The Declaration

She’d make sure the two Surpluses were caught and brought back to Grange Hall and then they’d see. She was the only one who’d be able to track them down – those Catchers might look scary with their black uniforms and little torture devices, but they didn’t know how Surpluses thought. Not like she did. Had they thought of going to Julia Sharpe’s house? No, of course they hadn’t.
    And when she caught them, assuming they were still alive, she would insist on punishing them herself. She knew that her cruelty would far outstrip those clumsy Catchers. By the time she’d finished with them, they wouldn’t even remember their own names. They wouldn’t want to. They wouldn’t want to remember anything.
    No one crossed Margaret Pincent, she thought bitterly. No one made her look a fool. Particularly not two Surpluses who should have been put down at birth, who had no right to even set one foot on this earth.
    Not like her child.
    Her child, who had had every right to live.
    She sat back on her chair and allowed herself, just for a moment, to remember. Remember the son, the promise, the joy, and the anguish.
    It had been the only thing she’d ever really wanted – to have a son, to make her father proud, to finally win his love. Impossible, of course; the daughter of the chairman of the biggest Longevity drug company could not Opt Out, not in a million years. But she hadn’t given up hope. Back then, she’d had hope in spades.
    She’d gone to university, but only half-heartedly, and had then worked for the civil service. Years she had spent filing reports and signing off papers, but all the time, she was busy researching, busy manoeuvring herself into position. Everything she did, she did for one reason only: to discover a way to have a child. A Legal child, all of her own.
    And her diligence paid off. There were a handful of people, she discovered, who, because of their senior position, received special privileges. The privilege that Margaret was interested in was that of being allowed to sign the Declaration, take Longevity drugs and to have one child legally. Just five officials in the whole country were afforded this benefit, to reflect their contribution to the effective running of public services. And when she’d discovered that Stephen Fitz-Patrick, director general of her Department, was one of them, she’d known exactly what she had to do.
    He’d been an odious man, she thought bitterly, and hard-up too; he earned good money, but spent more than he could afford, and he drank so much that his doctor was forced to up his Longevity intake just to enable his liver and heart to cope. But he was allowed one child. One child. Her child.
    She did everything for him: listened to him, agreed with him, ran his life for him, until he told her that he didn’t think he could live without her. She told him he needn’t, not if he married her. And to her great delight, he agreed.
    Not wanting to waste a single moment, she got pregnant a month after the wedding. And when the first scan revealed that it was a boy, she nearly wept with happiness. Her own little boy to love her. A boy who would win back the love of her own father, who had been severely disappointed when his own wife bore him a girl, a useless female. And who had been even more disappointed when Margaret had turned out to be mediocre at best in her lessons and sport. She was not even an attractive child, he would say. Her eyes were too beady, her brow too low, her hair too thin and straight. And within a few years, he lost interest in her completely.
    Until the day she gave him the news of her pregnancy. He’d actually smiled at her then, perhaps for the first time. He’d shaken Stephen by the hand too, and welcomed him into the family – something he’d not found necessary to do at the wedding. And, as the final icing on the cake, Stephen had even agreed to allow the boy to take her family name, once her father had agreed to pay off Stephen’s debts.
    For several months, Margaret had walked on air. She ate nothing but the freshest food, took no exercise except brisk walking and avoided even the smallest glass of anything alcoholic. Her child was going to be perfect, she just knew it. He would be the happiest, most loved child that had ever lived. She would teach him and care for him, and everyone would stare at her enviously as she paraded him on the street. I may not be as pretty or clever as you , she would think to herself as she passed