Double Helix Ch. 26

Nissi

Wendy lay on the examination table--more of a padded slab, really--while I prepped my equipment. I wrapped a piece of surgical tubing around her upper arm and she opened and closed her hand without being asked. We'd been doing this same procedure about every other day. When I picked up the blood draw kit, a needle with tubing for attaching collection vials, she closed her eyes tightly, just like always. Wendy hated needles.

I filled up three vials with her blood and set them aside, then prepped her gene therapy injection. For months, I had been slowly and methodically altering the DNA throughout her body. The protocol that I had developed with my collaborators on the darknet was designed to give her body a chance to adapt to incremental changes in protein synthesis, metabolism, and cell growth. Our initial therapies had removed the developmental blocks that kept her at pre-adolescence, allowing a hormone cascade to begin changing her from a child into an adult, a process that we accelerated as much as we could safely manage, while introducing her gene therapy regimens in stages.

Wendy's body had responded beautifully. Her Standard Upgrade fertility mods kept her from ovulating and menstruating, but she was growing and developing rapidly. Her actual age was over forty, but her biological age had already increased from about ten to around fourteen in just eight months. We would complete the gene therapy treatments before the year was up, and by then she should be an adult in every way. I was looking forward to announcing our success on the darknet and making it available for ex-patriate Peter and Wendy mods in the overseas clinics we would open soon.

"All done," I said, as I retracted the needle from her vein and pressed a piece of cotton over it to stop the bleeding. I didn't bother with taping it. There was no blood flowing after just a minute.

"Good, I'm starving," she said, and hopped down from the table.

Eight months ago, it had been nearly a two-foot drop for her. Now it was only half that distance. She had a ravenous appetite, mostly due to her accelerated growth. Fortunately, with the greenhouse fully restored and our revenue from the Agora marketplace, keeping everyone fed hadn't been a concern for some time.

Wendy stopped on her way toward the passageway to the house. She slowly turned to face me. "We talked about this once before," she said. "I'd like to work with you here in the lab. I was planning to wait until my body's done cooking, but I think I'm ready now."

Before the Ban, Wendy had been a chemical engineer, working for a major pharmaceutical company. She had a deep understanding of drug and hormonal pathways, which could be a tremendous help as we developed new medical treatments.

"Alright," I said. "If you're ready."

Wendy chuckled. "It's just that I'm bored. I've been helping Stansy with the wedding plans, but we've basically got it all wrapped up now."

The wedding was just fifteen days away. Stansy had found a minister in the Agency who was willing to perform the ceremony to marry Tilly, Norm, and me into a three-way union. The marriage wouldn't be legal, strictly speaking, but we didn't care. What we all wanted was the commitment, our mutual promise to remain together, no matter what. A ceremony, in front of our community, our family, was what we needed.

"Well, if you want to jump in, I'd say let's start tomorrow morning."

She nodded. "Perfect. I'll catch you later, then."

She hurried off to get breakfast, the thick security door clanging shut on her way out.

I began testing Wendy's blood, looking for indications of problems in her hormone levels or indicators of poor liver function. As usual, all signs pointed to her being a healthy, growing teenage girl.

I spent the rest of the morning reviewing the research notes of my colleagues on the darknet. Since curing Nona of Alzheimer's, we had found three additional subjects to test the same protocol. Two had responded well, their cells rejuvenating to a younger biological age, lost function returning as their brains healed. The third, an elderly man in Chile, had regenerated some of his lost brain tissue, but hadn't fully recovered, suggesting that something about his condition was different from the others. My research team was working with the team in Chile to pinpoint the problem.

Nock had sent me several updates. He had negotiated a deal to open our first clinic in Bangkok in the fall, pending the outcome of the trials I had just been going over. Thailand was not a signatory of the Berlin Accords, so genetic engineering was nominally legal. It wasn't that the little country was some hotbed of genetic research but more about them thumbing their noses at the rules that the US and Germany tried to impose on the rest of the world.

Still, it was a dangerous game we were all playing. Once word got out that there was a clinic that could cure Alzheimer's, I could see international pressure coming down on the Thailand government for experiments in genetic manipulation. The gamble was that the country would see an explosion of medical tourism that would bring both wealth and goodwill into the region. It was hopefully a start towards loosening the grip that the US-German alliance had on most of the rest of the world.

The next big update was something we've been waiting weeks for. We had finally gotten the information that Tilly's mother had promised us. She had done exactly as she had planned, dead-dropping a storage device for an Agency person to find. They had sent us the full contents over the darknet, and my colleagues were already digging into it and discussing the implications of what they saw, which were many.

Increasing intelligence isn't easy. There's a reason that it took decades for biotech companies to really start to move beyond what a small percentage of humans were already capable of. It isn't just about adding greater processing power, increasing the number of neurons and possible synaptic connections, although that helps. Tilly's genome incorporated crow DNA, resulting in smaller, more tightly packed neurons in her cerebral cortex. This both increased her brain's computing power and slightly sped up processing speed.

However, intelligence also depends on the brain's efficiency and connectedness, how different regions of the brain can be made to work together to solve a problem. The lesions that Gena's brain had sustained in the reversion process were largely aimed at disrupting these neural networks, reducing her ability to integrate data across her cerebral cortex. One of the consequences of that had been a long convalescence as her brain learned how to operate with its new, less efficient architecture, adapting other areas of her brain to take over functions that had been disrupted.

The other type of damage the reversion had done had been aimed at particular regions of her brain, parts of her cognition that were optimized towards specific tasks. I already knew that we could repair the damage to her brain's connectivity with stem cells, but these specialized regions had to be carefully reconstructed. That's where I hoped that the data from Tilly's mother could help us.

I opened the file and scanned through it. It was comprehensive, describing every feature of the G model and the various human genes that had been inserted, deleted, or modified to get the result that the engineers were after. This information alone was a treasure trove, as it could potentially allow us to create new Gs. They were rare, as the model had only been available for a short time before human gene editing had been outlawed. They were also expensive. And while there would be a delay to await their growth and development, Gs were universally known for being prodigies, able to operate at a high cognitive level from a young age.

Looking at my notes from my foreign colleagues actually dampened my optimism. Embryonic development of these brain structures was one thing. Promoting and directing their growth in vivo, in a living human adult, was something else entirely. There was no technology that currently existed that could do what we needed it to, forcing brain cells to grow into the unique structures described in the data dump.

When Gena arrived, I gave her the good news, but tempered it with my concerns.

"Okay," she said, "how long do you think it might take to develop new therapies for this?"

