Mahoud's Gift

Dwight sat at a desk in the library with his tablet face down in front of him. The library was always a comforting place for Dwight. It is a place filled to the brim with potential. Up and down every aisle is something waiting to be discovered. If Dwight could have one wish in the world granted it would be to have that all wealth of knowledge put into his head. Libraries are also quiet, or at least they are supposed to be, and that made them the perfect place to go and just sit and think in peace.

His head was swimming, drowning even. If he could just calm down and focus, he could find a solution to this problem. He took several long slow breaths, tilted his head back, and tried to imagine a vast emptiness and hear only his heartbeat and the sounds of turning pages, but flashes of his own children blazed through his mind. Dwight placed his hands on the table and stared at the grains of the wood. They too became the sole occupants of his thoughts before the image of Serah’s smile robbed his concentration once again.

“Dammit.” He said under his breath

He almost lost it at the restaurant. The sound of Serah’s chair scooting back as she stood up to leave was for some reason the only sound that he could remember. He could remember the concepts and ideas exchanged during their conversation, but couldn’t remember the words and the sounds even if his life depended on it. He could recall everything after she left. He had waved his hand over the sensor to pay his bill, stood up, and made his way to the door still in utter disbelief. He had even accidentally kicked some toddler’s highchair. The parents had shot him disgusted looks and he wanted to throttle them. He grabbed his coat from the rack and made his way here, to this very spot, in a walk that lasted forever.

‘A job,’ Dwight thought. ‘This all hinges on a job. I need to find one.’ Dwight turned his tablet right side up, flipped out the two hinged plates that set it on a 45 degree angle, and pulled a translucent black keysheet from the bottom of it. The tablet was of course a touch screen, but you can type much faster on a keysheet, and seeing as how he was in a library, he wasn’t planning on using the voice interface.
Dwight sent a message to the only person he could think to contact.

“Mahoud. I need your help.”
He sat and waited for a reply. People rarely had their tablets anywhere but within arms’ reach.

“Dwight! It’s been so long buddy! I’ll see what I can do for you, but I guess that all depends on the nature of the problem.”

Dwight could see Mahoud’s smiling face on his tablet as Mahoud keyed in his response on the touch screen interface of his own tablet.

“I need a job. I’ve tried everywhere, but you know how it is for a fusion engineer on Earth… I know you are a busy man and you know I wouldn’t ask you for anything of this magnitude unless I really needed it. I could lose my kids.”

Mahoud’s infectious smile wandered from his face as he solemnly nodded. Mahoud had never had children and had desperately wanted them for a while now. It was hard to have a kid unless you were on a colony. It used to be you could go out and have a kid with anybody you pleased as long as you could get it up. Most people that had children didn’t even mean for it to happen. Gene therapy eventually became so refined that they could engineer a retrovirus that turned off the processes that regulated a woman’s menstrual cycle rendering them temporarily infertile. Later, if the mother-to-be wished, she could have another retrovirus injected that turned her cycles back on and in about three months be fertile once more. It was the most effective form of contraception ever created, one hundred percent effective, and relatively safe. Then the global government found out how useful this technology was.

At the time, the colonization of Mars was still a government wet dream and the moon was being used as a spaceport and for H3¬ mining. That left the only place for people to be was Earth. At the time the population was pushing twenty billion people. Nobody can blame the global government for the actions they took as it was likely the reason we didn’t end up in a water war which would have split mankind up into smaller sovereign states once again. Shortly after the global government mandated that the most problematic sectors of the world be reproductively immunized, population took a nosedive. The problem was solved so it seemed. Then the government learned of the other benefits of being able to regulate human reproduction. Darwinian notions aside, the government could now grant reproductive licenses to upstanding citizens, the ones that contribute significantly to society instead of criminals and leeches. Once again, human species had defied nature and set its own rules.

Sector by sector the government passed reproductive regulation laws, and the people loved it. At first, the regulations were loose and the criterion for license acquisition was limited to having a relatively clean criminal record and taking mandatory parenting classes. It worked well. Crime diminished, neighborhoods were safer, and people were happy. Corruption, however, has its ways of working its bony little fingers into even the tiniest cracks of a good thing.
Regulations became stricter, and somehow over the course of time economic success and health conditions became factors for reproductive success. Vague criteria and indecipherable lawyer speak became integrated into the immunization laws until the current limits were set. Only half the population of Earth can have a reproductive license at any time. If you are issued a license, you are expected to have four children. There are “Exceptions” that can be purchased at a considerable fee by a license holder in order to account for those people that cannot meet their reproductive expectations.

Mahoud, unfortunately, is ineligible for a license due to heart problems.
“
That’s unfortunate Dwight. I’ll see if I can pull some strings and find something for you. I can’t begin to imagine the extent of your problems, but I will have you in my prayers.”

Dwight felt his mind ease a little knowing that there was a chance that he might be able to convince Serah to stay with him. “I owe you Mahoud.”

Mahoud’s smile brightened up his face once more. “Consider this payment for naming your next son after me.”

Dwight smiled for the first time today. “And if I have a daughter?”

“Then have a fun time explaining to her why she has a boy’s name."