed. But even were she able to speak, she knew they would not listen. They would have to find out for themselves.

  In her delirium Reiko’s head turned left and right, trying to track voices nobody else in the operating room seemed to hear. They came at her from all sides, whispering through the hissing aspirators, humming from the lamps, murmuring from the electric sockets.

  Spirits leered and taunted her from the machines, some mere patternings of light and static, others more complex—coursing in involute electronic dissonance within the microprocessors. Ghosts floated around her—whispering kami, dressed up in raiments of software.

  How foolish of men to think they can banish the world of spirits. Reiko knew with sudden certainty that the very idea was arrogant. Of course the kami would simply adapt to whatever forms the times demanded. The spirits would find a way.

  They were loose in the grid, now, biding their time. And they would have revenge.

  Ghosts of baby hamsters…of baby human beings… She sensed her own son, thinking now, desperately, harder than any fetus had ever been forced to think before.

  Soporific numbness spread over her as the tentacle-like hands turned to other violations. The shuddering contractions made vision blur. Superimposed upon her diffracting tears were dazzling Moiré patterns and Möbius chains. How she knew the names of these things, without ever having learned them, Reiko did not bother to wonder. From her mouth came words… “Transportation…locational translation of coordinates…” she whispered, licking her dry lips. “…non-linear transformations…”

  And then there was the bottle that had not one opening, but two…or none at all…the container whose inside was outside.

  Now Reiko found herself wondering what the word “outside” really meant.

  The hands did not seem to notice or care about the ghostly forms glaring down at her from the harsh fluorescents. Those angry spirits mocked her agony, as they mocked the other one, the one struggling with a problem in geometry.

  Another spasm of savage pressure struck Reiko, almost doubling her over. And she felt overwhelmed by a sudden swimming sensation within her…an intensifying sense of dread…desperate concentration on a single task, to turn theoretical knowledge into practical skill.

  The kami in the walls and in the machines chittered derisively. The problem was too difficult! It would never be solved in time!

  A container whose inside is outside…

  “Desu ne?” One of the technicians said, shaking and tapping his monitoring headphones. He shouted again, this time in alarm.

  Suddenly white coats flapped on all sides. There was no time for full anesthesia, so they sprayed on locals that numbed with bone-chilling rapidity. Nobody even bothered to set up a modesty screen as the obstetric surgeons began an emergency Caesarian section.

  Reiko felt it happen then, suddenly, as a burst of pure light seemed to explode within her! For that moment she shared an overwhelming sense of wonder and elation—the joy and beauty of pure mathematics. It was the only language possible in that narrow instant of triumph. And yet it also carried love.

  The surgeon cut. There came a loud pop, as if a balloon had suddenly burst. Her distended belly collapsed abruptly, like a tent all at once deprived of its supports.

  The technicians stared, blinking. Trembling, the stunned surgeon reached in. Reiko felt him grope under the flaccid layers of her empty womb, seeking in bewilderment what was no longer there.

  Applied Topology. She remembered the name of a text, one of the courses they had given her son, and Reiko knew it stood for shapes and their relationships. It had to do with space and time, and it could be applied to problems in transportation.

  The hands did more things to her, but they could not harm her any more. Reiko ignored them.

  “He has escaped you,” she told them softly, and the angry, envious, mad kami as well. “He learned his lessons well, and has made his mother proud.”

  Frustrated voices filled the room, rebounding off the walls. But Reiko had already followed her heart, beyond the constraints of any chamber or any nation, far beyond the knowledge of living men, where there were no obstacles to love.

  Story Notes for Dr. Pak’s Preschool

  “Dr. Pak’s Preschool” seems a natural extrapolation of the enrichment parenting craze that’s sweeping not only Japan, but yuppie America and elsewhere, as well. I wrote it back when I had recently embarked on fatherhood, so I know the temptations all too well.

  As a short story, it stands on its characters and situation and unresolved “tone,”—a ringing what-if note that lets readers extrapolate on their own. In this way, many shorts are like Twilight Zone episodes, needing no third act. Often longer works like novels are similar to a feature movie, requiring some plot resolution. Hence, there are way cool ways to continue the story of Reiko and her child, in outlines and an existing script.

