Uncapped
Short story
“I think we should have a baby.”
Noah whispered softly into the back of Sierra’s neck as they laid in bed on a lazy weekend morning. Sierra took his hand off her hips and pulled it tightly around her waist, snuggling back into him.
“Sounds like a plan, sweetie. We’ll get right on that.”
Noah waited a moment.
“I’m serious,” he finally said. “I think we should have a baby.”
Sierra’s body tensed under his embrace. She slowly unwrapped his arm from around her and turned to face him. “Honey,” she began. “I say this with all of the love and affection I can muster at 7am on a Saturday, but…what the fuck are you talking about?”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, don’t act like you’ve never thought about it. It seems like every time we listen to the news, there’s another story about another couple getting uncapped.”
“Well, yes,” Sierra responded, “but that’s because those people are out of their goddamn minds.” She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “This is a fantasy, right? We’re not actually having this conversation, are we?”
“Why not?” Noah replied a bit more sharply than he had intended. Then he caught himself. This wasn’t going how he had planned. He took a breath, pulled himself towards his wife, and took both of her hands in his. “I want a family. With you. I want us to make a baby, and watch it grow up, and teach it piano. This isn’t so crazy, is it?”
“Wanting those things? No, not crazy. But being foolish enough to actually pursue them? Yeah, a bit crazy.” She stood up and started to get dressed.
Noah sank back into bed and covered his face with his hands. “Come on, babe, don’t huff off like that. We’re married. We love each other. We can talk about important things without it turning into a fight, can’t we? I just wanted to start the conversation. Please, don’t be mad.”
Sierra found her house slippers and tied her silk robe. “Really? Don’t be mad? You just woke me up by announcing that you want to die. That you want me to die. And I’m supposed to find that…romantic, or something? Well pardon me for not swooning.”
Noah’s resolve eroded in the face of her withering look. “Jesus Christ,” he replied. “Don’t be so fucking dramatic. Of course I don’t want us to die. But guess what — sooner or later, we will! You could get hit by a bus tomorrow.”
Sierra laughed derisively. “Okay, sure. We’re both going to die,” she replied. “But you seem a bit more welcoming of the prospect than I am.”
◊ ◊ ◊
Weeks went by. Sierra’s anger faded away and was slowly, eventually, replaced by something that surprised her — something more contemplative. She started to wonder whether it really was so crazy to trade in the sort of life she had for the chance to have a family. And as the days passed, she thought more and more about what it would feel like to be pregnant — to grow life inside of her — and she found herself wondering whether their child would have her eyes, or Noah’s chin.
It was the timing, really. If the discussion with Noah had happened anytime in the previous thirty or forty years, it wouldn’t have stuck with her — wouldn’t have wormed its way into her subconscious. For so long, she had been single-minded about her career, and about what she could do in the world with the time she had bought and paid so dearly for. Until recently.
In just the last year or two, the feeling had started to creep up on her. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but it was noticeable: a kind of general, low-level malaise. She would feel it when her driver picked her up in the morning and again on the elevator ride up to the 134th floor of the Pritzke building, where she and the other partners had their offices. She would remember how full of energy and pride she used to be to be taking that elevator ride, but now she’d notice…nothing. It was just another day of going to the top of the world to be a powerful person and do powerful things.
Somehow, contrary to every expectation she had at earlier points in her life, being one of the top lawyers in one of the top law firms in New York City had started to seem, well, boring. Is this all there was to life? Same thing, day after day, year after year, decade after decade?
A couple of weeks after Noah’s surprise proclamation, Sierra was standing at her office’s floor-to-ceiling windows, gazing out at the city shoreline, when her assistant tapped on the door.
“Ms. Hopkins?” Sierra turned. “Mr. Hamilton had to cancel your 2 o’clock. He said his secretary would call back tomorrow to reschedule.”
Sierra turned back to the window and breathed out what she hoped sounded like a sigh of annoyance. It was actually a sigh of relief. She didn’t have the emotional energy to deal with the Hamiltons right now.
Stuart — the assistant — was waiting by the door. “Is there anything I can get you, Ms. Hopkins?”
“Did you hear they’re planning another seawall reinforcement project?” She watched the water from the bay slap against the outer barrier and spill into the void between it and the improbably large interior wall — the concrete structure that was charged with keeping the trillions of dollars of value in Manhattan safe from the ferocious and persistently-rising tides.
“I did,” Stuart replied. Now his eyes tracked along to the same sight. “The estimate for the next stage is something like 800 billion dollars. Unimaginable, really. How long will they keep pouring money into this place?”
