Chapter 2: Birth Of A Systemless Child
Evelon: RY 2020
January 31, 00:30 AM
The sound of lights buzzing. A woman's sigh of relief is heard as the child takes its first breaths. "Congratulations, Mr and Mrs Stein! It's a boy!" A male voice announced, presumably a doctor. The child's mother smiled and began to talk to the father quietly, speaking quickly so as not to let anyone, mainly the doctor, hear. "So, can you tell us what kind of system he has?" Mrs Stein asked the doctor. "Certainly." The doctor swiftly responded, dragging over a machine that seemed to be a box on wheels with a screen at the front. The doctor placed two pads on the child. One circular pad on their forehead and another on their heart.
The machine made weird noises as text and lights flickered on the screen. Those noises were followed by the sound of gears screeching to a halt as a singular line of text appeared on the screen.
{No detected system.}
Mrs Stein looked down at her child, the baby staring back at her with a smile on its innocent face. "Surely the machine must be faulty, right?" She asked the doctor, who just let out a sigh. "No, ma'am. This machine is properly calibrated to ensure that it's correct. Your child has no system. I am sorry." The doctor consoled her, telling her the straight truth. Mr Stein looked down at his child with a look of disappointment, which Mrs Stein caught. "Don't look at your child like that, Steven! He's the product of nine months of our lives!" Mrs Stein reprimanded him, only provoking a sigh from her husband. "How do you think our other kids are going to react, Samantha? They all have systems! They're going to pick on him, no matter how much we tell them not to!" Mr Stein told her, shocking Mrs Stein. "Do you not know how poorly people treat those without systems?!"
"Calm down, Mr Stein." The doctor said to Mr Stein, trying to put his hand on Mr Stein's shoulder to calm him down, but it was swiftly slapped away. The sound of the smack caused the child to start crying, forcing Mrs Stein to bounce it up and down lightly, trying to soothe it. "Well, great job, Steven! You've caused the baby to cry!" Mrs Stein told her husband, who just looked at her with an angered expression. "That child is going to be put through hell because of how our society treats kids like them. If you think that everything is going to be sunshine and rainbows, you are gravely mistaken." Mr Stein reprimanded his wife. "You can decide a name for that child. I'll be waiting for you at home. Get a taxi." Mr Stein said before leaving, abandoning his wife in the delivery room.
After a good thirty seconds of painful silence, the doctor spoke up. "I'm sorry you had to go through that. It was just a stroke of bad luck that your child had a one-in-ten thousand chance of not having a system. Your son lost the game of luck, so to speak." The doctor apologised. "It's not your fault." Mrs Stein sighed, looking down at her baby, who had stopped crying. "You'll need to be brave. I'm going to name you Archibald, but you're going to be nicknamed Archie. After all, your name will mean bravery." Mrs Stein told her boy, putting the child up towards her and hugging it.
"What a nice name." The doctor remarked. "I'm going to officially name him Archibald, as you want. However, his nickname is not going to be officially recorded, because that'd be silly." The doctor informed her. "Yeah, why would somebody legally name their child their nickname?" Mrs Stein chuckled, a smile on her face. Noticing that his mother was happy, Archie instinctively began to laugh too, or make some semblance of laughing. Mrs Stein placed Archie in front of her face and began whispering to him. "You're going to have to be brave for your entire life, Archie. People will look down on you, beat you up, and kick you while you're already on the ground. I want you to know that your home will always be your haven." Mrs Stein whispered to Archie, who had no idea what was going on but kept on smiling anyway.
Many hours later, after a good sleep, Samantha, Archie's mother, went to go check on her child. They had put Archie in a room with only one other child. This was a nursery for systemless children. Samantha was surprised to see any other children in there at all. There was another nursery specifically for children with systems, but Samantha had no need to go to that one. Not this time. She saw a male nurse standing nearby, so she walked over to him so that she could ask a few questions. "Excuse me, sir. Do you know when my baby will be able to come out of the nursery? I've had kids with systems before, but never a systemless one, so I want to know if it's any different this time." Samantha asked the male nurse, who was more than happy to answer her questions. "Well, children who are systemless usually have a better metabolism and a higher amount of general antibodies in their system, so in about six hours from now you'll be able to take your baby home." The male nurse responded, a smile on his face. "Oh, that's perfect. Thank you, nurse!" Samantha responded, the smile on the male nurse's face growing larger, as that was one of the first times he had actually been recognised as a nurse.
Samantha walked back up to her assigned room, where she had some clothes that she had managed to bring with her to change into after she had given birth. She slipped out of the clothes that she had slept in and put on a new set of clothes. These consisted of a pair of jeans, a blue t-shirt and a black hoodie. She preferred comfort to style, in her own words. She spent the next few hours walking around the hospital, getting a drink from the vending machine near the nursery and watching her child as the nurses on duty made sure that he would be alright once he left.
She soon walked out of that hospital with her child and flagged down a taxi. Samantha didn't have a car to come home in as her husband, Mr Stein, otherwise known as Steven, had driven home in it at midnight. She paid the taxi man his fare before they started driving, just in case she forgot later. Archie was silent for most of this time, which surprised his mother.
This was the start of Archie's life, and he wasn't going to enjoy every minute of it.
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