Carmina was very excited. They had finally saved up enough
money. Now she was entering The Store.

The Store looked like an ordinary building. It was
rectangular, gray and boring from the outside. Looked a
little like a hospital. From their angle it was impossible
to see that it stretched on for miles. Above the gate,
written in big silver letters, was the long, formal name the
first management had given it. But for years now it was
called in everyday talks simply "The Store". It really was
THE store. Nobody could deny that. The mere mention of the
name gave chills to most young men and women, even more so
if they hadn't yet bought there. The boring hospital-like
building was the subject of dreams for many, and only the
very rich could say that they'd been there enough times to
stay unexcited while entering it.
Today was Carmina's day. She and her husband were going
through the door, and her heart felt like it was ready to
burst from happiness. She was here; she was actually
inside The Store!

The inside of the building was as ordinary as the outside.
The walls were painted in faint pastels that you only saw in
hospitals, and which most people associate with sickness and
disgust. But inside The Store you felt nothing of the kind.
You were too busy feeling other things. Anxiousness- yes;
awe- probably; expectation- definitely; but sickness or
disgust? not likely.
A salesman in a light green robe came to them. "Hello, and
welcome to The Store", he said. "I'll be your salesman for
today. I'll answer all the questions you have, or will have.
You want to start with a little tour of the building?" The
salesman looked about 40, balding, short and quite ugly.
Still, to Carmina he seemed to be enclosed in a shining,
iridescent aura. He had a smile that was so innocent and
nice that you had to think of it as predatory. He was there
for one reason only- taking their money. He knew it, they
knew it. None of them cared.
"Yes, please." Carmina's husband answered. "You hear so much
about this place, it'll be interesting to see how much of it
is true."
"Only the good things, I assure you", the salesman replied,
the words uttered through his ever-smiling teeth, and the
three of them laughed their best fake laughs. "Come on,
let's begin".

The tour was the usual tourist route: the computer room
("where we make sure that everything is working perfectly"),
the manufacturing area ("it's quite amazing what machines
can do these days, huh?"), the labs ("we have the best
scientists in the country, always working to invent the next
generation of products"), the dining room ("we only buy the
best, healthiest food") and last but not least, the sales
area ("this is where we will be spending the rest of the
day").
"Well, if you'll just sit on this sofa here, we'll get down
to business."

"OK, we have three kinds of options: natural, standard and
deluxe- which one would you like to see?"
"I think we'll see all three", Carmina said, with a little
too much enthusiasm in her voice, her husband thought.
"We've got time, right, honey?"
"Yeah, sure, why not? We wouldn't want to come to a rush
decision on a subject like this, of course." He said while
looking at the salesman in his best
you-can-fool-her-but-not-me look. "Let's begin with the
natural and proceed upwards from there."
"Alright, but the natural catalogue is not exactly the most
attractive thing to look at." The salesman suggested,
although he knew that he was wasting his time and that they
would keep him here for hours. It was no surprise; most
customers did.
He brought them the natural catalogue and they started going
through it. The principle of this catalogue was simple- it
was old-fashioned breeding: put the ingredients in a tube
and hope for the best. In this catalogue, the higher the
price, the higher the quality of the ingredients, but
nothing else.
As he had said, it wasn't very attractive. There were no
pictures, just names of models with many numbers,
percentages and characteristics written in plane, square,
dark grey letters. A regular entry in the catalogue read:

MXS11785
Sex: Male: 97%. Female: 3%
Skin Color: Bright: 34%. Dark: 57%. Medium: 29%
Hair color: Brown: 45%. Red: 28%. Black: 15%. Blonde: 12%
Intelligence: (a bell diagram followed, starting at 14%,
peaking at 47%, losing altitude in the mid-60's and coming
to its final stop at 89%)

And so on. The prices weren't high- they ranged from fifty
to two hundred thousand dollars. Carmina felt relieved that
they had a much higher sum to spend. She didn't like what
she saw in the natural catalogue at all. After half an hour
of looking at it, she whispered something in her husband's
ear. He nodded, and told the salesman that they would think
about it and that they were ready to look at the standard
catalogue now.
"OK, I'll be back in a second." The salesman answered, and
in an amazing, unnatural action widened his smile even more.
Not natural-buyers, after all. Maybe they do have some
class.

