The Kit

The Kit

A few minutes after getting the message for delivery, Ted brought in the kit he had ordered. Rob was at the door before Ted could set the box down. Rob always showed up when anyone in complex 338D got deliveries. In case it was booze or porn or food. But just in case it wasn't any of those, he brought along his own beer. In fact, he never went anywhere without a beer in his hand.

"What you get?" he asked as he made himself comfortable on Ted's couch.

"Home breeding kit," Ted told him as he put the box on his coffee table.

Rob looked disappointed for a moment, but then he cheered up.

"Cool. What you making?"

"A kid," Ted told him as he unsealed the box and the word 'non-returnable' appeared on the top in red letters.

"What kind?" Rob asked after a sip of his beer.

"My kid," Ted said as he sat on the edge of the coffee table for a minute.

"Clone or mix?"

"Mix. I don't want the kid to have my nose," Ted explained as he wrinkled his problematic nose.

Rob inspected Ted's nose like he had never seen it before and nodded agreeing that it should be kept out of any future generations.

"Put in some cat. The kid will be real agile," Rob suggested and made catlike moves with his free hand.

"And he'll lick himself and get hairballs," Ted pointed out.

Rob shrugged and took another sip of beer like he was saying 'whatever, some people want kids that lick themselves and get hairballs and some don't.

"Hal made a cool thing. Looks like a snake and a giraffe. It's only this big," Rob said as he put his free hand a foot away from his beer. "But it won't eat anything. He'll have to recycle it soon."

Rob watched Ted take another box out of the shipping box.

"Well I don't want to have to recycle a kid," Ted said while he carefully unpacked the kit. The kit came with three recycling pouches. Ted didn't want to have to use them.

"No, man, that's sad," Rob agreed. Then moved on to more cheerful matters. "Who else is in the mix? You can't afford a model's DNA or anyone famous," Rob said as he scratched the back of his head.

"No. I got Pauline to chip in some of her DNA."

Rob got a squinty look on his face, like he was picturing her.

"That's not bad. Just don't get her feet in there," Rob said as he pointed to his own feet. Ted refused to look at Rob's feet.

"I won't. I'm keeping out her feet and my nose and my dentist phobia," Ted told him as he counted off the three things on his fingers.

"Good thinking."

"Otherwise the kid is all natural," Ted said as he arranged the contents of the kit on the coffee table and made sure that the box had everything it was supposed to.

"Can I watch?" Rob asked him.

"No! I don't want any of your skin flakes ending up in there," Ted said and made sure the kit was covered as he looked at Rob's lank, thinning, blond hair with his flaking, reddish scalp showing through.

"Hey, the kid should be so lucky," Rob protested, not very offended at all.

"I told you, I don't want a kid that licks himself," Ted told him with a straight face.

"I should be so lucky," Rob said as he went out the door.

Ted hardly noticed - he was flipping through the manual. The first ten pages were the legal disclaimers. Then a dozen pages of warnings. The actual instructions were no big deal. Just like baking a potato in the microwave.



When Ted opened the door again, it was Pauline

"I can't" was the first thing she said.

Ted had heard it often - from her, from others. He hoped he heard wrong though.

"What?"

"I can't give you my DNA," she said apologetically.

"Why?" Ted asked mostly resigned.

"I saw the thing Hal made," she said and wrinkled her perfectly acceptable nose.

"The giraffe snake thing?"

"Yeah," she said with both disgust and pity.

"I'm not making one of those," Ted assured her seeing as how she didn't think it was cool.

"I know, but you could make a mistake."

"I'm not going to make a snake giraffe thing mistake. It's just my DNA and your DNA. Simple, easy, perfectly natural."

She shook her head.

"What about just your nose DNA. You have a real cute nose," he told her, but his desperate use of flattery only made her shake her head some more.

"Something could fall in. Bette dropped some cheese crumbs in her kit, and this oozing, yellow thing came out." Pauline made a face. "She was trying to make a kitten poodle for her mom. One that didn't shed. Like they advertise."

"Did it shed?" Ted asked stupidly, and she gave him an appropriate look.

"It oozed, I just told you. I have to go."



Ted couldn't believe Hal and Bette ruined it for him. And people like Hal and clumsy Bette would ruin it for everyone. They were already talking about mandatory breeding licenses and recycling permits.

Ted didn't even want to think about how much that would cost. If he waited, it would come to that, and he wouldn't be able to afford a kid. And he had a perfectly good breeding kit right there on his coffee table. The next to newest model. With DNA filtering, and DNA tidy, and undesirable feature exclusion on demand. According to the manual, which he was reading, you could keep out up to five features, even if cloning from a single donor as long as you had replacement DNA for those parts. And he didn't because Hal's Dr. Frankensteinging all over the place made Pauline chicken out. Now if he kept out his nose, he'd end up with a noseless kid. And a kid with no nose would get teased even more than a kid with an ugly nose. Probably.

The kit parts set on the table sealed in their sterile pouches. The box was on the floor with the red 'non-returnable' sign.



Ted walked down the hall to Rob's apartment. Some of Rob's loud music was breaking through the sound insulation on his door.

As he dialed for entry, Ted couldn't believe he was doing this.

"Rob, come over. I need your nose."


The End