I walked the across the courtyard surrounded by many small houses. In one broad space that separated two of the houses at one side was a window. The restaurant on the other side was not yet opened for the day, so the window was still dark. That was why night was the only time I ever came out into the courtyard willingly. I didn’t want to be picked to be someone’s dinner.

Of course, I thought to myself, I could always be picked by someone who walked through the hallway surrounding the wall, looking through the windows into each of our houses.

I looked around me. There were over a hundred small one-room buildings crushed together against the wall, and then over a hundred placed on top of those, and each one had a window to the hallway on the other side. It was designed so that someone who wanted a meal to go could pick one of us, even right from our homes, and take them home to eat later. We each had a tiny bathroom squeezed in right next to the window, so small that it couldn’t even be called a room. Usually if I saw someone coming to look through, I would hide in there, squeezing into a sitting position in the puny shower.

I took a deep breath and exhaled, my breath forming white clouds in front of me. I looked up at the sky and scowled at the invisible force field stretching around the walls that was designed to let everything but precipitation and us through. Which meant that even though there was no snow falling in here right now, it was still freezing. I shivered and pulled my coat around me even tighter before turning to walk back to my house. As I started to open my door I heard a sound coming from my neighbor’s house.

“Christina?” I asked, walking over to knock on her door. There was a groan in response. I opened her door, they were never locked anyway, and went in. I flicked the light on.

“Are you okay Christina?” I asked.

“Yeah, I just—”

Suddenly she inhaled sharply and cried out in pain, holding her stomach.

“Oh,” I said, understanding, “I’ll go get help.”

Christina was the last of the most recent patch of “synthetically impregnated” women, and it was clear to me that she was in labor. I quickly went outside and started toward my friend, Lita’s house. When I reached the door I knocked twice and then it opened to reveal a very tired looking Lita who was wearing cat-themed pajamas.

“Kate? Do you even realize what time it is?” She asked groggily.

“Christina’s in labor, get your dad,” I said urgently. She blinked, suddenly looking alert, and hurried farther inside to get her dad. I waited outside while they threw on their coats and shoes, and then we all hurried to Christina’s, with Lita and her father still in their pajamas.

When we reached Christina’s house and went in, Lita and I helped her stand up, and then I grabbed the blanket from her bed to wrap her in. Lita’s dad then picked Christina up and we followed as he carried her across the courtyard to the small hospital. When he set her down onto one of the three hospital beds, the night doctor came out of his office.

As he told Christina to go change into a hospital gown behind the screen set up in one corner, Lita’s dad left to get ready for the day and I looked around. The hospital was nothing special; even tough it was a bit bigger than the houses and had a larger bathroom and an office it was still plain, with white floors, white walls, and a white ceiling. There were the three beds, the screen in the corner, and there was some surgical equipment along with other things hanging on the wall next to the counter with a sink in it. Up against the wall next to the door was a large dresser with several drawers. As I was beginning to sit down on one of the beds the night nurse came out of the office and Christina came out from behind the screen, wearing the hospital gown.

“Okay,” The doctor said, “Has your water broken yet?”

She opened her mouth to say no, but then her water did break… all over the floor. Ew. Her cheeks grew bright red and she began to apologize profusely.

“That’s fine, that’s fine, SH13560 here will clean it up,” The night doctor insisted. He pulled a plastic sheet out of a cupboard and laid it out over one of the beds while the night nurse grabbed a mop and a bucket. As Christina lay down on the bed, I shuddered at the memory of the last time I’d been in the hospital for a birth: when my mother was about to have my little brother.

I told Lita to come out and get me after the baby was born and then I slipped outside. I sat down on the ground and leaned against the wall, pulling my legs up against my chest and wrapping my arms around them.

Eight years before, my mother had come to this very hospital to have my brother. I had been there, inside, for the whole event, watching with fascinated disgust. And after the whole gross ordeal was over, the doctor couldn’t get my baby brother breathing. He was a stillborn. My mother had been sickly for over two months after that, and she was just starting to get better when one of the workers dragged her out of our house, through the courtyard, and into the restaurant. Someone in there had ordered dinner, and my mother had been the main course.

Dark humor aside, that was when I forced myself to take a deep, shuddering breath, only just realizing that silent tears had begun to leak from my eyes. I wiped my eyes, furious for getting so upset, for thinking about my mother’s death in the first place. I fought fiercely to keep more tears from escaping my eyes, gradually succeeding. With a sigh, I looked out over the courtyard. Suddenly I noticed that the restaurant light was on, and it was preparing to open for business. I became torn between the urge to run somewhere, anywhere, where no one would be able to see me through the large restaurant window, and the urge to stay where I was, waiting for the baby to be born inside.

Just as I was about to get up and bolt to my house, telling myself I could always see the baby later, Lita walked out. I breathed a sigh of relief and got up.

“It’s a girl!” She announced excitedly. I grinned and followed her back inside, where the doctor was washing the baby girl in the sink. I looked around, but Christina and the night nurse were nowhere to be found. A moment later, the night nurse stepped out of the bathroom.

“Okay, Doctor Tyler, Christina’s all set to take a shower,” she said as she went over to the dresser and pulled out a blanket and some pink baby clothes with a matching hat. She laid the blanket on one of the beds and went to take the baby from the night doctor, who had wrapped the baby in a soft-looking pink towel.

“Thank you, SH13560,” he said as he placed the already folded plastic sheet that had been covering Christina’s bed down the trash chute.

“Why do you do that?” I asked almost unthinkingly. The night doctor looked at me with his eyebrows raised.

“Call people by their identification numbers,” I said in response to his unasked question, “That’s what THEY do, give us numbers and disregard our names. You’re one of us, so why don’t you act like it?”

“Because, young lady, we don’t have names; we have the identification numbers they gave us. And that’s that.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at him coldly. I didn’t have anything to say to him, so I went over to where the night nurse had set the baby down after clothing her. I picked the baby up, hoping that she could help calm my anger. The doctor’s words had been harsh and cold towards his own kind, and I had been at the brink of admonishing him (loudly and angrily, I might add), even though it wasn’t my place, but as I held the baby, all the vicious words I had almost used just faded away. I smiled, my anger melting away and being replaced by happiness and contentment. When Christina came out of the bathroom in another hospital gown with wet hair, I gladly passed her baby over.

“What are you going to name her?” I asked brightly. I heard the night doctor scoff and my anger flared again for a minute, but then I let it go.

“I think I’m going to name her Larissa,” Christina replied joyfully. I smiled as the baby yawned, and then I yawned too. I glanced at the clock and realized with a jolt that the restaurant would surely be open and if I didn’t get home before it got too full, there was a good chance I’d be someone’s breakfast.

“Um, Christina, I gotta go. I’ll come and check on you and Larissa later, okay?” I said with a smile, walking toward the door. I slipped outside and rushed across the courtyard, hoping no one saw we. I went inside my home and sat down on my bed, which was merely a mattress on the floor. I had it positioned under the window so that there was more open space in my house, and because it was harder for people to see me from the window. With a yawn, I fell back on my bed and closed my eyes; I always slept during the day so that I could go outside at night.

It was safer, assuming there was such a thing.