Product

Dr. Albert Clarke has been on the shortlist for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry three times. He's brilliant. He also has seventeen children and a house that is much too small for them. He maintains a laboratory in the basement of the house where he has perfected a way to extract the phsyche, or "essence" of a human being and put it into storage. He then reduces the components of the physical remains and stores them separately. According to Dr. Clarke, a "Person" is the combination of both the physical body and its spiritual essence; without the spirit, the body is merely a Product. Dr. Clarke uses his Product: Person protocol to rotate his children into and out of storage to keep his household manageable. His wife, Phyllis, manages the problems the rotation causes with school, medical, and dental societal requirements. The Product: Person protocol has supported the enormous family successfully for years. Then one morning, Dr. Clarke dresses his eight-year-old son, Larry and sends him upstairs to greet his mother: he has just been "decanted" and restored to the land of the living. When Larry runs into the kitchen to throw his arms around his mother, she says, "Oh, Larry! I am so glad to see you again, sweetie!" Larry stops dead in his tracks, involuntary tears starting from his eyes. "But Mom," he says. "It's me, Katie!" Oh dear. Looks like there's been a mishap in the lab, one with world-changing potential...