The Agency
Emily Gao
The secretary sat at her desk and picked at her chipping manicure. Beige flakes of what CVS called “pink sand” scattered on the neat stack of business cards below her. “Selective Family Services - here to match you with your ideal child” they read, all sharp angles and crisp lines. A common theme here in the city’s most premium adoption agency: everything was as polished as possible. Even the children. The children came from everywhere, never older than two. The secretary had never seen any of them, but had faith that she would one day. She often saw news on social media of celebrities’ newly adopted children and wondered just how many of them had come from SFS. She remembered the tragic news about Wilson and Marissa Scott, two actors that had left their child orphaned after they died in a mysterious accident. Later, it was revealed that their child, Handly Scott, had been adopted from SFS a number of years ago, when the government had first released the initiative. The program only started ten years ago. They had said that the new technology allowing for children and infants to be tested for future height, build, intelligence, talent, and attractiveness would be used on orphaned children in order to increase adoption rates. And they were right. The rich and famous were opting out of giving birth themselves, afraid of the odds that their child would be born with disabilities or undesirable traits. Instead they chose to visit adoption agencies that would select orphaned infants for them. The clinic assured prospective parents that these children would grow up to look like them, or be attractive and intelligent in the future. The secretary had always found the process quite odd, and wondered how the bill had ever been passed, but she needed money, and this job paid well. She had worked at the agency for months, but even now, as Eva James, the 20
