The Test

By H.G. Martin

MY NAME IS DEAN LANNY. My wife Janet and I are immortal. Well, potentially immortal, anyway. I mean, sure, a bus could hit us or we could fall off the Empire State Building or even die from some rare disease. But, barring such events--thanks to telomerase activation injections that my rich father bought for us as a wedding present--we’re going to be here, looking just as young as we do now, for a long, long time.

Some say that should be enough for us. I mean, what more could you want out of life than to live the whole thing as a young healthy person, for exactly as long as you want?

Well, call me selfish and self-centered (plenty of people have, including my father) but for Jan and me it wasn’t enough.

We wanted a child. No, not just wanted, we needed a baby. We knew our lives would never be complete without feeling the frenzied conviction of a child’s hug, or experiencing the absolute joy that radiates from their every pore on Christmas morning.

Whereas some people put all of their free time into causes that they believe in, like saving the horses from extinction or finding the perfect pizza, having a child had become our cause--our purpose in life. We swore to love and protect that child--to the best of our ability--and to never be too busy or too preoccupied to play with him or her. We vowed to always pick the child up and give them a big hug, and to always kiss the booboo when they got hurt. We promised ourselves that we would help our child grow up strong, happy, and self-confident; not frightened, inadequate, and alone, as we had.

Jan and I were sure that we’d have no problem getting the okay to have our birth control implants removed. After all, we were both college-educated people with lucrative jobs. Neither of us had ever been in any trouble with the law. What more could the government ask?

Granted, we understood completely the need, in a world that already held more people than its natural resources could handle--an increasing number of whom were being made immortals, like us--to tightly control the number of children being born. We agreed with the laws, which every country on Earth had ratified, that called for all adolescents to receive birth-control implants upon reaching puberty.

It just seemed to the two of us that the world lost some of its charm, some of its joy, when the school closings began and the sound of small voices echoing through the shopping malls and parks became a startling rarity.

As a child of the late Twentieth Century, looking back over a hundred years of human triumphs and tragedies since then, it’s hard to believe how things changed. And, to my mind, the most drastic changes came as a result of better health care. We got so good at keeping everyone alive, and then keeping them from getting old, that we just about overpopulated ourselves to death. Of course things had to change, and quickly. Experts say that if we hadn’t enacted the International Breeding Law of 2045 we would have destroyed ourselves and the planet within another fifty years.

But the price was high. The children are mostly gone. Hell, even most of the toy manufacturers are out of business now, and the ones that still exist, mostly focus on the adult market. They make toys based on hundred year old TV shows, movies, and comic book characters. They get rich on centenarian adolescents and their need to remember childhoods past, while true children are the only endangered species left.

So, Jan and I signed up to take the Test. It was inconvenient, it was an ordeal, it was expensive, and that was just the way the government wanted it. The idea behind the Test was to determine, through a series of extensive examinations, interviews, and investigations, if a couple was fit to be allowed to conceive one or two of the very few children that were still being allowed into this world.

I parked our car in a space directly in front of the entrance to the Department of Population Control branch office. As you might guess, people weren’t exactly beating each other off with sticks to get into the place. Except for my Chevy and one other car, the parking lot was empty.

We got out. Jan, who normally wore nothing but jeans, shorts, and sweats, awkwardly adjusted her new blue dress. I straightened the new black tie that was choking the crap out of me. I held the door for her; we both took deep cleansing breaths; then went inside.

It was a large room with two desks, a door marked Restroom, another that most likely lead out to the back alley, some pictures from the local thrift store on the walls, and bright fluorescent lighting. The desk closest to us was obviously the receptionist’s. I could tell both by the cheery, may-I-help-you look on the face of the man behind that desk and, of course, because of the little plaque that read Receptionist.

He was a youngish guy (I’d guess mid-twenties, but who can tell anymore--he could have been ninety) in khaki pants, a white shirt, and a flamboyant, rainbow-colored tie. His name was Clarence (I know because the picture ID badge pinned to his shirt pocket said so). He spoke to us with almost apologetic politeness.

“Good morning. Good morning. You must be Mr. and Mrs. Lanny. Please make yourselves at home. There are chairs and magazines against the wall next to you and there’s coffee over there, on the table, if you’d like some. Mr. Mason will be with you shortly. He’s just finishing up with his last appointment.”

Jan and I sat down and pretended to read magazines as we scrutinized Mr. Mason and the couple he was talking to at the desk against the far wall. We could only see the backs of the man and woman, sitting in guest chairs directly in front of his desk, but we had a pretty clear view of Mr. Mason.

Everything about him was severe, from his gaunt, stony face and white-sidewall haircut to his overly starched brown suit and shiny black tie. He spat words out of his mouth in a clipped, staccato manner, as though he didn’t want to waste any more time talking to the couple than he had to.

