It isn't easy being the savior of the human species, she thought, not for the first time since the trial. Jenna glanced at the series of small nicks in the paint of the bed frame, remembering when she cared enough to try to keep track of the passing days.

     A warning clang announced the arrival of her meal. The slot slipped open and Jenna reached out, anticipating the tray that, if she failed to catch it, would topple to the floor.

     The guard hissed, "Special for you, Scalpel." The distinctive sound of snot being snuffed in and spat out carried in the silence of the empty cellblock. The white-green glob floated in the stew like a decaying oyster.

     Jenna spooned the blob out of the bowl and dropped it in the metal toilet. It clung to the side like spent ejaculate, leaving a glistening path on the way down into the pool of rusty blood-colored water. The symbolism didn't escape her, but the rumbling of her empty stomach interrupted the philosophy of the moment. No meal, or a desecrated one. Not that she had a choice or any way to lodge a complaint.

     The stew filled her belly and the water quenched a physical thirst but there would be no conversation to satisfy her soul and mind. How long had it been since Chevy had deserted her, too? She'd had no lawyer since him - none could be found willing to defend her.

     She didn't remember how long it had been but could still picture the condemnation in his eyes and his cold few words as he quit her case. If she tried hard enough Jenna could imagine how his voice purred in his previous incarnation as her attorney, friend, and lover.

     Even the other prisoners shunned her or threatened to kill her. Though it would have been easier to allow their rough justice the judges and politicians had sequestered 'The Scalpel' until some sort of trial could be arranged. There were appearances of justice to maintain, even for her. Still in all, Jenna knew her confession would be the deciding factor and the guilty verdict already in.

     Well, God hadn't promised popularity when he had set her feet on his chosen path. As she always did, Jenna let her mind replay the first trial and, letting time cover her like a blanket, dreamt.

     Dr. Jennifer Douglas was every attorney's wet dream of a client. Deep pockets, high-profile issue, and a company with an impeccable reputation for charitable contributions, she dressed in a professional if stylish manner and looked good. Her speaking voice was husky and low, with a hint of a southern twang. Her slate and silver hair gave her an air of maturity without any hint of age-related infirmities. The deep gray eyes sparkled with intelligence and wit. When she moved her grace and athleticism characterized each step, her body belied her hair.

     "Wear a warmer color tomorrow," he advised. Her dark suits, silvery hair, and cool charm had earned her the nickname of "The Scalpel" from the press. As personable as Jenna was in the flesh, the camera gave her an air of metallic frigidity that would weaken the opinion of the public toward his client, and endanger her case.

     Chevy Polance found his eyes dragged repeatedly back to where the hem of her skirt had ridden up her thighs. It was a place he'd been welcomed and would continue to visit as often as she permitted. Tonight, he hoped, and poured another glass of the wine for her. He had visions of something more permanent - maybe even a couple kids.

     She picked up the goblet and wandered to the full-length windows overlooking the courthouse. Convenience a prime consideration in her life, she had booked a suite for the length of the trial.

     He had told her that her appearance wasn't necessary unless the plaintiff's lawyer decided to call her as a witness. She wasn't the defendant, after all, her company was. But she insisted in attending every session and listened with an odd look on her face as the other attorney built his case with expert testimony and sympathetic witnesses.

     She hadn't been called, but her managing partner had. The young man had acquitted himself well under questioning and had turned into an asset for Chevy's defense. It hadn't escaped the attorney's notice that the witness had sought out Jenna's smile of approval before leaving the stand.

     "I want to testify, Chevy," she said, at last turning from the window.

     "No need. It's in the bag." The counter-experts had rebuked the earlier expert testimony, decisively. Jenna smiled and set aside the crystal ware. Chevy recognized the smile as her invitation.

     Later, as his sweat dried and his breath returned, she whispered, "Put me on the stand."

     "Why?" he asked, exasperated and exhausted, but unable to deny her anything.

     "Because I have something to say."

     Jenna startled as a hooting noise announced 'lights out'. She pushed her tray halfway through the slot and found her way in utter darkness back to the thin mattress and scratchy blanket.

     The sheets had been of Egyptian cotton and slipped like silk under her rump as Chevy made love to her that final time. She wondered if he knew that he'd said 'I love you' during his orgasm? She hadn't intended to let him fall in love, only to be less suspicious and not refuse her when she asked to make a statement under oath. He'd agreed, but the price he'd paid was far too high.

     Chevy frowned when he saw Jenna's choice of apparel. A sterile white blouse and black tailored suit was not warm colored as he had instructed. Not an ounce of jewelry interrupted the immaculate skin; even her make-up was minimal and severe.

     "Do you want to lose?" he hissed. "I have half a mind to not call you up."

     Jenna smiled. "I've already won, darling. Nothing I say can change that now, God knows."

     So she had taken the stand for the defense and answered a few questions of his before the attorney for the complaint rose.

     She looked up at the judge and asked, "Sir? Would I be allowed a short statement before the questioning continues?"

     The judge - a man and, therefore, completely susceptible to her smile and voice - nodded to her request and ignored the objections from both sides.

     Jenna gazed for a long moment at the young man and woman at the plaintiff's table. For the first time since meeting her, Chevy saw a hint of nervousness in her. He stood to object again, but the judge fixed him with a single frown.

