Adams’ Apples
14 Protestation
“MMM. COFFEE. I actually missed you this weekend, Baines. Where were you yesterday?” I turned over in bed and reached for the mug of coffee held by my administrative assistant.
“Yesterday? Monday was Veterans Day. No government offices are open on Veterans Day. Why would I come to work on Veterans Day? No one is even in town.” Mattie blinked, apparently unable to believe the ignorance of her boss.
“Ah. Of course. Only the military works on Veterans Day. Never get a day off, do they?” I stumbled as I took another sip of coffee and made shooing motions at Mattie. “Go, go. I need to get out of bed. What is this?” I yelled as my eyes focused on the bedside clock. “It’s only nine o’clock. Why am I awake?”
“You have an eleven o’clock meeting this morning, sir. I thought you’d need a little time to get breakfast and over to the conference room.”
I threw a pillow toward her and Mattie fled.
“We need to start harvesting Mr. Adams’ er… apples, you know… so we can start er… fertilizing prospective eggs.” For a doctor supposedly in charge of artificial insemination of the human populace, Henry Pius certainly had difficulty saying any words that implied sexuality. He could no more say ‘sperm’ than fly.
“Absolutely not!” Dr. Mangeler jumped in. As director of the NRP he was still desperately opposed to the NIP. “Those sperm are needed for research and should not be used until experimentation on the DNA is resolved. We don’t want a world filled with redheaded stepchildren. We need to manage the breeding with dominant characteristics that will eradicate the inferior genes.”
“Dr. Pius, how are the initial phases of the insemination project progressing with donations from the sperm banks? Our records show that over a million different donors are represented in the sperm that was seized in this country alone.” Foster Sporu asked. As SORDID Chief of Staff he needed to maintain tight control over the two main branches of the repopulation effort. And as long as he could keep them competing with each other, they would rise to the optimum solution.
“Ask him!” Pius pointed at Mangeler. “The cryobanks were given into his control and most were contaminated. What few are left either don’t attach to a receiver or won’t implant in the… host.”
“I take it you are saying the sperm won’t fertilize an ovum or in the cases where it does, the zygote will not attach to the uterus. Correct?” Sporu asked.
“And it’s their fault,” Pius repeated pointing at Mangeler.
“We warned you that we felt the sperm were generally defective. Your insistence on randomly spreading them in any whore’s cunt is your fault, not a problem with our tests for optimum genetic sustainability. That’s why we need the samples from Mr. Adams. We need viable sperm to test our genetic theories on.”
“Our task is to repopulate the earth! We have no mandate to manipulate the genetic code.”
“Gentlemen,” Sporu calmed them. “Why don’t we cut Jack Adams in half and give you each a part.”
“Now that’s the first sensible suggestion I’ve heard so far,” Colonel Smythe said. “We have untested weaponry so finely tuned it can slice right through skin, bone, and tissue in a heartbeat. The patient wouldn’t even feel it.”
It worked for Solomon, Sporu thought. Why didn’t it work here?
“No one wants to kill the prime donor,” Representative Angel Martinez sighed. She’d been appointed by the Speaker to head the Project Oversight Committee. She really thought this whole topic needed another and somewhat larger meeting. “But there is some merit to dividing his sperm equally between the two projects. That way Dr. Mangeler can continue his research and Dr. Pius can start getting women pregnant.” Dr. Pius blushed and nearly hyperventilated.
“Let’s proceed as if that were a plan,” Sporu said. “Now we need to discuss the manner in which the sperm are collected. What does the Department of Collection, Donation, and Harvest have to say? Marcia?”
Marcia Forager hated being referred to by her first name in a meeting where everyone else was a doctor or colonel or representative. She’d been promoted into this position from the Department of Natural Resources and was still trying to establish herself here.
“I’m Ms. Forager,” she started. “I’ve extensively researched the general methods of collecting sperm from a variety of endangered species. In humans, the most common are oral, vaginal, and anal. None of these are normally done under sterile conditions. We have discovered, however, that many sperm banks—before they were all closed by executive order—had begun assisted manipulation. I have put in a call for one of the best assistants I could locate: Sheila Meilleur. I expect her to arrive in DC the week before Thanksgiving. Collection could begin immediately.”
“That won’t do,” Dr. Pius shook his head. “Most of our staff will be on vacation from Thanksgiving till New Year’s. It wouldn’t do to start the project shorthanded.”
