I didn’t seek Rachel out. She came to my practice, grinning, with a six foot something cock on wheels in tow. He smelt like mahogany. I couldn’t tell if it was cologne or bits of timber stuck in his teeth, the fucking woodchuck. Pearly whites, eyes a dreamy hazel, jawline sharp enough to slit my throat right then and there, he had the works.

Why were they coming to me? To put some brains in the thing, probably. Lord knows the kid was gonna need it, what with the Barbie and Ken sperm and egg combo these two were doomed to cook up.

To my surprise, she asks for the usual, via negativa. No autism, no extra chromosomes, no susceptibility to AIDS, FORMA, JERON, no thrifty genes, no risk for Celiac, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, you get it. Whatever you asked for your kid, they asked for the same. Vanilla. Done.

It’s not what they asked for that set me off. It was how they asked it, you know? You ever feel that boot on your chest, like your throat’s sweating magma? Like your insides are peeling? Mustard gas stuck in your ear?

That’s how I felt when Rachel asked. With those green fucking eyes, and her creased brow, like she regretted her victory lap revenge fantasy. Like she wanted to bring in her husband to rub it in, strip me bare, but when she saw how small I really was, she took pity. Felt bad about the whole thing. Gloating on newfound success to an Assistant Designer, no, that’s beneath her. Rachel’s better than that, better than me, and when she asked for via negativa I was about ready to kill whatever she wanted inside of her.

As she and Bob, I’m calling him Bob because I think it’s a stupid fucking name, anyway, as they smiled and nodded about their precious little one, I decided on something better. I’d do something slight. Something a little bit off. Something to keep her up at night. Keep her thinking of me. I’d make the kid’s eyes brown. That’s right. That was the plan. Wasn’t sure how I’d get it past the Deus backlogs, but that was all details, details.

Rachel got up and extended a hand. It was nice to see you, Jer, she said.

Felt nice to touch her again. In my head, I saw her horizon covered in my ratty cotton sheets. Bits of her shoulders and hip stuck out of holes in the fabric, like caramel dunes. I’m sure Bob enjoyed getting lost in that desert. I could spot his definition from beneath the skin tight silk button-up he wore. Pure white, of course. He gave me his miracle cup of sperm, turned, and left without a word. One polite smile towards Rachel, and I’m off to the lab to input their preferences.

People always ask about the machinery. It’s the miracle of life made perfect, they say. As if a miracle wasn’t perfect. Listen, I’ll say it plain — setting the preferences is as simple as punching in numbers on a calculator. We know the genes to alter, we know how long to cut them, which order to put them in, it’s classic pencil pushing bullshit. This isn’t some sci-fi futurist industry. You’d think we could graduate to letting a computer handle this, but nobody wants to know their future darlings are so easy to edit, a fucking abacus could do the trick.

That’s how we ended up with mandatory human presence legislation. Here I am, punching in sequences, giving myself carpal tunnel because the public can wrap their heads around designer babies, but not A.I. — we tolerate it in our cars, sure, but robots changing little Billy’s penis size? That’s too far. Get a person to do that, for the love of decency. If you need a mohel and a rabbi to get circumcised, you need a person to give Billy a seven-inch schlong to grow into.

So that’s me. I’m unnecessary and underpaid, saving face for prissy rich shits who don’t understand how much of life is programmed anyway.

Yeah, I’m off track, I get it. You don’t hide worry well. I can see you squirming, all polite, waiting to ask me to move on. Funny thing is, you’re one of the only people who’s actually listened. How fucked up is that? You’re in the wrong line of work. You could be a therapist. You’re the only one without a glazed over look in your eyes. I like your eyes. Us brownies have to look out for one another, yeah? Mommy and Daddy couldn’t afford to buy our beauty.

No, you’re not like me, I get it. Keep telling yourself that, catch a few extra Z’s in the long run. Good deal.

So I’m plugging in the paperwork, typing it up, fingers flurrying on keys. Here comes the eye color input. Chrome 15, HERC2, intron 86 region, turn on the polymorphic expression of OCA2. That’s the pivotal choice. If you want lighter colored eyes, you need to inhibit the regular expression of OCA2. It’s a melanin thing.

That was it. I flipped a switch. When I wrapped up, the pill came out, crimson, burgundy, and cyan, Deus’s creepy advertising. Here, ingest our company colors. Bad enough the capsules have microscopic logos lasered all over their length. Enjoy stuffing that between your legs.

If you put a gun to my head, I might’ve told you something was off right then. I held the pills up to the light, gave em a shake, to make sure Bob’s batter did its thing. I scoped in, looked at the blown-up preview of the chromes. I blinked a few times, nodded, tossed the pills into the red brown and blue capsule, walked down red brown and blue halls, dropped them off at distribution. But something was up. Maybe it was a floater in my eye. Couldn’t tell you.

I shrugged, went home, jerked off, went to bed. Rachel showed up to the office sometime later, sans Bob. It felt like a week, but it couldn’t have been, she said she was six weeks, the pills worked, she couldn’t wait for the sonogram. She told me about Bob, how well cobalt prices were doing. How rich they were, how grateful she felt every time she hopped into her Roadster, every time she saw electric cars flooding the road. You’d think she married Elon by the way she was spraying it.

