Pauline Spaulding was a wonderful woman, a forty-two-year-old, ex-elementary-school teacher and ex- aerobics instructor who had found her calling in day-care management. She loved her job and loved the children, who in return adored her for her boundless enthusiasm. But today she seemed upset.
“Something is wrong with VJ,” she said, not mincing any words.
“Is he sick? Where is he?”
“He’s here,” Pauline said. “He’s not sick. His health is fine. It’s something else.”
“Tell me!” Marsha cried.
“It started just after lunch,” Pauline explained. “When the other kids take their rest, VJ generally goes into the workroom and plays chess on the computer. He’s been doing that for some time.”
“I know,” Marsha said. She had given VJ permission to miss the rest period after he told her he did not need the rest and he hated to waste the time.
“No one was in the workroom at the time,” Pauline said.
“But suddenly there was a big crash. When I got in there VJ
was smashing the computer with a chair.”
“My word!” Marsha exclaimed. Temper tantrums were not part of VJ’s behavioral repertoire. “Did he explain himself?” she asked.
“He was crying, Dr. Frank.”
“VJ, crying?” Marsha was astounded. VJ never cried.
“He was crying like a normal three-and-a-half-year-old child,” Pauline said.
“What are you trying to tell me?” Marsha asked.
“Apparently VJ smashed the computer because he suddenly didn’t know how to use it.”
“That’s absurd,” Marsha said. VJ had been using the computer at home since he’d been two and a half.
“Wait,” Pauline said. “To calm him, I offered him a book that he’s been reading about dinosaurs. He tore it up.”
Marsha ran into the workroom. There were only three children there. VJ was sitting at a table, coloring in a coloring book like any other preschooler. When he saw her, he dropped his crayon and ran into her arms. He started to cry, saying that his head hurt.
Marsha hugged him. “Did you tear your dinosaur book?” she asked.
He averted his eyes. “Yes.”
“But why?” Marsha asked.
VJ looked back at Marsha and said: “Because I can’t read anymore.”
Over the next several days VJ had a neuro-medical work-up to rule out any acute neurological problems. The results came back negative, but when Marsha repeated a series of IQ tests the boy had taken the previous year, the results were shockingly different. VJ’s IQ had dropped to 130. Still high, but certainly not in the genius range.
Victor brought Marsha back to the present by swearing that there was nothing wrong with VJ’s intelligence.
“Then why the work-up?” Marsha asked again.
“I . . . I just think it would be a good idea,” Victor stammered.
“I’ve been married to you for sixteen years,” Marsha said after a pause. “And I know you are not telling me the truth.”
It was hard for her to believe she had anything worse to discover than what Victor had already told her.
Victor ran a hand through his thick hair. “It’s because of what has happened to the Hobbs’ and the Murrays’ babies.”
“Who are they?”
“William Hobbs and Horace Murray work here,” Victor answered.
“Don’t tell me you created chimeras out of their children, too.”
“Worse,” Victor admitted. “Both of those couples had true infertility. They needed donor gametes. Since I’d frozen the other seven of our zygotes, and since they could provide uniquely qualified homes, I used two of ours.”
“Are you saying that these babies are genetically mine?”
Marsha asked with renewed disbelief.
“Ours,” Victor corrected.
“My God!” Marsha said, staggered by this new revelation.
For the moment she was beyond emotion.
“It’s no different than donating sperm or eggs,” Victor said. “It’s just more efficient, since they have already united.”
“Maybe it’s no different to you,” Marsha said.
“Considering what you did to VJ. But it is to me. I can’t even comprehend the idea of someone else bringing up my children. What about the other five zygotes? Where are they?”
Exhaustedly, Victor stood up and walked across the room to the central island. He stopped next to a circular metal appliance, about the size of a clothes washer. Rubber hoses connected the machine to a large cylinder of liquefied nitrogen.
“They’re in here,” Victor said. “Frozen in suspended animation. Want to see?”
Marsha shook her head. She was appalled. As a physician she knew that such technology existed, but the few times she even thought about it, she considered it in the abstract. She never thought that it would involve her personally.
“I wasn’t planning on telling you all this at once,”
Victor said. “But now you have it: the whole story. I want VJ
to have a neuro-medical work-up so that I can be sure that he has no remedial problems.”
“Why?” said Marsha bitterly. “Has something happened to the other children?”
“They got sick,” Victor said.
“How sick?” Marsha asked. “And sick with what?”
“Very sick,” Victor answered. “They died of acute cerebral edema. No one knows why yet.”
Marsha felt a wave of dizziness sweep over her. This time she had to put her head down to keep from passing out. Every time she got herself under control, Victor unveiled a further outrage.
“Was it sudden?” she asked, looking up. “Or had they been ill for a long time?”
“It was sudden,” Victor admitted.
“How old were they?” Marsha asked.
“About three years old.”
One of the computer print-out devices suddenly came to life and furiously printed out a mass of data. Then a refrigeration unit kicked in, emitting a low hum and vibration. It seemed to Marsha that the lab was running itself. It didn’t need humans.
“Did the children who died have the same NGF gene as VJ?”
Marsha asked.
Victor nodded.
“And they are about the same age as VJ when his intelligence fell,” Marsha said.
“Close!” Victor said. “That’s why I want to do the work-up, to make sure that VJ isn’t brewing any further problem. But I’m sure he’s fine. If it hadn’t been for the Hobbs’ and the Murrays’ babies, I wouldn’t have thought about having VJ examined. Trust me.”
If Marsha could have laughed, she would have. Victor had just about destroyed her life, and he was asking her to trust him. How he could have experimented on his own baby was beyond her comprehension. But that couldn’t be changed. Now she had to worry about the present. “Do you think the same thing that happened to the others could happen to VJ?” she asked hesitantly.
“I doubt it. Especially with the seven-year difference in ages. It would seem VJ already survived the critical point back when his IQ dropped. Perhaps what happened to the other children was a function of their being frozen
