Ah, another unruly crowd to end Dr. Leslie Craswell's day. Nothing new here for Craswell, a reproductive endocrinologist. She had become used to the crowds at her research facility, the Baywater Women's Clinic. Each evening, she was hounded by protestors; fundamentalists, political fanatics and homophobes who were opposed to any advancements in fertility treatments and any changes to traditional reproduction.
But Craswell had grown numb to the noise and threats. If successful, her pioneering efforts would create a revolutionary new fertility technique that would create a growing embryo using the nucleus from the egg of one woman to fertilize another woman's egg. And couples like Azure and Gisele Elliott, a married lesbian couple, would become parents of babies that are the genetic offspring of both parents. Lesbian couples all over the world would have their parenting dreams become reality.
While she had grown used to the hostile crowds, Craswell had taken precautions, and purchased an armored car for protection in case some lunatic decided to act on his threats. And tonight, she was especially happy she had taken those steps as the crowd appeared to have a more sinister feel than usual.
When a fanatic attempts to shoot her, he does not realize that she has an armored vehicle, causing the bullet to ricochet and kill another demonstrator. As Craswell, unaware that a person in the crowd has been shot and killed, she continues her drive home. It was only later that night that Craswell learned of the tragedy.
A corrupt Commonwealth Attorney with political dreams of grandeur tries to vindicate the murderer. However, two police officers are working just as earnestly to convict the felon and protect Dr. Craswell and the two women who are about to take her experiment out of the lab into the real world.
Finally, with the birth of the Elliott baby, Dr. Craswell's experimentation is proven successful, and many women use her procedure to conceive without the participation of men leading to an increase in the ratio of baby girls to boys.
Inauspicious pass by, with more pollution and environmental disasters occurring each year, this inauspicious beginning becomes a turning point in human survival.
Once thought to have limited applications, it eventually becomes the sole method for humans to reproduce. And each year, technology is threatened by fanatics who think the end of time is at hand regardless of the consequences for the survival of the human species.
