Life is complex, especially if you are a woman and have a baby to take care of. What does the future have in store for childcare? In the increasingly commercial world, technology would surely offer a solution - perhaps, a robotic Nanny. What are the consequences of letting the market and technology care for your child? Would our innate love for our children assert its primacy? Read on for Anitha Murthy's story on the state of childcare in the future and what one mother makes of it. This story is the joint second prize winner of 2007 TS3C.TheScian Science Fiction Short Story Contest [1] Anitha Murthy likes to describe herself as a lazy dreamer. She is a software consultant living in Bangalore who enjoys the luxury of working from home, where she also plays full-time mother to her energetic little daughter. Her home on the web is here [2].
The night was like a thick blanket snuffing out all light. Ria lay rigid on the cool bed, half-listening to the slumbering sounds of her partner, a vague sense of unease nibbling at her mind.
"I think you're just imagining things." Mihir had dismissed her misgivings earlier in the day.
"But Cookie won't stop crying."
"All babies cry, Ria." Mihir's statement was emphatic and brooked no argument.
Before leaving for work, Ria had peeked into the nursery. The Nanny was cooing over Cookie, exhorting him to drink his milk which ran in rivulets down his obstinate chin. Tears stained his little face. Ria had retreated, a little worried about the scene. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. She had seen The Nanny at work in other homes. Babies gurgled with a calm content when cradled in The Nanny's cushioned arms. Cookie, however, was neither calm or contented; he was bawling his lungs out.
“The Nanny isn’t God.” The cryptic comment came from Sania, her colleague, who had given her a patient hearing.
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Ria. Surely you know that The Nanny isn’t the last word in child-care?”
“It isn’t?” Ria had been puzzled. Barring stray news reports of weird people who liked to go against the norm, all the babies she had ever known had been brought up by The Nanny.
“I’m talking about Gaia.”
Ria had laughed. “Oh, that Involved Parenthood stuff? Sania, I can’t believe you take the Gaia movement seriously! That’s just pandering to quirkiness.”
“It’s not quirkiness, it’s going back to your roots.” Sania had defended. “It’s about connecting and bonding in the natural way.” However, before Ria could probe further, she had quickly changed the topic.
When Ria came home late in the evening, Cookie was red in the face. The nursery looked like a war-zone. Milk bottles lay like half-exploded grenades on the floor, and The Nanny was crooning a song in vain to calm the restless infant.
She had waited till Cookie fell into an exhausted nap before running The Nanny through a self-test.
"All systems OK." The Nanny had said in a sing-song voice.
"Damn!" Ria had hurled the manual into the corner in desperation.
She turned over now, her hands curled into fists that dug into the knot of apprehension in her stomach. Sania’s words floated through her mind unbidden, and she sighed in exasperation. Gaia be damned. If only she could sleep.
"What's happening?" Mihir asked sleepily, his hands snaking over her body and pulling her closer to him.
"I just can't sleep." Ria exploded as she sat up abruptly. A soft light filled the room with eerie shadows.
"What?" He yawned and rubbed his eyes.
"It's Cookie. I'm telling you - something's wrong."
"Is he still crying?"
"No."
"Then?"
"I'm going to check on him now." Ria stood up. The light brightened perceptibly.
"All right, I'll come with you." Mihir rose, battling his reluctance.
The Nanny was standing inside it's pod, recharging and updating itself with all the latest updates to its routines. As they stood near the crib, Cookie looked up at them with large unblinking black eyes, sucking his thumb.
"See, he's all right," Mihir grasped her shoulder. "There's nothing to worry about."
Cookie broke into a reassuring grin. A little toothless grin that did strange things to Ria.
The grey, squat buildings of Cherubs Inc. huddled together, as if they were braving the storm that was brewing inside.
Cherubs Inc. specialized in making babies. They were the global patent owners for the Cherub birth system, which was now the de-facto standard for reproduction. It involved a simple extraction of the sperm and egg, induced fertilization that had a 99.99% success rate, and artificial wombs that housed the babies till they were ready to be "delivered".
Cherubs Inc., however, had gone one step further. The Nanny had been the one invention that had completely revolutionized child-care. Tailored specifically for each baby such that all its needs would be taken care of in the most appropriate manner, The Nanny was part of the baby package now. Though several companies had tried to replicate The Nanny with moderate success, Cherubs Inc. had the advantage of the first to go to market and monopolize most of the demand. It assiduously cultivated its captive clientele.
It was clear to the attendees of a meeting at Level 3 that trouble loomed over the horizon.
"The statistics speak for themselves", Javed, third-generation CEO of the Jagir family, jabbed at the screens that surrounded the pensive team. A tall man with thinning hair and a nose that could sniff out every secret, he was bleary-eyed.
