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  For my wife, Diane,

  the wind beneath my wings…

  Prologue

  Hattie Scranton lumbered up the sidewalk toward the Sandburg Food Mart. Her long legs kept her a good foot or so ahead of the five other women clumped just behind her. They were all so much of one face that it appeared they were wearing identical masks highlighted with blazing, angry eyes, lips white with rage and stretched like rubber bands making their chins so taut they threatened to tear. Their neck muscles strained with each step they pounded into the concrete sidewalk.

  Hattie had her long arms extended straight down the sides of her six-foot-one-inch body, her hands clenched into sizable fists for a woman. They looked like small sledgehammers growing out of her wrists which kept her ankle-length light blue dress from flapping. A thin layer of shimmering perspiration pasted her thin, dull brown hair against her forehead.

  The beautiful spring upstate New York afternoon had already brought people out of their homes and businesses in this restored, quaint country community, but the sight of the women drew more observers. Those passing by in their automobiles slowed down when they saw Hattie and her group parade down the mauve cement sidewalk along Main Street. All of the residents knew something very significant was happening. Some pulled over and got out of their cars to follow, gathering like children behind the fabled Pied Piper. Others continued to watch from a safe distance, their faces mixed with fear and curiosity. They held themselves as if they expected to hear an explosion at any moment, their bodies tight, poised.

  Hattie and her women were heading directly for the Sandburg Food Mart. Their gaze was so fixed on those large glass front doors that there was no doubt about their destination. Shoppers stepping out of their cars to go into the supermarket paused, and women and men loading their trunks with groceries froze the moment they saw Hattie. It was as though anyone looking at them became like Lot’s wife in the Bible, a pillar of salt.

  All eyes were on what had become known as Sandburg’s own baby squad.

  Hattie stepped up to the doors that opened automatically, and then they all entered the immaculate, brightly lit supermarket. Once inside, it was as if Hattie could part the air the way Moses had parted the Red Sea. Some shoppers who saw her entrance even imagined they heard the swish and later would swear they had felt the resulting breeze whip past their faces.

  Employees in their crisp white uniforms at the registers became paralyzed, hands holding produce in midair. Conversations at the registers ended. A wave of silence washed over the grand food and produce market. A few shoppers toward the rear by the meat counter didn’t realize it and soon found their voices echoing. That brought them to attention. They gazed at one another in surprise and then looked toward the front, where Hattie slowly turned her head, her long neck as stiff as a pole holding a flag of battle, straight, firm, determined. Her eyes panned the market and finally settled on the target: Jennie Marlowe and her pretty seventeen-year-old daughter, Lois.

  Hattie’s face bloomed into a satisfied smile, the smile of a hunter who had cornered her prey. She lifted her shoulders slowly, priming herself like a cannon being adjusted for the proper trajectory, and then, without any further hesitation, she made a beeline for her targets. The women beside her moved in unison, their heels clicking on the tiles. They remained a respectful few feet to Hattie’s rear.

  Jennie Marlowe retreated a yard or so, and Lois moved completely behind her, using her mother as a shield.

  “What?” Jennie cried out, grimacing and leaning back as if she anticipated being struck. Hattie continued to march right up to her, stopping inches away. Her women formed a wall around them, flanking Jennie and Lois on both sides. Hattie opened her right hand, and Jennie gazed down. In Hattie’s palm were two pills.

  “These,” she said, “were found in your daughter’s locker at the school this afternoon after a routine search. Ted Sullivan called us immediately.”

  Routine searches of student lockers had long been a procedure at Sandburg Central, as well as at most schools throughout the nation. The courts had decided that the lockers weren’t student property, and no privacy law applied, no civil rights, no warrants required. This applied to anything on the student’s person or anything the student carried once that student had entered the premises of the school.

  It was no surprise that Ted Sullivan would discover any illegal drug or weapon. The Sandburg high school principal ran his school with military efficiency. When the bell sounded for class, the hallways cleared so quickly the air itself seemed sucked into the rooms.

  Jennie stared at the pills. “What are they?” she asked, and glanced at Lois, who quickly looked down at the floor.

  “Prenatal vitamins,” Hattie said, her lips contorting to express her distaste even for pronouncing the words. “PNV is clearly stamped on the tablets.”

  Those standing nearby gave audible gasps. A woman loading groceries onto the cashier’s table lost her grip of a large can of tomato juice. Its clang echoed like a gunshot through the market. Someone in the rear released a shrill cry.

  “Prenatal vitamins? That’s ridiculous,” Jennie said, smiling on the verge of a defensive laugh. Her lips quivered with her effort to keep cool. She gazed at the pills as if they could leap out of Hattie’s hand and sting her. “They don’t look like anything. In fact, they look like candy.”

  “Hardly candy,” Hattie said through her teeth. “Ted Sullivan suspected it, and Bob Katz confirmed it at the drugstore not ten minutes ago.”

  Hattie’s words were driven like nails into Jennie’s soft twist of lips, which then looked glued against her teeth.

