Celia woke from her nap with a soft groan and a yawn. She was hungry, and really had to use the restroom, but an exquisitely soft mattress and a warm duvet were trying to lure her back to sleep.
Her top had ridden up while she’d been asleep, and she was running her fingertips over her heavy, swollen middle. Sleeping on her back had stopped being comfortable a few months ago, and despite the fact that she was only just now coming into her third trimester, she could easily be mistaken for a woman at her due date.
She was carrying large, but they all were. Big, healthy babies! the nurse had said, and when she’d pressed, they’d explained that it was an intentional and managed aspect of the program. She let her palm rest against her abdomen and felt the child inside of her shift and roll. She wasn’t the only one waking up hungry, it seemed.
But not my child. It was always “the fetus” and never “your baby.” The language used, the corpo-speak, it was very careful and precise. And pressed upon the mothers too, you would be corrected if you made a mistake speaking. It was to help with avoiding attachment issues and postpartum depression.
“Oh, you’re awake? How are you feeling, Celia?” The bright and perpetually cheery voice of her roommate, Mara.
”Like someone’s playing a bongo drum using my bladder as the instrument, and like I’m about to spring a leak,” Celia grumbled while sliding herself to the edge of the mattress. Although the two were sharing a single living suite in the Veris arcology, the place was easily big enough to fit four times as many people. Celia made her way to the restroom and washed up afterwards.
Then she grabbed one of the suite’s dataslates from the charging station on the kitchen island and made her way back into bed, scrolling through an extensive menu. Everything here was free, part of the surrogate care package, and almost offensively luxurious. A whole floor dedicated to them, the staff, and the medical professionals.A private spa with bubble jet hot tubs, a swimming pool, around-the-clock personal catering, and even a dedicated masseuse just for them.
The massages were better than they had any right to be, and every single meal and snack was practically orgasmic. It was also extensively micromanaged for nutritional content, and if you wanted to just eat desserts all day, every day, you could while still meeting all your macro and micronutrient needs, for you, and your—the fetus.
Celia ordered a salad, a double portion of baked pears, and a smoothie off the slate’s menu application. Salad. With real vegetables: lettuce, cucumber, tomato, olive, carrot, radish, and onion. Real flame-grilled chicken breast, carefully seasoned and fresh.
She swallowed down the rising tide of bitterness. Mara must have seen the look on her face, because she commented immediately. Damn, if the woman wasn’t both sensitive and perceptive, annoyingly so.
”You’re doing the thing again,” she said quietly. She was sitting in a supportive recliner and reading on another dataslate.
”I know, but I can’t help it. This food, it costs a fortune. Do you know how many people that much money could have gone to helping? It’s not right, Mara.”
Her roommate rested her slate on top of the massive, gravid dome of her pregnancy. Mara was a couple of months ahead of her, and positively enormous. Like, carrying multiples-level huge. Like most late-term surrogates, she mostly kept to their suite and had everything brought to her. Mara gave Celia a cross look, then broke into a quiet laugh.
”Sorry, I can’t fake being mad at you. Of course, I understand. I’m from 8-3, born and raised. I felt the same way you did my first go-around. But Celia, I just can’t let myself feel that way now. Look at me, I’m on number three, and I’m as big as an autocab. I’m planning on going again, too!”
Celia let out a sigh. “I don’t know how you’re able to stay so positive all the time. I really don’t. I’m jealous, but I’m happy for you, too. Really.”
”Listen, girl, it gets easier. Everyone struggles their first surrogacy. All the guilt, like ‘Am I allowed to enjoy myself? Am I allowed to have fun?’” Mara made a face and pressed her hand to her belly as her fetus shifted. She took a couple of deep breaths once it had calmed down. “All I’m saying is, this is my third, and I’ve paid for my entire family to be able to afford a place on X-2, and I have more than enough for me left over.”
Celia tapped an index finger on the side of the slate, then nodded in agreement. “Yeah, you’re right. You usually are.”
A quick tap on the suite’s door sounded, and then her meal rolled in, along with a glass of water and her vitamins. They were so insistent that you never miss a dose. She tossed three of the large gels into her mouth, washed it down with a drink from the glass, and pressed her thumbprint signature on the slate, affirming she had taken her dose. The smell coming from the baked pears was making her mouth water and her stomach growl loudly.
***
Everyone was happy. Everyone was glowing. Everyone was in various stages of pregnancy, ranging from just starting to show to super heavyweight title contender. Game and social hour had just ended, and Celia couldn’t help but feel paranoid. They were monitored constantly, every place, every angle, every snack and trip to the bathroom. Daily checkups with nurses, several visits a week with doctors for anyone in their late second or third trimester.