  But that’s another story…

  PIECEWORK

  * * *

  It annoyed Io’s best friend to give birth to a four kilo cylinder of tightly wound, medium grade, placental solvent filters.

  For five long months Perseph had kept to a diet free of sugar, sniff, or tobac—well, almost free. The final ten weeks she’d spent waddling around in the bedouin drapery fashion decreed for pieceworkers this year. And all that for maybe two thousand dollars worth of industrial sieves little better than a fabricow might produce!

  Perseph was really ticked.

  Outwardly, Io made all the right sympathetic sounds, though actually she had little use for her friend’s anger. It had been Perseph’s choice to hire her womb to a freelance codder of dubious pedigree, without even vetting him through an agent.

  “They’re all sperm crazy,” Io had warned months earlier, as the two of them sat together on her narrow con-apt balcony, watching a twilight-flattened sun squeeze berryjuice color into stained horizon clouds. Nearer, a warm mist sublimed from the boggy reed beds of the Mersey estuary, a haze presently fanned into tattered wisps by homebound flocks of noisy sea birds.

  “There’s no profit in placental jobbing, and no hope for advancement,” Io told Perseph that evening. “Me, I’ll stick to egg work.”

  “But egg jobs cost you to get started,” Perseph complained. “And a failure can ruin you in non-delivery charges. Then where’s your investment?”

  As if Perseph knew what the word meant! Like most pieceworkers, the tall brunette never saved a penny out of her delivery fees, blowing it all on the move-party circuit until it was time to return to her dole cheques and her next surro-pregnancy. No wonder Perseph stayed with placental-fab. Some people just had no ambition.

  Io vividly recalled that evening, several months ago, when the two of them watched silent marsh fog diffuse raggedly over the muddy river banks into Ellesmere Port’s cattleyards, softening the complacent lowing of the animals, if not their pungent aroma.

  Twenty-four hours a day, lorries pulled out from the milking sheds and parturition barns, carrying bulk loads of gene-designed oils, polymers and industrial membranes. The mass production of specially bred fabricows dwarfed the output of smalltime contractors like Perseph or Io. Rumor had it ICI housed their pampered creatures here on the south bank to intimidate the pieceworkers living in derelict marinas and towering co-op houseboats nearby.

  If so, the cattleyards had an effect on Io opposite to that intended. They boosted her morale, reminding her that there were still some things neither animals nor machines could do as well as a human craftswoman. No fabricow would ever produce wares as fine as hers!

  That evening, months ago, Io’s friend had only just begun her latest surropreg and still yearned passionately for the chemical pleasures now denied her by guild rules. Of course, soon Perseph would be substituting a mellow high from her own hormonal flow. Meanwhile though, she made pretty miserable company.

  “Nawi, Io. I don’t think I could hold out long enough to do egg work. It takes so long, I’d go crazy for a party.”

  “But Pers, look what Technique Zaire’s paying for a prime cockatrice, these days. Or a shipbrain—”

  “A shipbrain! Hah! How’d a piece like me ever get seeded with a shipbrain? If I ever signed up for eggwork they’d knock me up with…with a traffic cop!” Perseph laughed, a sound Io felt had grown more bitter of late.

  Io shook her head. “All I know’s I don’t want to have to scrimp for another ten years. Two more successful carries and I’ll have paid for tuition and a license, and have enough leftover for nestworks. Anyway, eggcraft leaves me needing less retroconversion.”

  “Hmm,” her friend had said, dubiously. “Meanwhile you live like a tweenie, saving all your bonuses, cashing in all your hobby and travel ’lotments. I swear, Io, sometimes some of us think you—” Perseph bit her lip. “Well, you just don’t party enough.”

  “I got no time for move-parties, Pers. You know that. There’s school…” Instantly Io knew it had been a mistake to mention it.