  “We called your home as soon as we were told, and Chester told us where you were.”

  Jennie shook her head vigorously as Hattie continued to speak.

  “Of course, she must have gotten them on the black market or from someone else who had,” Hattie continued. “Bob is certain of that. He has seen them before and will so testify, even in a court of law, if necessary,” she added, directing her cold, steely gray eyes at Lois.

  “No,” Jennie insisted, still shaking her head. “She has no reason, no call to get that on the black market or otherwise. Lois? Were these in your locker?”

  “We know they were,” Hattie said before Lois could reply. “She can’t deny it.”

  “Yes,” her daughter admitted.

  Hattie’s eyes grew small, her back and her head arching like a cobra. The tip of her tongue between her nearly clenched teeth moved with nervous excitement, resembling a snake’s that could already taste the prey it had cornered.

  “How did you get them?” Jennie asked, breathless.

  “I traded for them,” Lois revealed, looking at her mother but consciously avoiding Hattie’s eyes.

  “Traded for them? Why? What is this sick fascination you have for everything to do with natural pregnancy?” Jennie practically screamed at her, her lips trembling with both fear and anger now.

  Lois was silent.

  Jennie turned to Hattie and forced a smile.

  “She’s not pregnant, Hattie. It’s not that. Believe me. It’s just this stupid little new fad some of the young people her age are getting into these days. Take my word for it. There’s nothing else to it.”

  “No,” Hattie said firmly. “I can’t take your word for that.”

  “What are you saying, Hattie?” Jennie asked, the smile le
aping from her face like a frightened bird.

  “She will have to come with us to Dr. Morris. Now,” she added, punching the word at them.

  “This is silly, Hattie. Wouldn’t I know if my own daughter was pregnant? Of course, she can’t get pregnant. I can show you her NB1 certificate,” she said, reaching for her bag. “It’s properly stamped and dated at her birth. I…”

  “She has to come with us this instant,” Hattie insisted. “You and I both know,” she added, her face so close to Jennie’s now that their noses practically touched at the tips, “that there have been plenty of NB1 forgeries.”

  “Not hers!”

  “As well as an occasional aberration caused by an impurity,” Hattie added.

  Since the middle of the twenty-first century, all females at birth were vaccinated with a substance that prevented their eggs from being fertilized through sexual intercourse. The walls of the egg simply rejected semen and could be penetrated only in a natal laboratory. It was, as Hattie had declared, 99.99 percent effective, but there was always the fear of a female falling into that 0.01 percent.

  No one had yet moved in the supermarket. No one wanted to make a sound and miss a word. The people who had followed Hattie and her group gathered outside the door as well.

  Hattie stepped back, a cold smile on her face. “What will happen to Chester’s insurance business if you refuse?” she asked.

  The crimson in Jennie’s face began to recede, only to be replaced with a milk-white complexion that looked practically devoid of blood. “It’s just wasting everyone’s time,” she warned, her voice weakening, her lips trembling. One could almost see her bones softening. “It is! It really is!” she cried with desperation.

  “It’s never a waste of time to protect the image and reputation of this community, not to mention the government subsidies we all depend upon,” Hattie countered. “Chester included, because if the people and the businesses he insures go down, where do you think he will go?” she asked with a smug smile.

  Jennie nodded, bit on her lip, and then looked at Lois. The inevitable outcome of this confrontation was written into her face now.

  “No, Mommy,” Lois said. She shook her head vigorously and took a step back.

  “You brought this on yourself, Lois. You and that obsession.” She turned back to Hattie. “Can we at least finish our shopping?” she asked. “We’ll go to the doctor’s office right afterward. I swear.”

  “No. You’ll come back and finish your shopping later. Dr. Morris has been alerted, and he is waiting. If you’ll notice,” Hattie added with authority and confidence, nodding toward the entrance of the supermarket, “a number of concerned citizens are waiting to know the results as well. It’s not just what I want. We all take great pride in what we have accomplished, and no one wants to see it lost or damaged. I would hope you would have the same attitude, the same sense of loyalty to your community, Jennie.”

  Jennie looked at the crowd and turned back to Lois.

  “Mommy, no!” Lois cried a bit louder, her eyes like two broken egg yolks seeming to spread into her temples.

  “We’ll drag you out of here if we have to,” Hattie warned, stepping between her and Jennie. “It’s up to you,” she added. She looked as if she wished it would happen that way.

  Lois felt heat in her chest. She glanced at the onlookers. She liked being looked at, liked being popular, but this was already far too embarrassing to take and far more frightening than anything she could remember. She tried to swallow but couldn’t and nearly fainted with the effort.

  Jennie pushed the cart aside, gazing after it as if it were filled with the family jewels. Instantly, a shelf stocker moved forward to take it.

  “I’ll keep it to the side,” he said, obviously looking for a sign of approval from Hattie. She simply nodded, but it was enough to make him feel important and pump his bloating chest with pride.

  “Lois?” Jennie said.

