Reva: Rapunzel in Sci-Fi

Every test had been a success. Every last one. One dose of serum; one once infertile chimpanzee now pregnant. Ayv carefully studied the data, looking for any potential risk factors, anything the team may have missed. He read the reports from the births and updates on the development of the babies—all normal. It was as if the chimps had never been infertile.

Okay. Today’s the day. He exhaled, hardening his resolve. Then he switched to the database he was supposed to be working in, deleting any trace of his last two hours of research. He worked like mad for the rest of the day so that there would be no sign of his little tangent; also, so that he could leave early. He had to get in and out of the lab before Witeker, the head researcher, locked it up for the night.

One dose of serum would not be missed from the vat. One dose of serum; one once infertile woman healed.

 

Nine months later, Ayv held up his newborn baby girl. Tabben beamed from the birthing chair despite the sweat dripping down her face. The midwife helped her transfer to the bed, and Ayv laid little Reva in her arms.

Two months later, the family was greeted with sirens when they returned home from the health center after the baby’s first check-up. Squad rovers surrounded their dwelling complex. Seven public security officers detained Ayv and Tabben without an explanation. They put Ayv under temporary paralysis; he could do nothing as they plucked Reva from his stiff hands.

“What are you doing? Why are you taking our child!” Tabben screamed.

“Your child?” Dr. Witeker stepped out of a rover. “I seem to recall that you couldn’t have a child. You took something from me, and I’m taking it back.”

He held the wailing baby girl at arms length, inspecting her. “A lovely specimen. It will be enlightening to track her development.”

“What are you going to do with her?” Tabben demanded, fighting against the enforcers holding her. She was soon paralyzed too.

“Did you really think you were going to beat the system? Trying to have a natural birth in this day and age… Ayv, I always appreciated your ambition. We’ll miss you around the lab.”

 

Reva knew her life wasn’t normal. As of yesterday, that is. A construction crew had broken ground on a new building outside her window. Yesterday, one of the workers, a man maybe her own age, saw her waving, walked over, and ended up talking to her through that thick glass for sixty-four minutes.

He seemed concerned for her, and that made Reva wonder if she should be concerned for herself. She had always felt lonely, confined, and watched, but it was the worker who explained these feelings to her.

He spent every lunch break at Reva’s window. She told him about life in the lab: experimental injections, daily examinations, endless studies, and strict diets and exercise regimens. Most of all, she told him about the other specimens. She held them so dear: the rats, pigs, and chimpanzees.

He, in turn, told her about the world outside the lab: work and play, friends and family, forests and countrysides. He promised to show her all these wondrous things.

During the last week of construction, their conversation changed. “You have no life in there, no life of your own. You’re not just a specimen; you’re a person! You have to get out. You have to live!” It took four days to convince her, two to plan the escape, and one for her to say goodbye to the other—No, she wasn’t one of them—to the specimens.

It took only an hour to escape. Reva knew every security system and every code from watching the scientists day after day. She had no trouble swiping an I.D. card or reprogramming an eye scanner. And the guard? He was no match for the six-and-a-half-foot, biochemically augmented superhuman that was Reva.