I didn't have an answer to that, but I did my best. "Years, possibly. My team is already working through the problems, but this is a lot more complicated than repairing the damage of Alzheimer's. The G model brain is a work of art, and we have to try to fix what has been very deliberately broken in yours."

"I understand," she said, a little glumly. "Please do your best. I need my mind back, Nissi. Not just for myself. I could help all of us."

Gena's ongoing treatments were not dissimilar from Wendy's. I had recently begun gene therapy to give her the enhancements of a Standard Upgrade. The drug pathway that triggered ovulation on demand had already been restored, but she'd confided in me that she and Nock wanted to wait before starting a family. Now we were moving on now to metabolic enhancements.

Unlike Wendy, who got anxious and went silent around needles, Gena chatted all through the procedures, telling me about her work on the mesh network, her excitement over the wedding, even current events on the outside that, since I'd been living on the farm, often seemed like they described some other world.

It was past noon when I finished and she went back to work at the west house. Norm hadn't come to see me yet, I noted with a frown. Normally he made it a point to come down to the lab and bother me on his lunch break. I went up to the kitchen to make some food, then headed outside to find him.

On exiting the back of the house, I saw immediately what had kept him away. Someone had been operating one of the excavators, driving it downslope into the massive pit where the new living quarters were being built, but it had somehow overturned. It now lay sprawled out, like a half-squashed bug, the cab on the downhill side. Steve had brought their other excavator in, and they had attached chains to the fallen one to try to lever it back onto its treads. They had it balanced up on the edge of one tread, but judging by the sound of the yelling coming from the pit, things weren't going well. Fortunately, it looked like no one had been hurt, and the equipment didn't appear to be damaged except for one cracked window in the cab.

I could see what the problem was with their plan. With the excavator turned over and the cab on the downhill side, they couldn't get the leverage they would need to pull it up upright using the other excavator from the uphill side. Instead, the overturned earth mover's treads were just digging into the slope, causing the working excavator to pitch up each time it tried to back up.

"Looks like you guys could use some help," I called, setting our sandwiches down on the little table that the crew used for breaks.

"Oh, good," Norm yelled. "Maybe you and Stansy can lift it if you work together."

"Smart ass," I called back. "Does it still run?"

Stansy went around to the cab and climbed awkwardly in. The engine hesitated, but then started with a blast of black smoke.

"Stay there," I called. "I'll be right back."

I came back a few minutes later with the pickup truck and bounced down the slope, coming to a stop on one side of the fallen digger, facing downhill.

"Alright, what's your plan?" Norm asked, all business now as I jumped out and came over to them, getting a closer look at the minor disaster as I went.

I pointed to the truck. "We'll hook up to the frame and connect to the front end of the excavator. Steve will lift it back up to get the cab off the ground and I'll pull slowly downhill. Stansy will slowly, slowly move the track forward. With Steve holding it up and me pulling on the front, it should turn downhill. We'll need you to coordinate our movements. I'll move in a semicircle so we can turn it parallel to the slope, and then you should be able to pull it back upright."

Steve, the only human on the team, spoke up. "You, uh, you know this thing weighs about thirty tons, right?"

I nodded. "I didn't, but what's important is the leverage. I'll also be moving downhill, so gravity will help. I'll need you to balance that thing up on one track as much as you can. It should take less force to get it turned downhill than it takes to tip it upright."

Norm looked at Tia, Steve, and Stansy in turn, who each nodded their agreement or shrugged their indifference. "Alright, we'll try it."

We hooked up the chains and I got back in, putting out of my mind the thought that Tilly would kill me if I damaged her truck. Norm called out directions, first getting Steve to lift the excavator as far as it would go, which perched it on the edge of the tracks. Once it was in place, he ordered me to begin moving forward.

The engine revved as I slowly lowered the pedal. Just when it was close to red-lining and I thought I would have to let off and try something else, the vehicle surged forward. I cursed and let off the gas, but Norm yelled at me to keep going while signalling me to turn the wheel. I did as he instructed and the truck edged forward once more into a turn, moving in a more controlled manner as the excavator's treads came unstuck from the dirt. Steve did an admirable job, turning with the fallen excavator while keeping it supported. It took us twenty minutes of starting, stopping, and re-evaluating, but once the thing was pointed downhill, Steve was able to pull it slowly the rest of its way up onto its treads.

Norm and Tia were looking the excavator over for damage when I approached. "It'll need to be checked over by our mechanic," Tia said, shaking her head ruefully. "I'll give him a call."

"No big deal," Norm said. "It only sets us back a day or so." He turned to me. "Thank you, love. That was good thinking."

I sidled over and gave him a quick kiss. "Why not take a break, join me for lunch?"

I drove us back out of the pit and we sat together at the break table, enjoying our hummus sandwiches. Norm talked about his progress on what we'd started calling the bunker, the underground habitat that would be home to dozens of people once it was finished. It was slow going, though. With only five people on the job, it had taken months just to dig out the pit. They were working on the foundation now, but again, that would take months of work.

"It's a paradox," Norm said. "We need a lot more workers to get this job done quickly, but we don't have the space to house them, or the food to support them. We'll need to break for winter--you can't pour concrete in the cold--but even working all the rest of next year, I don't see how we'll finish before December next year. That's two whole years, Nissi. And that's assuming that Steve and Tia decide to stay on for that long. They might want to leave after the summer."

"Well, Tilly's aquaculture farm should be finished soon. If you want more workers, that should solve your food problem."

Norm conceded that with a nod. "And I guess we could buy a bunch of tents or something."

"Storms would be an issue," I said. "Why not just put them in the barn? Or use the greenhouse. We could set up bunks in the central corridor. It might not be super comfortable, but it'll keep the rain off."

He looked at me askance. "You really think we should do this?"

"Why not? Like you said, at the rate you're going, it'll be another two years before you finish. If we get another dozen, maybe two dozen people helping, you train them up and maybe finish in months instead. And that gives us a bigger labor pool for other projects. We could build another greenhouse, maybe plant more grain and raise more livestock. That would generate more income, allow us to support more people and we could expand our operations even more."

He stared into the distance for a moment, chewing his bite of food. "I don't know if we want to get too big. We need to stay self-sufficient. No need to truck supplies in all the time. But even with that, the bigger we get, the greater the risk that the outside world finds us."

I understood his reluctance. Stansy's stunt last month had put us all on edge. Portland wasn't that far away, and we didn't know what kind of resources these hostile genemods possessed. As the weeks had gone by, we gradually relaxed. We had been lucky once more. Or maybe that was all SamIAm, still looking out for us. The enigmatic hacker hadn't spoken to anyone since Norm had demanded answers from him, but he might still be protecting us, for all we knew.

