“I want that one,” Angie said. Her long manicured finger hovered over the fifth of nine images laid out in a semicircle on the Siamese rosewood table.
“That one,” he repeated to no one in particular. There were five of them in the room. Darius and Angie stood on one side of the desk beside the forgotten Thai interpreter who said her name was Sally. The negotiator spoke English. Of course he did. Behind Sally, a woman in a white server’s outfit hung near the door holding a tray of pastries and waiting for any indication that someone in the room might one another. On the other side of the desk sat a man who could’ve been sixty-seven or one hundred and eighteen, so reworked and smoothed out were the lines on his skin. The few that remained were close in around his deep gray eyes like the rings of a tree. Darius didn’t like those eyes. He didn’t like anything about this situation.
He liked Angie; loved Angie, to be certain. He loved her enough to fly sixteen hours to Thailand to be here in this office picking out his future from a collection of photos.
“You have a fine eye, Ms. Manna,” said the man behind the desk. He’d said his name twice now, but Darious couldn’t remember it. He was distracted by the images. Each one was a rendered image of a twelve year old child. Five girls, four boys. Angie was tapping on the picture of the second girl now. Her hair fell in strawberry curls around her olive-toned skin. She had green eyes, perfectly straight teeth, and a smile to rival Angie’s own.
“ And your decision, Mr. Greeley?”
He wanted the boy. He always wanted a boy. He pointed to the last image. He didn’t look anything like the girl. He was dark skinned, darker that Darius was, but his piercing blue eyes and kinky hair were everything Darius ever imagined in a child.
“I don’t understand. How can you do this? Aren’t there laws against this sort of thing?” He wanted to be outraged. He wanted to believe he didn’t want to be there and he didn’t want to take advantage of this opportunity, but he was here. Angie didn’t force him on that plane. If anything, he’d been the one excited for the opportunity.
The man’s smile looked like a slit run horizontally across his face. He said, “The beauty of Thailand is in what we are allowed to accomplish on private land.”
Angie curled into him, the warmth of her snapping him from his uncertainty. She said, “I think what my fiance’ is trying to ask is how does it work.”
“Genetics, Mr. Greeley, Ms. are like the sliders in the games you’ve made so much of your wealth developing. We can control many of the polygenic factors that are not directly determined by Mendelian Inheritance. Your genetic samples were processed, and based on your preferences, we were able to create some wonderful options. Skin tone, hair, eye color, all of these things are only bound by your ability to pay for the work required.”
“We can pay,” he said. After all, what is the point of having money if you didn’t spend it on what you truly wanted.