Page 2 - Tales Apocalyptic and Dystopian

The Spark of Life

(Fantastic Transactions 1, 1990)

In the fluorescent glow of simulated stained-glass
luminescence and the trilling whisper of distant synthesized
hymns, Priscilla Everly’s voice and features were softened and
sanctified. She sat in the inner office of the Right Reverend Wilson
Johnson, a setting apparently modeled after video versions of the
twentieth-century funeral parlor. This was, however, two decades
past the Holy Reconstruction, and the flattery of the past implied
by such an imitation could not have been sincere.
Priscilla’s patience had been tried by the hierocracy; having
reached its pinnacle, she now mustered her reserves of respect and
piety for a direct bombardment of the figure seated across the
table. Johnson, as head of the Eastern Conference Center for
Reproductive Responsibility, had to be a true-blue UCA man, with
the skeleton key to everyone’s computerized closet. Nominally
responsible for thousands of souls in cryogenic suspended
animation, he held final regional authority for the dispensation of
in vitro embryos to supplicant prospective mothers.
When the United Church of America had won its plebiscite and
taken the reins of power from a corrupt and ineffective secular
government, one of its first acts was to interdict all forms of
extramarital procreation. So-called family planning clinics were
converted to churches and punishments of biblical proportions
meted out to offenders, bringing an end to a nagging social
problem within one generation. But the revised Bill of Rights
mandated the protection of every fertilized human egg,
instantaneous vessel of an entity whose salvation was, at last,
under official protection, its rights guaranteed under the New
American Creed. Thus, although any further creation of frozen
embryos was forbidden, the Department of Science and
Revelation had to maintain those already in storage, doling them
out as the Church saw fit, usually as rewards to the faithful.
But not always. Sentiment and family values had their place in
the new order, as well. If a relationship were claimed and
established, a woman had the legal right to be implanted with an
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