"What's our endgame here, Norm? What are we trying to accomplish? If the whole point was to stay hidden and safe, we should have stopped with the greenhouse. It was enough to support us indefinitely. So why didn't we stop there?"

He shrugged. "I've never been content to sit idly and watch the world burn. That's why I got involved with helping genemods. Especially after what they did to my sister."

His tone had an edge of bitterness. I reached over and touched his hand. "I'm glad you two came to an understanding. She looks up to you, you know. But let's get back to the question. Why are we always expanding? To what purpose?"

He thought for only a moment. "Because there's a chance that we can make things better. Tilly, Ed, Stanley, and Dawn are working on a cure for Rot. You're working on new medical cures. Stan, Gena, and Stanford are working on their communications network."

"And you are working on the facilities to house the people who can help us push forward on those projects. And don't forget all the people around the world that we're leveraging to help us. The more we have here, the more we can convince others to join in. Also, we're a symbol. Think of all those people trapped in safe houses, just waiting for the day that the FBI breaks down their door and drags them off to be... to be made into slaves like Stansy's son. We're like rock stars to those people. They look at what we've accomplished and it gives them hope, a reason to keep going."

I could see from his thoughtful expression that I had shifted his perspective. Spending all your time staring down at the dirt could make you forget the big picture.

"Alright," he said at last. "Tilly's new farm is almost done, but it'll take time for the plants to grow and the fish to mature. Months yet, if I recall correctly. But maybe we can speed things up. If we take on, say, twenty new people, pull them out of Agency safe houses and bring them here, then maybe we can get the Agency to divert additional food shipments as well, at least until we can stand on our own. Gena has her heart set on bringing in everyone who was caught because of her actions in California. I suppose we should start with them. We'll just have to ensure that they understand they'll be put to work."

"I think that's an excellent plan," I said. "Maybe bring them in a few at a time so we can adjust. We might want to scale back our calorie rations for a while, try to build a bigger surplus."

"I'll get Nock on it. We've got the wedding coming up, but this is too important to wait. Our new facilities are going to be fantastic. Tilly plans to move all her work to the new lab, which will free up all of the old one for you to use. A few of our current residents are already talking about moving into the bunker. I would love it if we could get it finished this year."

We quickly finished eating, and I gave him a hug and a kiss before I let him return to work. I decided not to head down to the lab just yet, swinging by Tilly's work site to see how things were going. I hadn't come for a close look in some time, and things had changed considerably. Tilly offered to show me around.

The new farm was roughly the same size as the greenhouse, with its own solar farm nearby, up on the surface. Unlike the greenhouse, the aquaponics farm was all below ground level, the glass panelled ceiling sloping slightly to the south to facilitate drainage. All four walls were poured concrete treated with a sealant and infused with fungicide to prevent Rot contamination coming in from the surrounding soil. The floor was dirt that had been carefully sterilized and enriched, going down to a depth of several feet.

The new farm was separated into eight smaller compartments, just like the greenhouse. Each one had its own independent water circulation system, with entry to each compartment coming off a central corridor. Much of the infrastructure was buried below the farm, leaving the maximum possible room for growing food. The solar array up above supplied the farm's power needs.

After the obligatory fungicide shower and change of clothing, Tilly brought me into the first compartment, which was currently being tested. At one end stood tall tanks that housed the fish. Pipes led out of them into large, rectangular grow tanks that ran nearly the length of the compartment. At the far end were a third set of tanks, used to collect the runoff from the grow tanks. Gravity would move water through the tanks in a downward progression, and pumps would cycle it back to the fish tanks at the top. The fish ate and produced waste, which would flow along with the water to the grow tanks. The plants filtered that waste from the water and used it for nutrients. The water proceeded to the third set of tanks, where it could be treated to remove any residual waste to use in fertilizer, if needed, before being pumped back to the fish tanks.

"And what do the fish eat?" I asked.

Tilly smiled. "Worms, what else?"

She pointed to a large empty spot of tilled soil behind the fish tanks. "We're giving the fish feed right now, but we'll be composting all of the waste from the fish and the plants there, along with whatever other biological waste we can collect and use safely. Worms will break that down, and we'll use some of that to recharge the soil in the greenhouse. We'll harvest the worms and feed them to the fish. We'll still need to add nutrients into the system to replace some of the biomass we take out, but I want to make it as much of a closed loop as possible."

"Sounds like a tricky balance."

She nodded vigorously. "It really is. I'm hoping that at some point I can hand the operation off to someone else, otherwise it's going to take up just as much of my time as the construction has."

I told her about my conversation with Norm, and our tentative plan to move forward with bringing more people to the farm. "I know Norm could really use a bigger construction crew, but I'm wondering if we could bring on a few more specialists. Maybe someone to manage this place."

Tilly sighed. "That would be a huge relief. Terry and Kurt are gone as soon as this place is up and running. With all of us still pulling shifts in the greenhouse, I hated the thought of having to ask you all to take on more work to help me in here."

I chuckled. "And I hate the thought of taking more time away from my own projects. So we need, what? Someone who is expert in managing a complex food production system like this, plus basic labor to grow and harvest food in both our farms?"

"Specialization is a lot more efficient. And the sooner I can get my hands on some new people, the sooner I can train them up. If we can swing this, it's without a doubt the best news I've had all month."

She stepped close and rose on her toes to kiss me. I ran my hand through her brown hair, my lips twitching to a smile when she shivered in pleasure. I stepped back and she slowly let her heels down, as if floating back to Earth.

"Love you, babe," I said, still smiling

Tilly nodded and blushed prettily. Yes, she was definitely feeling the heat of desire that had welled up in me. Having Tilly as a lover was amazing. She was always in sync with whatever I was feeling.

"We'll want to talk to Nock," I suggested. "A lot depends on how willing the Agency is to work with us, but I've seen that boy do wonders with them so far."

"Let's meet tonight," she suggested. "Norm, too. We need to hash this out."

The four of us met that evening at the den in the big house, with the addition of Sasha, since she was in charge of accounting. She had also taken over from Norm the tasks of selling and procuring goods through Andy, which we might need. I could tell that Norm was still grouchy from the incident with the excavator earlier in the day, so I started massaging his shoulders while Tilly gave her opinion on the topic.

Norm saw the sense in bringing in all the people from the LA safe house. It was something we'd already been considering, and now seemed as good a time as any to pull the trigger. As reverts, the Agency was already uncomfortable with housing them. With their resources already constantly stretched to the limit, I'm sure that they were hesitant to set a precedent of protecting them. The reverts would no doubt be happy to see a familiar face in Norm.

