"Don't say it. Just don't say anything." Jack didn't answer, and Kris was glad of it. He turned, and she watched him walk the rest of the way down her narrow stair with his overnight bag on his shoulder.

She closed the door, leaned against the jamb and hugged herself. "Three days, eleven hours and," she checked her watch, "twenty-two minutes." Jack had only been her second shortest relationship. He had been wholly unremarkable except for seeming solid somehow, real. I'm a biochemist. How is it that I can do quadratics in my head, but not add up met-in-a-bar plus "travels alot" equals married? Pheromones? Androsterone had been pretty well discredited as a sex hormone years ago, but wasn't there something in that paper by Chung about a coactivator that could associate with androsterone responsive promoters in the presence of blood alcohol? She turned and locked the door. A pot of hot tea and an evening with old Jimmy Stewart movies, would get her through. Forget the chemical precursors, she had fallen for Jack because she was single, successful and about to be twenty-five. He had been an expert in "scruffy but smart and gentle." It probably got him laid all the time. She hoped it shriveled up and fell off.

As the tea kettle started to bubble she went down to the box and grabbed the mail. She took it back to her kitchen to sort into the trash. Hardly anything important ever came by snail mail these days, but she still subscribed to a couple of paper magazines and a journal or two. She almost threw out a little yellow card until she noticed it was from the post office. A certified letter was waiting for her at the eighth street branch. It had to be from a lawyer somewhere, nobody else used certified mail.

_Better the devil you know_. It was early still, and she didn't have any work until the conference call tomorrow. She unplugged the kettle and stepped into some sandals.

There was no line at the post office, but she had to sign for the letter-sized envelope before she could see who it was from. The return address was "Southmark Technology Associates." She stood by the stamp machines and awkwardly tore open the envelope with a key. The letter said all kinds of things in deliberately obscure language, but several of those things stood out, "decision posted at the Office of the Circuit Executive, United States Courts for the Ninth Circuit" and "doing business as Starbright Medical." Starbright? That was the fertility clinic where Kris had been conceived. It was apparently now owned by something called "Southmark Technology Associates." She still remembered it as a friendly place with bright colors in the play room and the smell of some sort of vanilla air freshener. She had gone there for check-ups and tests until she was six. The other things that stood out in the letter were the words "Restraining Order," "Illegal duplication of Intellectual Property," and one more word, all in capitals, "STERILIZATION." A rushing sound filled her ears. She stared at the institutional fake marble tile and stainless steel around her. Sterilization? The rushing sound was her own blood, pounding in her veins. It was deafening.

A man brushed past her, and she wanted to grab him and show him the letter, shout at the top of her lungs to anyone who might hear. But she would just be another lunatic. They would assume she had done something bad, might even be dangerous. "They don't sterilize people for nothing, lady." What did someone in her situation do? Call the press? Who would that be exactly? She walked home, fighting the urge to run and googled for "patent law civil rights abuse." She came up with a couple of books and some law firms. She had heard of the American Civil Liberties Union and found a phone number, she sent an email to the Electronic Frontier Foundation in case they knew somebody who did genetics cases. She called her mother.

"They what?"

"They want to sterilize me. They say my genes belong to them and I can't reproduce without violating their patent."

"But Doctor Benchley said there wouldn't be any problems like this."

"What do you mean? You knew about this?"

"No, not this. But we asked when we first spoke to Starbright, asked if it was legal."

"That's not what they're saying, Mom. They're saying they own me, my children and their children."

"They just can't do that."

"This is America, mom. They're lawyers. They can do whatever they want."

"I'm sorry, Kris. I'm so sorry."

"I'll be OK, Mom."

So Kris hired Estelle, a lawyer with an expensive, modern office. The A.C.L.U. put out a press release. Estelle told her "Things are going to take awhile," and, "we'll win in the end," because Estelle never lost. The news outlets were loving the story. The public was outraged. There had been over two-hundred people named in the Southmark cease and desist orders. Many joined a class action counter suit Estelle started. They were sure to win. Kris tried to get on with her work, but her life was on hold otherwise. Things did take a long time.

