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Pregnant Hope doesn't want to take the Fix, a genetic cure-all pill that corrects the DNA of an unborn child and protects it from all sorts of diseases. Hope's husband Hugh doesn't really understand her objections to the Fix - in fact, Hope never really articulates them at all - but supports her right to choose.
The couple live in post-climate change London - Hugh is a carpenter working with New Wood and Hope labours from home in a virtual call centre. The Warm War is ongoing, but - beyond a general paranoia about foreign insurgents - it doesn't really affect life that much. Even so, this is quite a scary future. Hope and Hugh's world is increasingly surveiled. Pregnant women must wear a monitor ring which ensures they don't drink alcohol or come into contact with cigarette smoke. It's for their own good. As is the Fix. The ruling Labour party, in a tooth-grinding reminder of Tony Blair's Third Way, acts to create the free market that it thinks would exist if all participants were a) rational and b) had perfect knowledge. As Hope's MP says, ''the state... steps in too to allow people to make the choices '''they would have made''' if they’d they'd had that information''.
But of course, the state system has much more in common with ''computer says no'' than with strong AI and Hope's refusal to take the Fix results in all sorts of pressure and problems for her and Hugh.
