19.2 waited patiently for the camera to complete the scan of his artificial fingerprints.
An android looking like a short man with an evil face was waiting for him behind the heavy doors; they walked together until they reached the basement, where the supercomputer beeped like it had always been there.
"They are more than one,19.2."
"They are four in all."
19.2 knew this, even though he had only seen three of them.
The old man was waiting for them, sitting at the supercomputer.
"So you two are the only ones left?"
"Affirmative," informed 19.2, glancing quickly at one of his shins. "The others were eliminated."
"Too bad. Such a pity."
The old man pressed a button and a black pod descended from the ceiling, bouncing on its oxygen tubes.
19.2 and 9 (the one who had been built using Commander Red as a template) had seen their creator work intensely, as he once did, yet they didn't know the whole plan.
Without emotion they watched the pod open and the creation emerge in a new awakening.
He looked the same, but this time his programming was cut to the bone: the creator was in a hurry and the result of that early rebirth had been a much more rudimentary being.
Not even the shadow of the complex and sophisticated biology of the first time, but something even more beastly, with an underdeveloped mind in comparison.
No transformations plans, since its new programming did not include absorption, but only disposal.
It was, in short, a rough and brute version of what he had been, but the creator no longer had the same dream of greatness in mind: less was more for revenge, indeed, it was better.
One of the functionsof his masterpiece had even been optimized...
The androids of the Red Ribbon could not feel emotions: however 9 seemed not to process properly the input he received with the sight of the mottled-skinned creation.
"This time I have made sure nothing is left of what he adds to himself," said the old man. "It doesn't matter if organic or inorganic. But I have to see if it works. "
19.2 felt no fear or pity when 9 backed away quickly, following a stronger instinct than programming.
19.2 knew that a sacrifice had to be made: it would either be him, or 9.
And for the doctor 9 had never been important, he had dismantled him himself.
Standing, his artificial face composed, 19.2 observed the Masterpiece mutilating 9 with a movement of the leg, barely perceptible even to the doctor's eyes.
Eyes that sparkled with victory to see the new function in action: 9's torn body clinked on the floor, before being drawn like metal on a magnet against the body of the Masterpiece. And then, all the components that until a few seconds before had been an android began to smoke, melt, dissolve, until they were reabsorbed into the skin of the creation.
The doctor smiled with satisfaction, the Masterpiece following him as he left the room.
The laboratory had been rebuilt by Shenron as it had been before it was destroyed by Son Goku's friends.
The old man wandered into his underground chambers and found the wardrobe, the one with the white coats and the drawer overflowing with little yellow bags.
He retrieved the chest in which he had stored the clothes that he himself had removed, and then kept as a trophy. Those were the only ones he had kept, he didn't have to search long to find what he needed.
There were four of them: the most urgent were two and the doctor could no longer drag it, because oh yes, it could have been worse.
So much worse than what he had put them through the first time.
Although he had deployed a swarm of bug cameras, he was unable to locate his whereabouts.
In any case, it was to her that he wanted to get first.
"Having yourself impregnated ... Regretful, my dear girl. How far you have fallen."
How far he too had fallen: the creator always felt responsible for whatever baseness his creations committed, but he could use it all to his advantage. And the perfect opportunity would soon come.
He wanted to take everything from her, before taking her life.
To him, to his killer, the doctor wanted to inflict endless moments of torture.
He wanted to tear apart the flesh that he himself had enhanced, he wanted to bend his will and break every wind of pride, making him relive the same atavistic terror he had felt the first time in the face of the end.
Terror, torture, and disposal. And this time, the creator would be there to watch; this time, it would be forever.
Electricity and new strength sizzled from Dr. Gero's palms, aroused almost to orgasm by his thoughts.
He passed a garment to the Masterpiece,
"Find him."
The monster dilated the holes he had for a nose, took a long breath through the fabric; Gero watched with satisfaction his vertical pupils widen and his head seek a direction, like the needle of a compass.
/
A month had passed since the renewal of the vows. The couple had spent a fortnight around one of the first places they had seen as a couple, the crumbly cliffs lapped by the cold Northern sea.
Eighteen and Krillin saw again the white tower, lonely and eroded by wind and water, inside which they had found a dragon ball and also the place where their future had been sealed with the first embrace.
It had only been two years: Eighteen was still the same girl, only at a whole different stage of her life.
Now, their little Marron was waiting for them at home: on the 31st of that month she would have blown out her first candle.
After the luxury of the Ryz hotel, the newlyweds had spent their honeymoon further exploring that part of the world: two weeks in a blue-painted hut a stone's throw from the beach, they had kept themselves busy with starry skies and diving from heights that would have turned up the noses of basic human tourists, if only there were some.
Contrary to the famous mountainous part, to the west, in the Northeast it was already low season; for Eighteen and Krillin it was better that way.
"I bet the yokels are still tourist-ridden, however."
"Why do you call them that," Krillin laughed, closing the door of the hut as soon as Eighteen exited with their only piece of luggage.
"It is now tradition. And it pisses my brother off. "
Krillin glanced at the contents of the pale yellow canvas bag: it was the present for their future niece/nephew, a cute little teddy bear the size of a six-month-old baby, with a blanket attached to it.
Krillin prepared to take flight to Verny, holding his straw hat.
"Are you sure your mother can mind Marron another two days?"
"Marron is nothing compared to what she's used to," Eighteen cut short.
Kate had reassured her just the night before, she had taken a few days off from work to spend time with Marron.
Seventeen and Carly had invited their in laws to their house, after the honeymoon; Eighteen had been there the time she and Seventeen had fought, but neither of them considered that a real visit. The cyborg girl understood that she was eager to deliver to her twin the gift for his baby.
