Chapter 25 Facade
Bread’s Done
The Peggy uproar had been calmed, thanks to the love potion, portable 4M treatment, and a follow up strong treatment at a clinic after Peggy revived later that evening. A technician at the clinic asked them, “Why is one side of her face so red?”
Amber was quick to respond. “She was having a panic attack and ended up falling and hitting the side of her head on our kitchen table. Good thing we were right there when it happened. I got an ice pack on it right away. Otherwise, I think it would look a lot worse now.”
By the next day, Peggy had bruises on the side of her face where Amber had slapped her. Good thing she was captive in Amber’s apartment so no one could see her.
Three days after the Peggy incident, as Darren and Amber finished a home 4M treatment on her right before lunch time, Peggy suddenly cried out in pain. “I think I’m in labor.”
“Are you sure?” asked Amber. “Maybe it’s just false labor.” They watched Peggy for a while and timed the contractions. They were three minutes apart already. Maybe she’d been in labor a while but the recent stronger 4M treatments made her not feel it as much.
Amber called ahead to the birthing clinic as they prepared to leave the house. Since she’d already made arrangements for the State “adoption,” the clinic was pre-authorized to administer the curtain delivery and take immediate custody of the baby until the actual transport to the labor commune. Usually the commune came for the baby within hours.
This was the moment they’d planned for months, the last step—having the baby. Then it would be over. Their debt paid. Their Score improved. A step up in class. A few days of recoup then ship Peggy back to her parents. And then life back to normal. They could finally start looking for a house to purchase.
They dropped Bryan off at Darren’s parents’ house and continued to the birthing clinic. Peggy cried out in the back seat. “Oh, my God, hurry up,” she yelled. Amber sat beside Peggy in the back seat and held her hand. “It’s going to be alright.”
At the clinic, Amber checked Peggy in under the name of Amber Cross, a departure from the plans they’d made. “Why are you doing that?” Darren asked. “I thought you already forged the State adoption documents as Peggy, so why not check her in as Peggy and let her baby go off smoothly to the State?”
“Because,” Amber scolded, “after the surprises that have happened the past few days with Peggy’s sudden awareness, I’m nervous about her blowing it for us right at the end. What if she had some clarity of mind moment on the delivery table and changed her mind about the State adoption and ruined it for us? But if she’s checked in as Amber, who is the one giving up her baby, and has some change of heart on the delivery table, then I’ll just come back later and change the adoption back to the State. Once Peggy delivers the baby and we get her out of here later tonight, that baby is legally mine,” Amber said.
“What about when you have our baby in a few weeks? Won’t there be two records of a birth?”
“No, because we’ll go to a different birthing clinic and I’ll use another name.”
Darren shrugged and said, “Guess you’ve thought it through already. Sounds like a plan then.”
What they hadn’t planned on, or even anticipated, was that Peggy’s SIN Chip transmitted her vitals to a database. When her labor started, a computer program automatically sent a notification to her parents, listed as her immediate family, that she was in labor.
Normally, what would follow is that when the woman went to a hospital or clinic in labor, her SIN Chip would be scanned upon admission, her location identified, and another notification would be sent to the parents or closest family members, telling them which clinic she was in.
But Amber had purposely scanned her own hand at the clinic so that the system would think Peggy was her. Since Amber wasn’t actually in labor, the computer algorithm saw her clinic admission as routine and no notifications were made to Amber’s family.
In the case of Peggy’s parents, they had been notified that Peggy was in labor, but there was no follow up notification as to where she was. It didn’t matter, though, because Mrs. Miller immediately called Peggy.
Amber had Peggy’s palm screen and purposely didn’t answer it. Mrs. Miller then called Amber’s palm screen. Amber ignored that call too.
Then Mr. Miller tried calling both of them. Amber ignored the calls. Mrs. Miller tried both again. Amber ignored the call to Peggy’s palm screen again, but finally answered hers.
“Hello?” Amber said.
“Hi, Amber. This is Mrs. Miller. We’ve been trying to call both of you. We received a notification that Peggy was in labor. Is she at a hospital yet?”
Shit, thought Amber. How in the heck did they find out already? Her and Darren hadn’t talked about what to do in this situation so Amber had to think fast.
“No, she’s still at home. Everything is fine. She thought she might be starting labor so we went to a clinic nearest the apartment right away. They told us it was false labor so we came back home.”
“Okay, that’s a relief,” said Mrs. Miller. It’s a half hour drive so at least we won’t miss it. What hospital will she be at?”
Amber thought for a moment. “The clinic told us it could be tomorrow or even a few days before actual labor begins. When it does, we were planning to go Forest View Clinic.”
“Forest View. Got it. Please let us know right away when she’s in labor and we’ll come right over,” said Mrs. Miller. “Why didn’t Peggy answer her palm screen? We tried calling several times.”
“Peggy’s tired, poor thing. After the excitement of earlier today she decided to take a nap. She said after she laid down the pains went away. So maybe it was just gas pressure or something.” That seemed to satisfy Mrs. Miller’s curiosity for the moment.
Within an hour Peggy’s labor had progressed to the point of contractions being just a minute apart. With any luck, she’d have the baby within a few hours before the Millers knew anything.
Then crap hit the fan.
One of nurses checking Peggy’s contraction intervals and her chart screen noticed something. “Hmm, there seems to be something missing. Usually when someone goes into labor, the vitals are automatically uploaded by their Chip so that when they’re admitted to the clinic, that information shows up immediately on their chart and we know how long they’ve been in labor and other important data. All that data is missing.”
Before Amber could say anything, the nurse pulled a small scanner out of her pocket and swiped it across Peggy’s right hand. She looked back at the chart screen, which was actually Amber’s chart since she was the one that scanned her own hand at the admission room.
“It’s not updating,” the nurse said. And it wasn’t going to either, since there was no correlation between Peggy’s Chip data and Amber’s chart data. “Must be a bad Chip or something.” The nurse didn’t seem concerned and keep doing her routines.
Darren looked at Amber and raised his eyebrows. “Close call,” he mouthed. What they had no way of knowing, however, was that by scanning Peggy’s hand as the nurse had just done, her location was now known in the Line database, and another notification was sent to Peggy’s parents that she was at Forest View Clinic, in Delivery Room 45.
Peggy’s palm screen immediately rang. It was her mom calling. Amber answered it right away.
“Peggy?”
“No, this is Amber. Peggy is taking a warm bath.”
“Amber, we just received a notification that Peggy was at Forest View Clinic, in Delivery Room 45.”
Amber felt her cheeks flushing red. How could they possibly know already…oh, that damn nurse, she thought.
“Yes, that’s correct. When she woke up from her nap and got up, she thought she had another contraction. So we timed them and they were seven or eight minutes apart. We thought to be safe we’d go ahead and come to the clinic. Darren’s at work until this evening
so I didn’t want to have to get her here by myself,” Amber reported.
She continued, “I was going to call you but the doctor told us it might be this evening or even tomorrow before labor might begin. I didn’t want you to have to sit around doing nothing so I thought we’d wait until the contractions were a lot closer together.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Miller, “we want to be there for her so we’re leaving now to come over there. We should be there in about thirty minutes.”
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