Why You Were Taken

THAT’S WHAT FRANKENSTEIN SAID ₃₈

Johannesburg, 2021

‘You print babies,’ repeats Seth. It’s not sinking in.

‘That’s impossible,’ says Kirsten.

‘Oh believe me,’ Van der Heever says, ‘it is.’

The doctor gets up from his chair and motions for them to follow him. He activates a door hidden in his bookshelf, which swings open, and he steps through. Mouton pushes them forward from behind, leaving Keke on the couch in the den. Soon they are standing in the white cube of a pristine lab (Immaculate Conception), the dirt and blood on their clothes and skin highlighted by the brightness, adding to the surreal quality of the moment.

Kirsten looks down at her hands, fingernails black with grime, but is distracted by a small cry in the corner. She studies the row of incubators against the wall: a stack of empty Tupperwares. Did she imagine the sound? Is she imagining this whole thing? She wonders if she is lying unconscious somewhere, at the scene of the earlier car accident, or in hospital, having this bizarre dream.

A nearby machine, monochrome, spins. It looks like some kind of body scanner.

‘We were already printing fully functional organs in 2010. It was the natural progression to print a whole body. All you really need is good software and some DNA. And stem cells, obviously, which there’s no shortage of in our game. We’ve printed over a thousand healthy babies, and we have a 100% success rate. No more failed fertility treatments. No more mothers dying in labour, no more birth injuries or foetal abnormalities. Just screaming healthy newborns with 10 out of 10 Apgars, every time.’

‘But you can’t print a beating heart,’ says Kirsten.

‘Ah, that was one of the most challenging parts,’ says Van der Heever, touching his chest where his own pacemaker is, ‘but a quick current to those heart cells and off they go – galloping along. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.’

Seth: ‘I think that’s what Frankenstein said.’

The doctor indulges Seth with a smile.

‘Where are they, then? The babies?’ asks Kirsten.

‘A lot of them have been adopted out. As you know, the demand for healthy babies nowadays is astronomical.’

‘You sold them?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘So you cause a nation-wide fertility crisis and then set up a designer baby factory,’ says Seth. ‘Genius.’

‘What about the rest?’ asks Kirsten.

‘We evacuated them when we got confirmation that you were coming in.’

‘You evacuated the whole building,’ says Kirsten. The doctor nods, says: ‘I couldn’t take the chance you’d not… co-operate with us.’

‘I wouldn’t ‘co-operate’ with you if my life depended on it.’

‘That’s what I thought you’d say.’

There is another soft sound from the corner: a cooing. Transparent bubbles float playfully towards her. Kirsten blinks forcefully to wipe them out of her vision.

‘That’s why,’ says Van der Heever, ‘I had to up the stakes.’

He walks to the corner incubator, opens the top, and gently lifts a newborn out from inside. He carries the baby back to them like a proud relative. It’s swaddled in a blanket embellished with planes and clouds that float in the sky. The baby squirms, tries to break free, shouts, then fixes Kirsten with an intense stare. She knows she should feel revulsion. The doctor can barely contain his excitement. He raises the baby up, like a trophy, like the prize he’ll never get from his peers.

It looks… thinks Kirsten. It looks just like—

‘James, Kirsten, meet your progeny. Congratulations. It’s a baby boy.’