“We need to stop standing around and figure out what to do. I checked the records—to be current, we need twelve embryos in the freezer by tomorrow morning. How many clones do we have ready right now?”
Sam looked at Patrick, whose wide eyes betrayed his alarm.
“You took care of the cloning,” Sam snapped. “Answer the question.”
“We—well, I,” Patrick stammered, “I only made ten clones.”
“But we’re twelve short!” Arianna heard herself shout.
“I wasn’t rushing to make them—we weren’t supposed to need them for weeks!”
“Why did you only make ten?” Sam demanded. “Why didn’t you just make as many as possible?”
“I didn’t want to spend all my time on it before I had to,” Patrick choked out. “Maybe if you would have helped…”
“How dare you.” Sam’s lip curled up in a sneer. “I was doing both of our jobs.”
“At least one of us was avoiding the backlog,” Patrick shot back. “You know how we always spend so much time the week before an inspection on cloning!” He glanced wildly between Arianna and Sam. “You can’t be mad—I had no idea we would need them this instant!”
“None of us did.” Arianna shook her head, cursing under her breath. “But we’re two short. What are we going to do?”
As soon as she asked the question, she felt, rather than thought, an idea so painful that a barbed rod seemed to twist inside her throat.
“Sam, what about the embryos I brought you a few days ago? Are there any you haven’t used yet that I could—take back?”
He shook his head. “No. We’ve used them all. I thought you were bringing us a new batch today.…”
“I was going to,” she whispered. “I have some ready at the clinic.…”
“We need them right now!” Patrick cried. “Now more than ever!”
“I’m sure she realizes that,” Sam snapped. “Now, Arianna, what if you just changed a few numbers in the records? It’s not as if you already filed the count. You’re not even supposed to know about the new policy!”
As Arianna winced he continued, “If we were short a lot of embryos and you drastically manipulated the records, the numbers might jump out, but it’s matter of two, Arianna. Two!”
She looked at Patrick. He did not appear to agree or disagree, but stood by silently, arms crossed over his chest.
“But it’s still risky,” she protested. “If they found out I underreported, they could immediately arrest me on felony charges. In fact, it’s less of a crime to misplace two embryos. So we’d get a ten-thousand-dollar fine and probation, but I wouldn’t have to worry about jail.”
“How do you know?” Sam retorted. “You give them too much credit, Arianna. The whole department is running amok with power. Who’s to say they’ll just give you a ticket and walk away? How can you be so sure that the second they find fault with the clinic, they won’t shut it down under the new policy?”
Sam’s face pinched into taut lines—a dark rage that befitted his firsthand understanding of the government’s transgressions against its citizens. “They’re gangsters,” he spat. “All of them.”
“They are unpredictable now,” she admitted. “I guess we can’t give them an inch.”
“So you have to change the numbers,” Sam said. “It’s the only way.”
“I’ll have to be very careful about it. Patrick, do you agree?”
Arianna turned to look at him and wondered if he might faint: the whiteness of his face was eerily similar to the color of his lab coat. He did not answer right away, and when he did, Arianna had to strain to hear the three words:
“I guess so.”
* * *
Arianna sat in her office early the next morning holding a copy of the Daily News. The pages felt smooth in her hands, but the words on the cover may as well have been spikes: FERTILITY CLINICS IN FOR A SURPRISE—INSPECTION!
And on the line beneath: “DEP Cracks Down.” Stamped at the bottom of the page was a rectangular box: “Exclusive! See Pages 4–5”.
Barely breathing, Arianna flipped to the pages. A copy of the chief’s infamous e-mail was blown up on the left page, with the accompanying article on the right page. She skimmed the e-mail, and then the article:
A confidential memo sent from the chief supervisor of the Department of Embryo Preservation to his staff—and obtained exclusively by the Daily News—indicates an abrupt, sweeping change in policy that will affect all of the city’s 112 fertility clinics, starting today.
Under the new policy, surprise inspections may take place at any clinic that chief supervisor Gideon Dopp designates on a weekly list. Clinics will also need to comply with new reporting guidelines; instead of filing their leftover embryo count with the department at the end of each month, they will now need to do so every day. According to the memo, such frequent filings will allow the department to “more closely monitor [the clinics].”
When reached at his home in Long Island, Dopp initially demanded who had leaked the memo to the News. After a reporter refused to disclose the source, who had acted on condition of anonymity, Dopp said, “God has given me the sacred task of protecting the many EUEs in fertility clinics from abuse and neglect. I believe this change in policy will better accommodate that goal.”
Just then, a high-pitched alarm sounded and the flat-panel screen on the wall lit up in red bursts. Shielding her eyes, Arianna found the remote in her drawer and clicked it off. It was barely 9 A.M. Someone had either just broken in, or held up a certain badge to the front door.
Her heart plummeted. She set down the newspaper and stared at the screen. It took about four seconds for the picture to sharpen. A stout, blurry figure appeared, and then focused into round edges, a dark suit with a glint of gold, a familiar solemn face. The