  “Argh,” Perseph had twisted away in disgust, a motion that set her visibly gritting her teeth. She grunted, covering her already tender abdomen. “Io, you make me tired just thinkin’ about it. Some ambitions just aren’t worth the effort.”

  That conversation had distilled the difference in their views, and from that day forth they had simply avoided the subject.

  But now Io recalled the occasion with eidetic detail as she walked alongside a slowly crawling recovery couch, brushing her friend’s sweat-damp hair while postpartum enzymes dripped into Perseph’s veins, gradually displacing her cheeks’ chalky pallor with a healthy color one could hardly tell from natural. Over one armrest, a glowing monitor measured Perseph’s recovery from the strains of labor, pacing the slow forward progress of her couch to the strengthening of her vital signs. Pieceworkers in the sperm trade hardly ever got visitors on delivery day. What would be the point? So these moving couches weren’t equipped with sidecars, only tiny, spring-mounted jump stools. Io preferred to walk, eyes ever alert for the maintenance carts and cleaner beasts scurrying about on pre-assigned courses. Normally, she’d simply have called after Perseph got home. But Io had been in the neighborhood, so she dropped by to surprise her friend.

  Now she was starting to wish she hadn’t. Though Io knew her reaction was old-fashioned, these wholesale decanting centers tended to give her nausea.

  She brushed Perseph’s black ringlets while rows of other recovery couches periodically emerged from unloading bays like new vans off assembly lines, each conveying a tired, limp, freshly emptied pieceworker. Occasionally, as the doors opened, cries spilled into the vast recovery hall—from the panicky ululations of an ill-trained first-timer all the way to the rhythmic karate-shouts of a skilled veteran—the melodies of modern industrial labor.

  No, Io vowed within her thoughts. I’ll stick to egg work.

  The brush caught on a knot of Perseph’s hair. The woman cursed. “Wrigglers!”

  “Sorry, Pers, I—”

  “No, damnit, look at that! I knew it!” She bit her thumb at a shimmering holoribbon traversing the vaulted ceiling, carrying late quotes from the Bio-Bourse.

  “Meconium! I knew I should’ve delivered three days ago. Look what’s happened to solvent-filter prices since then! But no, I just had to try to put on those last few grams.”

  Disgusted, Perseph shifted on the bed, causing a large lump to jiggle beneath the sheets, like a hunchback dwarf under a tent propped by her shrouded legs. “Hey! Watch what you’re doin’ down there!” Perseph slapped the squirming bulge.

  Snuffled grunts, a phlegmatic fart, were her only answer.

  “Damn, cheap model cleaners,” she muttered. “I’d do better without ’em.”

  Embarrassed, Io looked around. But none of the other recovering workers riding nearby trolleys seemed to notice. Some slept complacently. A few spoke on hush phones, only their expressions hinting whether they were talking to agents or loved ones. Others watched soaps on tiny armrest TV sets while tailored enzymes dripped into their arms, cutting the time the Company had to maintain this service on overhead. The couch amenities were required under the Piecework Labor Act. There, at least, the guild had actually done some good.

  A few of the ladies on nearby carts looked high already, probably on smuggled-in drugs, taking advantage of their very first moments free of surropreg discipline.

  “Look Pers, I’m glad I caught you coming out. But my lunch break’s almost over, and I need a protein fix before going back to work.”

  “Work?” Perseph had a dark glitter in her eye. “You got a job now, too?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Io instantly regretted the slip. “It’s—it’s only quarter time, Pers. One of my teachers noticed my reading level was up to…well, I been filing records at a psycher’s office. It’s no big deal…”

  “School and a job. Crapadoodle.” Perseph shrugged. “All right. Go squeeze in lunch.” She jabbed idly toward Io’s abdomen. “Can’t let th’ little toaster starve, can we?”

  Perseph punched a button activating the Soap Channel on her armrest TV—no doubt to annoy Io, who quickly averted her eyes from the seductive, flickering images. Io avoided all addictions.

  “Um, yeah. I’ll— I’ll come and see you after you’re back on your feet.” But Perseph had already focused on the detergent drama. “Ymmm,” her friend said.