If those people chose--and I was confident that most or all of them would--I could begin work on reversing the physiological and genetic damage they had sustained from reversion. I could even offer additional genetic enhancement, as Wendy and Gena had opted to take. Beyond those initial ten, we would let the Agency find genemods that were in poor or high-risk circumstances. After carefully taking stock of our expected food output, Sasha and Tilly calculated that we could sustain a total of about forty people with both the greenhouse and the aquaponics farm, with an acceptable margin for safety.

"That's not good," Nock said. "We've already got half that now. I thought this aquaponics farm was supposed to be more productive than a regular greenhouse."

Tilly opened her mouth to speak but never got the chance.

"You forget comparative advantage," Sasha said, smiling at the confused looks she got. "You know, David Ricardo? The economist?" She sighed. "Anyway, that's the whole reason we have the aquaponics farm. It supplies us with fish that have a high monetary value. We can trade that on the informal market for greater amounts of lower-value food, probably at about a six- or eight-to-one caloric ratio. I would estimate, if we convert all of our fish to vegetables and grains through the market, we'll be able to support at least seventy people."

"Not all our fish," Norm corrected. "We could all use the extra protein and nutrients. Let's say sixty people. That means we could bring in forty fresh faces. Not as much as I would have hoped, but a lot better than twenty."

"What about building a new greenhouse?" Tilly suggested. "I've got an idea for packing a lot more food production into a given space. It will require more infrastructure, a big solar array for power, a lot more CO2 generators, and we'll need to work on a better water supply, but I think we could increase what the old greenhouse produces by at least a factor of five."

"That's... you're talking about food for a hundred more people," Sasha said. "Really? How would you do that?"

"I would use all three dimensions, stack the plants vertically," Tilly answered. "Instead of planting them in soil or water, they hang from racks and we mist nutrient-rich water over them. It would also make them resistant to Rot contamination, since the spores wouldn't have flowing water to move through. Stacked and packed tightly together like that, there won't be enough sunlight available, so we'll need grow lights."

Norm rubbed at his temples, as if a headache were coming on. "You want to build another food farm?" he complained. "We aren't even finished setting up the last one."

"How much money, and how long to build it?" Nock asked.

Tilly frowned for a moment as she thought. "At least a million, I think. And building it will require a lot of labor. With ten people and some heavy equipment, maybe six to eight months?"

"Holy shitting fuck," Norm said. "You know we don't have that kind of cash. You could build six of our old greenhouse with that kind of money."

Tilly shook her head. "My new design makes more efficient use of water and space, and we'll need less labor to maintain it and harvest the food. Five-X production is a conservative estimate, by the way. It could be as much as twice that. Plus, with grow lights, we don't need the sun and can bury it completely under a layer of dirt. I wish I had thought of the idea sooner. We could have concealed all of our farms that way."

"But there's no way we could have paid for that. We can't pay for it now."

Nock was nodding thoughtfully. "Tilly, would you be able to write up detailed specs for this new farm? I can talk to some investors who might fund this kind of project if you're willing to share the IP with them. Even if there's nothing to patent, there's potential to make big money on these farms, especially overseas. I'm sure I can find the money to fund a prototype."

Tilly chuckled. "Like I've got any use for intellectual property. Yeah, it'll take me a few days, but I'll get it to you."

"Okay," Norm said. "I'll let the two of you figure that one out. I still think it's bonkers, but if anyone can manage to get the money and actually build it, you can. Let's talk about bringing more people in. Nissi mentioned getting a few at a time. I think that's the smart choice. We don't want to strain our limited resources. I say we put the first few people we get into the aquaponics farm, help us get that up and running faster. Then we'll shift them into a labor pool that will focus on running both our farms. That frees up the rest of us from having to put time in there and gives us the food production to bring more people in. What kind of numbers were you thinking, Tilly?"

"Four people would be enough to cut my timeline in half," Tilly said. "We could have all eight compartments of the farm fully operational and producing food in about ten to twelve weeks. It'll be a good six months before the first of the fish are ready for harvest, though."

"How many people to run both farms?"

"About six general labor should do it," she said. "Plus a specialist who understands the science and the systems well enough to keep everything in balance."

"We'll get you the six, then. That's more than half of the reverts from LA. Nock, do you think we can get the Agency to agree to that? And supply us the food for them for the next two months?"

Nock was already typing before he finished. "I'm messaging my contact now. I'll let you know what she says."

"And let's see about finding this specialist," Norm added. "That might take some time."

Tilly nodded. "I'm aware. I'll take care of it until then."

"We'll bring more in as our food production increases. I don't want to spoil our goodwill with the Agency by asking them for too much help. Once we're producing from both farms, I can expand our construction crew. I'll want to take on another twenty people. You said ten weeks for the farm to start producing. Will we have that much food? We can dip into our reserves if we need to."

Tilly's eyes scanned back and forth a few times as she thought. "It'll be close, but I think so."

"I'll double-check those numbers," Sasha put in.

Norm clapped his hands together. "Great. I think we have a tentative plan. The bunker still won't be finished until late this year or early next, but that's a whole lot better than it was."

"My contact says we'll talk in the morning," Nock announced. "It's not a 'no', so I can probably persuade her to do it. I'll see if I can get our first six here next week."

The meeting was quickly winding down, so Tilly grabbed my hand and we slipped away upstairs. "Norm's really tired and stressed," she said. "More than usual."

"I could tell. He might just want to sleep tonight.".

Entering the bedroom always lifted my spirits. The farm was home, but this room was our cozy little love nest. I turned to Tilly. "Shower with me?"

"I'd love to," Tilly answered, casting a surreptitious glance over my body.

It started out innocently enough. I washed her back, and she washed mine, but that led into soft, sensual kisses, which led to our hands roaming over each other's bodies. I didn't hear Norm enter, though Tilly must have, as only one of us jumped when he reached past the shower curtain and put one hand on each of our bottoms.

"Is there room in there for me, ladies?"

It was a tub/shower combination, which didn't leave a lot of standing room, but we both stepped back to let him get in between us.

"You wash the back," I said to Tilly. "I'll get his front."

Tilly started by shampooing Norm's hair, while I ran a soapy washcloth over his face, neck and shoulders. I had to take a moment to appreciate what all that hard labor had done for his body. He had always been lean, but his chest and upper torso now bulged with thick, hardy muscle, his abs a firm ripple. It was odd to think that my willowy frame likely held more than twice his strength, but that didn't make it any less fun to look at him.

Tilly pulled Norm back against her to rinse off and we started in again, moving to his chest, arms, and back. He just closed his eyes and enjoyed letting his girls take care of him. We rinsed and moved on to his legs, our fingertips touching as we rubbed him down with soap, and occasionally slipping over more intimate parts of his anatomy. Another rinse, and I ran up a good lather in my hands, his eyes watching mine. I leaned down slightly to press my lips against his and closed both of my hands over his erect cock.