###

Two months later Kris sat on her toilet early one morning and cried softly to herself. She could hear a trolley in the distance. She smelled lilacs from a cheap potpourri and urine from the stick in her hand. She was happy at least that she knew Jack's last name was Blumenthal, Jack Blumenthal. He was the same age as Kris. He had shown her his driver's license when she didn't believe they were born in the same month. His eyes were green, and he had sandy brown hair. Should she tell him? Her hair was brown too, so the baby would probably have brown hair. What were Mr. Blumenthal's recessives like? Her genes were all in the patent.

The next day Estelle was jubilant. Her brilliant, stainless office glowed with reflected enthusiasm. "Your sure? Kris, congratulations!" Estelle gave her a very professional hug and then left her hands on Kris' shoulders for emphasis. "This is just too much for them to brush aside, Kris. Wallace is bound to deal with me now." Estelle picked up her cell and said "Hartford and Wallace," then "Edgar Wallace, please." They waited and Estelle gave her a conspiratorial wink. "Wallace how are you? Great. I have news concerning my client. She's pregnant, Edgar, about two months. She's sure the child was conceived before she received the order, and I'll have the father in to testify on her behalf." Estelle might have been bluffing. How would they find him so quickly? "Oh I'll be right here, just call me on my cell. You too. Bye."

Estelle's good mood was inspirational and Kris found herself smiling back. Maybe this was it. Maybe all she had to worry about now was how to remake her life and herself around a baby, how to become a mother. A mother? So much to think about. Sure, she wanted the _right_ to reproduce but did it have to be _right_ now?

The phone rang and Estell's grin widened. "Hello. Yes." She muted the phone and winked at Kris. "He wants to meet with the judge," then her expression hardened. Estelle's smile faded completely away, and something like wonder was in her eyes. "When? What possible precedent... OK, but I want to meet with her in Chambers, hear it directly." Estelle sat slowly on her desk and ended the call. She put the phone down carefully. "Kris, this is probably no big deal, but the judge has issued a gag order. We can't discuss the case with anyone right now." Estelle seemed to shake off her shock and gave what was very nearly a convincing grin. "We must have really scared them. Don't worry. We've got'em now."

Kris nodded and managed what she hoped was a more genuine looking smile in return. Estelle just was not the kind of person to use "got'em" in an honest sentence. This was rote. She probably said that to all the cases she dropped to protect her no-loss record. It was at that moment that Kris decided not to trust Estelle to save her.

That evening Kris hired a private investigator to take a letter to Jack before Estelle found him. She took a walk and bought some vitamins, then went to an Internet café and had a chai, decaf. She would have to get used to that. She paid cash and did a little surfing, mostly prenatal care sites and then others she tried to make look random. She even surfed some kinky sites to give her putative pursuers a reason for her odd behavior. Mixed in with the bondage and the breast feeding, she found what she was looking for in side references and carefully worded searches. She would need more anonymity to get any deeper.

The next day she started doing some of the exercises she had learned online, and jogged to the library rather than walking. She was out of breath but pleased to see she recovered quickly. She didn't even bother trying to spot whoever might be tailing her. She hoped the run gave them a coronary, but her pursuers if any had probably followed her in a car or series of cars or in some way she would never think of. She didn't have time to learn how to be a spy. Inside, she grabbed baby books at random from the health and fitness aisle then wandered as if lost. She found part of what she was looking for in with the crime stories and the like. She found more in another whole section seemed devoted to dirty tricks. She pretended to browse the biographies or the cook books on the opposite side until she saw one title or another that looked good, then she slipped the books in with the baby books. She found a table out in the open and began to read. She was careful to keep the spines covered. Very little of what was in the dirty tricks book seemed to apply to her situation, but she started to see some common themes she thought she could adapt. She would need supplies and lots of practice. She knew from high school that she had fast reflexes and good balance, but she didn't have any training and there was no way to get it without raising suspicions. Some things reminded her of magic tricks--indirection, misdirection, breaking expected patterns and surprise. She had been the sleight of hand queen of the seventh grade.