She’d eaten lunch yesterday out by the pool, and had forgotten to take her vitamins. A nurse had come and given them to her not even five minutes after she got back to her suite, along with a drink and a tablet awaiting a thumbprint. Everyone else was enjoying the sunlight at the pool—it was next to a full-length bank of windows with an astounding view—and taking their vitamins. It had been an honest mistake, but the nurse had practically come running with them.
She knew that it was some rich asshole’s devil-spawn growing in her belly, and that Veris probably had health assurances on the health of the baby that would be delivered to the new parents. It was still weird.
***
She’d finally figured out a good method of faking the meds and how to dispose of them without anyone noticing. It had taken a few days, but she had found a gap between the plumbing in the bathroom sink where she could dump them. From there, it was just a matter of palming them and swapping them out with some hard candies of a similar size and shape, and nobody was the wiser.
It had taken two days, but on the second day, she’d woken up feeling different: better. More like herself. Everything she’d read on the matrix and from the women back home’s gossip had told her that being pregnant made you a certain kind of hormonal. Emotional ups and downs seemingly at random, but also amazing sex and orgasms. She hadn’t had any of that to date. In fact, she didn’t have any sex drive at all. Not until today, when she woke up feeling a deep-seated need.
She’d tried to talk around the issue with Mara, but Mara had given her another of her looks, and told her, “I’d offer you something from my drawer of goodies, but I don’t want to make things weird between us. Just use the store app, and trust me, you won’t regret it.”
Celia hesitated and was anxious, but finally broke down and placed an order for a battery-operated assistant. It was delivered by the floor’s VI via discreet drone, no questions asked, and no guilt or explaining needed. She’d nearly run the thing dry in the bath, where she didn’t feel quite as weighed down by her—the fetus. The rumors were true; Celia felt like she saw stars.
No more vitamins for her, as long as she could get away with it.
***
In the week since stopping her vitamins, Celia had enjoyed herself immensely, and Mara had picked up on her elevated mood and was celebrating right along with her. Which was good, because Celia felt like Mara could use a little boost herself. She was only a couple of weeks out from her scheduled cesarean and deeply uncomfortable around the clock.
There wasn’t a polite way of putting it; the woman was just plain huge. She was sticking to a wheelchair most of the time when she wanted to get around, but her physical therapist helped her stay toned and fit despite her restrictive size. Celia had never seen someone as pregnant before, but it was perfectly average here. Even Mara had assured her, pulling up her maternity gown and showing Celia her scars. Two fine, silvery lines on her abdomen, where she’d given assisted birth twice before.
And no small amount of stretch marks peppered across her lower abdomen, sides, and the tops of her hips. But they too were faded and were, truthfully, barely noticeable unless you were looking. She didn’t have any fresh ones from this pregnancy, and was joking that all the skin treatments and pampering had made her into elasti-woman.
Celia gingerly rubbed her own belly while waiting for Mara to return from her checkup. She pulled out a small hand mirror and looked at her stomach. It looked… sort of angry? In the past week, she felt like she couldn’t get enough to eat, and had subsequently blown up. Big, healthy babies! Her skin was perpetually flushed, and her belly had taken on a much firmer and tighter appearance. Her navel was a ghost, and she’d been getting red streaks of stretch marks across her flanks and abdomen.
She’d just had her weekly doctor’s visit and checkup right before. Dr. Singh had been extremely happy with her progress, even though she’d expressed concern. “3.1 kilos since last weigh-in, Celia! Your fetus is doing amazingly well, is strong and healthy, and there isn’t even a trace of diabetic fetopathy!” That had led her down a brief rabbit hole of what that was, and how rapid weight gain in a baby could sometimes be bad, but not in her case. Just a big, strong baby.
She’d been feeling it with every movement. She looked full term, she felt full term, and Mara had told her that was exactly what everyone else went through. It only partially helped alleviate her growing anxiety about her pregnancy. The baby had become more active in the past week, rolling and kicking, and Celia felt like she was getting beat up by a tiny professional boxer in her gut.
The door clicked, and Mara was wheeled back in. She looked tired, but also pleased with herself. “We’ve locked in my due date! Two more weeks!” she gushed to Celia. Celia smiled; the energy was infectious. The thought of her own due date approaching was starting to sound better and better every day.
***
”I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” Celia groaned to Mara, who was rolled right up alongside her bed and gently rubbing extremely expensive Veris-branded restorative lotions and creams over her throbbing belly. She’d started feeling weak and drained over the past week, and it was a chore to get out of bed. She only did it when she had to, and the call button for assistance was getting used nearly constantly.
”Shh, it’s okay. I had Dr. Singh for my first, and she’s amazing. You’re in good hands. It’s just a growth spurt, your—the baby is extremely healthy and doing great.” The cold cream was soothing and tingled on her skin, where it pained her to look at her pregnancy. Celia stole a look down, as if it would have gotten better since the last time. She was covered in stretch marks, and there were bruises on her abdomen and sides where the baby had slept in a bad position.
