The trip back to the penthouse has me in a bit of a daze. Sure, I knew that my kids were not normal and that they fucked with their DNA, but to this extent?. Honestly, I am more scared of the fact that they can go this far than of the fact that they actually managed to pull it off. At least Cali seems to be happy and healthy, so I guess that is an up side.

As we walk into the house, I am greeted by the sound of a British narrator explaining the social structure of voles. Which is a different but not entirely unwelcome change of pace. Cali runs in a bit ahead of me, but suddenly stops as we reach the kitchen.

I walk up behind her spotting Magenta, of all people, sitting in our kitchen. I look back down at Cali, who looks at her with unsure eyes.

I lightly ruffle her hair. “Don’t worry, she was only the understudy of the Wicked Witch, not the actual one.”

Magenta’s head whips around, ready to rebuke me, but pauses as she spots the little girl leaning against my legs for support. “You're back. Everything okay then?”

“For a certain definition of the word,” I confirm.

“Always glass half full with you, huh?” Magenta points out.

I shrug. “Kids are healthy and they won’t die anytime soon, so that’s good,” I say, giving a thumbs up.

“Cali, I gave your sister some ice cream. Do you want some too?” Cierra’s voice comes from further in.

Cali turns her head to look up at me. “I scream?”

I smile at her. "It’s good. Go, have a look. I’ll be right here talking to the powder puff.”

Cali nods and runs further inside to see what the tasty treat is. I walk further inside as well, spotting Shinon in the living room watching the TV with a bowl in her hands, Snowball splayed out beside her.

“Babe, can you ask Lyssa to buy some paper bowls?” Cierra asks.

“I can, but why?” I ask, not sure what we are supposed to do with those.

“I don’t want to have another incident.” She says, gesturing at Cali with her eyes.

“Right, that makes sense, Lyssa, could you please?”

Certainly.

With that, a cardboard box appears on the counter next to Cierra. “That is a lot bigger than expected,” she comments as she opens the box. Cierra lets out a small chuckle as she takes out an entire stack of paper ice cream cups. “Guess we will have enough for a while.”

She unwraps one of the frankly crazy well designed cups, complete with a chibi maniac on the side and fills it with three big scoops of ice cream. She hands the bowl to Cali together with a spoon.

“Now go watch TV with your sister, okay?” she says with a big smile.

“Okay,” Cali says before walking towards the couch, holding the cup high in the air, like  some kind of treasure.

I smile at the little scene and turn back to Cierra. “I have to ask, why a nature documentary? Wouldn’t Saturday morning cartoons be better?”

Cierra shrugs. "Those things are filled with ads targeted at kids, so until Lyssa scrubs that stuff, I don’t want to expose them to that.”

“That is fair, but if the kids come begging for a new pet because they saw it on TV, that is on you.” I point out.

“A burden I'll be happy to bear,” Cierra says with a deep bow. “Anyway, Lyssa, any chance you can work on sanitising the programs?”

Lyssa will see what Lyssa has access to and how those programs might be modified.

“Thank you,” I say with a smile, accepting a cup of warm green liquid from Cierra that I am just going to assume is tea and not poison.

“So how did it go? Are the kids healthy?” Cierra asks, sitting down beside me and just dragging me on top of her lap.

How is it that when I get stronger, it feels like she gets ten times stronger as well?

“Well, they are healthy,” I admit.

“There is a but in there, isn’t there?” Cierra asks with a deep sigh.

“So they were doing experiments, right? So, this means in Shinon’s case that her DNA is mixed with that of a common fox.” I explain.

“That explains the slitted eyes at least,” Magenta says. “Is she in any danger?”

“As far as I can tell, or mostly Lyssa can tell, it should not have any negative effects on her,” I conclude. “But I'll let you know if she starts yipping at the trash can.”

My comment is met with a quick whack to the back of my head. “Auw why?”

“Don’t make fun of my daughter,” Cierra says in a no-nonsense tone.

“She is my daughter too, you know?” I point out.

“So it should be doubly as apparent.” She says.

“Right, sorry, my fault, but yeah, they should be fine, just you know, they have some additional telomeres.”

“I am not sure what surprises me more, the fact that you are not worried or the fact that you know what a telomere is and still use them in the wrong context.” Magenta butts in.

“Well, they have a biomonitoring chip inside of them that tells me if anything is going wrong with them. So until that starts ringing alarm bells, there is nothing much I can do.” I say, giving Magenta a look.

“I can always take a look, maybe we can put them in my bio pot and, you know, make them normal.” Magenta suggests throwing a look over her shoulder to the children, who still seem to be transfixed by the TV.