     The artist pencils scratched as 'The Scalpel' cleared her throat and with a tiny shake of her head began to speak. Soon even that sound faded as her words built sentences and her sentences built a confession.

     "Mr. and Mrs. Dillon, you seem like wonderful and caring people. You have planned your life carefully and with the responsible attitude, I believe, is tantamount for raising a decent and healthy family.

     "If I were God, you are exactly the kind of couple I would choose to be parents. But I am not God… Only his instrument."

     Chevy felt a cool hand of disbelief caress his suddenly sweaty neck.

     "Fifteen years ago I bio-engineered the bacteria responsible for the compound now known as Nutri-max. The small lab folded without patenting the process, so later I retraced my earlier research and perfected both the process and the compound.

     "My in-vivo studies in both mice and monkeys confirmed my previous observations of the effects of Nutri-max. I know exactly what the compound is and how it works."

     The plaintiff's attorney attempted a question. "We know the history, Dr. Douglas. What we hope to prove is that ingestion of your company's product for weight loss has left Mrs. Dillon barren."

     Jenna lifted her hand dismissively. "Hope no more, sir. I can answer that simply. It has."

     A murmur of disbelief rumbled like distant traffic until the judge slammed his gavel once.

     "It has?"

     Jenna nodded. "I was initially disappointed in this side-effect. I felt it might outweigh the benefits. I had hoped that Nutri-max was the answer to world hunger." Early testimony had outlined the manner in which the compound provided and maximized the absorption of nutrients in the intestines. Low calorie diets could be made to supply the entire daily requirements and had made significant progress in ending malnutrition in third world countries.

     "Then God revealed his plan to me, and I realized that I had been led to the answer. When the ethics of targeting the hungry worried me, he gave me the assurance that my discovery could also treat the overweight. Later, cereal manufacturers added Nutri-max to grain based products to increase their nutritional value for the rest of us."

     The plantiff's attorney asked, "Why would God want you to sterilize Mrs. Dillon?"

     Jenna laughed, lightly, and shook her head at his misunderstanding. "Not Mrs. Dillon. Eighty-two percent of all women, and seventy-five percent of all men." She glanced at Chevy but he refused to meet her eyes, as he wallowed in the depths of her betrayal. "Virtually everyone, now living, has ingested Nutri-max and is sterile - or is not." She spoke confidently and with such utter frankness that no one disbelieved her.

     She seemed to be unaware of the shock in each of the faces in the gallery. "The next generation will be a very small one."

     A low sob rose from one corner and then another from another aisle, as each woman examined her luck and the statistics.

     "How did you go from solving world hunger to murdering eighty percent of our children?" Chevy heard himself say. He had none - would likely never have offspring, now.

     "I killed no one and, incidentally, I have solved the problem of world hunger."

     "Why?" a voice - not a lawyer - asked, breaking and anguished. The judge had abandoned his gavel and had his head on his arms, frozen in his place by the cold reality of her testimony.

     "To everything there is a season. It is the season for the world to rest."

     Chevy became aware of a growing growl. Acting on an impulse, later regretted, he gestured to the guards to remove Jenna from the court. As a single organism, the ice of shock now the flame of fury, the crowd pressed forward as the bailiff pushed her through a side door, Chevy leading. Hands that would never hold a son or daughter helped her into a police car, though not as gently as they would have the day before.

     Though not formally charged with any crime, she hadn't been free since.

     A thin ray of moonlight drew a bright line up the wall of her cell. Jenna recalled the scorn on Chevy's lips as he had told her of the judges' reluctance to bring her to trial. If her whereabouts became known the mobs, which sought her death relentlessly, would prevail and wreck some barbaric revenge for her unnamed crimes against humanity.

     "I wish I could believe in your insanity," he'd said, bitterly. "That would be an excuse."

     "I am sane," Jenna whispered and he nodded.

     "Why?" he'd asked. Though she could have given him a better answer than the one to which she'd testified, there wasn't one that would satisfy any individual - only a species. He'd raped her then, to the amusement of her keepers - that being his solution to the puzzle of how to regain what she had stolen from him - and, instead of declarations of love, snarled his resignation as he climaxed.

     A common response from men, she'd learned, was rape as they sought to replace potency with power. Women spat in her food and withheld basic necessities and pissed on her bedding and struck her, taking from her any comfort she could find in her solitary state.

     Martyrdom would have been preferable, but God hadn't promised her anything. He'd only shown her what the outcome would be of the season of rest, and left the choice to her. She'd chosen freely as had Daniel, Mary and Joseph and countless others who had placed the will of God before their own.

    
God's will. Not hers.

    
He cared nothing for her wish to relieve world hunger.

    
God's plan. Not hers.

    
Suffer not the little children.

    
In a world where lip service was paid but scant provision made for them, where children starved and were beaten and abused, and where the legacy of prejudice and hatred and neglect led children to murder each other, there could be no healing.

     But in a world where every child was a rare delight, where each birth was a miracle, and the needs and lives of the precious few babies were placed ahead of the wants and pastimes of the adults, there could be hope reborn.

     Every child wanted, treasured, and nurtured, never a burden, a trouble, or a discard. Their potential would be explored and encouraged to flourish. A gift given from heaven, each one would be special and loved.

     No. Being a savior was definitely not easy, she thought, but the rot would be excised by God's Scalpel. The world would be rescued - to hope for better. Paradise, maybe.

     Perhaps, even, innocence.

     Eden regained.