Women in Deep Time Read Online Free PDF

not to care about their classifications.
    Reena was friendly and supportive, but still distant.
    As Letitia walked up the stairs, across the porch into the door of their home,setting her keyboard down by the closet, she saw the edge of a news broadcast in the living room. Nobody was watching; she surmised everybody was in the kitchen.
    From this angle, the announcer appeared translucent and blue, ghostly. As Letitia walked around to the premium angle, the announcer solidified, a virtual goddess of Asian-negroid features with high cheekbones, straight golden hair and copperbronze skin. Letitia didn’t care what she looked like; what she was saying had attracted her attention.
    “—revelations made today that as many as one-fourth of all PPCs inceived between sixteen and seventeen years ago may be possessors of a defective chromosome sequence known as T56-WA 5659. Originally part of an intelligence enhancement macrobox used in ramping creativity and mathematical ability, T56-WA 5659 was refined and made a standard option in virtually all pre-planned children. The effects of this defective sequence are not yet known, but at least twenty children in our city have already died. They all suffered from initial symptoms similar to grand mal epilepsy. Nationwide casualties are as yet unknown. The Rifkin Society is charging government regulatory agencies with a wholesale coverup.
    “The Parental Pre-Natal Design Administration has advised parents of PPC children with this incept to immediately contact your medicals and design specialists for advice and treatment. Younger children may be eligible to receive wholebody retroviral therapy. For more detailed information, please refer to our LitVid on-line at this moment, and call—”
    Letitia turned and saw her mother watching with a kind of grim satisfaction. When she noticed her daughter’s shocked expression, she suddenly appeared sad. “How unfortunate,” she said. “I wonder how far it will go.”
    Letitia did not eat much dinner. Nor did she sleep more than a couple of hours that night. The weekend seemed to stretch on forever.
     
    Leroux compared the laserfoam sculptures to her face, turning her chin this way and that with gentle hands before the green room mirror. As Leroux worked to test the various molds on Letitia, humming softly to himself, the rest of the drama group rehearsed a scene that did not require her presence. When they were done, Reena walked into the green room and stood behind them, watching. Letitia smiled stiffly through the hastily applied sheets and mounds of skinlike plastic.
    “You’re going to look great,” Reena said.
    “I’m going to look old,” Letitia said, trying for a joke.
    “I hope you aren’t worried about that,” Reena said. “Nobody cares, really. They all like you. Even Edna.”
    “I’m not worried,” Letitia said.
    Leroux pulled off the pieces and laid them carefully in a box. “Just about got it,” he said. “I’m getting so good I could even make Reena look old if she’d let me.”
    Letitia considered for a moment. The implication, rather than the meaning, was embarrassingly obvious. Reena blushed and stared angrily at Leroux. Leroux caught her stare, looked between them, and said, “Well, I could.” Reena could not argue without sinking them all deeper. Letitia blinked, then decided to let them off this particular hook. “She wouldn’t look like a grandmother, though. I’ll be a much better old lady.”
    “Of course,” Leroux said, picking up his box and the sculptures. He walked to the door, a mad headsman. “Like your great-grandmother.”
    For a long silent moment, Reena and Letitia faced each other alone in the green room. The old incandescent makeup lights glared around the cracked mirror, casting a pearly glow on the white walls behind them. “You’re a good actress,” Reena said. “It really doesn’t matter what you look like.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Sometimes I wished I looked like somebody in