Chloe was getting close to her time, and the Council started their standard decontamination protocol. The laxative purge, the same they used on all the others, to make sure the system was clean for birth.
It was a difficult birth. The meds kept her in the chemical fog she'd been floating in since they'd brought her here. She didn't know where she was.
Didn't know what was happening. Her body worked on autopilot while her mind stayed somewhere far away.
When Grant saw the baby, he went rigid. Not even fully developed. The cord had already started to necrotize, the body too small to sustain independent function. He didn't look at Chloe. He thought of Sadie, who had come in with Chloe and Paula, who had produced Damon-a viable, catalogued, "Catalog it," he said. "Failed specimen. Send it d
