A New Birth

"Bloody French."

The lieutenant standing next to me gave me a disapproving look and took a step ahead. I felt the rain start to soak the left side of my jacket. I took another drag and tried to forget what I'd just seen.

"Bloody French."

I muttered again. That drove him off the porch. He walked to the corner, opened a side door and went inside. A truck passed by splashing muddy water over half the porch. I tossed the half finished cigarette into a puddle and stepped out, letting the rain wash away the mud on my loafers. Alexandre stepped out the front door and stopped beside me. The rain didn't seem to bother him. Or maybe it did, but not as much as the stuff out back.

"I assume you have a cigarette, Inspector."

I nodded towards the porch and lit him one. He took a deep one and coughed. We stood watching the streetlights turn on one by one.

"I thought you didn't smoke."

He took a drag and looked up at me. He'd heard what I said, but it hadn't registered. Something in his head had put everything on hold.

"Do you think the Germans will succeed?"

He didn't have to tell me at what. There was only one thing the Germans were working on that anybody would be interested in - immortality, and with it the continuation of our race.

"Most days. But some days I think it wouldn't matter much if they didn't."
"Oui. Today."

I nodded. A neighbour had first alerted the local police. They were both in their seventies, grandparents; very few of them now. The neighbour had seen the wife cover up a hole after digging up a rock in the morning. He'd also seen something else, what looked like a 3 month year old foetus. He'd dismissed it as a trick of the light. But when the husband had come out at noon to dig up the foetus again he'd been a lot closer. He'd called the police immediately.

Mr. Giovanni had been very helpful when the two policemen told him why they were there. He had pointed out the spots in the garden where they were buried. He'd shouted at the first constable who had started to dig up the first with a spade so they'd used their hands after that. Alexandre was called in after they had dug out the third one. They dug up two more in the ten minutes it took us to get here with the lieutenant. I saw two men cry for the first time in twenty years.

"I've asked myself for the last two hours why they would do something like this. I have no answer."
"My wife calls the earth Gaia. She says we are like a virus. That the earth, Gaia, is recovering."
"Your wife is probably right Inspector. Maybe we are, like your wife said, the virus."
"Did Frances call you back?"
"Yes, the nearest research center is seventy kilometers away."

After 2018, birth research centers were the only places you could find foetuses. Unlike most air-borne virus pandemics, the strain-5 pandemic had been quick and painless, and invisible for a long time. Then in 2015, the mutation happened, and gynacoelogists around the world started reporting the complete absence of births.

Governments across the world promised a breakthrough within the year. The year ended without a cure. In early 2017, UN authorized missions to virgin tribes in African and the Nicobar islands found that the mutated strain had reached them long before it reached us. In October 2017, Elena Pavlovna came back to earth after three years on the International Space Station. Her attempts to conceive in space were a failure.

In March 2018, the G-8 and G-15 agreed to an unlimited budget to fund artificial womb research. The virus caused a mother's womb to reject the foetus; artificial wombs promised to be a better surrogate mother. In 2031 the UN cut down this funding to 30 billion GCU annually. Of the five largest institutions still researching artificial wombs in 2032, four had less than a tenth of their research budget allocated to it.

In 2035 the German research company and life service provider, Franz Generics announced stage 2 clinical trials for their Life Extensibility Clinical Program. Liberal news feeds called it a subscription to life, others called it a silver of hope. Birth was a forgotten fairytale.

"Commandant, il veut vous parler."

Alexandre stepped back inside and the lieutenant leaned against the wall. He wiped a damp cuff across his lips. He looked like he'd just finished throwing up. I lit my third one and offered him the pack. His hands were shaking and it took him three tries to get one to light. He drew in a long one and turned to me.

"Bloody French."

I was on my fifth one when Alexandre came back outside. He seemed angry. I saw the old couple at the kitchen table as the door closed behind him.

"He won't say where he got them from. And he wants us to stop digging them up if the rain stops. He says he'll confess to everything if we do that, if we stop digging. I don't know what..."


I handed him the pack of cigarettes and stepped inside. I nodded to the constable standing next to the back door. It was warm and I took my hands out of my jacket. A box of matches dropped to the floor. The couple stopped whispering and old man looked up. His voice was clear, and strong.

"Aucun catridge?"
"Non, ordinaire."

I smoked the old kind, the one that set off smoke detectors. The last officially recorded birth was on February 28th, 2015. Felix Leitner died in a knife fight outside a Detroit gas station in 2030. The youngest person on the planet was killed for a pack of nicotine catridges.

"English?"

I nodded, stepped across the hall to the table and pulled a chair across them. The wife looked down and touched the back of her hand to her eyes. I could see she'd been crying.

"Would you like to talk?"

She nodded and the man patted her hand. I sat down and turned to him.

"Where did they come from? Which hospital?"

The old man took a deep breath.

"They did not come from a hospital. They... they grew."

He made a blooming motion with his fingers. I glanced at the old lady. It couldn't be her.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand. Was someone trying to conceive here?"
"Non non. They grew from the terre.. from the earth."

I started at him stupidly for a moment. He was delusional. Beside him, his wife was looking at me, her eyes searching mine for a glimmer of understanding. They were both delusional. I tried to get up but the old man held my hand. His voice was urgent, almost pleading.

"You have to believe. When the first one came three months ago we thought it was some erreur, or a cruelle joke. Then one came every week, every week for two months. And I watched it every day, the jardin, every day that last month. It was the earth."

I pulled my hand away and stepped back from the table. The constable at the back door started towards us. I knew him from a month or so back; he didn't speak English.

"You don't have to believe us, I'll confess to whatever you want. But them... give them a chance. The sun will kill them. They have to be inside for six more months. This is their... their... "

He faltered as he tried to translate. I knew the word he was looking for.

"...womb."
"Yes, womb. She is their mother."

The old woman took my hand as the constable stepped between us. She spoke one word before the constable gently released her grip.

"Mere Gaia."


The rain had stopped when I stepped out onto the porch. The lieutenant held out the pack. I took one and tried the matches. They were damp. Alexandre held out his cigarette and I lit mine off it.

"Anything?"
"How long before they go to trial?"
"Five, maybe six months."

I let the smoke clear my head before I replied.


Six months later

Franz Generics' Life Extensibility Program failed phase 2 trials. I was on the phone in a run down hotel in London. They'd closed down the runways because of the fog. I had Alexandre on the other end of a bad connection.

"I think... should come down here."
"No flights. The fog is..."
"And while... at it bring..."

I held the phone away as the static crackled.

"You just broke up on me there. What did you want me to bring again?"
"Ten baby bottles."