The Baby Bureau

Dea and Mort headed over to the Baby Bureau. They’d just finished their bio tests, plus they’d had their application installed in their frontal lobes to monitor their mental suitability for Bonding Officer training. Now for the final hurdle. Interview time!

Mort had had a suitable outer garment made up to give the best impression, imitation fur for cuddling. Dea had gone for starched whites, hygienic and competent. They were so ready for a change of vocation. Their real world jobs were not safe.

As Dead City Reclaimers they were presently working in Edmon, Canarda West Zone, salvaging what consumables were left after the ravages. Their crew were concentrated in one enormous mall and had been these past four years.

Dea had been twiddling their palm radio one day. It was interiorly wired giving unending updates on zone dangers. Dea was amazed to catch an ad from the Baby Bureau. They squeezed a tear out when telling Mort about the position of Bonding Officer. The job description felt like bunny blankets, tasted of sweetness, and did not suggest a job where things fell on your head or where they would be subjected to gut clenching sights when sorting through rubble. Bonding Officers! Mort and Dea grinned at each other.

And then they got the sign! Dea and Mort were good at signs. They found a heart shaped locket when they were sorting through the twisted metal, hair and bones of the wrecked roller coaster.

"Love's coming our way!" Dea had said.

"Babies!" Mort whispered back.

On the cheap, mentally noted Dea disparagingly, as a third rate AI greeted them in the interview space. Its mask-like facial expressions consisted of one big grin showing keyboard teeth as a base line, alternating with one raised eyebrow and pursed lips whenever its monotonous voice asked a question.

“Why do you want this position?”

“Young charges are our future. Our One Eye Surveillance, has the population of this land now exactly the same as it was in in 1821! That’s….” Dea counted on their fingers, “Exactly 300 years ago. How are we peeple meant to survive!”

AI pressed an amber lit button. Mort began to perspire.

“We love nurturing. We can maintain our charges, follow the audible instructions to feed them right, and tell them stories with our own mouths.”

AI grinned and pressed the green lit switch that made a hey ho tune.

“Ok.” The keyboard teeth were strangely yellow. “Any questions for us?”

“So where do the charges come from at the Baby Bureau?” Dea was always the scientific one out of the two of them.

“The Bonding Officers make them.”

Dea and Mort stared at each other.

“How’s that done then?”

“You’ve planted seeds, haven’t you? Or seen it done on Picture Pages, the Information Bureau’s all inclusive information line to the peeple? It’s like that. But you don't do planting. You have to grow them inside yourselves.”

“What!”

“How do they get in?” whispered Dea.

“How do they get out? Mort stared down at their very thin body.

“They go in small but tend to grow quite big so we have to use sharp instruments to get them out.”

“Can’t you just print them from the computer?”

AI ignored that. “If you survive making them, and it's dicey as we usually recommend batches of four to five per bio body every time, then you stay on to feed them and do stories. A programmed helper, similar to myself, will clean them up and do bedtimes.”

“That growing them part wasn’t in the ad.”

“If you’d listened to the end, after the boo bop music, we did say. Bonding Officers grow their charges and get extra bonuses for how many survivals per go."

“What is the survival rate for this growing?”

“It is a healthy 85%. For the charges.”

“Is this where all the peeple come from?”

Dea was really smart thought Mort, able to make a mental leap like that.

“Well what do you think?” pursed lips.” Where did you two come from?”

“We were at the Camp together, weren’t we Mort?”

“We were part of the very last round up when the sky changed. The Stork Helicopters came into the Experimental Centre and airlifted us to the military camp.”

“Yes,” AI’s voice twinkled. “But where did you come from before that?”

“Did we get a story about that?” They looked at each other, simultaneously shrugging their shoulders.

AI interjected. “You have both made first rate inquiries.”

The hey ho tune was now played on a trumpet. A trap door opened in the floor. “Just follow the lit arrows down. Next!”