Author’s Note
The genesis idea for this one was to explore the technology and implications of getting a baby made to order. You discuss with your doctor what you want, what traits you prefer, what you consider beautiful, and how intelligent you want the offspring to be. Then they harvest your eggs and sperm, and after nine months: ‘poof!’, you have a new baby. It’s perfect in every way and better than you could ever have hoped to conceive on your own. There is no pregnancy to deal with, no labour, no pain, and no worry.
There’s still a story there, I think.
But when I sat down to write it, Magda had a different idea about where this story went. She wasn’t interested in a sterile transaction between a medical institute and a happy couple. She was only interested in getting out of that doctor’s office and getting her life back. It turned nasty and dystopian. A lesser human would have buckled under that kind of pressure. Not Magda Maysles. Nope. She’s far too strong for that.
So instead of getting ‘A Baby to Order’, you get ‘Viable’, something a whole helluva lot different and a whole helluva lot darker.
Lifetime Events
- Published in jamscary.com (September 11th 2022)