”I’m so hungry…” Celia complained to her friend. And that’s what they were. Sharing their third trimesters, both the ups and the downs, had brought them close together.
”So eat something. Eat the most impossible-to-get-thing back home you can find. How about a fruit parfait, with some nuts?” Mara paused, rubbing lotion in to dab a drop on Celia’s nose. The poor woman’s stomach snarled like a feral animal at the mention of fruit parfait, and she nodded slowly.
Her growth spurt had been brutal. She slept most of the day, and was busy stuffing her face as often as she could when awake. She’d eat until she felt sick, and half an hour later, feel hungry again. She’d been doing a good job as a surrogate, or so they’d told her, because she was just about the same size as Mara, with more than a month of development time left to go.
She’d asked about having an early C-section. The baby wasn’t quite mature enough yet to do it without some developmental risks. It wasn’t a possibility.
”The first is always the hardest. You’re strong. You can do this, and they’re monitoring our health around the clock. Nothing bad is going to happen to either of us,” Mara had told her when both of them were sleepless in the early hours of the morning.
”Okay,” Celia had told her. “I’ll try.” She wasn’t sure she could make it, but Mara was there for her. She was questioning if she was feeling so down and out of it because of the growing stockpile of vitamins stashed away on the bathroom floor. It had been harder to fake taking them, but she… she just couldn’t bring herself to trust Veris. Not after she’d stopped taking them and had felt better. She’d asked about the mood swings. They told her that the vitamins had a mild mood stabilizer in them, because most expecting mothers started experiencing a lot of anxiety and guilt about not seeing the fetus after it was born. Attachment and depression were some of the hardest parts for most, and it had become their standard practice.
Some anxiety medication might not be the worst thing in the world.
***
It was dark, Celia felt like she was dehydrated, and she kept feeling around for her assistance remote. “Mara? Mara, are you okay?”
The lights slowly came on, and the VI spoke through the sound system. Its voice was soft and soothing. “Mara has been taken for her delivery, Celia. She’s currently sedated, but doing very well. Is there something I can help you with? Anything at all; it’s not a bother. I’m happy to help in any way I can.”
Celia went to speak, and her stomach ached for a moment, then clenched. She let out a pained grunt instead, her hands cradling her belly, which felt hard as a rock and lumpy. “Ow, ow, ow, ow!”
”Breathe, Celia. Slow breath in, slow breath out. The contractions will pass.”
It did, and she was left breathless, sweaty, and on the verge of tears. Her poor belly was horribly bruised and sore, blotchy and stretched out. Her amniotic fluid levels had been steadily dropping, and they’d been giving her IV fluids to try and compensate. It left her belly looking malformed, with lumps and bumps she could see. A head bulging out on her right side, an elbow bump near the middle. Knees that made her feel like they were going to knock her out, and sometimes actually did knock the breath out of her lungs when her fetus shifted and beat up her diaphragm.
Everything hurt, from her toes to her scalp. Even her joints and bones ached.
Another contraction hit, harder than the last, with more intensity and a longer duration.
”Can I… see Dr. Singh, ah! Please?”
It felt like her guts were trying to crush her baby and shove it out of her body, and she was terrified her water would break prematurely. The fetus, for its part, didn’t seem to move even a millimeter, no matter how hard her body tried to twist and clamp itself down. An ancient, primal urge was beating at her nervous system; her body wanted the baby out, and it wanted the baby out now. Celia was sure of it.
”I’ve paged the doctor for you, Celia. Would you like me to administer you a gentle painkiller while you wait?”
The answer came reflexively.
***
Celia woke up, groggy and disoriented, and in a terrible amount of pain… basically everywhere. Her head was beating like a drum, and she could hear her heartbeat in her ears. She didn’t know where she was; it wasn’t her suite. Everything was bright white, and harsh lighting made it painful to open her eyes beyond a crack.
”She’s awake, Doctor.”
A blurry shape appeared in front of her, and she blinked until it resolved into the warm, smiling face of Dr. Singh.
”W-where—“ her voice cracked. Dr. Singh motioned to someone, and a straw was brought to her mouth. She sipped at ice water, instant relief, if marginal.
”You’re getting prepped for surgery, Celia. You’ve been sedated for a little bit now to try and get the fetus over the safe threshold to deliver. The contractions were going to risk sending you into a high-risk labor, otherwise.”
Celia took another drink, then tried to speak a second time. “How long?” she rasped.
“Just over 72 hours. We’ve had you under around-the-clock close monitoring. Don’t worry, both you and the fetus have been getting the best care we have.”