He groaned happily as I stroked him, echoed by Tilly's answering cry. "Oh!" he said suddenly, and I felt a subtle movement. I dipped a hand down to his testicles, cupping them gently, and felt the movement more clearly.

"Did you forget to clean a spot?" I teased Tilly, as she rubbed the soapy washcloth into the crack of his ass between his legs to his perineum.

"No, just saving it," she replied, and uttered a long, pleasurable sigh. Tilly had never been much into being on the receiving end of anal play, but she seemed to enjoy giving it. Which was odd, considering that she felt everything that we did. What was the difference if it was done to her directly?

I pushed Norm back into Tilly, so that the water washed away the lather, then dropped to my knees and took him into my mouth. His groan was lower, more feral-sounding. Sucking my man's cock brought out feelings that nothing else could, like I belonged to him, like there was nothing more important than his pleasure.

"I don't think... he'll be going straight... to sleep now," Tilly announced, her voice hitching each time I thrust my head forward, taking Norm's cock right to the back of my throat.

After a few minutes of play, I pulled back and stood up. "Mmm, that's good for now. Let's get him dry and into bed. "

I grabbed Norm's towel and dried him off, wrapping it around him and rubbing his body from head to toe. Then I got Tilly's and did the same to her, her smaller, softer, curvier body just as exciting to my touch as his, but in a different way.

I gave Tilly a peck on the lips. "Go fuck his brains out, love. I'll join you in a moment."

"I don't have any say in this, do I?" Norm asked, smirking.

"No!" Tilly and I said together.

I laughed as Tilly grabbed Norm gently by the convenient, stiff handle in front and dragged him from the bathroom. By the time I had finished drying off, I was hearing conspicuous noises from the bedroom, and hurried to check on them.

The warm light of the bedside lamp illuminated their bodies. Norm was lying down with Tilly astride him, her bare back facing me as she rode him. I crept over to the bed and climbed up behind her. She steadied herself with both hands on his muscular chest, eyes half-lidded but looking down into his face. I could almost feel the intensity of their intimacy.

I reached both armss around her, my hands finding her breasts. I had always been a little envious of their greater heft, and I loved the way it felt to touch them. I pressed my body against her, letting my own modest breasts drag across her back while placing kisses on her neck and shoulders, letting them enjoy each other while still remaining in their orbit.

Tilly never lasted long. Her soft moans turned into more strident cries, quickly culminating in a wild squeal of ecstasy as her body tensed and shook. "Martin! Fuck!" she groaned and fell into his embrace, certainly not the most colorful thing she had ever said, but a word that I had never heard her utter when not in the throes of a sexual climax.

I waited until her breathing slowed before nuzzling her ear. "My turn, babe."

There's one really important thing about sharing a lover with another. For it to work, you have to enjoy giving. You can't be possessive, and you certainly can't harbor jealousy. Tilly and I had quickly adapted to our new situation, coming to an unspoken agreement that we would always try to honor each other's wants and needs. Not that Tilly could ever feel left out when she could feel everything that her lovers experienced, but the point still stands.

With a breathy sigh, Tilly dismounted Norm, making room for me, and I took immediate advantage, crawling forward and then leaning back, welcoming him into my body.

"Fucking hell, that's nice," I said, as his length and girth slowly filled me. He wasn't the biggest I had ever had. Almost every girl has a story to tell about that one. But Norm satisfied me in every way that mattered.

I began to move in waves, rising and falling, grinding myself against him and moaning out my pleasure. Norm's hands came up to touch my body. Tilly lay on her side next to him, putting an arm over him as she watched me.

"I love you," I said, looking at each of them in turn.

"I love you, Nissi," Tilly said.

"Love you, Amanda," Norm echoed.

Tilly snuggled in closer to Norm, her cheek against his shoulder. I grunted and she shivered as his cock hit a particularly good spot inside of me. Norm smiled and let his hand drift from me to her, trailing down her body. When his hand ventured below her navel, she opened her legs. His fingers slipped between them and curled up inside her.

With his palm on her clit and his fingers inside her it only took seconds for Tilly to cum a second time, clutching at Norm as she cried out. The sight, the sounds, the feel of her trembling against my leg, it was simply exquisite. I chased my own orgasm, reveling in the feel of my body's movement and Norm's penetration. Pleasure abruptly bloomed in my core and rushed through my body. I wailed in ecstasy, my pussy gripping Norm over and over. Tilly peaked yet again, squealing and squirming as her already simmering nerves were lit up once more.

I found myself lying on Norm's chest, breathing hard, coming down slowly as Norm held me, his hard cock thrusting up into me, prolonging the pleasure. I turned to Tilly to kiss her. She was still riding a hell of an orgasm, her eyes rolled back as she moved her body, fucking herself on Norm's fingers. She responded to my kiss by mashing her lips hard into mine and thrusting her tongue into my mouth as if she owned it, owned me.

The nexus of Tilly's dominance and Norm's hard fucking brought another orgasm out of nowhere, a gush of warm liquid splashing over us as mad, unreasoning pleasure jolted through me. Tilly screamed into my mouth as yet another climax surged through her body as well, all thought obliterated by the flood of unstoppable bliss.

"That never gets old," Norm said with a chuckle, his fingers pulling free of Tilly. His wet, calloused hand caressed my bare bottom, leather on silk. I shivered and wrapped a free arm around Tilly, finally breaking our kiss. Her mouth lay half-open, eyes closed as she whined and shook through her extended orgasm, words failing her for once. I held onto her and she clutched at me in turn, as if seeking mooring in the storm that subsumed her. At long last, she gave one last shuddering cry and lay still.

I turned to Norm, giving him my mouth to devour as I squeezed down on his hard cock. I wanted to feel his hot cum inside me, to feel it flow out of me to cool on the lips of my pussy in the dead of night. But then I also had another craving, dark and keen, the tickling, yearning feeling growing stronger by the moment as Norm's rough fingers glided over my ass.

Beside us, Tilly moved suddenly, rolling away. Some rummaging at the bedside table, and she was back. I stiffened and gasped as a damp cold touched my asshole. A delicate wet finger slid back and forth, gently probing. My neck craned back and my mouth opened in a silent O of pleasure and anticipation. Tilly gave a breathy sigh, and then her finger pushed slowly into me.

"Fuck yes!" I groaned, as I felt both my holes being filled. Tilly stroked in and out with her finger, then applied gentle pressure all around the ring of muscle, prompting it to loosen. A second finger slipped inside me, the tender probing, stretching, massaging repeated, urging me to relax. Norm thrust beneath me, the rub and stretch of my pussy a delightful counterpoint to her fingers.