“Oh, I think pretty much indefinitely,” Sierra replied. “We’ll keep building walls as long as they’ll work. We’ve invested too much into this city to abandon it now.”
She turned to face her young assistant. Not that you could tell who was actually young anymore just by looking at them; but she had hired him, and so she knew he was in his twenties. “Do you want kids, Stuart?”
She caught herself a second too late. It was a terribly inappropriate question to ask an employee. She never would have done that in the past. But her mind was occupied, she was tired and clearly not feeling herself. “I’m so sorry, don’t answer that. That was horribly unprofessional of me. Please just forget that happened.”
But Stuart seemed completely unfazed. He waved away her concern. “Please, Ms. Hopkins, don’t worry about it. I don’t mind. And the answer is: God no.” They both laughed.
“Understandable,” Sierra replied, still smiling.
“It’s not that I wouldn’t want to,” Stuart continued. “But my parents saved their whole lives to pay for me to get capped. Neither of their families could afford it when the technology first came out, and so as they got older, and watched the rich folks stay young,” he winced a bit as he realized he was talking to one of those rich folks, “well, they committed to doing whatever it took to make sure I could get capped when I turned 25.”
Sierra was a bit surprised to learn that he’d had the procedure. “So, what do you want to do with your life, then? I assume your highest goal is not to be my assistant forever? However attractive an assignment I’m sure you find it.”
Sheepishly, Stuart replied, “Actually, I’m studying for my aptitude exams. I couldn’t afford to go to a Legacy School, so I’ll have to take the long way around, but I want to be a lawyer like you. Depending on my scores, I may start applying next year.” He was grateful that she wasn’t laughing at him. He dared to go on. “So no, I don’t suppose I can be your assistant forever. But if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll be back here, down on the 58th floor as an associate in a few years.” He was proud of himself for venturing to even suggest such a thing.
Sierra smiled at him. She was embarrassed that she hadn’t known of his ambitions until this moment. “Well, I’ll be sad to lose a good assistant, but thrilled to gain a good associate.” She turned back towards the window and continued the thought to herself: If I’m still here, that is.
Later that evening, while bustling around the kitchen with Noah, Sierra was still stuck in her own head. She had been daydreaming about what their lives would look like with a child. The thoughts brought something forward from deep in her memory — from a life that was so long ago it didn’t even feel like hers — when she simply assumed that she would one day marry a nice man, have children, and they would grow old together. Those beliefs and assumptions were from the old days, before the first announcement that clinical trials of the capping technology had been successful, and that the war against aging was finally being won by humanity and science.
When Sierra had caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror before coming home, she turned sideways and put her hand on her belly. She sucked in a gulp of air and pressed out hard with her diaphragm, trying to imagine what it would be like to be pregnant. Her body seemed to remember this pose, this make-believe. But it also felt incredibly alien. She had long ago gone from assuming she’d be a mother, to being grateful when she was able to get capped so she could focus on her career before thinking about a family. When lawmakers decided that access to the capping technology should be made contingent on the use of long-acting contraception, Sierra barely took note. She had become so obsessed with all of the non-family projects in her life that the thought of kids had naturally receded.
Until now.
None of her past boyfriends, nor her first husband, had any interest in kids, so there had been no impetus to reconsider her life path. But now the genie had been let out of the bottle, and she was finding it very difficult to put it back in.
Sierra stood at the kitchen island, slowly chopping vegetables and listening to Noah hum while he washed dishes. He seemed so undisturbed. How was he able to just raise the possibility of changing everything about their lives, and then to put those thoughts away and act like nothing was different?
“So,” Sierra began, sliding her chef’s knife through an eggplant and then letting it just sit when it thunked against the cutting board. Noah stopped.
“Hm?”
Without turning around to face him, Sierra ventured to ask, “Just out of curiosity… if we decided to have a baby — what would that look like?” She heard him turn the water off. “I mean, just hypothetically of course. What kind of family would we want? Just one kid? Two?” Noah opened his mouth to respond but thought better of it. He waited. “I don’t think I’d want more than two,” Sierra kept going. She started chopping again, surprised to find that her voice was shaking. “Would we, like, move to the suburbs and have one of those big, obnoxious yards?”
“If that’s what you want, sure.” Noah spoke quietly and stepped away from the sink.
“And we’d probably need a nanny, because you know I’m not quitting my job,” Sierra went on. “And I’m sure you wouldn’t stop writing.”
Noah was beside her now, looking at her intently while she stared at the vegetables on the cutting board in front of her. “We could do whatever we want. We could move out of the city. I could be a stay-at-home-dad. Or we could stay right here in our condo and turn my study into a kid’s room.” He put his hand on the back of her neck and Sierra finally looked up. “There are no rules here. We could do whatever we want. It would be an adventure, and the only thing that matters is that we’d be on it together.”
