*Birth

Intro: I entered this story for the Machine of Death anthology and sadly I wasn't accepted. Therefore, since I didn't have any time to write a flash this week, NaNoWriMo taking up all of my time, I present my story to you. It comes in at almost 3,500 words.

The wheels of Kira's skateboard clacked in the cracks of the sidewalk as she rode to the university. Every so often she'd push off with her foot, just to get that extra burst of speed. She liked feeling the wind in her face since she practically cloistered herself during the school year. Traveling between home, school, and work was the only time she had to enjoy the air. The cool air brushing her cheeks this morning almost made forget the disastrous weekend.

She did it on a dare, a bit stupid for a twenty-one year old to accept the dare in the first place, but she did. Pay a buck. Prick your finger. Learn your cause of death. Simple. Almost painless. For Kira, however, it was more than that. It wasn't just learning her death. It was a realization that her life would only be looking around the corner for her death. That was why the paper with her fate remained stuffed in the back of her sock drawer.

"Kira, wait up."

Kira leaned back, bringing the board to a stop. She popped the deck and caught the end as it came up. Lance jogged up to her. They'd known each other in high school and somehow their friendship had persevered through two years of college despite their differences in majors. Kira pursued a degree in finance while Lance reveled in the psychology department. After Friday night she wasn't sure he would come talk to her. Her heart fluttered for a moment, glad everything was back to normal.

"I can't believe you still ride that thing around," Lance said, adjusting his shirt after the quick jog.

Kira held the skateboard close for a moment, a look of mock shock on her face. She bumped her shoulder against his and continued walking towards campus. "I can't afford a car."

"Maybe if you didn't waste your money."

She didn't reply. Today she felt rich and probably could afford a junker of a car, but today was bill day. The Doppelt Company would call at five-thirty so until then, she could pretend to be rich. Lance knew that she helped pay the monthly bills that plagued her parents.

The Doppelt Company provided medical technology. It was the only company that agreed to help her parents during her birth. They hadn't come cheap but they had helped when no one else would. Five years ago when she went looking for them, their website had consisted of a phone number and their logo. Now they called on a monthly basis for her money and it meant her parents didn't have to pay as much. They gave up more for her than she would ever be able to repay.

"Why not just walk?" Lance asked.

She laughed and turned to walk backwards in front of him. "Why walk when you can ride? I like the wind."

"It's going to be the death of you," Lance grumbled.

Kira winced. She didn't mean to. Her heel caught an uneven crack and she stumbled backwards. Lance's hand darted out and he grabbed her shoulder.

"Sorry," he said. "Poor choice of words."

"Don't worry about it," she said it with a smile, trying to bring back the light mood. But Lance wouldn't look at her.

It had been because of Lance that she'd used the old machine in the arcade last Friday. It squatted in the corner of the room, lurking among the lights and sounds. Everyone who walked into the arcade stared at it for a moment, as if sizing it up, and then ignored it. Kira, Lance, and various other friends had been to the arcade dozens of times throughout high school. They too would stare at the machine and every time someone would say "Fifty bucks." The others in the group would laugh and then everyone ignored it. As far as she knew, no one ever tried it.

Friday night it was just Lance and Kira. Technically it was a date, but they both refused to call it that, just in case it went wrong. No need to panic.

"Fifty bucks," Lance said.

"Make it a hundred," Kira replied.

"Two-hundred," Lance said.

Kira raised an eyebrow and they both laughed. They moved further into the arcade making a beeline for the air hockey table.

"A thousand," said another voice.

Kira laughed and kept walking. Lance stopped.

"A thousand dollars?" he asked.

"For using the machine. Learning how you die," the man replied.

"Come on, Lance," Kira said, turning around to pull him with her.

She recognized the speaker as the arcade owner. He held up a wad of bills. The arcade was a whirr of colored lights and 8-bit sounds from the machines, but the people in the room remained still and silent. The man tossed the money to Lance. It was a fairly large stack and Lance flipped through it, looking at the different denominations of bills.