The standard catalogue was much nicer. Pictures of smiling,
happy kids were everywhere, and the numbers were much
smaller and quite unimportant. The prices, of course, were
much higher- they started at about three hundred thousand
and ended just short of a million.
The models in the catalogue had been given names. And so you
could choose between Andy, Joe, Maria and Petunia, instead
of unattractive letters and numbers. A small asterisk in the
bottom of every page told them that the names were not
obligatory at all, and that they could choose whatever name
they thought was right. But, it claimed, all the names had
been specially picked to fit their models.
Also in this catalogue, a much heavier weight was given to
the different personalities of the models. This had a very
simple reason: physical engineering was quite cheaper than
spiritual engineering. To make a blond product is child's
play, the salesman assured them (adding a smile and a "pun
intended" for good measure); to make him ambitious or funny
is much harder, and therefore more expensive. "But it is a
very worthy investment. You wouldn't want to pay good money
for a child with, say, bad behaviour, or a tendency to
alcoholism, would you?" The salesman asked with an
expression that said 'I'm stating the obvious here, of
course'.
"And another advantage the standard catalogue has is that
you get a lifetime guarantee for every model. The cheapest
one is guaranteed to live 57 years. The most expensive one
is guaranteed for 102 years. This numbers do not take
unnatural events into consideration. We can't guarantee a
car or a bullet won't kill them. Yet, at least." He added
with a grin. "All our standard models come equipped with a
vaccination against every known curable disease, too. All in
all, I think you'll agree with me that the standards are way
better than the naturals."
"We'll think about it," Carmina's husband replied, although
it was obvious that he'd already discarded the natural
option.
At that moment, an alarm started ringing above their heads
and red bursts lighted the sales area. "Hmmm... not again;
that's the third time this day! OK, listen, I'll leave you
here with this booklet about the history of The Store. I'll
be back in a few minutes to explain about the Deluxe option.
Don't worry, it's nothing special", he told Carmina, whose
worried face was looking at the pulsating red lights .
Carmina had had some time to calm down from the surprise,
and now she noticed that the alarm did not sound too
alarmed. It seemed quite routine, actually. No one around
her was panicking, there were no armed guards running
anywhere, and the general feeling was that the bell that
indicated lunch-break had sounded, and nothing more.
It was all an act, but Carmina had no way of knowing it. The
routine sounding alarm, the "it's the third time today"
comment, the history of The Store booklet, they were all
part of The Store's emergency procedure.
The salesman walked peacefully until he was out of the sales
area, then started running. Carmina and her husband didn't
know what was going on, but thanks to the emergency
procedure they didn't care much, either.
They started reading the booklet about the history of The
Store, which was in fact quite interesting, although most of
it was common knowledge.

The Government's Commercial Center for Human Creation and
Marketing- otherwise known as The Store- had been founded in
2027 by the US Government. It had started as a small
facility for the very rich, the only place that could
provide people who had everything money could buy with the
ultimate product: the perfect son or daughter.
Years of research and billions of dollars had gone into it,
and the best minds of the world had worked on it, especially
on issues such as personality engineering and lifetime
guarantees.
A team of twelve high-rated lawyers had been hired to prove
it legal, and ten professors in the philosophy area had been
paid to say that it was ethical and not against human
morals. (These facts were of course regarded with a frown
and an incredulous half-smile by people today- people had
actually thought of the Store as immoral or illegal!
Incredible!). Today those same teams would find it
impossible to prove the same thing about breeding outside
the walls of The Store.
The Store took it's biggest jump upwards in the economic
world after a long and wide research done by the leading
economic agency of the time, which proved that wars were not
profitable for the government anymore, and so the government
had to find an alternate income source. That research had
also resulted in a united project of the stronger and richer
countries, a project that brought world peace in less than a
year.
Today The Store constitutes more than half of the world's
economy. It is, without a doubt, the biggest business there
ever was. Almost three million employees work for it, and it
manufactures close to a hundred million babies a year.
Besides its obvious economical achievements, The Store had
also brought humanity to many peaks: the danger from
overpopulation of the world was halted, human beings today
were much more ethical and aesthetical, many diseases and
deformations had been cured. The human race could be said to
be happier than ever before because of The Store.
As the year 2104 was nearing its end, human beings that
weren't bred in The Store became more and more scarce every
day, and would soon be extinct.