“Purely hypothetically,” she said.
“Purely hypothetically,” he agreed.
◊ ◊ ◊
The Department of Demography and Family Planning Medical Center somehow managed to combine the dull aesthetic of a bureaucratic office building with the sterility of a hospital. Municipal offices sat alongside clinic waiting rooms, all of it illuminated by cold, white lighting. There were no AI-enhanced health monitors or autonomous surgical centers here; just the low-budget feeling that seemed to always attend the government’s involvement in medicine. Sparse decorations, bright lights, and uniformed people — that’s what defined the physical space.
After checking in with a receptionist who would have looked equally at home taking vital signs and issuing state ID cards, Sierra and Noah were deposited in an exam room and told to wait.
Noah tapped his foot nervously. Sierra wrung her hands.
After what seemed like quite a long time, there was a quick knock on the exam room door, and before either of them could respond, a harried man in a white coat swept into the room. “Ms. Hopkins and Mr. Duke?” Again, without waiting for a response, he reached out to give them a warm, vigorous handshake. “I’m Dr. Hong. Welcome to the DDFP. It looks like you’re here for your initial consultation?”
“That’s right,” Noah said eagerly.
“Excellent. I’m so sorry for the wait. The team here had no idea how to prepare for your appointment, and so I had to pull together all of the relevant paperwork myself. You’d have thought they’ve never heard of uncapping, judging from their reaction when I arrived this morning.”
Sierra looked at Noah and then back at Dr. Hong. “I thought it wasn’t that uncommon these days?”
“Oh, it’s still quite uncommon. I mean yes, people do it. But not that many, and they’re spread all over the country. There are only a few of us who specialize in the procedure, and we cover pretty large geographical territories. So, I go wherever I’m needed in the Northeast corridor. This is actually my first time coming to this office.”
Sierra’s apprehension must have shown on her face. “But don’t worry! I’m a pro.” Dr. Hong winked at her.
“Okay, let’s get down to business. In short, everything looks good.” He pulled up their chart on his virtual clipboard, flipping through the pages with small movements of his index finger. “Sperm count and motility are good, eggs look good, you’re both in excellent health. I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be able to get pregnant, once your contraceptive implants are removed.
“However—” He took a beat. “There are a few things we need to discuss. The decision you’re about to make is monumental and irreversible. So, the stakes are high. My job now is to try my very best to ensure that you understand everything about the medical decision you are about to make, and that you are choosing according to your own values, of your own free will. Make sense so far?”
Sierra and Noah gave a synchronized nod.
“The document you read before coming here attempted to lay out the relevant risks and benefits of undergoing the combination uncapping/contraception removal procedure. What I will do now is explain it to you in plain English, and if you still believe it’s what you want, you’ll initial in several places, and then biometrically sign the document indicating your intention to move forward. After that, you must wait a minimum of one week before coming back to meet with me again. At that meeting, you will explain the consent document back to me, demonstrating that you really understand it. Once I’m satisfied that you have the relevant information and are freely choosing, I’ll sign the document as well. At that point, we can schedule the procedure.”
Dr. Hong paused and looked at them intently. “I need you to understand this, okay? At any time — literally, up until the moment you are sedated — you may change your mind. There are no repercussions, it won’t be held against you, and you can still choose to undergo the procedure later. You are absolutely free to choose not to do this.” He looked at them for a long moment. “That part is clear?”
Sierra and Noah looked at each other anxiously and nodded.
Dr. Hong continued, handing them the digital paper and stylus that all government offices use for secure data. “Alright, initial in the first blank. Moving on. This next part I’m supposed to read to you verbatim.” He cleared his throat.
“Under the Anti-Aging Technology and Family Planning Policy of 2056, the use of radical life-extension technology, including but not limited to technology commonly referred to as ‘telomere capping’ or ‘capping’, incurs for each individual the moral and legal duty to subject oneself to reproductive monitoring and limitation. In the name of preventing a catastrophic over-use of limited resources, artificial means must be used in order to keep the birth and death rates of the national population in balance.
“By signing this document, you indicate your intention to undergo the combination uncapping/contraceptive removal procedure. As a result, you will regain the ability to procreate, but you will also lose the benefits of the capping procedure.”
Dr. Hong looked up and took a breath. “In other words: you will be able to have kids, but you will once again begin to age naturally.”
The silence after that sentence hung in the air. Of course, there were no surprises here; this is what they had come for. But hearing Dr. Hong say it out loud made it real in a way that it hadn’t been before.
Dr. Hong tentatively continued. “Initial in the next space if you would like to continue.”