  Lois Marlowe stepped forward reluctantly, her head lowered in defeat. As she started toward the supermarket entrance, the baby squad drew around her. People cleared out of their path. Jennie tried to smile. She raised her hands and called to some friends.

  “It’s nothing, just a false alarm. You’ll see. You’ll all see,” she insisted.

  No one smiled.

  She sucked in her breath, pulled back her shoulders, and caught up with her daughter.

  As they left the supermarket, she began to chant a prayer under her breath.

  “Let it not be so. Oh, dear Lord, let it not be so.”

  One

  Natalie Ross stood completely naked before the full-length, light walnut, oval mirror in her bedroom and pressed her palms to her abdomen. How much longer did she have before it would show? The home test had been positive. She had bought it on the black market and taken it the moment she had suspected. Of course, there was the strong possibility that the test was inaccurate. Once you went to the underground for something like this, you had no guarantees, but her body was rife with the symptoms: no period for months now, morning sickness, and very sensitive nipples during the onset of her condition. She was even experiencing food cravings, like Jell-O pudding on top of corn flakes. If she figured correctly, she was easily entering her sixth month!

  Preston had accepted her explanation for her nausea and vomiting the first time he had witnessed it. She went through a convincing performance, throwing out the leftover chili and warning him not to so much as taste it. She even claimed to have gone to the doctor. Fortunately, Preston had seen this happen only once. The three subsequent times, he had already dressed and gone to work, and she no longer suffered any morning sickness.

  Nor had he witnessed any of the food cravings. Sometimes she wondered if he would notice anything dramatically different about her. He was like an absent-minded college professor these days, working harder than ever and often bringing it home either in his briefcase or in his head.

  Natalie closed her eyes and concentrated. Her best friend, Judy Norman, told her if you placed your hands on someone and put all your concentration into the effort, you could feel their energy and sense what truly lived within them. She was talking about something far different, of course. She was speaking of honesty, intention, good and evil. Lately, Judy was into all that spiritual stuff. Natalie didn’t reject it all. She was skeptical but not resistant. The truth was, she wished it were all true. She wished there were something beyond, some spiritual force that understood her, applauded her, and certainly did not condemn her.

  Yes, there’s a child forming inside me, Natalie thought, a true marriage of Preston and me. I can feel it in my heart. It is already part of my very being. I am pregnant. It’s not some fantasy. I shouldn’t have to concentrate or meditate to search for any sense of her or him within me.

  As a preadolescent, she had always suspected she was not a natal laboratory baby, known as an NL1. The prophylactic material used to make the egg invincible became known simply as NL1. Sometimes she had dreams about inoculations. Where they were given remained vague, even in the dreams. NL1 babies had no need for any inoculations against any of the childhood illnesses, of course, nor did they need flu shots or any of a slew of vaccinations that prevented a long list of maladies, from anemia to any of a number of zoonoses, diseases caught from animals.

  If those dreams weren’t nightmares, they were memories she was eventually taught to suppress. Suddenly, they were all coming back.

  Her parents had done a good job of hiding the truth from her as well as everyone else as long as they could, and afterward, she had performed well herself, knowing that if she weren’t convincing, she would be an outcast and certainly not what she was today: the wife of a prominent lawyer with a very promising career as part of a very influential firm.

  Naturally born children, now called Abnormals, generally were fortunate if they were able to get menial jobs these days. Certainly, no one with any class or status would even think of marrying such a person.

  Her pr
oblem, of course, was preventing herself from becoming pregnant. Ever since her menstruation had begun, she’d been on birth control pills, another black market product, this one disguised well as vitamins or sometimes common aspirin. They were even stamped. Who could tell except a pharmacist or a chemist? Certainly not Preston, she thought.

  And then it happened.

  She bought either a placebo or a pill so old it had lost its effectiveness. Her mother had warned her. Never depend on them. Do what you can to prevent pregnancy. Watch your cycle. Don’t make love at the prime times, if you can at all prevent it.

  Easier said than done, of course, and now she was paying the price. Or was it a price? Lately, she had been feeling…good. The morning sickness had passed, and, if anything, she felt healthier. And then there was the dream, the vision of a child who was completely and actually her own, with no tampering; nothing that was a part of her, a part of who and what she was, had been removed. She believed what the Naturals believed: there was a greater, closer, more symbiotic tie between mother and child. Wasn’t that wonderful?

  “What the hell are you doing?” Preston asked from the doorway.

  She nearly leaped across the room. Rushing for her turquoise velvet robe, she tripped over a slipper and caught herself before she hit the bedpost. Then she put on her robe and flipped her long, thick, reddish brown hair back over her shoulders. Preston called it her mane. He kidded her about it, but he was quietly proud of her beauty.

  “I was trying to see if I’ve gained any weight, if you must know. Did you have to sneak up on me like that?”

  “Who snuck up on you?” Preston asked. He shrugged and crossed to his closet. “Hell, I was making so much noise coming up the stairway, you would have to be in one helluva trance not to have heard. I called to you when I came in, too, Nat. What’s up? Why the concern about your weight? You look terrific, as beautiful as ever.”