I strained to hear what he was saying while pretending to read an article. I only caught certain phrases, most often when he’d raise his voice, but it was enough.

“According to your DNA test results, there’s a strong possibility that any child of yours will have severe genetic problems,” he said at one point.

This was followed by heated, though muted, discussion amongst the three. The volume started to rise, but I still couldn’t catch what was being said, until Mason spat forth the following.

“I’m sorry that your beliefs are in opposition to the law, Sir, but we are trying to safeguard the future of our planet and all of its inhabitants here, not give credence to some religious fantasy.”

At that point, the wife began to sob uncontrollably—-I’m not sure if she had been weeping softly before this or not—-and the husband, whose face I still couldn’t see, bolted up out of his chair, actually knocking it over as he rose.

“Who the heck do you think you are, talking to us like this? Have you no compassion? You, Sir, are a detestable man! Come on, Dear, let’s get out of here.”

With that, the couple stormed out. Clarence got up quickly and walked with them to the door, but they ignored his frantic attempts to calm them down.

“Well, those two won’t be dirtying up the gene pool anytime soon,” said Mason to the back of Clarence’s head.

A look of disgust fled across Clarence’s face. It was gone, replaced by a receptionist’s smile, by the time he had picked Mason’s guest chair back up and returned to his desk.

Jan and I looked at each other. I saw my own panic and disbelief mirrored in her expression.

“What have we gotten ourselves into here?” she whispered.

Before I could reply, we heard Mason spit out the word, “Next.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Lanny?” said Clarence quickly. “If you’re both ready, Mr. Mason will see you now. Just have a seat over there,” he said, indicating Mason’s recently vacated guest chairs.

We exchanged quick greetings. Mason didn’t offer his hand to shake and, after what we’d just seen and heard, I wasn’t about to either, so we all sat down to a moment of awkward silence.

“Well, Mr. Lanny, Mrs. Lanny,” he said, opening a manila folder that had been neatly placed precisely in the center of his desk. “Let’s see what we can do for you.”

He leafed through the ten or twelve pages of test results within the folder. It was one of those rare moments in my life when time seemed to slow to a crawl as I waited for my fate to be decided right in front of me. At some point during the two or three minutes that it actually took Mason to peruse the paperwork, I felt Jan’s hand find mine and squeeze desperately.

Finally, Mason looked up. “Let’s proceed, shall we?” he said. “Both of you passed the genetic test, no problem there. Your financial outlook and employment prospects are fine. I assume that you would quit work to take care of your children, Janet?”

"Actually, no,” said Jan, a hint of irritation in her voice. “I plan to take a year’s sabbatical after each child is born, but then, after that, I’ll be working from home, part-time.”

“So, you would hire a babysitter to watch the children while you worked?”

“No,” said Jan. “My company’s very flexible and all of my work is done on computer, so I can work at any time of day. My plan is to just work when the babies are asleep.”

“Hmm--fine,” said Mason. “Let’s see, neither of you have criminal records or any problem with your credit. All of your friends and relatives seem to think highly of you,” he said with a smile that was there and gone so quickly, I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it or not.

I was beginning to think we were home free. Even Jan’s eagle-talon grip on my hand relaxed. Maybe Mason wasn’t the arrogant, elitist, power-mad jerk he seemed when we overheard his previous conversation. Maybe he was just a straight shooter who lacked personal skills.

“As to your psychological profiles,” he said. “Here’s where we have problems. You, Dean, are an only child. You’re father worked a lot, and wasn’t very affectionate when he was home. You have an unrealistic belief that having children will fill in the missing pieces of your life. The reality is that having children won’t solve your problems; it will just give you new and different ones. Not the ideal profile, but it won’t keep you from raising your child to be a reasonably well-adjusted, law-abiding citizen.”

“Great,” I said, starting to get pissed off at Mason’s condescension and lecturing. “So, there’s no insurmountable issue and we can have children.”

“Not quite. Janet, your father was an abusive drunk. He was responsible for the death of your only sibling, a little brother, in a car accident. Because of this, you’ve always had problems with commitment and trust. You worry that if you have a child, you’ll be as lousy a parent to him as yours was to you. Frankly, that worries me too.”

“Wait a minute,” said Jan. I’ve worked through my trust and commitment issues. My psych. profile must have shown that! I’ve been happily married for four years. And as far as worrying about being a good parent goes, isn’t that what defines a good parent? Caring enough to want to do a good job?”

Mason suddenly leaned forward in his chair and slammed his fist down on the desk.