Noah immediately initialed, but Sierra looked at the blank for a long time. She had every intention of initialing, but the stylus Noah handed her felt incredibly heavy. Dr. Hong reminded her: “You are under no pressure to sign this today. Take as much time as you need.” She nodded, but also slowly began to move her hand toward the digital page.
She slowly and methodically made her mark: S.N.H.
“Almost there.” Dr. Hong was smiling once again. “We need to go through the costs and the benefits of the procedure. Obviously, you know the primary cost: once you have been uncapped, so to speak, your body will begin to age naturally once again. This not only means that you will face a heightened risk of age-related disease and eventual death by natural causes, but you will also face the much more mundane components of aging: increased pain and discomfort, decreased metabolism, increased likelihood of injury, and so on.”
Noah and Sierra were nodding.
“You have already thought of these things. And since you’re here, you’ve presumably decided that these are costs you’re willing to bear. So we need to dwell for a minute on the costs you may not have fully considered.
“It looks like you were both capped in the first year of The Longevity Project, right?” Dr. Hong seemed impressed, as if they were rare specimens. “That means that you are members of what we sometimes call ‘The Golden Generation’ — capped in your prime, as early as possible. And that makes you some of the very first data points in what is essentially a society-wide experiment.” Dr. Hong looked back down at his virtual clipboard, flicking his way back to the first page. “Ms. Hopkins you were capped at age 29?” Sierra nodded. “And Mr. Duke at 28?” Noah confirmed. “So you’re now chronologically 68 and 67, but still biologically in your late 20s. You’re essentially the oldest twenty-somethings on the planet.”
Noah looked at Sierra. He could tell that this was making her nervous.
“To be clear: I have every reason to believe that the procedure will be routine. I have personally uncapped dozens of individuals and couples in their 40s, 50s, and even a few into their 60s, and all have responded well. Pregnancy was achieved when sought in nearly 100% of cases, and there appeared to be no ill effects from the pause in aging. Patients seem to start aging naturally within about a year, with no acceleration or associated increase in morbidity. But…” Another pause. “You have to understand that you are still participants in that decades-old experiment. I cannot tell you with certainty what it will be like for a nearly 70-year-old to start aging again. Consider: if you live to be biologically 100, you’ll be nearly 140 chronologically. What does that look like in a human body? We have absolutely no idea, because no one’s ever done it before.”
Sierra breathed out more loudly than she had intended. The uncertainty around uncapping hadn’t occurred to her.
“On to the more fun stuff: the benefits.” Dr. Hong’s infectious smile returned. “Obviously, the big one is that, after the procedure, you will be free to become pregnant and have children. Your long-acting contraceptive will be removed and you will have zero monitoring obligations with the DDFP.
“There are other government benefits as well. By restarting the biological aging process, you will once again become eligible for social security and beneficial tax arrangements concerning retirement accounts. Biological age will be used for determining your retirement timeline. So, you will be eligible to retire with full benefits when you are biologically seventy years old.”
“That does sound pretty good.” Noah was trying to rally the excitement that he could tell they were losing. He turned to Sierra. “Doesn’t it sound nice to actually be able to plan for retirement?”
The reality of the decision was crashing in a bit, and Sierra was unable to muster the same enthusiasm. “Yeah, sure, can’t wait to retire when I’m 110 years old. The government is truly generous.” Noah deflated a bit, watching her closely.
Dr. Hong slowed down. “If you believe you have understood the risks and benefits of the uncapping procedure, and you intend to continue, please indicate your consent with a biometric signature.”
Noah quickly flicked through the final pages, placed his thumb on the blank, and looked into the retinal scanner at the top of the page. When it beeped approvingly, he passed it to Sierra.
She looked at the final paragraph for a long minute, pretending to read. She then slowly followed suit. On the way out, they stopped at the receptionist’s desk and scheduled the follow-up appointment.
◊ ◊ ◊
In the years that followed, Sierra would think about that day often. She wondered if she had actually believed herself when she told Noah and the doctor that she was ready. Or was she, even then, already starting the thought process that would slowly lead them here — to the late night discussions, to Jessica, to the suburbs, and now to Sierra having to make this god-awful trek to the middle of nowhere?
“We’re here, ma’am,” the driver said as he pulled up into a driveway.
“Thank Christ,” Sierra responded. The driver chuckled as he walked around and opened the door for her. “I’m likely to be a few hours,” she added as she stood and smoothed her outfit. “Feel free to go find some coffee or whatever. I can ping you when I’m about to need an escape.”
He gently shut the back door. “You got it, Ms. Hopkins. I’ll be right nearby whenever you need me.”