It wasn't until the third finger breached my ass that I realized what she was up to. "She's reading my mind again," I told Norm.

"She does that," he said. "What dirty thoughts did she pick from your brain this time?"

"Oh, you're about to find out," I said, as Tilly withdrew her fingers from me.

I shifted forward, so that Norm's cock fell free from my body. Tilly, beautiful, darling Tilly, took hold of him, holding his rod steady as I lined myself up. The pressure lasted only a moment, my relaxed and well-lubed hole yielding easily as I sank down onto him.

"Oh, fuck," Norm growled, as his warm cock penetrated my ass.

I heard Tilly's answering groan. She was feeling both sides at once, penetrating and being penetrated, unless she had decided to practice that trick where she tuned one or both of us out. It looked like she had chosen to ride that wave.

"You like the feel of that cock filling your ass, babe?" I said. It seemed that I was feeling particularly horny and lewd tonight.

Tilly didn't answer, so I moved my body. She mewled as I slowly lowered myself, taking as much as Norm could give me.

"You like Norm's cock sliding deep into my ass, don't you?"

Tilly only grunted in answer, her noises making it plain what she was feeling. I rose quickly, Norm's cock sliding easily from my body. Tilly had certainly done her job well. I was loose and ready to fuck.

"Tell me," I urged, as I sank back down, only to rise again immediately. "Tell me how much you like it."

"Yes," Tilly whispered. "I... I love it," she said. I turned to see that she was blushing a lovely shade of pink.

I began to bounce, Norm's cock still gliding easily in and out. "Fuck me, Martin." I moaned, "Fuck me, please, sir..

He began to match my movements, meeting each descent with an upward thrust, filling my ass and slamming into me hard enough to sting. I basked in the sensations, riding him faster, harder, my world reduced to the rush of pleasure deep in my ass.

Norm groaned long and loud, his movements faltering, Tilly giving an answering wail. I ground down hard against him, burying his cock deep. "Oh, God, yes," I purred, feeling him twitch inside me. He was fucking cumming in my ass. I was so close, and that thought alone very nearly pushed me over the edge. Almost.

I jammed my clit against his pelvic bone, humping him in short, jagged thrusts borne out of savage need, sparking pleasure front and back. I felt the warm slick of his cum beginning to drip from my ass, even as his cock continued to pulse.

Tilly, jerking and flailing from Norm's orgasm, was babbling about cumming in me, about what a good, nasty little cumslut I was, taking it all. Suddenly, she jammed four fingers inside herself, pumping furiously.

"Cum for me, slut," she sang, staring longingly into my eyes. I came, hard.

The fire at my core rushed over my skin, out to my toes, my fingertips, the fine, pointed tips of my ears. Stars exploded behind my eyes, my body heaved, and I tumbled into the arms of my lovers, quivering, gasping, insensate. Each wave of pleasure came with a hard flex of pelvic floor muscles, and an answering flare of pleasure as my ass squeezed down on Norm's cock, making the next wave of pleasure even more intense.

I was awash in contradictions. None of my feelings made sense. I felt the relief and satisfaction of cumming. I felt the need for more. I felt love and tenderness. I felt the need to be owned and fucked. The comfort and intimacy of my lovers' embrace warred with lewd thoughts of donning Tilly's strap on and fucking her, then Norm. I wanted Norm to hold me down a fuck me. I wanted to grab hold of Tilly's hair and grind her face into my pussy while Norm pounded her from behind.

When I finally came back to my senses, what felt like minutes later, heat rose in my cheeks at the thoughts I'd been having, and I buried my face against Norm's neck. He didn't react, and I realized that he was already asleep.

"Typical," I snorted, but then smiled, settling more comfortably into him. His deep, even breathing made me rise and fall like a boat rocked by gentle waves. Our bodies were still connected, so I gave him an appreciative squeeze before extricating myself, grimacing a little at the mess that this created, while secretly feeling a little thrill at what a dirty little girl I was.

Tilly finally went silent and still. I reached up to stroke her hair and she cooed softly, nuzzling my fingers. I lay there for perhaps a minute, drifting towards sleep, when she spoke.

"I like it because you like it," she said.

I didn't have to ask what she meant. I laughed softly. "I'm pretty depraved, you know. It's a good thing you weren't awake to do your mind-reading thing a few minutes ago. You wouldn't believe the thoughts I was having."

"Doesn't work like that," she sighed. "It's just my mental model getting so fine-tuned that I start to predict what you're going to say before you say it. Sometimes the model is wrong. But I know about you, Nissi. I know that your tastes in sex run to the, uh... well, the exotic, but I also know how deeply you love us and how much you care about people. I trust you. Like you trust me and Norm."

I kissed her gently. "Two more weeks and you'll be stuck with us. Whatever my past relationships, I take marriage very seriously. Once I have you, you can't get away. Til' death do us part."

She chuckled. "Don't think that I haven't thought long and hard about that. We might have centuries of life ahead of us, you know? We might reconsider our relationship in a hundred years."

"Yeah, if this shitty world doesn't kill us first," I said. I climbed off of Norm and lay on his other side from Tilly. He continued to sleep right through.

"Things will get better," Tilly said.

"You say it so casually. I almost believe you."

She went quiet at that, long enough that I wondered if she had gone to sleep. "Nissi?" she said at last.

"Hmm?" I had been close to falling asleep again.

"Hope isn't really optional."

I sighed. "Uh, what does that mean?"

"I mean that hope is the only way to live and be authentic. Cynicism has no real purpose. Things might get bad, but it never makes sense to just lay down and die. Do that, and you fail for certain. With hope, there's at least a chance you'll make it. A small chance is always preferable to no chance."

I thought about that for a moment. "I guess I see your point," I said, though I was still dubious.

"Before, when I was... broken, I didn't have hope. The only thing that kept me going was that I was afraid of dying. You don't ever want to feel that. You hope, and then you take steps to make sure it happens."

"Alright, I see what you mean. It's not just how you feel, but what you do about it. And you need to feel like you can win, or you won't really try." I reached across Norm and found her hand with mine. "So you think I ought to be less negative, is that it?"

"It couldn't hurt."

"No, I suppose it couldn't."

I could feel that she wanted to say more, so I waited quietly for it. "I've been thinking about Norm," she said. "He's only human. In a few more years, he'll start to grow old. But isn't there something we could do about that?"

"I don't think..." I started, about to dismiss her concern, but stopped myself. What if things did turn around for us? In thirty years, he would be sixty, with his health starting on its long but inevitable decline. We had wound back the clock for Nona, even if that had been a side effect of treating her Alzheimer's. There was no reason to think that it couldn't work for Norm.

