Chapter Two
Two weeks later, Luna wasn't sure if she should really be as sanguine as she had been when she called up the agency. It flew under the banner of Forward Edge Solutions, and no matter what she looked up, she couldn't be certain of who they were or what they did.
The initial screening had been easy. After all, it had just been a long questionnaire administered by a terribly earnest-looking young woman. There had been plenty of health questions, but there were some odd ones as well. Why did they need to know whether she liked children (yes), or whether she had ever had one before (no)?
After the initial testing had come some of the more invasive tests and questions, and she had finally figured out that it all had something to do with fertility.
I wonder if they're planning on making an offer on my eggs or something like that, she thought. If so, this is a lot of secrecy and security.
She had known some girls who had sold their eggs before, and though she had never thought about doing anything like that herself, perhaps she could do it? A part of her wondered at whether she would really be able to stand the idea of a small baby out there that was part of her that she couldn't help raise or hug or love, but worse things had happened in the world. She would have to make herself okay with it.
The tests were strange if they wanted to harvest her eggs though. The gynecological exam made sense, even if it felt exasperatingly thorough. The photo session made no sense at all.
"But why do they need to know what I look like?" she had asked. "And why aren't my own clothes good enough?”
The photographer had shrugged impatiently and prodded her into place. Luna could only assume that the man had plenty of other women to photograph, and so she had shrugged, gritted her teeth, and gotten down to it.
It was fine when he got a full body shot and a few head shots, but when he suggested that she lean over in the ridiculous green sequin gown that they had put her in, she had flat out refused. The man had suggested that it might work against her, and Luna had narrowed her eyes.
"Then I'm obviously not right for the job, right? Which this process is meant to find out. That's what you're getting, and that's it."
He had muttered angrily about it, but in the end, he had only got her scowling in the dress, her arms crossed over her chest.
I can't wait until this is over, she thought, finally allowed to leave Forward Edge for the day. I just want my thousand dollars, and then I am gone.
***
The organization that Tucker had put together to help him find the right surrogate was beginning to send him the results, and he couldn't say that he was impressed.
There were only a few who had passed the stringent testing requirements, and after that, looking at the test results of the others, there was just something... lacking.
He knew that there were people out there who would criticize his search for the right woman to bear his child, but at this point, he didn't care. He wanted a child born from his body and that of a woman he had chosen. In all of history, that made him perfectly normal, though most of the men chose to keep the woman afterward.
That was the issue, he knew. Tucker knew himself well enough, and he felt he knew women well enough in general to know that anything like a marriage or even shared custody was a disaster waiting to happen. No, it was far better to go through the process with a stranger, and to afterward pay her a large sum of money to disappear, leaving him with his heir.
As he went through profile after profile, however, there was just something wrong with each of them. This one had a kind of artificial prettiness that set his teeth on edge, that one looked like she was worn out. He was wondering whether to scrap the entire process and try again when one profile made him pause.
The picture showed a short woman, likely no taller than 5'4”. Her hair was a deep and vivid red of a type he had never seen before, but something told him that it wasn't dyed. Under the lights, she looked pale, but there was a healthy pink tinge to it. What truly caught the eye, however, were her eyes. They were a bright emerald that shone with some kind of emotion. From the glare she was giving the camera, it was a safe bet to say that it was rage. Her round chin was lifted up stubbornly, and for some reason, he found himself wanting to kiss her.
Looking at her body in the tight green dress, he had to say that despite her not being his type, it was still compelling. She was curvy, her round white breasts pushed high in the dress, and under a tiny waist, her hips billowed like a wave.
Good child-bearing hips is what they might have said a long time ago, he mused.
By all rights, this girl should have been passed along to the rejected pile like all the rest, but something stopped him from doing that. Tucker wondered if he was just too tired and irritated to make a real choice, but somehow he didn't think so.
In the course of making his fortune, he had taken some terrible risks. He had dropped stock that others told him were sure things, and he had taken on more risk than anyone else he knew. Tucker had had deals go bad, but in general, he listened to his instincts, and they paid off.
Right now, his instincts were telling him something about this young woman, and he decided that he wasn't going to stop listening to them now.
"All right then, Luna Madrigal, let's see if you've got what it takes," he said out loud, and he pulled out his phone to make the call.
***
Luna figured that it was another test. They had promised her that it would be over soon, and she had every expectation of holding them to all of it. The driver who came to get her looked askance at her jeans and her tattered black hoodie, but she lifted her chin and dared him to make a big deal of it.
She felt she had made it far enough in the process that nothing she could say or do would affect very much at all. Then the sleek dark car pulled up to an impressive glass building downtown, and she was slightly less sure.
She scurried to the front desk, dodging people who wore more than twice her rent on their bodies on a regular basis, and waved down the receptionist. Even the receptionist was dressed better than she was, and she grimaced inside.
"Can I help you?"
"Oh, um, I'm reporting to Forward Edge?" she asked anxiously. "Um, they told me to be here, and I don't know if someone was meant to meet me or..."
"Oh!" said the receptionist. To Luna's surprise, the other woman sat up straight, and when she spoke, it was with a significantly more respectful tone. "Of course, Miss Madrigal. Right this way. I'll take you up."
Luna weakly protested that she could find her own way just fine, but the woman was already stepping forward to guide her with a kind of deference that was bewildering. Without the ability to protest or to figure out what was going on, however, all Luna could do was follow along in her wake, getting more nervous as it all went on.
The glass elevator ride to the top floor was nerve-rackingly smooth and fast, and the receptionist presented her with a large solid door.
"Um, should I..."
The other woman leaned around Luna, pressing a small button hidden in a carved wooden motif.
"Miss Madrigal here to see you, sir."
"Come in."
The voice that responded was deep and dark in a way that Luna couldn't understand, but it sent a strange velvety ripple through her. It made her nervous at the same time that it made her feel soothed, and she figured that that was something that she could figure out much later.
The receptionist nodded that she should enter, and gulping back a strange source of fear, she opened the door.