"It's yours, if you have the balls to prick your finger."

"Why?" she asked.

"Few people have ever touched the machine, but once someone does everyone will."

Kira could see the gears in Lance's mind spinning. A thousand dollars for either of them would mean rent and food for at least two months. Or paying off more of the eternal medical bills from her birth. Lance didn't work. His school schedule was wonky, giving him an hour here or there, but not enough free time together for a job. The fact that he even considered the money made Kira shiver. He was broke and desperate.

"Fine," she said. "It's not like it's actually real."

A crowd condensed around her. She'd never seen the machine up close. The black and gold box stood to her shoulder. Dust clung to the surface obscuring the writing on the top. Kira lifted her hand and brushed the dust away hoping no one saw her hand shake.

Machine of Death
1. Insert $1 into slot.
2. Press finger against pad.
3. Take fortune.
4. Enjoy the rest of your life.

"All I have to do is prick my finger?" she said.

The man let out a little smirk and nodded. She moved over to Lance who still clutched the stack of money.

"This is on you," she said and pulled out a worn dollar. Lance looked like he was going to protest. He reached for the money but then pulled it back. He ran his fingers along the edge of the stack.

The machine ate the dollar in the first try and a small yellow square lit up on the front of the machine. Kira bit her lip but firmly pressed her left index finger against the square. The prick was quick but stung more than she anticipated. She pulled her finger away and stared at the small red dot in her flesh.

The black machine made no noise and nothing changed. After a minute of nothing, the machine beeped once. Nothing else happened. A small part of her wanted to cheer in relief as she turned towards the crowd.

"Done. Thanks for the money."

"Look," Lance said, his voice low. Resting in a small alcove was a square piece of white paper. It was blank. This time she was sure everyone could see her hands tremble as she picked it up. Her fingers felt the ridges of ink on the other side but she folded it quickly and stuffed it in her pocket.

"My death, my business," she announced. "Come on, Lance. Let's get out of here."

Lance trailed after her as she walked from the arcade on shaking legs. The arcade owner laughed, not seeming to care that he'd just lost a grand. But then again, people now flocked to the machine in droves. The now-officially-not-a-date-night ended five minutes later.

As Kira continued walking toward campus, she pushed the memory away. She tried to think of another conversation topic.

"Thanks for money," Lance said for the hundredth time. "You sure you don't want it?"

She wanted it, but she didn't want it. If she took the money, she would always remember the square of paper. If Lance had it, she could forget it in time, hopefully."I told you, keep it."

Lance fell silent and matched his stride to hers. Finally he said, "Are you doing anything this weekend?"

"Not that I know of."

This time Lance winced. He looked ridiculous and it made her sick that such a harmless comment would make anyone flinch.

Kira shook her head and stopped walking. Neither of them would forget and that would always be a barrier between them. "I can't handle this right now. Bye, Lance."

She dropped the skateboard to the sidewalk and pushed off. It wasn't as if the relationship would have gone anywhere anyways. Kira knew she couldn't offer him everything needed in the way of girlfriend or later as a wife. Besides paying for bills that sucked more than half of her income, an accident and subsequent surgery as a child left her physically incapable of getting pregnant. But, being barren wasn't as big as the money. Money would always be an issue. Having it or not having it. She kept telling herself that if Lance didn't care about the money, he wouldn't have accepted the thousand from her in the first place. He never even let her handle it.

In the first class of the day, her favorite class, she focused on the lecture through sheer willpower. In her general genetics class she found herself doodling geometric shapes on the margins of the handouts.

"Earth to Kira. Come in, Kira."

Her elbow slipped and she looked up in surprise. Her professor stood in front of her, arms folded and tapping his foot.

"I see that you have decided to join us, finally."

"Sorry," she said and sat up straighter in the chair.

"Did you at least complete the reading assignment?"

Kira looked at her book and wracked her brain. She had read it, before everything happened over the weekend.

"Clones," she said after a painful silence. "It was talking about how to use DNA to create clones, like Dolly the sheep."

"Anything else that you can remember?"

