So many went about their day-to-day life with the vague unease that things were sliding past the point of no return. It was easier to push it away, to focus on the problems that could be solved. What to have for dinner. Fretting about how to pay for that leak in the roof. Those in power can worry about the larger things—that’s why we voted for them. What can one person do?

Naomi needed to move. She fished the pregnancy test from the bottom of the bath, wrapped it in a plastic bag, and shoved it into the pocket of her hoodie. She paced through her nice, boring suburban neighbourhood. There had been a cold snap—gooseflesh shivered across her skin until her furious pacing warmed her up.

It’d been easy, in the end, for Cochran to borrow enough from religious rhetoric to overturn Roe v. Wade but only for the first child. Population control was still a necessity, so they reluctantly also increased sex education in schools. They still espoused the virtues of monogamous marriage, but birth control was readily available. This had the benefit of convincing left-leaning voters, such as disenfranchised libertarians, to support Cochran. And of course, it was a death knell for vat-grown wombs like Valerie’s Haven.

Naomi walked faster.

With the additional child tax, the poor were unable to afford more than one child, the middle class were largely content to stop at one, and the rich continued to illustrate that having a brood of children showed just how rich they were. All in the name of population control and the good of the country, the world.

Naomi threw away the pregnancy test in someone else’s trash half a mile from her apartment. She wove her way back, thinking it all through, weighing up her options.

When Cole returned from work, he drew her close, his mouth on hers. They took a shower together, and she tried not to think of that thwack of the plastic against the tile. It hadn’t left a mark. She ran her hands down the muscles of his back and tried not to resent that he couldn’t remember to take a damn pill every morning.

Naomi had grown up wanting children, but later. Much later. Five years, maybe ten. When she’d had time to finish training and go to space for a tour or two. Save up the money to turn down the bonus and keep her career, or hope the political situation swung back towards progress. Why have children unless she could be sure humanity would actually last longer than a few decades?

A tiny part of her wondered if Cole’s happiness at being a father would outweigh what it meant for Naomi. If he’d realise the extent of what she’d have to give up. In his mind, she would have no choice but to keep it. That was the way things were, now.