“Why?”
“Because she kicked me,” Rachel said. “Inside the pod, she kicked. I felt it. Just once. And I realized — no machine will ever remember that. But I will.”
“You think the pod is safer?” Sasha said, laughing. “Childbirth was never safe. It was real. And real things are dangerous. That’s the point.”
“I’m fine.”
And love, Rachel had learned, was the only thing no machine could ever simulate.
Everything is fine, she told herself. This is the future. The first crack appeared at a dinner party.
Rachel looked at the baby sleeping in her arms — no pod, no tubes, just a small, imperfect, entirely real human. The Pod Generation
“That’s her,” Sasha whispered. “That’s my daughter. She’s already stubborn. Already strong. Already here.” Rachel made her choice on a Tuesday.
“And that’s why you have this scar,” Luna said, tracing a small line on Rachel’s abdomen from a later, natural birth — her brother, Mateo.
On the fourth day, he spoke.
She thought about her mother’s stories: the hiccups, the somersaults, the way Rachel would press a foot against her ribs and hold it there, stubbornly, for hours.
The baby was small — too small, really — but her eyes were open, and her mouth was working, and she was crying , a thin, furious wail that filled the room.
She burst into tears.