"Every week there's been a 48% rise in complaints. At this rate, we'll go under in no time." He paused. "Where are we with the systems check, Sakib?"
Sakib was middle-aged, but still looked like a young film star. Rumours abounded that the brilliant scientist occasionally nipped into the baby section to concoct rejuvenating potions. There was a nervous twitch above his left eye now as he replied.
"We're strip-checking. There's no other way. So far, zilch."
"And how long is it expected to take?"
"Can't say." Sakib shrugged. "There are sixty thousand odd pieces that need to be tested. Manually. We're still at double-digits, seventy two at last count."
Javed became aware that he was sweating. He flicked his tongue over his lips, the taste of salt hit his tongue making him cringe a little.
"OK, speed it up, I don’t care how. We've simply got to move faster."
The meeting was brief and gloomy. As the team dispersed, Javed signalled to Sakib to stay behind.
"Sakib, this is serious."
"I know."
"We have to do something before it hits the news"
"I'm trying, Javed. So far, there hasn't been a single pattern that we've been able to identify."
"Do you know exactly when the first complaints began?"
"First incidence was reported in June of last year. It's been a steady trickle ever since."
"Hmm." Javed tapped the table, a billion thoughts whizzing through his impatient mind.
"We introduced Model N-710 of The Nanny in April. No configuration changes after that." Javed didn't need the reminder. They had been through this half a dozen times.
"Anything with the birth rates?"
Sakib moved his fingers over the screens, and a dozen graphs filled the room.
"Nothing. Normal distribution pattern."
Javed began pacing up and down, his brow furrowed. "We're clutching at straws. There has to be some way to stop this thing from getting out of hand." He halted and turned to Sakib, fear germinating in his eyes. "We're this close to getting wiped out - this close!" His thumb and forefinger almost touched.
The strikingly similar portrait of Mallick Jagir, his grandfather, watched them with interest. When Mallick Jagir had returned from foreign shores to Indrapur more than a century ago, he brought a suitcase of revolution with him.
A paper entitled “Economics of Motherhood” by Lakshman, Leibowitz, and Drake had taken the world by storm. Popularly entitled LLD, it had dwelt in detail upon the massive drain of human resources from industries because of females giving birth. The impact had been both astonishing and swift, and the immediate reaction was to outsource both birth and child-care.
Surrogate mothers were being used widely, sponsored and supported by the industries. Mallick was wise enough to foresee the chaos, emotional issues, and worst of all, the cancerous lawsuits that were spawned as a result.
His plan was simple. After seven and a half years of intensive research, development, and harsh secrecy, he announced the Cherub birth system to the world.
The response, to put it mildly, was hostile. Mallick was ostracized from civilization within a week. But by the time he had passed on the reins of Cherubs Inc., to his son Firoze, the outright skepticism and ethical outrage had given way to a grudging admiration, and finally acceptance. Now, it was the norm in most societies.
Astonishingly, women were the most ardent supporters of the Cherub birth system, hailing it as the perfect route to freedom from the tyranny of motherhood. Even in the most under-developed countries, women fought to implement the Cherub birth system. The advantages were obvious: no more time off from work meant more money, and fewer health issues meant more productive life times. It was liberation at its best. Mallick Jagir, for all his acumen, had never foreseen this.
A sharp buzz pierced the tension. A voice shaking with excitement said, "Sakib?"
Sakib answered. "Yes?"
"Could you come over to Lab D210 please? It's urgent. We think we've found something."
Sakib and Javed looked at each other, an explosion of hope lighting up their faces.
They hurried outside the conference room, and made their way to the labs that were housed towards the end of the facility. They passed large silent rooms where foetuses at various stages of development lay in artificial wombs, the manufacturing robotic units that silently assembled the latest models of The Nanny, the "Brain" where the software was installed into The Nanny, and the well-lit testing areas where The Nannys did their first basic learning with dummies.
Sakib and Javed entered Lab D210. At the epicenter of the nervous energy that rippled through the air stood a young intern. Johnson was at the large computer screen that dominated the room. A dismantled Nanny lay on the table beside him. The others had crowded around him.
Sakib pushed his way through to the front.
Johnson was trying hard to control the quaver in his voice. "I was asked to review the software..."
"Just tell us what you've found, young man." Javed interrupted brusquely.
Johnson swallowed, and tapped on the screens. A code snippet appeared, with a single line highlighted.
"That's the pheromone trigger," Sakib said, instantly recognizing the line.