"Human cloning is frowned upon?" She said.

"Something that isn't common knowledge?"

Kira shook her head, her face burning.

The professor frowned and moved back to stand in front of the class. "The term is derived from the Greek word for trunk or branch. There are several different types of cloning, can anyone tell me what they are?"

As a student in the back answered, "Molecular, cell, and organism," Kira sagged back into her chair. She tried to pay attention for the rest of the class and by the time the lecture ended she was glad to be out of there. The ride to work, with the wind blowing in her face, wasn't nearly as calming as she hoped it would be.

At five o'clock, after her six-hour shift from Hades at the call center, Kira wanted to barricade herself in her apartment and never leave. Her first reaction to the awful day was to call Lance, but that option wasn't open anymore. She hated to mope and decided to do something about it. With a mug of hot chocolate, she curled up on the couch and called her father. Her parents had moved the year before to a smaller, cheaper, apartment.

"Hello, Dad."

"What's wrong?"

With just the two words he had known something was wrong. She wondered if that was why she'd called him, because she wanted him to know.

"Nothing."

He chuckled and she could hear him sniff.

"I can smell the hot chocolate from here."

It made her laugh, and a small bit of tension eased from her shoulders.

"Is it Lance?" he asked.

"You can figure everything out without me saying anything."

"Not everything," he said. She could picture him smiling, his blue eyes squinting almost closed as he did. "Why don't you tell me?"

She swirled the dregs of the chocolate in her cup. The last few sips were always the richest.

"I broke up with Lance."

"Why?"

"I just can't do it. I can't give him what he wants."

"Just because you can't get pregnant doesn't mean you can't have children. You should know better than anyone."

Adoption was always an option and she had no qualms about it. She loved her two younger brothers though they shared no blood. She winced, wanting to tell him about the bills she helped pay but she couldn't bring herself to. Now she sounded shallow. Kira was the oldest of three and the only biological child. During her delivery complications arose. She and her mother almost died in the process. It was almost a year before Kira came home from the hospital. She'd been small for her age but eventually caught up with everyone. Every three months she was suppose to have a checkup and the results were sent on to the Doppelt Company.

"There's something else that's bothering you."

She took a sip of the coco and the extra rich liquid settled in her stomach like liquid lead.

"Have you ever heard of something called the Machine of Death?"

"Machine of Death?"

She waited, hoping he would say more, yet wanting to take back the words.

"Why do you ask?" he finally said.

"There's one in the arcade, remember?"

There was another pause before her father laughed. "That Machine of Death? It's nothing but a prank. It's like an emo version of the old fortune teller machines they use to make."

He laughed again and she wanted to laugh with him, but it stuck in her throat. The weight in her stomach only grew with everything he said.

"We used to tease each other to go try it. It doesn't even work."

"Doesn't work?"

"We couldn't even get it to take the money," her father's voice was light hearted, too light hearted and almost pleading. It didn't add up.

"I should go," she said. "Talk to you later." She hung up.

He wouldn't call back. Not right now anyway.

She shuffled to her bedroom and lay on the bed, staring at the sock drawer. She couldn't decide what was worse, her father lying to her, or the fact that she knew the method of her death was written on a small piece of paper hidden in the back of her sock drawer. She tossed her phone on the pillow.

"How bad could it be?" she muttered and stood up, hand reaching for the drawer. "There's nothing to lose."

The phone rang. She didn't even look at it. Her courage faltered. The caller didn't leave a message. The phone rang again. She felt her determination slip with each ring. The caller never left a message. The fourth time the phone rang she walked over and picked it up without looking at the caller id. It was about time for the billing company to call.

"Hello?"

"Hi, honey. Am I interrupting something?"

"Mom?" Kira sat down on the bed and took a second to flip through her call list. Something was definitely wrong if her mother had called four times.

"I'm sorry to hear about Lance."

Kira flopped back on her bed.

"Maybe you should stay with us for a few days."

"I have school," Kira replied. "I can't commute three hours to school each day. I don't have a car."