She didn’t ask how I was, just if I was planning on upgrading from this gig. Like she didn’t find me in this position the first time around. Like I have a choice. Yeah, it almost felt like old times. My chest got tight, I felt inadequate, like a sausage rind between two fat buns. Like a kid fumbling around with Dad’s pants. I guess she missed her mountaintop. What’s she gonna shit on Bob about? No, she’s like me now. The lesser one. That’s why she came to visit, to remember what confidence felt like.

So, I sucked in my gut and nodded, agreed I should stop vaping when she told me to, promised I would shave when I got home, I was looking disheveled, nobody would want me scruffy. I was back inside her cage. It was warm, and soft, and tight all over. I couldn’t move, but at least I knew where I was.

She gave me a hug before she left, then slipped me a travel size mouthwash with a motherly grin. I smacked my tongue against the roof of my mouth, ran it against the underside of my teeth. Some milky grey slop came off my tastebuds. I spit it out, gargled some of the wash. It felt nice to get a gift from her. That’s what I’m calling it. It was a gift.

She was always great with those. One time, she gave me an old Leica. I was like, nice, where am I gonna find film, or a place to develop it? But it was sweet. I started snapping shots of hobos outside my flat. Had em stare right into the lens. Sometimes I’d get lost in their wrinkles and bones. Their faces looked like the Grand Canyon. I guess there’s some similarities. Both are eroded over time. Both are beautiful, but not in the typical way.

I still use that camera. The other day, I found this ratty twenty-something. Caked grime on his fingers, bits of god knows what in his beard, deflated greying mop on his head. But his eyes. They were crystal blue. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, what did you screw up to fall this far? I felt for the guy. Probably had a degree or two, loving parents, impeccable design. If he stood up, he might’ve cleared six feet. But here he was, slumming it in a tent on 84th.

I think that was the moment. That’s when I knew I’d done something wrong. Why take away one of that kid’s advantages? Shit’s hard enough as it is, he could use those eyes. Little did I know.

I’m just putting it off at this point. I know you have it in evidence. I can see that look of concern on your face. But at least you saw it coming. I sure didn’t. It’d been a bit since I saw Rachel — I’d since shaved the scruff on her advice and let it grow back twice as long. I was sitting in my Designer cubby when I saw her burst through the door, with something in her hands.

She slapped it down in front of me.

She’d clomped so fast, I didn’t notice the splotches of placenta launch onto my corduroy. You ever eat Jell-O? Broke through the jiggly surface with a spoon? Ever dropped some? Seen the way it splatters in every direction? That’s how fragile this thing was. Bits of gunk, beginnings of organs, warped legs, like a doll melted by the sun, by a microwave. Its skin was translucent, fatty, with a tinge of red, like undercooked bits of rib.

I didn’t know for sure what I was looking at until I saw the tiny hand. The fingers splayed open, reaching up at the blinking fluorescents. That little pointer finger, I couldn’t be sure, I’ll never be sure, but I swear to fucking god, it was looking in my direction. This little festering, disgusting thing, its hunks of half formed flesh, all scattered across my desk. Red on my paperwork. Oily bits of something on my faded keys.

And then there was Rachel. Still breathing, her chest heaving, her eyes spitting at me. What the fuck did you do, she said. I said what do you mean, played dumb, asked if this was her kid. Yes, she said, why the fuck was he gonna be fat. Infertile. Intellectually disabled. Why was he gonna die at thirty? Why, why, why, she sobbed, fell onto the floor so hard she chipped her front tooth on the linoleum.

I couldn’t piece together much between the wails, the panting, the sound of her front heels slamming into the ground. Bob wouldn’t let her, she said. Bob wanted grandkids, she said. Bob didn’t want an invalid, she said.

I never saw her face again. In my mind’s eye, Rachel’s still just the back of a head, banging at the floor, cursing her shit luck, cursing me, I’m jealous of her, she said, I did it, she said.

She was right.

Turns out, I didn’t edit OCA2. I deleted it.

Paternal deletion on chromosome 15, a surefire bet for developing Prader–Willi syndrome.

That kid was gonna need a feeding tube from birth. Then, when he got older, he’d get hungry. Hungry like a holocaust survivor’s first full meal after liberation. Eat yourself to death hungry. Every day, that hungry. A fucked-up hypothalamus will do it to you.

He was gonna have a narrow forehead, crossed eyes, a thin upper lip, bruisable skin. He’d get diabetes soon enough, and he’d be short to match his obesity. When he got older, he’d be likely to pick at his skin, and few words would come out of his downturned mouth. If he ever lucked out and found a partner, he’d be unable to cum, unable to have kids.

He’d be blonde, at least. There’s a consolation prize. But you could see why big man Bob didn’t want him, why Rachel had to get rid of him. And maybe he’d be a she, I don’t know. All I know was ‘it’. ‘It’ was on my desk, ‘it’ was on my shirt and pants when you brought me in.

So that’s me. I shaved off the wrong bit of chromosome. I know Deus’s policy on aberrant design, yes, I read the employee handbook. I just want you to know I didn’t intend any of this. I want you to believe me. I’m a working-class guy, just like you. Lock me up, throw away the key, let me rot. But before you do, could I ask a favor?

Stare me dead in the face. That’s right, put your hands on the table. Stop trembling, clamp your teeth down, bite that quivering lip. Take a deep breath. Air goes in, air comes out. That’s good.

Now, look me in the eyes, and give me a smile. Tell me I’m human. Tell me everything’s going to be okay. Tell me these things happen. Can you do that for me?