“Collection could still begin as long as proper cryogenic precautions are enforced,” Mangeler said.
“We need to discover the donor’s receptivity to collection,” Pius said. “Where is that fellow—Ramsey Smith? I understand he makes any arrangements regarding Jack Adams.”
“Oh. He was here at 11:00, the scheduled start time for this meeting,” said Rosie Palmer, the administrative assistant taking notes at the meeting. “The gavel called the meeting to order at 11:14 and Mr. Smith left the room at exactly 11:15. I am informed by Ms. Baines, Mr. Smith’s administrative assistant, that Mr. Smith will attend only three meetings each week and will stay for only fifteen minutes. Thus far, no meeting he has attended has started less than thirteen minutes after the scheduled start time and he has left the room after exactly fifteen minutes.”
“What does he expect? All of us to be here when the meeting is scheduled? I have meetings back to back and need to use the restroom between. I can’t leave a meeting at 11:00 and enter a meeting at 11:00. It’s impossible!” Sporu declared.
“You need to have a talk with him,” Smythe declared. “He tried to throw our parade timing off as soon as he got here. No soldier would ever be late for rollcall. You should all be ashamed!”
The meeting degenerated from that point with the members of the committee generally complaining about other people being late and wasting time. Ms. Palmer ordered a pot of coffee be delivered at 12:15 and that automatically extended the meeting by forty-five minutes. By that time, it had been determined that the committee needed food to fuel their discussion, so sandwiches were ordered. By the time the sandwiches arrived, it was already nearly two o’clock. After eating, Sporu decided it was too late to accomplish anything anyway and adjourned the meeting at 3:00, suggesting people just knock off for the rest of the day as there wasn’t enough time left to accomplish anything before 5:00. Thus, the one-hour 11:00 meeting extended to four hours and took the remainder of the day.
I was already drinking by then.
I got back from the meeting in time to meet Jack for breakfast at 11:30. Mattie kindly had coffee and a dozen donuts ready for me when I came out of the room after my earlier rude awakening. I left a few for the others, but now that I was back in the suite, I was ready to eat. I got there just ahead of the room service.
The Smiths joined Jack, Mattie, and me.
“Aren’t you two bored?” I asked the MIB.
“We get used to that,” Ms. Smith said. “Most of our division is practiced at sitting around waiting. We monitor everything, but nothing is happening.”
“You’ve turned out to be easier than most details like this. You haven’t really tried to make our jobs more difficult. We’ll be extra alert this week, though. There’s a protest scheduled this week and the loonies have already begun arriving in town,” Mr. Smith said.
“What’s who protesting?”
“They’ve called it the Three Percent March on the Capital. We expect about ten thousand armed white men to parade up and down the Mall.”
“They’re allowed to carry guns on the Mall?” I asked. “That’s insane!”
“This is America, Mr. Smith,” Ms. Smith MIB declared. “You can carry a gun anywhere except in an airport or a government building. And the restriction on government buildings has exceptions.” She patted her left breast. I blinked and then realized she was patting the gun under her left arm.
“This should make for an interesting story. I need to send a note off to my editor and tell him about the rules here,” I said.
“You can’t write that!” Mr. Smith MIB shouted. “That’s privileged information. It could expose weaknesses in our response to the protest.”
“Wait! You mean to tell me that 100,000 men can carry guns in protest on the Mall but I can’t write about it? What about my First Amendment Rights?” I demanded.
“They get trumped by the Second Amendment.”
I stared at the MIB who had a self-satisfied smirk on their faces.
“That reminds me. Mattie, how and when do Jack and I get paid? And how much? We have families and mortgages and insurance and such.”
“Um… I’ll ask HR. That question might be above my paygrade.”
“We’re walking to dinner tonight,” I told the MIB Thursday. “Jack has a craving.”
“I’m not sure about walking,” Mr. Smith MIB said. “People have already started coming into town.”
“It’s ridiculous to get in cars in order to cross the street.”
“What’s across the street?” Ms. Smith MIB asked. Mr. Smith MIB pulled back a curtain to look down at the street.
“McDonald’s.”
“You have a gourmet chef ready to prepare any meal you want and you’re going to McDonald’s?” Ms. Smith MIB asked.
