“Yes, 4-A1708, she’s still in the system. I believe her name, yes, the name she responds to is Mary. Quite a lovely little thing, isn’t she?”
Lee’s heart started racing. “And if she’s in the system, that means that she’s...”
“Still available? Ye...yes. Her recovery price is adding up rather quickly, though, so I suggest you move on this in a hurry if you’re interested. Once the cut-off is reached she’ll be slated for deletion.”
“Cut-off? What’s that?”
The Children’s Hall clerk responded quickly. “Each month the recovery price for a child over age two goes up by $1000, housing, room and board, that sort of thing, so her price today stands around $24,000. She was too old for the baby raffle we held a few months ago. That cut-off age was 24 months. She’s bright and obviously a beauty, so she’s been held longer than some of the others. She’s already 4. She might make it to 12; then she could enter the breeder program, but to tell you the truth, we’ve got a surplus of females right now, so I can’t promise you anything. The government has already sent out an order to cull the females this month.”
“What about a rescue group? Would one of those pick her up? Maybe a co-parent company?”
“Co-parenters usually go for the infants. Most people like a blank slate that they can build on. Plus if you pay attention to the latest gender stats, we are way over the female requirements right now. The government is demanding female deletions. And her recovery price is higher than the rescue groups can usually afford to pay. They can’t rescue what they can’t sell. If they’re stuck with a child for too long their bottom line drops, then they have to pay for the deletion themselves which digs into their bottom lines. Their investors don’t want to waste money deleting what they invested in. We just try to recoup our expenses. Mary’s been in the system since she was a little over a year old. Says here that her parents died in a car crash. She came out without a scratch. That’s how she got into Children’s Hall in the first place.”
Lee forced herself to breathe slowly. Maybe she could negotiate a better price if they didn’t know how badly she wanted this child. Sound nonchalant, she told herself, play it cool.“Okay, well, I appreciate all the information. I’ll call you back if we’re interested in taking this any further.”
“You’re welcome. But remember what I said. Don’t wait too long. We start culling for deletions when the price hits $30,000 and hers is rising by the day.”
“Thank you.” Lee hung up the phone, her hand trembling. Days. A few days is all she had to talk Julia into the adoption. They’d not mentioned it since that first disastrous conversation before school started. They had the money. That wasn’t an issue. It was the next 20 years that mattered. Julia was looking forward to retirement when they’d be free from entanglements and could spend copious amounts of time together traveling, just the two of them. She wouldn’t want a child tagging along. She said that she’d seen enough children for several lifetimes already.
But as Lee stared at the small photo of the black-haired girl with the tilted eyes, her heart knew that this was her daughter as surely as she had born her. This was her little girl who’d had no family, who’d grown up in a concrete block institution cared for by minimum wage drones working 8 hour shifts with a six week course for training. This was her little girl who lived in a crib side by side with other children, children who learned that crying doesn’t help because no one comes. She felt the emptiness in her arms, empty of the weight that a small, loveless little girl would have. This was her daughter. Somehow she’d convince Julia of that, too.
Lee’s heart started racing. “And if she’s in the system, that means that she’s...”
“Still available? Ye...yes. Her recovery price is adding up rather quickly, though, so I suggest you move on this in a hurry if you’re interested. Once the cut-off is reached she’ll be slated for deletion.”
“Cut-off? What’s that?”
The Children’s Hall clerk responded quickly. “Each month the recovery price for a child over age two goes up by $1000, housing, room and board, that sort of thing, so her price today stands around $24,000. She was too old for the baby raffle we held a few months ago. That cut-off age was 24 months. She’s bright and obviously a beauty, so she’s been held longer than some of the others. She’s already 4. She might make it to 12; then she could enter the breeder program, but to tell you the truth, we’ve got a surplus of females right now, so I can’t promise you anything. The government has already sent out an order to cull the females this month.”
“What about a rescue group? Would one of those pick her up? Maybe a co-parent company?”
“Co-parenters usually go for the infants. Most people like a blank slate that they can build on. Plus if you pay attention to the latest gender stats, we are way over the female requirements right now. The government is demanding female deletions. And her recovery price is higher than the rescue groups can usually afford to pay. They can’t rescue what they can’t sell. If they’re stuck with a child for too long their bottom line drops, then they have to pay for the deletion themselves which digs into their bottom lines. Their investors don’t want to waste money deleting what they invested in. We just try to recoup our expenses. Mary’s been in the system since she was a little over a year old. Says here that her parents died in a car crash. She came out without a scratch. That’s how she got into Children’s Hall in the first place.”
Lee forced herself to breathe slowly. Maybe she could negotiate a better price if they didn’t know how badly she wanted this child. Sound nonchalant, she told herself, play it cool.“Okay, well, I appreciate all the information. I’ll call you back if we’re interested in taking this any further.”
“You’re welcome. But remember what I said. Don’t wait too long. We start culling for deletions when the price hits $30,000 and hers is rising by the day.”
“Thank you.” Lee hung up the phone, her hand trembling. Days. A few days is all she had to talk Julia into the adoption. They’d not mentioned it since that first disastrous conversation before school started. They had the money. That wasn’t an issue. It was the next 20 years that mattered. Julia was looking forward to retirement when they’d be free from entanglements and could spend copious amounts of time together traveling, just the two of them. She wouldn’t want a child tagging along. She said that she’d seen enough children for several lifetimes already.
But as Lee stared at the small photo of the black-haired girl with the tilted eyes, her heart knew that this was her daughter as surely as she had born her. This was her little girl who’d had no family, who’d grown up in a concrete block institution cared for by minimum wage drones working 8 hour shifts with a six week course for training. This was her little girl who lived in a crib side by side with other children, children who learned that crying doesn’t help because no one comes. She felt the emptiness in her arms, empty of the weight that a small, loveless little girl would have. This was her daughter. Somehow she’d convince Julia of that, too.