Marc Poliquin

Contains the Seeds of a Chilling Dystopian Novel

Kate Murdoch is seven months pregnant - and under contract with her husband's employer. In exchange for covering all the fees associated with Kate's pregnancy and delivery, Kate granted SnazzyCorp the right to imprint her baby Ben starting in the third trimester.

Developed by Carson Hill, the Wired Uterine Manipulation and Encryption Procedure - W.U.M.E. for short - is a way for corporations to cultivate brand loyalty while people are still in the womb. Hill's assistant, Virginia Williams, served as test subject #1; when her child was born, the newborn immediately refused her mother's breast in favor of ChemLax baby formula. Years later, and the procedure has taken off; instead of competing for consumers, companies wage war over access to fetuses on the battlegrounds of their mothers' bodies.

When Kate has a sudden change of heart and attempts to break the contract, SnazzyCorp kidnaps her from her bed in the dead of night in order to subject her and Ben to forced imprinting. Ostensibly saved in the nick of time by a mysterious rescuer known only as Nate, Kate soon finds herself in an even more horrifying situation: imprisoned as a Carrier in the Factory, a clandestine human trafficking facility run by SnazzyCorp competitor GloboDiTech Ltd.

"W.U.M.E." is a chilling science fiction dystopia in the vein of The Handmaid's Tale. It contains the seeds of a potentially great novel; unfortunately, at just twenty-one pages, it's a little short on character development and world building for my taste. I would love to see the ideas presented here fleshed out in greater detail.

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