“Better call for reinforcements,” Mr. Smith MIB said. “We’ll be ready to move out at six o’clock.”
“I don’t even know if they’ll take my company credit card,” Mattie moaned.
“If not, take it out of petty cash, wherever you keep that.”
“That’s an account, not cash. If I have a cash expense, I have to pay for it out of my own pocket. Then I have the receipts signed by the manager, compile an expense report, attach the receipts, have them approved by my manager, and send them to the General Office of Federal Accounting. GOFA sends an agent to the restaurant to confirm the signature on the receipt. Then the report goes into Employee Accounts Payable, unless there is a discrepancy, in which case it gets reviewed by an analyst and sent back to me for additional documentation. If the report is approved, it is submitted for payment with the last paycheck of the next month. Unless the report is filed after the fifteenth of the month, in which case payment is made with the last paycheck of the second month. And, since expense reimbursements are considered compensation, tax is withheld from the payment.”
“Let’s hope they take your credit card,” I sighed.
Six special agents created a corridor through which Jack, Mattie, the MIB, and I walked across the street. Smith and Smith flanked Jack and I followed next to Mattie. When we left Blair House, there was no one within a block. The parade attracted attention from farther away and people started to gravitate toward us to see what the excitement was about. Some were autograph seekers hoping to spot someone rich or famous.
By the time we left McDonald’s—which thankfully had accepted the credit card—a crowd of fifty or more had gathered beyond where the agents had cordoned off the path back to Blair House. Half a dozen DC police had arrived to help with crowd control.
I looked out the window when we got back to the room and over a hundred protesters and police had arrived on the street below. Signs had begun to appear. I poured a drink, smiled at my companions, and went to my room.
I am told I cannot report on what I see in front of my eyes as I look out my window at Blair House. Reporting about people protesting the management of Jack Adams’ sperm while waving signs and rifles in the air is a breach of protocol. This is privileged information.
If I could report on what I see, it is likely you would not believe it. Who would believe that a block from the White House, protesters are brandishing military grade assault weapons while they chant and wave signs saying “Stop the Oppression” and “Give us back our sperm!”
I, too, feel oppressed. As I pour Jack another martini and tell him about the line of protesters fingering their weapons, which I cannot tell you about, we share that we’d just like to go home to our wives. Of course, I can’t tell him the president left the White House this morning to spend Thanksgiving at his estate in Southern California. We would like to spend Thanksgiving with our families.
I am further told that being ordered not to mention that as many as 100,000 armed idiots are expected by Friday morning, is not a violation of my First Amendment Rights. As a government employee, the information I have is privileged. Which it turns out is an interesting distortion of the meaning of the word. It is by no means a privilege to have this information.
And, while both Jack Adams and I have our names in boxes in the SORDID organization—his labeled “Specimen” and mine labeled “Special Liaison for Specimen Care and Well-Being”—so far my Administrative Assistant has been unable to locate any record of our employment, contract for our services, or payment of a salary. It appears that because of Jack’s admittedly rare ability and my association with him, we have been interned at the behest of… someone who has not yet come forward, but may have to do with the NRP, the NIP, the Army, Homeland Security, the President, WHO, or the Congressional Committee on Natural Resources.
If anyone needs to be freed from oppression, he is not to be found waving a gun on the streets of Washington DC. He is a resident here at Blair House, held against his will.
I filed my story, which was immediately released to the AP and was picked up by news outlets around the world. On Friday morning, opinion pieces on both sides of the issue were in newspapers and network news analysts hotly debated it.
“The issue” was difficult to define and debates went to extremes. Was the issue the infringement of First Amendment rights? Was the issue carrying guns in a protest? Was the issue the treatment of Jack Adams and Ramsey Smith? Was the issue whose budget a salary should come out of? Was the issue the president’s two hundredth day on vacation this year? Was the issue protesters putting innocent people at risk by threatening the one man who could possibly provide live sperm?
The more sides there were to the argument, the more people who became involved, and each one had an opinion that was ‘as valid as anyone else’s.’ Over half a million people had poured into Washington DC by Saturday morning, protesting Congress, the White House, SORDID, sterility, biological weapons, Jack Adams, the medical and pharmaceutical industries, marriage, artificial insemination, censorship, fake news, fornication, and each other.
Then everyone rushed home because the next week was Thanksgiving and they needed to cook a turkey.
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