“She’s you daughter.” The man stared through the mirror-window at the small toddler playing on the floor. Everything was white, and it hurt to look at it all. Including her. The most colorful thing about her was her washed-out blonde hair and colorless eyes- such a clear gray that they seemed to see right through everything they looked at.

“Impossible,” he whispered, mouth dry. It had always been, they had always known. There was no way.

“Your wife volunteered herself for our testing.” The doctor gestured towards the small room, “And it worked.”

The man shook his head incredulously, and then reached out towards the window hesitantly. Realizing what he was doing, he drew it back and stared at his hand in amazement, as if it was a foreign entity that happened to be attached to the rest of him.

“We weren’t allowed…a child,” he said quietly to no one in particular.

But the doctor answered him anyways with a shake of his head, “An exception is made for testers. Probably the reason your wife submitted. As you know, this unfortunately resulted in her untimely death.” The man nodded, still not looking at the doctor. He had been furious when he found out; in this day and age, women were too small to carry children normally. Babies were gown in tubes, they already had had two children at the time she submitted herself. But she’d always wanted to carry a baby to term, to see what it was like. And being unusually tall, she thought she’d be okay. But the doctors said that the tall genes had passed to her baby, and it was too large. He thought it had died. But there she was, sitting in front of him.

“Do I keep her?” he asked. The idea both repelled and fascinated him.

“As a non-participant of the program, and the child’s official guardian, you are allowed visits,” The doctor stated, getting down to business. “But as part of the original agreement, the child belongs to us. We have naming rights, and work rights till she turns sixteen.”

The man stared. “Children don’t come to majority till eighteen.”

The doctor shrugged, “In your particular case, your wife wanted some time for the child to have a normal life before joining the workforce, so we allowed an early release. You can choose to leave her with us when the time comes, if you want.”

The man nodded, but said nothing. “A whole year and I never knew,” he murmured.

The doctor nodded apologetically, “Papers had to be signed and sent, death of participant you know. Now if you’d just sign the agreement form here, you’ll be properly reimbursed of course…”