"Shouldn't we discuss it with the man himself?" I asked.

"Of course. I just wanted to know what you thought of the idea."

I squeezed her hand. "I don't want to let him get old and die. Nona is our proof of concept. We'll be treating hundreds, maybe thousands more people in our clinics. Once we know that it's truly safe and long-lasting, we'll talk to him."

"Thank you, Nissi. Good night."

I yawned and turned out the light. "Good night."

* * *

Nine days later, just as Nock had promised, we had six new arrivals pulling into our driveway, along with enough food to support them all for two weeks. They arrived in two SUVs, driven by Agency people that I recognized as having been to the farm before. One of the vehicles hauled a trailer. Everyone had come out to greet them, even Alice and her family.

Four men and two women got out of the cars, taking in their new surroundings with differing levels of interest. These six were from a group of ten reverts who had sought and been granted Agency protection at our urging. Nock had briefed us on them once the choices had been finalized. There were four former standard upgrades, a woman and three men. The remaining man was once a hedonic, and the last, a woman, was a former aesthetic. The Agency had not provided us with pictures or names. We all jumped in to help unload the vehicles, and it took only a few minutes to move all the luggage, plus boxes and bins of food, out of the vehicles and off to one side of the driveway.

For most of the reverts, I had a hard time picking out what each of them were. The goal of reversion was to erase all traces of enhancement, so the Stans had lost their phenomenal physique, leaving them looking like most unmodified humans. Dons were more difficult to pick out because most of the changes were to their limbic and nervous systems. You could usually tell after interacting with them for a time, but reversion would attempt to remove their uncanny optimism and sensuality. They were, unfortunately, prone to emotional dysregulation and depression. That could be a problem.

The Esther, though, I knew which one she was immediately. She looked... wrong, like a magnificent work of art that had been defaced. Her body was voluptuous perfection. The shape of her face was like mine, but more like a pixie, with large, expressive eyes, a cute button of a nose and ample lips, but they were all marred in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. The overall effect was... well, it crossed the line into actual ugliness. I had to wonder if the surgeons and engineers who had worked on her hadn't purposefully gone further than was strictly necessary, a kind of punishment for her audacity in being something more than human. I felt both pity and revulsion toward her.

Norm stepped forward and introduced himself to the newcomers, and they all shook his hand in earnest. He had known these people before, having volunteered with the Agency to help with operations at their very own safehouse. Norm introduced Tilly next, since they would be working with her. Then he came to me, and on around to all the others. Upon naming Gena, I saw a mix of wary and angry looks go her way. She kept her eyes downcast, looking as though she'd rather be anywhere but here. I knew she had been dreading this moment.

"As you can see," Norm was saying, "we continued the Agency policy of using model names to hide our real identity. With so many here, we've had to come up with new name variants, but we'd like to try to accommodate you there if we can."

"If you don't mind," one of the men said, "I'll go by my real name. I'm a Stan, but just call me Anthony." There were murmurs of agreement from the others.

"I suppose that will do," Norm said, nodding. He collected the names of the rest, as well as their model. The other three Stans gave their names as Sam, Miguel, and Josephine. The Don was named Harrison, and the Esther was Colleen. Tilly came forward to speak to them, and people began to head back to their duties.

Gena was no longer present, and I hadn't noticed when she slipped away. I felt bad for her. She had been one of the strongest advocates for bringing these people here. Even though they would be put to work, I couldn't imagine anyone preferring to remain hidden away in a basement or attic.

I slipped past the departing crowd to stand next to Norm. Tilly had already joined him on his right, and the newcomers were brimming with questions for both of them.

One of them--Sam, I recalled after thinking for a moment--nodded his head in my direction. "I heard that you might be able to help us get our mods back."

I nodded. "Yes, that... that's something we've been working on here. It had never been tried before, to our knowledge, but we've had excellent results with one of our subjects--"

"Gena?" Colleen interjected. "You've managed to restore her intellect?" Her eyes were wide and her expression looked almost hungry. I realized that her voice, a clear and melodic soprano, must have remained untouched by the reversion process. And she had a kind of floral scent, a natural perfume. In a way, those made her ugliness even more stark.

"No, I meant Wendy. We're aging her up and giving her Stan enhancements."

That got me interested looks from everyone. Harrison spoke up. "You can add genemods to someone who doesn't already have them? Would that work for an unenhanced human?"

"It's a slow process, but it has been working well so far," I was talking faster now, slipping into my element. "And yes, it should work for someone who's never had mods before, but it can be tricky. At the genetic level, reversion is more about suppressing genes than it is about destroying them, and they tend to do only what's necessary to get someone into the human range of ability. For Wendy, we've had to develop whole new therapies for inducing things like mitochondria enhancement, plus we have to worry about interactions between biological systems. If you boost someone's metabolism to that degree, you have to make sure their digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems are also enhanced to deliver more oxygen and nutrients to the cells. It's the same kind of problems that geneticists had to solve decades ago, except that doing it in vivo is riskier and more complicated than in vitro."

"Could you make me beautiful again?" Colleen had once more interrupted, thought this time she had waited until I took a breath. She had that same longing look I had seen a minute ago.

"I... I don't really know," I admitted. Looking at her, with her features non-symmetric, as though her face had been partially melted, made me feel uncomfortable. I couldn't help but be repulsed, no matter how much I tried to suppress my reaction. "Gene therapy could do some good. Smoother skin and shinier hair, for example. Beyond that, we'd be getting into uncharted territory."

Colleen touched the line of her jaw. The skin of her cheek and jaw were scarred on that side, perhaps a deliberate attempt by the reversion techs to disrupt her facial symmetry. Her look remained intense. "Would you be willing to try? It would mean so much to me."

I wanted to help her, but I knew better than to make a promise that I might not be able to keep. Cosmetic surgery might repair some of the damage, but there were hard limits to what cutting and lifting could accomplish, and even if we had someone with that kind of expertise, I didn't think that the results would satisfy her. It was ironic that curing Alzheimer's or tripling someone's muscle strength might be easier to accomplish than restoring a pretty face. "I'm sorry, Colleen. What you're asking, it's not really in the same realm of what we've done so far."

Norm came to my rescue, giving me a nod to indicate he'd seen my plight. He physically interposed himself between me and Colleen without making it too obvious. "Tilly wanted to give you all a rundown of the procedures we use to keep our farms free of Rot contamination. We'll also show you the temporary quarters we've set up for you in the old greenhouse's access corridor. We've done what we could to convert it to living space and grant you some comfort and privacy, but it's not much."