He was the one who had introduced the concept of the pheromone spray. A fresh-faced new recruit, he had impressed Firoze instantly with the revolutionary idea that had worked wonders. Pheromones were tapped from both the mother and father and The Nanny was draped in a gentle halo of the mix. The rejection rate of The Nanny by babies had come down drastically, and consequently, the sales had boomed. It was now a core feature of The Nanny and all of its clones that had flooded the market.
"Yes," Johnson said, perspiration beading his upper lip. "The pheromone mix is the problem."
Javed's voice was cold with disbelief. "You do know that The Nanny goes through two dozen rounds of testing before it's released, right? Are you telling me that in all these rounds, this problem has remained undetected?"
"Sir, the tests are for the sprays - they check if they get triggered when near the baby. The actual efficacy of the pheromones are not really tested."
"Sakib," Javed's voice was grim. "Tell me this is not true."
"Yes, Javed, it's true, "Sakib replied in a clear but low voice. "We can't really test the pheromone mix itself. There's no way. The dummy babies will not respond. We've been working on it for quite some time now, but there's no cost-effective way to test every individual spray. The variations are too many for standardized operations."
Javed was silent.
"What data do you have to confirm this?" Sakib asked.
Johnson tapped on the screen. A series of graphs filled the room.
"I've managed to collate data from several sources. What we're looking at is the tabulation of the pheromone effectiveness over the last five decades." He paused, for this was his moment to impress his employer and plant the seeds of his ambitions for growth within the company.
"The trend shows a 63% degradation."
A chill reached into the room with long cold fingers.
"It's no longer strong enough to do its job. With growth always on our heels, we never looked at historical data. And now, we are at the brink of disaster", Sakib could not hide his frustration.
Javed interrupted, his eyes gleaming with a sudden excitement. "Very good, Johnson. Excellent work. I want a thorough check done to ensure that this is the only problem. Sakib, a word?"
They stepped outside, and Javed could hardly contain himself.
"Brilliant!" he exulted. "Sakib, do you see the potential in this? It's huge!”
He snorted with impatience at the perplexed look on the scientist’s face.
“That pheromone program we have, let's double, no, quadruple its budget. Our competition has been focused on marketing pheromones to singles, to help attract partners. But this is light years ahead of that. This pitches us in the right place: Specially Tailored Pheromone synthesis for your family! Every couple will have to use our pheromone synthesis services if they want their babies brought up the perfect way, The Nanny way. It naturally becomes part of the package. This is awesome, far better than I had ever expected."
Sakib drew in a sharp breath, conflicting emotions robbing him of speech.
Javed continued. "Let's focus on the damage control right now. First we need to make sure that this is our only problem. Let's trigger the standard recall procedure. And then..." He rubbed in his hands in anticipation.
Sakib nodded. His work was cut out for him.
Ria stood outside the nursery, listening to Cookie cry. It was heart-rending, and all the cooing of The Nanny could not stop him. This was awful. There had to be a solution! She had called up Cherubs Inc. to lodge a complaint. They had been very polite and had told her they would get back at the earliest. Meanwhile, she had to bear with this. If it was just noise, she'd put on her white-noise earphones, but this was something else altogether. She had no name to tag the yearning she was experiencing, something she’d never experienced before, a longing to rush out there and protect Cookie, to hold him in her arms and never let him go…
She walked into the nursery, cringing at the sight of Cookie banging his head against The Nanny who was trying to restrain him.
"Stop!" she called out in reflex, and Cookie turned at the sound of the alien voice.
Ria instinctively took the baby from The Nanny, and gathered him up to her. The Nanny backed away quietly. Cookie’s little body felt warm and his face was wet.
“Hey you,” she whispered, stroking his tears away. His bawling slowly subsided into a whimper, and he looked up at her with teary eyes as she rocked him gently in her arms, a natural rhythm magically resurrecting within her. She stood there for what seemed like an eternity, staring into his eyes, until his mouth went slack and his eyes fluttered shut, his body in a cosy cuddle against her own.
A swell of emotion washed over Ria, and she tried to control her trembling excitement. What had just happened? What had she done?
"Ria," she heard Mihir's voice calling from below. "Ria, where are you?"
Ria didn't answer. She waited for him to come up to the nursery.
"Ria, you were right! Something was the matter with The Nanny after all! They've announced a recall. We’ll need to turn in The Nanny at the earliest…"
He stopped short at the strange sight.
"What...what’s happening?"
"Come here." Ria's voice had a light music to it.
Mihir came to her side.
"Look at him."
Just at that moment, Cookie awoke. His smile was like a thousand suns.
Ria looked at The Nanny, which was tidying up the nursery. And then she looked at Mihir, fascinated by the baby. Gaia, she thought, I must ask Sania about it.
"Mihir, I think we need to rethink about using The Nanny. We may do just fine without it."
Cookie gurgled in agreement.
END.