“I can send you the data for sure, but I am a bit wary of changing them, for all we know, the fox DNA is giving her better vision and taking that away might have adverse effects.” I explain.

“That makes sense. I also would be freaked out if I were taken to a different place and suddenly my vision was a lot worse.” Cierra says, brushing my hair to the side so she can rest her head on my shoulder.

“Okay, so that is Shinon. What about Calliope?” Magenta asks.

“Both worse and not worse. The DNA is so muddled that it's hard to tell where everything originally came from, but from inspection, they were trying to build a soldier that could survive a lot of punishment.” I say, pulling up her chart on my AUGs.

“Punishment? Like, she is durable?” Cierra asks.

I nod. “Yeah, instead of normal skin, she has microscopic scales, making her more resistant to slashing. Her joints are better insulated and compacted than a normal human's, meaning she can fall from greater heights without taking any damage. And that is not even talking about her organs.”

Magenta slowly turns and looks at Cali. “You don’t really see the scales.”

“You will when she starts shedding like a snake,” I point out.

“That is… probably great for her general skin care.” Magenta says with a thoughtful expression.

I pause, wanting to argue, but failing on account of that actually being a good point

“So what is wrong with her organs?” Cierra asks.

“Well, wrong is not what I would call it, just different and stretching my understanding of biology to its limit, so it might be better for Lyssa to explain,” I admit, still feeling dizzy by the strange array of charts.

“Okay, Lyssa, please enlighten us?” Cierra asks

Well, for starters, a lot of her organs are missing or completely replaced by different ones, most of which do form in animals of your planet. Like her kidneys are similar to those of a sea otter, allowing her to drink salt water. She also has a dual heart setup with a smaller two chamber heart lower in her chest, allowing her to survive much longer with heart failure. Her stomach and intestines have also been enhanced to process most organic and inorganic compounds, including toxins.

“So she is immune to poison?”

Not exactly, but close. There are some that still could harm her, and if a toxin is not ingested but instead injected into her, it could still cause some damage.

“Well, that is honestly not that bad; having a toddler that is not about to kill themselves sounds like the dream for any parent,” Cierra muses.

I nod. “Yeah, so not normal, but they are mostly healthy.”

“What is this mostly about that you keep mentioning, it makes me feel like there is something wrong with them.” Cierra says, pinching me slightly.

“Well, uhm Lyssa?” I say, trying to break free.

Lyssa believes that this is an issue more related to their isolation rather than a defect they formed from the genetic experiments. Looking at their immune system, however, Lyssa has noticed several deficiencies there. It is something that should be solved once they have had the flu a couple of times, but it’s something to keep your eye on.

“That is not horrible.” Cierra ventures.

“Wait until she gets to the vaccinations,” I whisper.

According to Lyssa's scans, they don’t have any of the antibodies typically associated with vaccines, but with their modified biology, Lyssa wants to run some more tests before we give them any.

“That is problematic. Maybe, I think, but can’t we just fix it if they do get measles?” Cierra asks.

“I would rather not risk my children's health, thank you very much,” I point out.

Cierra kisses my cheek. “I know, baby, I just meant it in a ‘we have some time’  way, not in a ‘they should not be vaccinated’ way.”

“That is fair, I suppose,” I concede.

“Anything else we should know?” Magenta asks.

“Oh yeah, Crow wants to do some stuff with our body for a while, so Maniac and I will just be at home chilling with the kids using the projectors for, like, the upcoming month.” I bring up.

Magenta blinks. “And that is smart?”

“Probably not, but Crow never asks for anything, and we were going to stay home with the kids anyway, so it is not a big deal.” I explain.

Cierra’s arm tightens around my middle. "So does that mean you're leaving, or how would that work?”

“Well, to be honest, I am not sure exactly. Brains are a bit above the things I know how to code with, but basically, our brain is connected to the PsyCo server and Maniac, and I can use that to basically be here full-time without our body being here. It does mean we can’t really leave, but hey, I needed a holiday.”

“I see. So, when is Crow leaving?” Cierra asks, rubbing her face into the back of my neck.

“As soon as possible, if it were up to them, so take it away, I guess.”

I slowly feel my mind slip into place, feeling as uncomfortable as I usually feel with our physical body. I slowly try to get off Cierra’s lap as the avatars of Maniac and Evelin appear in the room.

“This is not as bad as I thought it would be,” Maniac points out.

“Yeah, there is none of the staticyness”, Evelin continues.

“I am off then,” I tell my sisters with what I hope is a comforting smile. “See you soon.”

With that, I turn around and start heading for the elevator. Only to trip and fall over a chew toy. Right, I have a body now. I can no longer just float over stuff. How inconvenient.

“Too many legs,” I murmur to myself as I get up from the floor to leave.