Rachel didn’t understand at first. But then Sasha placed Rachel’s hand on her own belly — Sasha was 32 weeks pregnant, naturally, illegally — and Rachel felt a foot. A tiny, unmistakable foot pushing outward from inside.
She went to the pod center alone. Mark was at a conference. Ellis was on his lunch break. The security cameras could be looped with a device Sasha had given her — a small black button that cost three months’ salary on the black market. The Pod Generation
“You think the pod is safer?” Sasha said, laughing. “Childbirth was never safe. It was real. And real things are dangerous. That’s the point.” Rachel didn’t understand at first
She thought about her mother’s stories: the hiccups, the somersaults, the way Rachel would press a foot against her ribs and hold it there, stubbornly, for hours. She went to the pod center alone
Nothing.
by [Assistant] 1. Rachel stared at the glowing white pod in the center of the room. It hummed softly, like a contented cat, its curved surface pulsing with slow, blue light. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the floating gardens of New London drifted past on magnetic currents, but she barely noticed them anymore.
Under her heart. Not in a machine. At Week 26, Rachel stopped visiting the pod every day. She told herself she was busy — work was demanding, the commute was long. But the truth was simpler: she didn’t feel like a mother. She felt like a project manager monitoring a remote asset.