The Pill

  A short story by Ben Dov

  Jack went over to the bar and stood next to the tall blonde who had just received her cava. He ordered a glass of Glenfiddich. Before the drink arrived, Jack had already made conversation with the blonde, though he had yet to reveal her name. He already knew the night would end at her place; She was sure that he had no chance. If Jack had a hobby, it was picking up women. At least once a week, only hotties and always short term. A phone call interrupted his plans. She said briefly that he should come, he said yes, finished his drink in one gulp, placed a bill on the bar and left. The blonde received no apologies, Jack doesn’t apologize. On the other hand, he doesn’t take orders from his students either.

  Lee was a young doctoral student, only two years in the lab. Timid and shy, she seldom talked. Most of the departmental staff didn’t even know her name. She studied with Jack at one of her undergraduate courses. It was enough for him to notice that when she does speak, she’s never wrong and says nothing obvious. Before tonight she never called him after hours, and when speaking to him, it was always in an almost apologetic tone. He had already guessed what she called about. Only one thing could make her address to him like that, even accidentally. Jack trusted her with his great project, his bright idea that everyone thought had no chance. The initial responses to his idea made him avoid mentioning the subject to anyone who might sit in a committee that will affect his future. If he were to ask, most doctoral students wouldn’t agree to touch it. Not Lee, she didn’t even express an opinion when he told her what to do. Jack went to the lab and Lee referred him to a screen attached to the microscope. On a lightly dotted gray background, three slightly overlapping pale circles were visible. "Is that all?" Jack asked. "It's a lot," she replied, "We will continue with double combinations, it will take another two weeks."

  Jack's big idea wasn’t really an idea at all. He knew what he wanted to do, but had no idea how to do it. Jack wanted to drive mammalian oocytes into development without fertilization. Parthenogenesis. This seems less far-fetched to him than to others. At least once a year he would read about another zoo lizard from a new strain that got pregnant without any males around. If reptiles can, why can't mammals? The academic justification was the many benefits of mice strains that need no crosses, but secretly he fantasized about commercial applications. Dairy cattle without bulls. Human applications never crossed his mind. Why would a woman wish to become pregnant without a partner, he thought, and if so, then why not just use a random stranger, or a sperm donation ?

  Two weeks became two months, that became two years. But at the end, contrary to what any faculty member would have guessed, Jack had a recipe. Mix three small molecules in the right proportions, injected an ovulating mouse, and the oocytes begin to divide. DNA is replicated, some genes are imprinted, others lose their imprinting and twenty-one days later the mouse gives birth to live pups. The only place where the new cocktail was a disappointed was in Jack's mind. The scientific resonance was small and the finding was published in an excellent journal, but not his first choice. From the industry nobody called, nor did they return his calls. For some reason everyone around him were sure his cocktail will work only on mice, rats at most. Any attempt to explain the evolutionary conservation, the planning that took into account all mammals, was counteracted with anecdotal evidence about the differences between mice and men. Meanwhile Lee left to pursue a post-doc in a leading mice lab, and the rest of the students had neither the skills nor the interest to pursue the subject. Jack was never willing to put an effort into proving what he knew to be true. The proof came, therefore, in a most surprising way.

  Susan was the worst technician Lee had ever seen. A tattooed 22 year-old girl with dyed hair, who decided for some reason that making solutions and killing mice is the easiest way to make money. Not to suggest she was stupid, far from it. It’s not easy getting a bachelor degree with decent grades from an Ivy league university. It's even harder when coming high to a third of the exams. Susan's priorities were unconventional. She had no particular interest in the work, and in view of the substances entering to her body on the weekends, had no worries about lab chemicals and safety. In the evenings she would get drunk on the lab’s alcohol supply, and as a bonus would occasionally steal syringes for personal use. All weekends were devoted to wild parties. When Susan started missing too many days of work, and throwing up in the mornings when she did show up, everyone assumed the obvious happened. Everyone but Susan. Since her last boyfriend slapped her wildly while drunk, Susan started dating the fairer sex. She always went both ways, and in view of her record with men, decided that maybe she should stick to women. For three months, Susan did not know a man. That's what she told the doctor who examined her. Second month he said, without arguing. Susan wandered lost for days, coming and going, failing to fulfill her lab duties. She was slowly falling into madness. Susan was never a control freak, but the disintegration of the rational was too much. The pregnancy secret had become an open secret, then chatter, and eventually hallway shouting, in which she denied its existence. The idea that she became pregnant as a result of leftovers on a used syringe, in which she made the cocktail for Lee, did not occur to her. She was sure she had stolen a new syringe, and did not know what solution she injected for Lee. Lee was the first to figure out what happened. She hesitated at first, mainly because she didn’t believe Susan remembered when or with whom she was sleeping, but her losing it made Lee think that she might be telling the truth. Lee did not know about the syringes, but Susan’s negligence and lack good lab practices made Lee think of exposure to the cocktail as an option.

  Susan took a few hours to get what Lee told her, then it all started to makes sense again. Her doomed life suddenly seemed to have regained its purpose. The frenzy in her eyes disappeared as if by magic and suddenly she seemed calm, calmer than ever seen before. She was charmed by the idea of being a mother to her baby. Susan internalized in the sense of not screaming in the hallway, not in the sense of understanding the risks or being tested discreetly in a laboratory. She returned to work, quiet and more diligent than ever. She also stopped drinking and taking drugs. Lab members were divided into two, one half thought she was seeing a therapist, the other half thought she was on psychiatric drugs, probably after a brief hospitalization. The pregnancy denial was taken as a part of the crisis, and has been forgotten. Only Lee and Susan knew there is a chance that this is not a normal pregnancy, but while Susan was sure of it, for Lee it was more of an intellectual exercise. Susan did not mention the hypotheses about the origin of her pregnancy in the lab. She told it to some of her friends, who responded with a varying levels of belief, but she already began to drift away from them, like her previous way of life. These were replaced by expectations for her baby girl and preparation for childbirth.

  The rest of the pregnancy passed quietly. Except one remark before an ultrasound examination that it must be a girl, Susan told her doctor nothing. Eight and a half months after her exposure, Susan gave birth to a healthy daughter. When asked by the nurse who the father is, she said there is none. The nurse did not explore any further, and if not for Susan reviewing the birth certificate in a specially aggravated mood, the world would have not known what had happened. But Susan decided to review the birth certificate after two particularly difficult days with her newborn. On any other day, the clause “Name of father: Unknown" would have made her laugh at best, but on that day it was a cry for war. She will receive a certificate that recognizes her as the only parent, no matter what. Five hours, three doctors and a few lies later, Susan got an appointment for a genetic test.

  Dr. Phil looked at the results confused. His first guess was that the same sample was tested twice by mistake. Even when Susan explained what happened, although not too clearly, he just insi
sted on testing another sample. Later it was the hospital’s medical director that insisted on another test, one which he personally escorted. The fourth test, with samples taken from multiple locations,was performed by a team of researchers led by a world renowned professor from a department adjacent to the one in which Susan worked. By now Susan was in no hurry to explain what happened, she enjoyed the doctors’ confusion, how they promised her, one after the other, that this is a mistake and will be corrected immediately. Finally, at a joint meeting of all, Susan again briefly explain what happened. One of the researchers began contradicting her with a variety of ridiculous explanations, when the professor shushed him and acknowledged she was right.

  The press had a field day. Pseudo-biology and far-reaching visions were published in the tabloids, while the scientific journals summarized what little was known. Susan settled for two interviews, in addition to several articles that reviewed the positive changes in her life since she became