The organized crime books gave her some information about the politics behind the major crime families and groups, names of organizations and an idea of where their bases of power were. This matched some of what she had seen on on the Web. She needed to sort the facts from the dramatization. The biotech smugglers in the floating artificial island called the Shanghai Free Trade Zone looked like the right people for the job.

Estelle called a couple of days later. "The courts say first trimester is too young for me to file a civil rights action on the baby's behalf. I did find Jack, but he's refusing to testify. He swears he can prove he's sterile. Apparently, he has a wife and two adopted kids, and they either don't know about his fooling around, or he's protecting them from the scandal. Maybe you should talk to him?"

"No. I don't think it will do any good," Kris said.

"There was one other thing. He said to tell you he would return your turkey baster? He thought it might be a family heirloom? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have repeated it, but that's what he said. He said it was important."

"It's alright. I understand what he means. It's just a joke we had." It was her own sick joke, and a signal. He was agreeing to help.

She went to a different café that night and left a note on a particular bondage forum. "Into Chinese water torture, Shanghai style." She signed it "One Night Stand."

Kris spent hours reading and studying and working out. She played paintball twice a week with a group of surprised but helpful folks from the datacenter at the company where she worked. She nursed her bruises and learned and read and trained with every IQ point and accelerated nerve Starbright had given her. The immune system they designed kept her and her baby healthy even though she pushed too hard and slept very little. She took vitamins and puked in the mornings and trembled when she saw maternity clothes or strollers or baby food and diapers at the market.

She continued to go to Internet cafés, but surfed aimlessly. She fought the urge to check the board and see if he responded. Responding wasn't part of the plan. He would have to figure out her message on his own. How could she trust him? Maybe he didn't see this the way she did, didn't see his stake in it. Maybe the private investigator had never reached him and Estelle was in on the game. A little paranoia made sense, but Kris didn't have time to suspect everyone. She decided to add a "plan C" and maybe even a "plan D" to her barely begun "plan B." She printed out "thank you" cards and sent them to everyone named in the class action suit. It was worded in a way she hoped would scare them into doing their own research. The card was printed with a stereoscope image of Sampans in Shanghai harbor.

###

The day came when Kris waited outside the courtroom. Southmark had found a way to bar her, so Kris sat on a hard wooden bench in the vestibule and tried not to rock back and forth. She let her hands fold over her barely showing belly. She couldn't tell her heart to beat slower. Every breath was like an electric shock, every moment like some long wait in a dentist's chair. The reporters were barred from even the vestibule. They were only a noise outside an outer door. The public's useless outrage had come and gone and come again and effected nothing. Stories that finally made it out to anyone were sanitized to avoid lawsuits with a heavy emphasis on the "high cost of genetic research" and "benefits to humanity." Apparently more companies like Southmark owned the press. A court deputy stood by the door to the courtroom and another by the door to the outside, one to keep her out and one to keep her in.

Estelle had been optimistic on the way to court. She had promised a quick resolution. This would be the end of it. And Kris had agreed that it would. But when Estelle stepped back out to speak with her, the lawyer was pale, and visibly careful with her words. "Kris, it looks like Southmark is going to be very generous." Apparently something had gone very wrong with Estelle's case. Kris didn't even think of "plan A" anymore as her own. There was no sarcasm or defiance in the lawyer's voice, only real, raw fear. "They want you to have the baby, but they'll have to do some tests."

"I won't let them touch me." She clutched her hands in the pockets of her warm jacket, cradling her belly.