As Sierra looked up to take in the huge, immaculately manicured yard, Jessica came bursting through the front door and bounded down the path to greet her. “I can’t believe you’re finally here!” she practically squealed.
Sierra wrapped her in a big hug, squeezing her tight around the waist. “Well, you did bring new life into the world. It seemed the least I could do.”
Jessica pulled back from the embrace and gave Sierra a warm smile. “I’m really glad you came.”
“Me too, hon.” Sierra responded. The driver had pulled some bags out from the front passenger seat and brought them over to the two women. “Oh! I almost forgot. I brought some stuff for the baby and some wine for the adults. What do you want to do with these?”
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” Jessica responded. “I’ll take them in. Why don’t you go on around back? Noah’s in the atrium.” She pointed to a wrought-iron gate leading to a backyard.
“If that’s where I find a squishy baby, you know that’s where I’m headed.” Sierra strode across the lawn and through the gate. Past some privacy trees, there was a beautiful, enclosed garden, with all-glass walls and ceiling to bring as much of the natural world inside as possible. And just inside, sitting on a lounge chair, bottle-feeding brand-new Baby Nathaniel, was Noah. He looked exhausted, and suddenly much older than the version that lived perpetually in her mind. But when he saw Sierra turn the corner and head his way, his face lit up.
“You made it!” He started to try to stand from the low seat, while holding his newborn son in the right position, but Sierra sprang towards him and motioned to him not to get up.
“Sit tight, you idiot,” she said lovingly, and she bent over to kiss him on the cheek. Reaching out for the baby, she asked, “May I?”
“Of course,” Noah responded. “We all know this guy’s who you’re really here to see.” He gently shuffled Nathaniel into the hand-off position, and Sierra swept him up and tucked him into her neck, kissing and smelling his head at the same time.
“Oooooffff, there’s that new baby smell.” As she swayed and bounced, listening to Nathaniel’s coos and babbles, Sierra looked around at the little piece of paradise that made up the atrium and the open backyard beyond. “You guys really did it. You moved to the fucking suburbs. Who even are you?”
Noah laughed. “I know, I know. We’ve become the people we used to make fun of. And you know what? Turns out they were on to something.” He looked at Sierra dancing with the baby and thought — not for the first time — what a good mother she would have made.
“You look awfully comfortable there, Counselor. Are you sure you don’t want one of your own?” She gave him a look that said, oh I think you know the answer to that question.
And of course he did. The divorce had been finalized more than four years ago. It was really the best possible breakup. He loved Sierra, and she loved him. But once it became clear that they were on different life paths, they made the difficult decision to clear the way for one another. Their attorney said that they not only set the record for most amicable separation, but that it was practically embarrassing. They kept trying to give one another more of their shared assets to make sure neither was made worse off materially. There was a lot of care, significant love, but incommensurable desires. And so, they chose as they had to.
Jessica had come into the picture surprisingly quickly. She was young — an “uncapped 32,” which was young enough that Noah had been embarrassed to introduce her to Sierra for the first time — but he needn’t have worried. The two women hit it off, and often joked that Noah was the plus-one at their gatherings (though Sierra wasn’t above occasionally calling him “grandpa”).
Jessica had been raised in a tight-knit, religious community, which objected to radical life extension on philosophical grounds. The church also prized large families, and though she had grown out of the conservative religious foundations of her upbringing, she never shook the community’s values and so had never seriously entertained getting capped.
After less than a year of dating, Noah asked her to marry him. The night she said ‘yes’, he scheduled his appointment with the DDFP. He was uncapped barely a month later, and they got married that summer.
“How’s life as a father?” Sierra asked, still bouncing and dancing with Nathaniel.
“Oh man,” he replied. “It’s ridiculous. It’s great, and exhausting, and magical. But mostly exhausting.” They both laughed. “I think I’ve aged more in the past month than in the previous 50 years.”
It was funny because it was nearly true.
“I did notice a few gray whiskers sprouting there,” Sierra said, pointing to the first specks of salt in his largely-pepper beard.
Noah acted offended. “Sorry, not possible. I’ve decided that — capped or not — I’m not getting any older.”
“Uh-huh.” Sierra smiled at him. “Good luck with that.”
Noah smiled, but his mind was focused on the utter lack of imperfection in Sierra’s skin. She was wearing short designer shorts and a top that showed off her flat stomach, the whole package revealing the muscle tone that came from the ultra-marathon training she had taken up. He then unconsciously patted his suddenly much softer gut, which seemed incapable of remaining taut these days.
“Nope. Not getting old.”
◊ ◊ ◊
Travis Rieder on Daily Philosophy:
