The Perfect Son

By Lawrence Van Hoof

An executive in the gene enrichment industry needs help from a callous senator to acquire the rights for a third child after a mistake in the lab gives him a second daughter instead of the desired son.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lawrence Van Hoof
• Release date: Jan 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9780987920812

Lawrence Van Hoof

Lawrence Van Hoof was born in Helmond, The Netherlands, and grew up in southwestern Ontario, Canada.He holds a B.Sc. in biochemistry from the University of Guelph.Currently he lives in Toronto, Canada, after teaching English for three years in South Korea.

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The Perfect Son

by

Lawrence Van Hoof

This publication is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents portrayed are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

Copyright © Lawrence Van Hoof, 2012

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover design copyright © Lawrence Van Hoof, 2012

Cover art copyright © Richard Wozniak/Dreamstime.com

The Perfect Son

As president of the largest enrichment institute in the Republic of California, Dr. Richard Hastings was glad he no longer had to meet with clients. He hated listening to their complaints. Too many of them always found something wrong with their babies: big noses, big ears, fat bottoms, insufficient brain mass, ugly feet, small eyes. A week ago, a father had even threatened one of the nurses with physical harm after his daughter came out too brown—an issue of nutrients, easy to resolve. He had been completely oblivious to the miracle before him.

Minister Kim, though, was a different problem altogether. Richard could not ignore her. He needed her support to win a dispensation from the Family Planning Commission, or he would never get the son he had always wanted. She had hers, after all. Now it was his turn.

Richard stopped pacing and leaned against his desk. Visuals of his family sat on the left corner, beside a rainbow-colored egg his daughter Samantha had sent him for Easter. On the right corner stood a visual of Jonathan, the son not yet born: at seven years of age, playing the violin; at ten, swinging golf club like a pro; at twelve, getting ready for his first date in vivo; then back to ten, standing in the shallow end of a pool, his blond hair bristling like a porcupine.

Richard shook his head. How long did the minister expect him to wait? He had done his part many times over. His company had even stretched the rules to give her one of the most enriched children ever born. The list was so long the boy could fill a journal by himself, including the augmentation of hundreds of genes, a regime of epigenetic boosters, multiple corrections of chromosome seven—both before and after birth—and the insertion of the latest nano-enhancers around key neurocrine regulators, a procedure Richard rarely recommended for babies already born. He had also expressed concerns about a number of superficial modifications because the boy’s body needed to concentrate on growth, but each protest had only hardened the minister’s resolve. She knew what was best for her son. She would have the procedures done. Or else.

She had never said so directly, of course, but implied it a hundred different ways.

A red sunburst flashed in front of Richard, and the visual of Jonathan turned off automatically.

Wonderful. What timing, Richard said.

The voice of his sentinel, Gordon, came from the door. Your wife is calling, sir.

I can see that. Just tell her I have a meeting.

I don’t think she’ll believe me this time.

Tell her anyway. I’m busy.

She sounds rather anxious. And she’s already called twice this morning.

Richard snorted and sank into the leather chair behind his desk. You sound like a bloody therapist.

I’m sorry, sir. I can only tell you what I detect.

All right, fine. Let her in.

Richard leaned back in his chair and scratched his head, his gaze flicking to the visual of his daughters, Samantha and Trish, playing on a beach