Carmina and her husband read through the booklet, not
doubting any word written in it and never even thinking that
it was possible that something wasn't completely right in
The Store, because that's what their educations and
experience in the world told them.
The salesman came back into the sales area a minute or two
after they'd finished reading the booklet. "Are we ready to
discuss the Deluxe option now?" He asked (smiling, of
course).
"Yeah, I guess", Carmina's husband answered in his most
unenthusiastic voice.
"OK, this is a special option. If you choose the Deluxe
option you'll be able, with some help from our trained and
experienced advisors, to design your dream child. You'll be
able to choose everything you want in him (or her). You two
will choose every single characteristic. This option is
naturally quite expensive, but I truly think that, since
every couple is different, you must have your own special
needs and wants, and this would be the wisest choice in my
own humble opinion. The price of the Deluxe option starts at
a million, and goes up as your requirements go up. I think
you'll agree that this is a fair price to pay for the
perfection of your child. Both for you and the child. Think
about it."
Carmina's husband said that they would, and asked if there
was a place where they could discuss the matter in private.
"Yes, of course. Follow me". As he was leading them to the
quiet, blue-walled and soft pink-lighted "private
discussion" rooms, the salesman tried to guess what their
choice would be. He thought they would pick a standard model
in the 700-850 thousand range. "Simply press this button
here when you've decided", he said, pointing in the general
direction of a slightly-lighter-than-the-walls blue button.
"Don't hurry, take your time".
"Thank you".

After little more than an hour Carmina and her husband
called him. "We've decided to take the Rudolph model."
Carmina announced happily.
"A great choice", the salesman announced back to her, not
sad himself- the Rudolph model was the second most expensive
standard model. "How will you be paying?" The sale
finalized, his voice acquired the tone of a supermarket
clerk asking if you'd like to double-bag it.

A year later, and three months after Rudolph had been born,
Carmina's mother came to see him for the first time.
"Oh my God! He's so cute!" She exclaimed. "How much did you
pay for him?"

At the age of six, little Rudolph came to Carmina crying.
After urging him to tell her what was wrong for several
minutes, Rudolph had told her between sobs that a kid in his
first grade class mocked him because he was only a standard
model, while the kid was a deluxe. He called him "Cheapie".
The kid kept saying that he was better than Rudolph was,
since he was much more expensive.
"Is it true, mommy? Is he really better than me?" he asked,
his eyes clearly telling her how much he needed to hear an
assured, undebatable, mother-knows-best no.
Carmina didn't know what to say.

At the age of 17, Rudolph met another Rudolph model. They
stared at each other for a long time, having almost the
exact same thoughts. The difference between them lay only in
their past experience.
The Store sold very few products of every model to prevent
encounters like this, but sometimes life just runs its
course.
Rudolph (Carmina's, that is), who was quite intelligent and
able to deal with many deep thoughts and dilemmas, found
himself at a loss this time.

Rudolph died at the age of 103, two years after his
life-guarantee expired. He had had quite a good life.
Married a nice woman, bought three children, lived quite
well. But nevertheless, on his deathbed he was not
completely satisfied with life, and was not willing to go
just yet.
His dying thought was this: "Five thousand dollars more".