Her baby shifted inside of her, and she thought she was going to die. An elbow or a knee was jammed into her in a way that was making her feel foggy. It also felt like the baby moved her more than it had moved itself.
”Is…?” Celia stared up blearily at Dr. Singh.
”She’s perfectly healthy. Extremely healthy.”
”It’s a girl…” Celia said, squeezing out tears.
Dr. Singh knelt down and dried Celia’s cheeks for her with a piece of gauze. “Yes, a big, strong girl. I really wish you would have kept taking your vitamins, Celia. You’d not be in so much pain right now if you had.”
The realization drew back the fogginess for a brief moment. “You knew?”
The doctor smiled, warm, golden-brown eyes turned up at the corners. “Of course we knew, Celia. It shows up on your bloodwork immediately.”
There was the clicking of metal implements on a hard, metallic surface, and soft voices speaking below the two of them. Celia tried to look down, but couldn’t see past the large light blue surgical drape that was blocking her vision of everything below her bust.
”W-why do you make us take them? I thought you were drugging me...” Celia coughed, a dry, shallow hack.
”The medication is mostly vital nutrients and supplements to prevent bone loss, anemia, and complications, Celia. And there’s sedatives and growth inhibitors in it, but not for you, for the fetus. To make sure you can safely carry to a viable term. Even with the genetic modifications and reproductive enhancements we gave you before implantation, the human body doesn’t handle large pregnancies well.”
”Doctor, we’re ready for you,” a voice from below the sheet.
Celia’s vision was growing dark around the edges, and she felt extremely tired. Her doctor stood up and looked down at her and gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, we’ll be done before you know it.”
Her vision darkened further, and she passed out.
***
There was a calm back-and-forth in the operating room between the medical staff.
”Umbilical is wrapped around the abdomen.”
”Rotating…shoulders are clear.”
”Clamped. Hips are clear.”
“Transfer.” There was a grunt of exertion, and the scuffle of slippers on tile.
For a moment, the shadow of a figure could be seen on the drapes. Not a baby, but something that more resembled a scaled-down adolescent body. Nearly half the size of the doctor holding it under the armpits, it was long and thin, instead of round and chubby. Tufts of hair starting to lift off a wet head, long arms and legs, with points on the fingertips, and what looked like a third leg.
A figure spoke in a hushed tone. “She’s beautiful, just look at her.”
The infant shivered and flapped its hands and forearms; there was a wet slurp, and then a growling wail.
”Responsive,” another person said.
”Look, Doctor. Cuspids, no, almost full eruption!”
The figure was lifted higher, and what might have been a third leg was revealed to be a heavy tail extending slightly past the dangling toes. She was lowered into a box, and two figures wearing gowns moved in over top of her.
“Eighty-one centimeters. 14.9 kilograms. This is incredible, I can’t believe she survived to give birth.”
”How’s the surrogate doing?”
”Blood pressure is crashing. We’re pushing fluids to compensate.”
”Shame, I really would have liked to see if we could replicate these results. Maybe just good genetic alignment. You can cut off the life support; she breached contract.”
”Yes, Doctor.”
”Call it?”
”Uh… Surrogate 428, time of death 15:28. Cause of death… Organ failure? What would you say, Doctor?”
”Organ failure is accurate. Pass me the micropigmentation stylus? Cheek, do you think?”
”Hmm, no. I have high hopes for this one. Can you imagine if she’s fertile? I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. No, let’s do shoulder for her.”
”KX-428 it is! And congratulations again, Doctor; she’s a gorgeous specimen.”
Dr. Singh chuckled. “She really is. I’m going to treat myself tonight to celebrate, just as soon as we get the reports in. The Director’s going to be excited to hear about this.”
***
Mara finished her stretches and wiped her face off with a brand-embroidered towel. It had only been a few weeks, and she was bouncing back, faster and better than ever before. She’d been told that they were exceptionally happy with her performance, and were giving her a bonus, even before she signed her renewal.
She was expecting her new roommate at any time. And she’d no more than finished having a fruit parfait and granola snack when there was a knock at her door, and one of the staff let in her new suitemate. After Michiko had gotten settled in, they’d hit it off right away. Michiko was a first-timer and was equally excited to start, though her surroundings left her shell-shocked.
The poor girl had cried her eyes out after trying fresh apple pie. They talked late into the night, sharing stories. Mara was happy with her new roommate, but she also missed Celia terribly. Things would be better with someone here to spend time with, she was sure. Her former roommate had come up in conversation, and Mara had confided in Michiko: she was disappointed that she had decided not to renew her contract, but was fiercely proud that the two of them had gotten her over the hump and that she’d successfully delivered her fetus. She’d known that she’d make it; she just needed a little help and someone there to support her.