Still Less Side Effects than Birth Control

The ground is cold under her feet.

Concrete.

She uses the railing to guide her down the steps in the darkness, the stagnant air making the hair on her thighs stand on end. She is in her Olympics leotard, the green and gold one she would have wowed the audience in, had it not been for her fall. The coach had said she should wear it today, ‘for good luck.’ What scared her was the thought that she would need it.

Near what she assumed was the bottom of the stairs, a hand reached out to her.

“There we go, the last step’s missing, you can just jump,” said the person the hand belonged to. She took it, and jumped as gracefully as she would in practice. Her coach followed behind her, with a grunt to acknowledge he had heard the instruction as well.

“Sorry we can’t switch the lights on, the technology’s still unpatented, and we can’t have you telling our secrets to competitors,” the man said to Maddie. He was still holding her hand, leading her towards a dim green glow at the end of the room. “I’m Khan, by the way. Dr Khan.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Maddie politely. She didn’t bother introducing herself; she knew that this man already knew her name, age, date of birth and everything she had eaten over the last two years. He knew her gym stats, her favourite colour. All had been provided to him in a huge binder the month before. Right when she had agreed to be their company’s first test subject. Apparently, the drug had to be calibrated to her specifications.

“And Maddie, has your weight changed at all since a month ago?”

“Still 46”

“Ah,” he says, and seats her in a rolling chair by a desk, illuminated by some labelled fluorescent vials in a rack. He sits down in front of the desk and takes out a clipboard, then notes something down.

“That’s 0.5 kg higher than last time. I assume your airtime has gone down?”

Maddie hesitates for a moment, then reflects. Airtime has never been her strongest point with flips, but there has definitely been a decline. She nods, and somehow Dr Khan perceives it in the near-darkness.

He then changes one of the entries below it. “Nineteen and seven months,” he corrects, then sets the pen down. He pulls a flashlight from his pocket to illuminate just the clipboard, then turns the page over.

He taps at a thin black line at the bottom. “Maddie, please sign here. I can’t wait to see you next year on the bar, making your parents proud.”

“They already are,” she says, smiling. It’s me who is not. She skims through the fine print for a moment before she starts to sign, and notices a section that had not been there when she had asked about the agreement terms a month ago, in front of them. She halts, bringing the paper closer to her face to read better in the darkness.

“This is not everything my parents agreed to.” She looks suspiciously over at Dr Khan, who is twirling his pen. “What does it mean, we are not liable for changes in height, weight, strength or age? Why would there be a change in age?”

“It’s no biggie,” he says, sitting back. “Athletes do stuff like this all the time. We’re just covering our bases; we’re a company. Companies do stuff like this all the time.”

Maddie furrows her brow. So she hasn’t misread it. She has taken medications before; several, before they were banned by gymnastics committees, and a few even after. But this was supposedly safer; it had less side effects than birth control and was going to boost her performance in a way that no drug ever could until now. She had been wanting this for a few months now, and last night she had been unable to sleep with excitement at the prospect of becoming Australia’s first gymnastics gold medallist. Or at least able to keep up with Kathy from Victoria.

Kathy had everything Maddie didn’t, three Commonwealth Games wins and was coached by her hero, Coach Watterson. She would wish she could wipe every smile off her face, but somehow, whenever she stuck the landings, she never caught a smile.

Less side effects than birth control, Maddie reminded herself. This is what she has been waiting for.

Her coach calls out suddenly from a chair near the hallway. “Maddie! I better not see you reconsidering after we’ve come this far. Whatever the man tells you to do, you’re doing it. Your scores are not improving without some kind of a miracle.”

Maddie nods, then realises he can’t see her. “Yes coach!” she calls.

Then she turns to Dr Khan. “What will this do, exactly?”

Dr Khan looks her straight in the eyes. “You have a choice: you can either know, or you can go through with it.”

Maddie takes a deep breath. It only worsens the shaking in her hands. When she signs the page, the ink moves far more smoothly than she is comfortable with.

“Go through with it,” she breathes. This was not the determining choice, but the last choice that would lead her this way in a series of crossroads. Her parents would want this for her. To win. She wanted this, selfishly, but she knew that she did not want to either die or live without a single gold to her name.

Dr Khan nods tersely and leaves the chair. Maddie hears some water splashing around in a tank behind her, and hears the doctor murmur, “has to be fresh.” She hears the clanks of metal from whatever he is doing back there, like a blacksmith working at a very small and precise forge. With one final clink, he walks towards Maddie with a vial in his gloved hands.

He places it in hers, then stands over her.

“Go on, drink up,” he says, and if there is a crazed look in his eyes Maddie cannot see it behind the goggles.

So she does.

She lifts the test tube to her lips and tilts her head back. The first drop is searing hot, then the temperature subsides with each subsequent one. The liquid has the consistency of honey, but tastes like the fat on a fish. She finishes it in one more gulp. She has gone through too much pain already for this to matter.

She gives it back to the scientist, who places it carefully on the rack with the other fluorescent test tubes.

“So?” he asks eagerly.

“So?”

“How do you feel?” He is far too close for comfort now.

When Maddie doesn’t answer, he takes off his goggles and holds one of the fluorescent vials up to her face. Her eyes are closed, so he taps them gently.

“Coach? She’s knocked out.”

He grunts. “Wake ‘er up then. Give ‘er some drug or another.” He begins to walk over to the table.

“I can try,” says Dr Khan. He scrambles to the desk, fearing something worse has gone wrong. “You don’t think her parents will be upset when they find out she won’t ever grow up, do you?”

“It’s for the best,” says coach Steven. “Women in gymnastics decline like anything once they hit twenty. We’re giving her the best years of her life again.”

Dr Khan hums in thought. “She’s got a lifetime to win gold.”

“Exactly.”

Dr Khan finds the right drug and sighs. “I wanted to study medicine, you know. Not do… this.”

“And if you had the choice again?”

“I’d pick medicine.”

The coach grunts again, then nods to Maddie. “Everyone goes for the best they can get, especially Maddie. I know her, I’ve pushed her all these years far more than the other girls would allow me. She would pick this again in a heartbeat, even knowing the consequences.”

Maddie has heard every word of conversation; she has been paralysed, not knocked unconsciousness. And as she struggles to imagine a world in which she stays nineteen forever, never growing old with her sister, not ever relating to her friends as they complain about aches and pains, being called 'kiddo' at the age of forty-seven…

She knows that her coach is right.

Had she known, she would not have changed a thing.