"Mathew, something's wrong."

"What's happened? Is the baby all right?"

"Just come quickly."

Mathew heard the click and watched the screen in front of him go blank; the picture of his loving wife dissolving pixel by pixel. Something very grave concerned her. He knew that look she had when she was concerned about something. He would get to the hospital.

He left the room of his small house in the middle of New San Francisco and walked to the nearest street corner. Along the way he passed a wall full of newscasters: reports blared that the United World council was announcing that the world's population was reaching its limit. He ignored this noise and made his way through the sea of people. It was always a sea of people. The streets were always full, and the tide never turned. Finally he reached the transportation tubes that would take him immediately to the hospital. They were everywhere these days. Sanctioned by the United World legislation, every person was now given an equal chance to make it to a life saving treatment or surgery.

Within a few seconds he was at the entrance of the hospital. He quickly found where his wife was with the help of the directory. It pointed out what building she was in on the complex, which tubes would get him there fastest, and that he should have a nice day. Another sea of people held him a few seconds before he found the next tube. Within a few minutes he was holding his wife.

She was still pregnant.

The pregnancy machine was still whirring away at computations and calculations. Mathew panicked. The very machines that were designed to be the doctor and nurse for childbirth, so doctors could concentrate on other things, were malfunctioning. They were preventing his son from being born.

"How long have they been holding you?"

"Honey, please don't get worked up."

"I'M NOT GETTING WORKED UP!" Mathew was fighting to stay calm. Fighting to get a grip on the situation. "How long?"

"About two hours."

"Is something wrong?"

"The baby's just fine. The machine is closely monitoring his health, and looking for any problems."

"But it's not allowing him to be born?"

His wife didn't know what to say. She looked sadly at her husband and uttered "The news, please." It was a voice command for the computer-television console at the foot of her bed. Images of familiar politicians arguing came to view. The reporter was saying something about large numbers of people, legislation from the United World Congress, and protesters demanding change.

Mathew didn't understand. He didn't care. He turned to his wife. She didn't look at him. "Honey, why are you showing me this?"

She commanded the CTV to go back to sleep mode. Tears were rolling down her eyes, but she was fighting for composure and staying very calm. "The world's population has reached its limit. According to the law, our son would be breaking international code if he was born."

"NO! That's not possible!"

"The doctors warned us that we had waited too long."

"We didn't wait long enough! We couldn't have supported a child before now. We shouldn't have to worry about the population being too big!"

A man in dark blue scrubs came into the room, hearing the commotion. "Excuse me sir. I am going to have to ask you to leave."

"NO! This is my wife and my son your blasted machine is holding hostage!"

The man turned to his wife. "Ma'am?"

"I would sooner ask you to leave."

"Well," he turned to leave. "Kindly keep the noise down."

Mathew grabbed the man's arm. Tears were rolling down his face. "Why can't my son be allowed to live?"

The doctor paused for a brief moment, and then went to the pregnancy-aid's control panel. "It seems that your son would set the population over the legal limit."

"How do they know it's my son?"

"The identification chip implanted in his skin is half activated because he is in the birthing process. As soon as he is born, the chip would fully activate, and he would be counted. The pregnancy-aid's network recognizes that the legal limit has been met, and won't allow him to be born and counted."

"Well, won't somebody die soon?"

"Not likely. Medicine is far too advanced to allow a disease to do it. The solar-satellites allow our government to control the weather, and the International Geological Agency's systems are precise enough to warn entire nations if something is going to happen. So that rules out natural disasters."

Mathew was desperate. "What about murder, or suicide?"

"Your ID chip prevents you from doing that."

"How?"

"It has a program connected to your central nervous system and your brain. Signals that show thoughts leading to murder or suicide are nullified before they can be acted upon, and endorphins are released to ease the thoughts to other things."

"Accidents?"

"That's what all of those travel tubes are for. They all lead to the hospital, and mobile computer runners function as paramedics while the patient is in route to the facility."

Mathew couldn't believe it. "Old age?" he whimpered.

"We've defeated the aging process when we cured cancer. How old are you?"

Mathew thought. "I'm 175 years old."

"A few centuries ago that was a dream. The average life-expectancy was not even over eighty." The doctor had finally grown impatient of the inquisition. "I'm sorry about your son, but nothing can be done." He walked to the door.

"Where are you going? Are you just going to leave my wife and unborn son in limbo?"

"No. I am going to retrieve an abortive formula. It's the only thing to be done."

"You're going to kill my son?"

The doctor paused, and left.

Mathew didn't know what they were going to do. His son would never see the light of day before he died. He would never be able to feel his parents embrace him. He would never get to live, and all because people had this problem dealing with death.

Mathew felt his wife's hand on his, and he grasped it tightly. The tears kept coming as he searched for the answer. He heard his wife try to comfort him, but his mind was too busy thinking about solutions to tell his mouth to answer.

"Honey, there's nothing we can do."

Mathew stopped. His mind clicked into place. He had found the answer. He turned to his wife, and tried to tell her, but she figured it out. "No, Mathew! You can't!"

He kissed her on the cheek. "Take care of him for me." He let go, and ran out the door, bumping into the doctor. He had a tray with a needle and flask of the abortive fluids. "You won't be taking his life today." He snatched the flask, and took off running down the long hallway. He heard his wife yell for the doctor to stop him from doing something desperate, but he knew that no one could stop him from what he was going to do.

He reached a balcony and immediately went to the edge. As he looked down from his twenty story perch, doubts started coming to his mind. Was this really necessary? Someone would eventually die. Then his son could come into the world and be happy with both his parents.

No! That's the chip talking. Mathew knew what he had to do. He turned quickly to see the doctor at the door. "Sir! I know you're stressed, but please calm down."

"But I am calm. I know exactly what I have to do."

With that, Mathew jumped, flask and all. The chip worked frantically to try and stop him from dying, with imitation thoughts of his happy family living happily together for a long time. But it was too late. Mathew told those thoughts to die, and replaced them with new thoughts of his happy son living on.

His wife wept as the pregnancy-aid whirred into action, and in five minutes she was holding her new baby.