Even though each month it happened the same way—the creak, the alarm, the snapshot—Arianna still felt jolted. She felt even worse for patients who happened to be in the waiting room when a man with a gun swaggered in. But DEP inspectors, as Arianna would explain, had magnetic passes that let them swipe into any fertility clinic whenever they wanted, which set the alarm off every time.
With a sigh, Arianna walked to the waiting room to greet the man. He was standing in the center of the room, looking starkly out of place next to the bright yellow couches and Babytalk magazines. His gaze steadied on Arianna, revealing no emotion as she stepped forward to shake his hand. Pinned to the lapel of his suit was a thin gold cross.
She forced a cheerful smile. “Good morning, Inspector Banks.”
He shook her hand firmly, saying nothing. The man was a professional judger, she thought: too shrewd to show his contempt. So they had one thing in common.
“Follow me,” she said, turning on her heel back to the hallway.
In the narrow corridor, they walked uncomfortably close to each other. His breathing was slightly strained, as if the bulk of his extra weight sat on his lungs. She slowed down so as not to outpace him, keeping her arms crossed over her chest. They passed the five examining rooms that made up her modest clinic, along with the three offices that belonged to her, Dr. Ericson, and Emily, the clinic’s embryologist and nurse. At the end of the hallway, they stopped at the locked white door. Banks still had not said a word.
He took a printed form from his briefcase.
“It was a busy month here for in vitro, wasn’t it,” Arianna said as she put a key into the lock.
“Yes, it was,” he responded, clearing his throat and looking down at the sheet. “Unusually busy. According to the department’s tally, you should have four hundred sixty-four unused embryos this month from thirty-one couples.”
“That’s exactly right,” she said. The state-run Department of Embryo Preservation mandated that all fertility clinics “preserve the soul of every embryo.” In keeping with the law, the department required that clinics report, once a month, the number of embryos left over from every patient’s attempt at in vitro fertilization—a number the inspectors verified with their visits. To ensure accurate reporting, the department periodically conducted random audits, during which it obtained access to a year of the clinic’s original records, complete with all patients’ contact information. Women could always be counted on to remember exactly how many eggs were taken out of their bodies, and how many embryos were later put back in—so their memories often proved to be the department’s greatest resource in corroborating a clinic’s reporting. If even a single unaccounted embryo came to light, it meant serious consequences for the clinic: probation and heavy fines.
But if a destroyed embryo were discovered, then the clinic would be shut down and the doctor charged with first-degree murder.
Six weeks prior, the department had questioned dozens of her own patients in a random audit, but all the women had reported the correct numbers. The clinic passed easily, as Arianna had known it would; her real patients knew nothing.
“Something about fall this year,” she said as she swung open the door to the lab. “It feels like spring, so everybody wants to have babies.” She laughed shrilly. Don’t make small talk, she thought. You don’t know how.
The inspector grunted as he stepped past her into the lab. She followed and closed the door, leaning against it. The oxygenated air filled her lungs like a calming agent as the inspector pulled on a pair of gloves.
“Let’s see here,” he said, opening one of the freezer doors labeled OCTOBER 2027. After the whoosh of cold air dissipated, Banks surveyed the rows of tubes inside and looked over his shoulder at Arianna. “That’s quite a lot you got here.”
Arianna felt her heartbeat do a drum roll. “I know, right?”
Banks turned back to the tubes and painstakingly lifted each one, examining its label as he counted. The label on each tube disclosed several facts: the names of the couple whose egg and sperm had joined in a dish; the date that embryo had been frozen; and its place in the couple’s leftover batch, such as ANNE AND MIKE SMITH, OCT. 10, NUMBER 5/16.
For the in vitro procedure, Arianna would surgically remove about eighteen eggs from a woman’s lifetime supply of three hundred thousand. Then Emily would mix the extracted eggs with sperm, and after five days of growth in the incubator, Arianna would implant only two or three of the strongest embryos back into the woman’s uterus, to lower the chance of multiple births. This routinely left about fifteen excess embryos per couple to be frozen, suspended in the first stages of growth forever.
Arianna waited as Banks counted the October flasks; he paused after each one to mark another tally on his sheet. The minutes dragged on. When he finally reached number 464, she had to keep herself from noticeably exhaling.
“Perfect,” she said, gripping the door’s handle behind her.
“Let me count those one more time to make sure.”
Her stomach dropped; she didn’t know how much longer she could stand to be trapped there, watching him.
“Of course,” she managed. “Take your time.”
Monotonous counting ensued. She stood by, willing herself not to fiddle or twitch. At least his rounded back was turned. What was he thinking, she wondered, when he cradled the flasks in his hands? As the embryos’ legal guardian, was he overcome with a desire to protect them? Or did he enjoy the power he held over helpless lives, including her own?
“And that, again, makes four sixty-four,” he said at last, turning around to face her. “Now let’s make sure you’re preserving them properly.”
She smiled. “Which ones would you like to see?”
“I would like to see all of them. But unfortunately, I
