Chapter 26 Facade
Hits The Fan
Darren had a look of worry, as he and Amber stood in the hallway outside of Peggy’s delivery room. “What are we going to do? As soon as they get here they’re going to find out that their daughter is admitted to the birthing clinic as Amber Cross. Then, with the ‘curtain delivery’ situation, they’ll surely be asking questions…”
“I’m going to see if they can induce the birth right now,” Amber said. Darren watched as his feisty, nearly nine month pregnant wife quickly hustled down to the nurses’ station. She was beautiful, and smart, and possibly in big trouble. What did he let them get themselves into? At this point, Darren was wishing he’d never agreed to trick Peggy.
Down the hallway, Darren could see Amber talking with a nurse. Amber was quite animated, gesturing with her hands and pointing down towards Peggy’s room. In a few moments, Amber threw up her hands in frustration and, by the look on her face as she walked back towards Darren, he could tell that the nurse was not going to go along with her request.
When Amber got to the door of Peggy’s room, she stopped and looked at Darren. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she said. Darren looked puzzled as Amber went into the room and walked over to the bed that Peggy was lying in. Reaching into her purse, Amber grabbed the love potion gel and squeezed some onto a finger.
Leaning over to Peggy and touching her forehead with the other hand, Amber said in a soothing tone, “How are we doing, Peg? Are you hanging in there? Your baby will be here soon and this nightmare will be over. I know this has been hard for you, but we’re here for you.”
Peggy was still a bit dazed by the previous three days of strong 4M treatments so she didn’t say much. As she looked up at Amber and started to answer, Amber swiped the gel inside Peggy’s mouth on her cheek and then held her mouth shut.
Peggy started to struggle and protest, but Amber held tight on her mouth and with the other arm held down Peggy’s arms. In about twenty seconds, Peggy started to fade and Amber let up.
Amber then did something very surprising, even to Darren. She peeled back the gown covering Peggy’s belly and put her hands on it, feeling where the baby was. She looked over at Darren and pointed to a spot on Peggy’s belly, “Here’s where the baby is, and here’s its head. Just making sure you see this, Dar, because I want you to understand that I’m not trying to hurt the baby, just get a quicker delivery.”
Then Amber promptly and swiftly smacked Peggy’s belly hard, away from the baby’s head and body. She made one clean martial arts type hit using the edge of her hand. As soon as she did this, several of the monitors started beeping. With that, Amber quickly moved out into the hall and shouted to the nurses’ station, “Amber fainted and it looks like the baby’s in distress. Hurry!”
Within seconds, a nurse and technician were running towards Peggy’s room. When they got there, they quickly scanned the mother and baby’s vital signs and then the nurse said, “We’ve got to get this baby out now. Call two more techs.”
A hundred years earlier, if a baby needed to be taken out of a mother, the routine procedure was called a cesarean section, where they would actually cut through the belly into the woman’s uterus and remove the baby. The uterus, muscles and other layers would be sewn up afterwards. It was a quick procedure, but very crude and overkill. Healing time was weeks.
Good thing that the method of getting a baby out quickly had been improved dramatically, as there was no time to waste on delivery or healing. Using a tool known as Spatial Sector Separator (3S Tool) and a new drug to get the cervix and other muscles and skin to relax and stretch like a wet noodle, the nurse and two technicians began the seven minute process of extracting the baby.
Mr. and Mrs. Miller were about fifteen minutes away. “I hope she can hold out until after we get there,” said Mrs. Miller. “I want us to be there for our daughter. I can’t imagine how hard this must be for her. We should have insisted that she come home a few weeks before this so we could help her at the end of her pregnancy.”
There was no need to put up a curtain for the governmental curtain delivery, as Peggy was out cold. Her blood pressure had dropped, as had her heart and respiratory rates. The baby had an increased heart rate and other signs of distress, though not likely life threatening.
Since Peggy was unconscious, they didn’t need to use local anesthesia or other sedatives to make the 3S device any less painful or traumatic. With swift precision, the team had the baby out in six and a half minutes, a record for them. Peggy had only minor tearing and bleeding.
The baby was quickly deemed healthy and carried off to the State’s locked and guarded holding nursery. Peggy was cleaned up in five minutes and taken to the recovery ward.
Amber looked at Darren in disbelief as they slowly strolled down the hall from the delivery room towards the recovery ward. “Can you believe what just happened? I think we got away with it.”
Darren looked dumbfounded. What he had seen over the past week reminded him so much of…Amy. All the lies, cold hearted meanness, and hitting. That wasn’t the Amber he knew. “No, I can’t believe it, Amber. I’m still in shock over what I saw you do to Peggy. I can’t believe you…punched her in the belly like that.”
“Darren, don’t be such a puss. I did what had to be done. Mother and baby are both fine—no harm, no foul. What are you whining about like a school girl? We did it. Don’t you get it?”
“You’re sounding like Amy used to sound.”
“Maybe that’s because I’ve been unplugging my portable 4M machine too. Ever think maybe I was sick of always being nice girl Amber?” Amber grinned slyly, but it was hard to tell if she was joking. Darren didn’t ask.
As they left the delivery ward hallway and turned toward the elevators, Mr. and Mrs. Miller were just coming out of an elevator, when they spotted Darren and Amber. Rushing over to them, they immediately asked where Peggy’s room was.
“They actually moved her to the recovery ward,” Darren said. “She had a very successful delivery, faster than anyone thought. The baby is in the custody of the adopting family, and Peggy’s already recovering nicely.”
The Miller’s looked angry. Mrs. Miller looked at Amber. “You should have called us sooner and not gave us the runaround like you did. It really pisses me off, Amber. It makes me wonder what kind of friend you’ve really been to Peggy the past two months. What will Peggy tell us? Hmm?”
Mrs. Miller sounded like she’d pulled the plug on her 4M treatments too. Or maybe it was PMS. Or “the change.” Either way, she was not the jovial Mrs. Miller that everyone adored.
Darren thought about getting Amber to leave the clinic with him that very minute. He was tired of the drama and didn’t want another scene in Peggy’s recovery room. But until they were sure everything was really over, until the Millers actually went home or left the clinic with Peggy to take her home, they’d never sleep tonight wondering about this last bit of closure.
As the four of them entered Peggy’s recovery room, she was just beginning to open her eyes. A nurse was in the room and saw them walk in. “Ah, you must be her family.”
“We’re her parents,” Mr. Miller stated.
“Yes, well, you can be proud of Amber. She did great today. She had a very successful delivery.”
“Amber?” the Millers both said together.
As they walked over to Peggy’s bed, they could see numerous bruises on the left side of her face. She had a terror stricken look on her face, though she was unable to talk yet. Her hands were shaking, and tears were running down her cheeks.
“Okay, something isn’t right here,” said Mr. Miller. “First of all, this is our daughter, Peggy. And second, why is she so beat up looking? Why can’t she talk? Why is she looking at us like that? And I guess the big question is, where in the hell is her baby?
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