Beginning 3
He looked at the piece of card in his hand, feeling his heart race. He couldn't do it. He couldn't.
"A thanksgiving," The card read, "For the lives of Rachel Waiter and her unborn child." Her unborn child He hated it. For the first time in his life he hated what his work represented, here on this page. Hated the secrecy that Genomex demanded. That he'd agreed to. Hated that the child - another success for Genomex - would disappear because one parent had died and the other The other couldn't live without her.
He put down the gilt edged card, feeling his hands shake as the emotions flooded over him. He had killed one of his best friends, destroyed the life of another. The look in her eyes when he had stood there and told her.
"She's dead Amy, I'm so sorry." The hatred. He had run then, to hide behind the plans and the readouts. To try and find out why. Why he had failed her, failed them.
The child, greatly premature would need the best the Genomex had to offer if she was to survive. Her immune system would need bolstering and she would need strengthening in bone and muscle if she were to have any chance of a normal life. He knew the techniques that would be used on her and knew that they had been proven to work in the past - producing in some cases astonishing results in premature or genetically damaged infants. Maybe he would work her case himself, keep and eye on her as she made her way into the world. He was her godfather after all.
But now her family mourned her passing and her mothers, even though she, though alone, had survived. He couldn't go to this funeral and watch Rachel's friends and family mourn the passing of two lives when it should only be one. He couldn't listen to them telling of what the world had lost when he was responsible for her death. He couldn't look into Amy's eyes
Some part of him was angry with her for being weak. For leaving the child in the cares of Genomex, like she meant nothing to her second mother. For asking him to never talk of her again. For putting that weight on him. She was her child, however hard it was to explain.
No, he wouldn't go. He would stay at home. There was a young couple whose case he was working on, they wanted to have a child but were aware that due to their particular genetics there was a high probability that any child they had would suffer from the genetic disorder muscular sclerosis. If he could find a genetic alteration to remove and replace the damaged genes they could have a healthy child.
He scribbled down another set of notes in the border of the readouts and scans from the couple's genetic profiles. He had an answer to the problem and the couple were free to have their child. If they needed the treatment then it was available to them and the genetic fault could be completely corrected.
He closed the folder and sat for a moment in the silence that his apartment offered. It seemed for a moment that it might swallow him as, the work put to one side, he began to think of his friends once more.
It was late, the ceremony would be over by now and people returning home to spend a little time mourning privately before they returned to their lives proper.
He wondered what Amy would do now. He couldn't imagine her sat in their flat alone, it was a place that held memories of them both, together. It was hard now to see them separately in his mind at all. Except for that one moment "I'm so sorry" They had been perfect together. It was all his fault.