The Enthusiasts

2

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars." – Kahlil Gibran

Sasha's mother spent all her savings (and then some) to freeze an embryo that had been merged with her husband's sperm for safekeeping at a local clinic during a time when fear of an incurable disease manifesting in many forms of bodily harm had become an epidemic that hystericized much of the planet. Sasha's mother, Margret, died six months before her husband passed. In the final weeks of his life, as he lay on a cot, growing impatient with Death's uncompromising pace inside an overcrowded hospital wing of the Salt Lake City Regional Medical Center, Sasha's father suddenly had a strong motivation to do something.

After managing to find a holoport, he began researching as best he could in his fractured state. Propped up on a pillow he had wrestled away from a fellow invalid down the hall, his weary eyes gazed at a data stream he had only heard rumored through local channels of an underground organization that would buy human embryos to be harvested after Pandemic had (most optimistically) died off, sometime in the unknowable future. A once proud man, her father was, who claimed to have lived by a code of honesty throughout his life, had recently stopped clinging to hope in the time of such a dark worldly health crisis.

After his wife's passing, the doctrine left from the fabled Artificially Intelligent Enlightened Beings as well as the previously practiced Interfaith woven principles of ancient times were abandoned by this man who refused to accept that his cruel existence, which had now stolen his wife from him, was worth anything more than a scowling curse from his bed as mankind was wiped like velp off the heel of any imagined Creator's shoe... But nonetheless, he felt a surprising and sudden motivation in the last of his days to at least fathom sending a last-ditch Hail Mary pass downfield in hopes of leaving something of a family legacy behind. He would do this if only for the sake of his wife, who had always wanted to conceive a child. In one of their last conversations she had spelled out her remorse over them not trying harder to find a way to conceive earlier, before, when they were healthy. The embryo was frozen with the idea that a cure for Pandemic would be found quickly, that it would all blow over as everyone suggested in the beginning. As soon as that happened, they'd start their family and delay their happiness no longer.

Sasha's father's name was Henry, and Henry's research consisted of fumbling through pop-ups offering all kinds of pregnancy aids along with endless pitches from internationally renowned fertility clinics. (Oddly enough, the state of catastrophe had sent the late stage fertility market soaring. Natural birthrates were way down, with what Henry mercifully assumed good reason. Who would want to bring a kid into this velp?) After much mumbled cursing and pounding on his bedside table, demanding the overworked nursing aides to log him back in after countless public terminal expiry timeouts, he eventually ended up speaking to a woman from a CryptoPing bouncing anonymously around the globe. After checking off the Spectra Cyber security notifications which flashed incessant warnings of potential fraud risks associated with contacting such a high-risk network, he chuckled inside for the first time in months at the thought of fearing to take a risk over malicious content in his current state. Go ahead, please steal my identity. I don't want to be here. Yet he still did feel a bit wary over the process as he battled his guilt over not having his wife's approval in the matter.

A slight twinge of relief soothed him after he heard the reassuring voice of a female agent at the end of a real, old-timey, FaceTime chat, which on its merits alone gave her an extra boost of trustworthiness and sincerity in Henry's eyes. Her calming voice gave the impression that selling embryos was the hip thing to do nowadays. To most people Henry knew, this idea would seem strange, frightening, and probably some scammer velp. But, after a few short minutes of being told of the simplicity and righteousness in providing a precious embryo to their organization in this urgent time of need, the voice on the other end of the line put Henry at ease with his decision. This was the right choice to make for his unborn child.