Biology 103--which I hated--was coming back. Plant-extract categories.
Looks like he actually is doing research on the flora here. But . . .
still, what does he need my ova for?
I scrolled on. Scientific terms that meant nothing. Then, toward the
end of the alphabetical list, I came to the word QUETZAL.
What was that? I clicked on it and--lo and behold--up came a short list
of names. Six in all, organized by dates about a year apart, and each a
woman.
My God. First I assumed they were patients from Quetzal Manor who'd
come here for fertility treatment, though each was indicated
"terminated" at the end, whatever that meant. But as I scanned down, I
didn't want to see what I was seeing. The name next to the last was S.
Crenshaw. She'd been "terminated" too.
The bottom was M. James. But I hadn't been "terminated." Not yet.
I slumped back in the chair, trying to breathe. How much more of this
horror could I handle? Finally I leaned forward again and with a
trembling hand clicked on S. Crenshaw.
A lot of data popped up, including three important dates. The first was
exactly three weeks after the one in her passport, the Guatemalan entry
visa. The second was ten months ago, the third eight months ago. After
each was a number: 268, followed by 153, and finally 31.
The count of her extracted ova. Kill him. Just kill him.
A lot of medical terminology I couldn't interpret followed each number,
but the note at the end required no degree.
"Blastocyst material from embryos after third extraction shows 84%
decrease in cellular viability. No longer usable."
My God, had he made her permanently sterile?
While that obscenity was sinking in, I went back and clicked on my own
name. The date was today, the number was 233. He'd just taken 233 of my
ova. I stared at the screen and felt faint.
No medical analysis had yet been entered, but it didn't matter. I
stared at the screen, feeling numb, for a full minute before clicking
back to Sarah's page. Yes, I was right. The last date was just six
weeks before she was found in a coma, down the river from here. . . .
No more mystery. He'd been using her eggs to create embryos, and they'd
finally stopped working. Not "special" anymore. So her "program" had
been "terminated." In the river.