  Stepping away, Io had to move nimbly to dodge a careening service cart. By instinct her hands moved protectively over her swelling belly. She felt motion within, responding to her increasing heart-rate—almost as if the thing inside her were actually alive.

  Her tender left breast throbbed.

  “Green shit!” Perseph’s voice really carried this time, drawing looks from all sides. “That does it!”

  The sheet flew back. With both hands, the dark-haired pieceworker dislodged a small furry creature from between her thighs. “Get out! Women have sealed their own capillaries for hundreds of years without pissface little lickers like you. Beat it!”

  A plaintive cry. Service uncompleted. Meal unfinished. The artificial beast dodged Perseph’s kicking feet and crouched at the end of the chaise, mewing for a handler to come and take it from this unappreciative woman.

  Io turned quickly and hurried away.

  The usual crowd loitered by the exit, eyeing each weary pieceworker as she emerged blinking into the sunlight.

  Pedicabbies offered rides home on government vouchers. Codders passed out their cards and offered to show off their license tattoos. The inevitable scraggly pair of Madrid-Catholic protesters walked their wellworn tracks, placards drooping disconsolately.

  The codders were the worst. Of course you had to have codders to run the sperm trade. Placental filter makers like Perseph could never afford to have their own genetic programming done. Even a bundle of high quality platinum-sieves only paid off in five figures, and a woman was limited by law to twenty-five surropregs over a lifetime. So it was men who underwent the expensive treatments to have their reproductive cells modified, amortizing the cost against the commissions they received from each pieceworker who carried their wares.

  The codders who haunted the exits of decanting centers were generally of a pretty low order—either desperate to grab their percentages on the spot, before their tired clients could blow their fees, or so hard up for customers they’d hawk their patterns to women coming straight off decanting.

  The idea made Io feel queasy. Imagine even thinking about another knockup within two hours of labor!

  And yet, she saw several pieceworkers of her acquaintance emerge from the recovery bay and stroll gingerly over to the crowd of strutting males—all dressed in bright, tight-fitting tanktops, their multicolored leggings converging on codpieces tied with laced bows. The codders treated their prospective clients with exaggerated courtliness, offering folding stools, drinks, and sprays of flowers to any fem willing to sit and hear about their exciting, latest-model designs.

  And they say romance is dead, Io thought ironically.

  “Hey Io, milady. You are the fair one, ain’t yo’?”

  Hair processed flat, parted down the middle in the latest style, his leggings were yellow and bright pink, and the padded codpiece a polkadot combination of the two. He was lacing up one side, as if he had just finished showing off his license to a client.

  “Um. Hello Colin,” she nodded. The codder was part of Perseph’s party circle and so, by convention, a friend of Io’s as well. Though there were many types of friends.

  “You’re here furly early, no Io?” He eyed her surropreg garb, barely yet filled out with the fruits of her own production.

  “I came down to see Perseph.” She nodded toward the recovery bay. Colin’s eyes widened.

  “Fave babe! Thanksyo, Io. I’ll station this ever-welcome selfsame to whip out my card just as she re-enters th’ hurly world.”

  “Just make sure that’s all you whip out, Colin. There’s ladies present.”

  Colin guffawed. As Io intended, he took her remark as a sarcastic, off-color jibe—unit coin in the strange protocol of jest-bonding. He couldn’t know that on another level Io had meant every word, literally.

  “So when’s your time to give over an’ do your work the natchway, Io?”

  “By natural, I assume you mean by grunt and shove? Letting a codder like you take ten percent of my fees and all the credit? No thanks, Colin. Eggwork may be harder, but it’s between me an’ the designers—”

  “Between you an’ cold glass an’ rubber, you mean!” Colin’s stiff grin said this was still repartee, but his voice was chill. “An’ you actually like it like that? Are you sure your profile reads hetero correctly, Io? None of us boys see it that way.”

  Io felt a wave of anger. Who had told this cretin about her profile? Had Perseph? Was it possible to trust nobody?