“Lady, in case you haven’t noticed, our planet is in trouble. Gross overpopulation, combined with the world peace and prosperity that we now enjoy, have caused the overall, international consumption of food and other goods to far exceed this planet’s natural resources. The problem wasn’t so obvious back when most of the world’s population was part of the Third World. Most of them didn’t consume much, because, frankly, they were starving. Now that everyone’s consuming like we do here in America, the problem has skyrocketed. On top of that, we now have this popular immortality trend, which I see you’re both familiar with. So, now, we’re not even getting any population relief through the death of the old. We have to do everything we can to alleviate this problem, and one of the most important things that we can do is tightly control the number of children being born. And, since this world certainly doesn’t need another abused child, or future spousal or child abuser, being brought into it, I’m going to deny your request to have your birth control implants removed.”

I simply sat there with my mouth open for a few seconds, staring at Mason, and not only because of how much his surprising outburst reminded me of Joe Friday from that old TV show. More importantly, hadn’t he just finished his staccato speech by denying us the right to have children? From the silence at my right, I guessed that Jan was momentarily taken aback, as well.

“Let me understand this,” Jan said finally. “My psychiatric evaluation wasn’t spotless and that’s why you’re not going to let us have kids?”

“Essentially.” “You’re telling me that, in some psychiatrist’s professional, scientific opinion,a woman whose father was an abusive drunk can’t ever be a fit mother?”

“My decision’s been made, Mrs. Lanny,” spat Mason. “This meeting is over.”

“Let me see Jan’s psych. report, Mr. Mason,” I said, my voice rising along with my ire. “Because I don’t believe that any decent psychiatrist would come to that conclusion.”

“What you believe is unimportant,” said the officious bastard. “This case is closed. This meeting is at an end. Goodbye Lannys,” he said, and he shot up from his chair and started walking away from us, towards the coffee service at the back of the building.

“You won’t get away with this, Mason,” I called after him. “This is ridiculous. We’ll fight it!”

Mason kept walking as if he hadn’t heard me.

“We’ll take this to your superiors,” Jan said. “Somebody in your organization must realize that this is insane!”

“You already have, and somebody does,” said an angry voice behind us.

I watched Mason’s retreating frame jump as if hit by a taser gun. He turned on his heel and looked daggers at the owner of the voice.

“Clarence,” he said. “If I need coffee or office supplies, I’ll ask for your input. Until that moment comes, I expect you to do your job and not interfere with mine.”

“Oh, I’m doing my job,” said Clarence, in a voice that was both deeper than before and as serious as an arrow through the gizzard. “And it’s not receptionist work. My real job for the past few months, Ezekiel Mason, has been to investigate complaints of abuse of power within the department, specifically from this office, especially from you. I chose to do that by posing as your receptionist until I could determine whether the complaints were valid. It’s pretty clear to me now that they are.”

“This is outrageous,” snapped Mason.

Jan and I watched the surreal scene unfold in slack-jawed astonishment.

“I call this entrapment. The department will hear from my lawyer, Clarence, or whatever your name really is.”

“Reread your employment contract. You authorized the department to monitor your performance at any time, and in any way we saw fit. Legally, you have no basis for a grievance. Now, get out of here, Mason. Consider your employment terminated. And don’t bother packing your personal items. I’ll have them mailed to you.”

Clarence stood facing Mason with his arms folded across his chest, waiting. Mason stared back and called Clarence, and us, a few names that would have embarrassed a sailor. Then, with a smoldering glare and not another word, he turned and left through the door at the rear of the building, slamming it as he went.

“Good riddance,” I said.

“Thank you, Clarence,” said Jan. “If you hadn’t stepped in; that would have been it for our future family.”

“That’s right,” I said. “You saved our family. Thank you, Clarence. Uh, we can have a baby now, right?”

“Of course you can,” he said. “I bet they’ll let you have two. And don’t thank me. You just passed the test all by yourselves.”

“What are you talking about?” said Jan, apparently as confused by Clarence’s last statement as I was. “You exposed that horrible man and saved us from being denied our baby.”

“Well, not exactly. And Zeke’s really not that bad. You see, that was the final test. It was designed to gauge how much you really want a child. If you had allowed yourselves to be cowed by Mr. Mason’s ranting and run out of here with your tails between your legs, you would have failed. I must say, very well done Mr. and Mrs. Lanny! It does my heart good to see a couple actually pass the test. You’d be amazed how few people do.”

“But,” I said. “You fired him. He cussed you out.”

“Just a bit of amateur theatrics we put on for the benefit of a couple who is determined to fight the ogre, so to speak. Zeke will be back in about ten minutes. He usually walks down to the sub shop and buys us lunch after he makes his grand exits. If you’ll sit back down at his desk, I‘ll help you with the final paperwork and you can be on your way. Oh; and here’s a catalog that you can use to order all those special baby items you’re going to need. They don’t sell this stuff in stores anymore, you know.”

The Test is Copyright 2004 by H.G. Martin