"Yes," Anthony replied. "We were told we would be living rough for some time. We're all prepared to accept that." The others all gave nods or words of assent.

"Good to see that you're managing expectations," Norm said with a smile. "We want you here because you believe in our vision for this place, not because it's an easy life. The good news is that we have better food than most anywhere else you could be right now. There's fresh fruits and vegetables from our greenhouse, plus bread from Alice's mill and milk from our goats. Soon we'll be producing fish from the aquaponics farm and cheese from our goats' milk. In fact, the six of you will be instrumental in making all of those a reality. We're even considering chickens, though that's probably a ways off."

He extended a palm to his right. "I'll hand you off to Tilly now. She's going to give you a tour of our facilities."

"Follow me, please," Tilly said. "If you have any personal items you'd like to stow, go ahead and bring them now. I'll show you your new living space."

All six picked through the items that had been pulled from the Agency vehicles, pulling out suitcases and bags. You had to travel light under Agency protection.

"Thanks," I said to Norm, once the group was out of sight beyond the barn.

"Tilly sensed that you were struggling. She pointed me to you."

"Thanks all the same," I reaffirmed.

"I feel terrible for Colleen," Norm said, and sighed. "Losing her beauty. I can see how hard it's hit her. It's one thing to not be as strong as you used to be. It's another to barely look like the person you were before, to lose that identity."

"It's probably a lot like how your sister feels. Her mind was a big part of her identity."

He stroked his beard, considering. "I hadn't really thought of it like that. And then there's Harrison. Before you came over to us, Tilly told me that his emotions seem very disordered, despite seeming so high-functioning. Do you think there's anything you can do for him?"

I frowned, thinking it through. "That sounds a bit like schizophrenia. The reversion process for him might have been more endocrine-based, rather than any direct neurological damage. I'll want to see what his dopamine, serotonin, and glutamate levels are like. Maybe the reversion techs figured that leaving him with abnormal neurotransmitter levels was a good enough solution for disrupting his enhanced experience of pleasure."

"And the Stans. If our luck holds, those should be fairly routine."

I nodded. "Sure. Part of why Stans are so common is that they weren't that difficult to produce, and hence, more affordable. That all works in our favor."

"I want you to work on restoring their mods," Norm said. "Anthony, Miguel, Josephine, and Sam, I mean. I'd like you to make it a priority."

I made a noise somewhere between a groan and a sigh. "Look, I'm already spending a good chunk of my time on Wendy and Gena. And we're still working on getting those clinics up and running."

"You've got other people on the darknet who can do that work," he said. "Delegate. Trust me, this is just as important. Let's get those four restored. And meanwhile I want you to get to work on the harder cases. There are far more reverts in public than there are genemods in hiding. They are being scooped up by someone, mods restored, and presumably fitted with those devices we saw in the brain and body of Stansy's son. And the scale of it, the sheer number of people that they are taking, it doesn't bode well for us. I want to offer those reverts an alternative. I want them on our side, not working for President-for-life McCain, or whoever it is that's doing this."

Up until now, I had thought of my work as humanitarian, an effort to relieve suffering. Norm saw it differently. We were fighting an enemy that had devised a way to turn our own people against us. Most genemods were much stronger, faster, and smarter than the average person, often to the point of being superhuman. We still weren't sure to what degree the devices we had seen implanted in Chris might influence his thoughts and actions, but the implications were frightening. It was the kind of irresistible power that despots could have only dreamed of before now.

"I understand," I said. "You're not planning to bring them all here, are you?"

"Of course not. We'll develop the treatments here and then share them out on the darknet. We'll work with the Agency, as usual."

I agreed with him in principle, but there were so many problems. First, we had to contact reverts to warn them. Second, they would have to believe us. Third, space had to be found to hide them away. Fourth, we needed personnel to administer the therapies. Fifth, feeding and caring for them would strain the Agency's already limited resources. Sixth, the whole scheme would put Agency personnel and facilities at risk. Stansy had been fished once already by enemy agents. There was no reason they couldn't do the same to the Agency.

"We can't save them all," I said.

Norm nodded. "I know that, but we can save some if we're careful. Now that we know what they're doing to the reverts they kidnap, we have to help as many as we can."

I had the sudden urge to kiss my future husband, and did so, pouring my heart and soul into the act. Had we been more private, I would not have stopped at a mere meeting of our lips.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"For caring. You possess none of the gifts that genemods do, but you care what happens to them." I pulled him close, settling my cheek against the top of his head. "You're a good man, Martin."

He chuckled. "You're just figuring that out now?"

"No, but it is nice to be reminded."

I went back to the lab to resume the work I'd been doing. Wendy was already there, processing Gena's blood tests, so I sat at the terminal to catch up on current events. Our Chilean research team had finally figured out the problem with our test subject. His case was much more advanced than the other two, though his cognitive function had seemed, to outside observation, to be at about the same level of degradation. We were going to give him more time and perhaps more stem cell treatments, to see if his brain continued to mend. After a few hours, Wendy left. I was about to close up and head upstairs for dinner when Tilly came running in.

"Oh, good," she panted. "I caught you. There was a lot to cover with our new people, and I almost forgot what day it is."

"What day?" My mind immediately flashed to the wedding, still six days away. Wait, six? "Oh, right! The fertility drug."

I had synthesized the compound in the lab weeks ago. It was a simple chemical trigger, but one that was not found in nature. Normally it came in pill form, but we didn't have the equipment for that yet, so I went to the refrigerator and brought out a vial of clear liquid labeled "Tilly Fertility Treatment - DO NOT DRINK!" A second vial with my name sat next to it. I handed her the little glass jar and she unscrewed the top and downed the contents immediately.

"Wow, someone's eager," I said, smiling.

"You have no idea!" she gushed. "Well, maybe you do. I've been waiting months, no, years now, for this. Nissi, we're both going to be moms. Aren't you excited?"

I had never seen Tilly this animated before. I was excited, but I think my enthusiasm came with a lot more baggage. I had grown up with an older brother--not a genemod--who hadn't exactly been kind to me, his little elf sister and the center of our parents' world. I knew that raising kids wouldn't always be sunshine and roses. Still, Tilly had a way of infecting others with her joy, and soon I was smiling and laughing right along with her.

"We should go tell Norm," Tilly said, all but bouncing in her haste to spread the good news.

In another week, he was going to be a father, twice over. And I would be a mother, one who was married to a pair of beautiful people. I don't think it had quite hit me until that moment.

"I can't believe we're getting married," I said, blinking away tears.

For answer, Tilly threw her arms around me in a crushing hug, then grabbed my hand to drag me upstairs.