"You have to, Kris. They." Estelle took a breath and sat down beside her on the bench. "They've brought in your old doctors, Aeir and Benchley. They've remanded you to Southmark's custody. I asked them to let me talk to you, but I can't be your lawyer."

"What does that mean?"

"They won't let you have a lawyer now."

"But why? They can't have ruled me incompetent, they haven't examined me, and we would have the right to ask for a second opinion."

"No, not incompetent. This is with Homeland Security now. Southmark is a government contractor and they've ruled you a threat to national security as a potential for 'Economic Terrorism.'"

"No."

"The order was sealed. I'm not even allowed to see it."

"But how?"

"I don't know, but I promise you, Kris. I won't drop this. I won't give up on you."

"By the time you get a reversal, what will they have done to my baby?"

Estelle swallowed and Kris realized that for the first time, the woman wasn't playing her professional lawyer role. This was Estelle herself here at last. "Don't give up, Kris."

"I won't." And somehow the words settled her nerves. She wouldn't give up. It was a good thing to know about herself.

Southmark security guards came to replace the two deputies and the deputies escorted Estelle out into the crowd of reporters. Kris expected to hear a rant for the cameras, but instead she heard Estelle's voice as the door swung shut, "...not allowed to comment..."

The guards took up the same positions the deputies had held and stared straight ahead. A man stepped out of the courtroom whom she vaguely recognized. "I'm doctor Benchley." He had a wide smile, and a red sunburn on his balding head. "It's all going to be OK, Kris. No one's going to hurt you." He extended his right hand as if to shake hers and she reached out her own. She reached out with her _left_ hand.

He hesitated, and she grabbed his wrist and pulled hard, whipping the gun from her jacket and slamming the plastic pistol into his mouth. They hadn't allowed her into the courtroom, but they hadn't searched her either. One common theme in all of the tactics and tricks she had studied was that people reacted according to rote. Reach for a handshake and do something else. Take a hostage but then... She pulled a second pistol, a painstakingly tested, homemade tranquilizer pistol, from her blouse. With her steady right hand she quickly and silently shot the two guards. "You made me smart, and fast," she said softly in Benchley's ear. She could hear the helicopter outside. "And you were right, my genetics are valuable."

Benchley mumbled something around the gun, but she didn't bother to remove it.

"We were supposed to be sterile, weren't we? Sterile because of this crazy immune system you gave us? You were going to charge us for artificial insemination. But I'm betting his sperm looked like my own cells."

Benchley's eyes widened and he started to struggle, trying to say something. She let him. "There will be complications, you don't want to inflict..."

She slammed the dart gun against his arm and pulled the trigger. He struggled for a moment then slumped. His head bounced against the door to the court room. He was useless as a hostage. And he apparently was not interested in giving her any useful information. There were shouts from outside. She dropped the dart gun and the realistic toy, to avoid looking like a threat.

The extraction team kicked in the door and threw a bullet proof tent over her as they hustled her out and into the waiting transport on a gurney. The cartel team was thorough, and the tent had a Faraday cage woven into the mesh in case she was wired. A technician found and removed two transmitters in route, and by nightfall they had switched transport three times. Kris rode in a tiny rubber dingy as two armed escorts swam with her into warm Pacific waters off Mexico. They rendezvoused with a stealth sub bound for Shanghai and the floating Free Trade Zone. Jack and maybe one-hundred-twenty others were already there or traveling. They should have most of "plans C" ready. She had no illusions about her new "friends" in the Free Trade Zone, and Jack still had his family to protect, but the other Starbright babies had a every reason to be on her side. Anything could go wrong, but she had a chance, and that was the most a mother could ask. She leaned her head against the hard pillow of her bunk and smiled her first real smile in a long time. If she had a son, she knew with absolute certainty his name would not be, "Jack." She wished there was some way to avoid seeing him again. The man had been seemed so unremarkable except for maybe seeming a little more solid somehow, a little more real. He was family. She squeezed her eyes closed and tried not to think about it, hugging herself tight.