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It was a dark and stormy night. Honestly! It was! Nuclear war can really fuck up the weather. Strontium showers and lightning, torrential rain and howling wind. Trees were being uprooted and sent tumbling down the roads. There were floods and blackouts, traffic jams and cancelled flights. All fairly stressful.
Well, for Nelson Bunker Kreelman, the night had an added layer of tension. His wife, Diana, had been travelling back home with their daughter Ruth, whilst 9 months pregnant. They’d been carjacked and left out in the wastes. The storm had started and it was by pure chance that they’d been found before there was nothing left to find. Ruth was fine, just a few burns, but Diana…
He didn’t know. She’d been wheeled off, taken to some operating room, and he didn’t know if she was ok. Let alone his son. One of them could die, both of them could die or…
His son could be a mutant.
He wasn’t sure what he’d do in that situation. He knew logically that he should kill him. He was a politician, his platform was based on the final solution to the mutant issue. He could not have a mutant son. It wouldn’t be too hard to make the boy disappear. Dr. Pendragon was a close friend, they’d known each other since they were boys. He’d help cover it up. They could say the child died of natural causes, say the storm and the mother’s physical trauma had caused too much damage.
Kreelman sat and waited. It could’ve been hours, or just minutes. The waiting room had no clocks, just windows. He watched the storm and listened to the rain, and prepared himself. He thought about what to tell Diana. She’d wanted this child so badly, and she wouldn’t understand. She was too… empathetic. She loved and loved. She could never know. It would kill her.
In a hospital waiting room a worried father sat waiting for his wife to get out of surgery. In a cold room, a politician prepared to defend his status. No matter the cost.
Eventually, the waiting was over. A nurse led him down winding corridors, past rooms full of beeping machinery, deep into the hospitals heart. She waited outside the door, and he went inside. Diana was sleeping. Not dead, not comatose just sleeping. Relief. But there was still one possibility to face. Dr. Pendragon was in the corner, clutching a bundle of cloth. His son. There was no one else in the room, and Kreelman knew the answer before he asked the question.
“Is he…”
“I’m sorry.”
It had come to this. Killing a mutant. Murdering his son. Pendragon came closer, still carrying the wretched thing, this thing that had so effortlessly destroyed Nelson’s perfect life.
“What are my options?” It was a rhetorical question really, the answer was obvious; but he wanted to hear it from someone else. Wanted to have someone with him, to not be alone in his pain.
“Well, there’s the obvious; but you do have another option.”
“What are you on about? My son is a mutant. He cannot be allowed to live, to sully my reputation, to destroy my legacy! For the sake of New Britain the boy must die.” Saying it didn’t make it easier to bear, it just made it real.
“Nelson, I think you should look at him first. Please.”
Pendragon moved the fabric, and Nelson looked…
He was so small.
A tiny bundle dwarfed by Pendragon’s arms, practically swallowed by the blanket he was wrapped in. A little nose and squishy cheeks, just a baby. Nelson couldn’t help but think about Ruth, his darling girl, and how she’d been so much bigger than this tiny scrap of a child. How excited she’d been to have a brother. How crushed she’d be when she heard that… He didn’t know what he’d tell her. What would he tell Diana! How could he look at them and lie. Could he live with himself if he killed his son? How would he even kill him? Poison, exposure, every option was harder to bear than the last.
Luckily, Nelson was quickly pulled out of his spiral. His son (because he was his son, no matter how much it hurt) opened his eyes. And for Nelson Bunker Kreelman, time stood still.
Whenever a couple’ is expecting, they always say the same things: we don’t care what it is, or whose nose it has, just as long as it’s healthy. Well, in the 22nd century this tradition has evolved slightly. Nowadays, no one cares what it is, as long as it’s not a mutant. And the tiny baby gazing up at Kreelman? It was definitely a mutant. Blank white eyes, wide with the awe and wonder so common in newborns, locked onto Kreelman’s own blue ones. They almost seemed to glow, but then again, the lighting in the room was strange, it could’ve been playing tricks.
Kreelman looked at his son, and in his mind’s eye he saw a whole lifetime play out. His son, raised surrounded by shame and hatred, the abuse he’d inflict, the pain it would cause Diana. He saw a war, an army with a white eyed soldier leading it. He saw fear, he saw punishment and he saw death. He watched the suffering that would unfold if he let this child live; the deaths the man this child would grow to be would cause. And all of this, could be prevented now, in this room. But prevented only if he killed… this child. His wife’s son. Their son.
He’d killed before. Beaten a mutant to death, shot others. He ran death camps! There was no reason why he should hesitate now, why he shouldn’t snuff out this monster. But he couldn’t. He looked at this thing that could destroy his life, and he saw only his son.
Kreelman began to weep.
He wasn’t a man for tears, but this? This was an impossible choice. He could maintain his values, “destroy the other”, or he could let his son live and risk everything. He couldn’t even ask Diana. She would’ve known what to do; or she’d have made a choice, even if she wasn’t certain. But she was asleep, recovering. He was alone weighing the value of a life. He’d never seen mutants as alive before. Funny how parenthood changes things.
“Nelson, there is an option here.”
Pendragon, the man who’d brought this curse, who’d doomed Nelson to this impossible situation. What solution could he possibly offer, what medicine for this sickness?
“The mutation is minor, and it is contained. Think of it as… a cancer. Yes the sickness is there, but only in one part! Remove that part and…” He’d have a son. A blind son, but that was fine. Bionic eyes were expensive but he was rich, and even without those, he could raise that child.
“Nelson, you have to make the call. Whatever I do, I need your consent.”
It was the easiest choice he’d ever made.
“Dr. Pendragon. My son has an eye problem. You will remove the eyes, and my son will live a normal life.” The doctor nodded, and left, still carrying the baby. The choice was made. Their future set in stone.
He sat in his wife’s hospital bed, took her hand, and waited. She’d wake up, and he’d tell her. Not about the mutation, but some other story. Cancer most likely, it ran in her family, it was believable. He’d tell her that, and that Pendragon was performing an operation to cure their child. It’d cost his eyes, but spare his life. Spare all their lives.
Outside, the storm raged. The wind howled, and dog vultures circled. Inside an old hospital, a father awaited the arrival of his son.