"I don't — I guess you're right. Why don't we come up and visit you?"

Kira frowned as she looked around her small apartment. One bedroom, a bathroom, a small kitchen, and an equally small living room. Her parents couldn't afford a hotel, and there wasn't any room for them here.

"I'm fine. I'll come visit this weekend." She mentally added, "If I can find a ride."

"Are you sure you don't want us up there?"

"I'm fine."

The silence stretched over the phone and for a brief second she thought she heard her father in the background saying, " — couldn't know."

"See you this weekend," Kira said.

"Yes, of course. Make it a good week."

As soon as the call disconnected, Kira was on her feet. She pulled open the draw and snatched the fortune. The folded paper was smooth against her fingers. She opened it, keeping the message turned away from her and once again felt the raised ink. It drew her and though she knew it would burn her, as a moth to the flame, she turned the paper over.

Birth.

Her fingers traced the five letters, the weight in her stomach turning and wrenching. The word tasted vile in her mouth. It was like a sick joke, someone who was unable to have children dying due to a birth, just like her mother almost did. A birth would cause her death. If the Machine of Death was real, anyway. Obviously she survived her own birth, and she was certain it was anatomically impossible for her to get pregnant and give birth. That didn't leave many other options.

Birth.

The phone rang again. She glanced at the caller id this time, Doppelt Labs, and flipped it open. This call she'd been expecting. They always called the first Monday of the month at five-thirty. Like clockwork. The only thing certain in life was death, taxes, and medical bill collectors. She swallowed at the thought of death and pushed the thought from her mind.

"Hello."

"May I speak to Kira Patterson?"

"This is her," Kira said. She knew the routine after doing this since she had her first job at sixteen.

"Has your account information changed?" the woman asked.

"No."

"How much would you like to pay this month?"

"Five hundred."

"Would you like us to mail the receipt to you, or would you prefer to get setup online?"

"Online?"

The woman's voice could be described as chipper as she spoke. "It is a new process we are implementing, to better serve our clients. All of the bills can be managed through the secure server as well as tracking the progress of the work. If you have any complaints or questions there is always someone monitoring the site that can be of help."

"I don't think I have the rights for that, you might as well just mail the receipt."

"Of course you have rights."

Kira frowned. "No, I don't. I'm an anonymous donor." She added half to herself, "But I turned twenty-one last month. Could that be it?"

"You are listed on the account. I'll get you setup so you can see."

Kira moved over to her computer and followed the directions. The website looked almost the same, the name and a phone number, but now there was a sign in and password box at the top of the screen.

"Please let us know if you have any questions. We are especially interested in hearing from you."

"Yeah," Kira said, already typing in the information. A new window opened.

She barely heard the woman say, "Have a nice day," and hang up.

"The Doppelt company: Leading the World in Organism Cloning," she said reading the new information on the website. She clicked on the billing tab.

She knew the bill had to be large. Her parents had been making payments for twenty years.

"A million dollars? They paid a million dollars? For what?"

She clicked through the payment tabs looking at the number decrease from her own petty contributions and her parents' payments. They still had a long way to go. Maybe she could set aside eight-hundred each month.

Another link caught her eye.

"Notes," she read.

It looked like a blog, lines of text separated by dates. The date on top was from two months earlier. Her last doctor's appointment.

"Subject coping with extended stress of adult life. Vitals are in the normal expectancy range."

The next dozen entries were similar. She scanned down to a bigger paragraph of text.

"Subject entered the workforce. Worried about stress that comes from training. After three weeks patient shows exhaustion but body is coping well. All within range."

Further down she read.

"Setback in research. Subject suffered from internal injuries after being hit by a car. Surgeon removed reproductive organs that were damaged beyond repair. Will not be able to test theory of normal reproduction in Subject."

Birth.

Kira covered her mouth with a shaking hand. She scrolled down to the last entry on the page. Her birth date.

"Family made inquiry after daughter died due to complications from birth. DNA sequence retrieved from Kira Zero. Cloning process of Kira Prime to begin immediately."