/
Krillin and Eighteen found only Carly, rounder and less tense than on the wedding day; Seventeen would only be home around 9 pm, they could start dinner without him.
The host, Pencil cat and the in laws settled in the garden to chat, drinking lemonade and stretching to the last sun of the season.
"I always knew it was a girl," Krillin recalled. "Eighteen and I didn't have preferences, do you?"
"I wish for a boy," Carly said, honestly.
A boy inheriting the attractiveness she could not give.
When she had told Lapis, he had only replied "Bah..."
"Usually boys want boys; they delude themselves that this way they'll have it easier." Eighteen pointed out.
"They delude themselves," Carly repeated, in her head.
Lapis said he didn't want to be in Kate's shoes and go through what he put her through. He didn't want to be dealing with a mini-he: the less that child had of him, the better.
/
Carly had given a tour of the house and of the nursery, still in the process of being furnished.
Then the sisters in law were left alone for a moment. Eighteen watched Carly grimace as she bent down to place their bear in the still empty cot.
"Everything good?"
"Yes, sure."
Carly smiled from ear to ear. But soon she untied herself from the tangle of politeness and dropped into the nursing chair, disconsolate.
"I'm on new pills, they make me nauseous, they give me reflux, whatever ... I was better off before."
Carly had been hopeful about her appointment last week, the one to check the iron; however things had not gone as she had hoped, instead of disappearing the iron deficiency had evolved into a mild anaemia.
How many things in Eighteen's pregnancy had not gone as she had expected!
"Oh poor thing. I was tortured by those symptoms, I understand. "
Eighteen would never have imagined that such explicit words of comfort would come out for the red-haired girl, Lapis's longtime girlfriend who had remained in Seventeen's by a miracle.
And the surprise must have been equally great for Carly; Eighteen saw her mood change, Carly regained her enthusiasm.
"Do you know that I started to feel the kicks? About time...Maybe the belly fat was cushioning."
Carly looked at Lazuli already knowing, from her eyes, that she had said nonsense.
"I'm still at -3 kg, yet I live on chips, hamburgers, lasagna. I swear! Ask Lapis."
"Nobody reacts the same way to pregnancy. You don't have to justify yourself."
The power of empathy was amazing.
"You know what? I expected to see something, but not my whole belly move," confessed Carly, now relaxed. Since the baby had kicked for the first time, he hadn't stopped.
"Ehh, instead. You'll see when he starts to crush your organs. "
"I think he already does ... "
The "fishie flutters" had been the best feeling for Eighteen, despite everything.
Since then, Marron had grown up so fast: lately Eighteen found herself thinking that it had been easy to defend her daughter when she lived in her womb.
Would Eighteen always succeed, now that Marron was exposed to the world?
After all the shit that had happened to her, after all that she had suffered, Eighteen always feared something would take her daughter away from her.
/
Carly relatively close to the third trimester wasn't the only one feeling nauseous: meanwhile, in a convenience store in Saint-Paul, Elliott and Lillian were looking at Brent's disgusted face in front of a bottle of Malibu.
"Brrrr. I can't even look at it, not even think about it, without getting nauseous."
"That's to be expected," Elliott mused.
"After the time y'all went into an alcohol coma. "
Brent put down the bottle and consulted his girlfriend.
"We should do Halloween again! But at your place, this year."
"To see you being a clown and also pretend to know you? No thanks."
Lillian had suddenly turned sour.
"Ahhh, like when he said 'Lillian I love yOoOouu' and jumped from... what did you jump from, Bren?"
"Dunno, the sofa."
"And that's nothing," Elliott teased Lillian. "I was the only one sober, I guess. Your Viking, on the other hand, almost nailed Leni. "
Lillian saw the scene again; Brent would have preferred to erase it from his memory.
"You know?"
"Everybody knows."
"Anyway, I was so sober." Lillian intervened pompously.
"Uuuuuh!"
Elliott looked at her as if she had given him a revelation. "So it wasn't the alcohol when you groped Seventeen?"
"The fuck?!"
Brent's heart jumped: this was new to him.
The conversation was no longer fun for Lillian. "Tsk, come on! Of all people, Seventeen? Gross..."
"Really?" Brent teased.
"..W-well!"
Why hadn't Elliott been dead stoned, half dead in some armchair? At that time he had not yet broken up his ten-year relationship with Mary Jane in favour of Defiance De Villiers.
"I wonder how gross she must find me, then ..." Elliott assessed. "You groped Sev, Lillian, don't deny it; and I saw how he refused your advances, when you two were making...yaahoii! "
Elliott had a nice contralto voice: Lillian's full shopping basket had just landed on the lower part of his belly.
"Are you kidding?" Brent, not always a great listener, laughed in a way that made people turn around in the aisle.
"Yep, seen it all. Heard it, too..."
"And where was I? Wait, I've not tapped Leni, have I? "
The Viking had never known what had happened after he fell asleep on Elliott's floor.
"Nah, you phased out earlier. I found you in the morning, in your sick. "
"Ahh thank goodness! Otherwise mate, can you imagine? Tapping Leni casually one night and then seeing her at work. "
Lillian walked off, "True story. "
"So this year Halloween at Lillian's! "
"My place is a hole and yours is huge!"
"At mine, never again."
The adamant paleontologist had spent the morning of November 1st tidying up the apartment and scraping bodily fluids from tables and floors, with the occasional help of John.
After the process Elliott had just recalled, Lillian felt even less willing to host a Halloween party.
"I thought Seventeen had cleaned."
She was curious to know what he had done once he got out of the jeep.
"Mm no. Seventeen showed up at the door at 5.30am," Elliott recalled, as if it were yesterday. "He stared at me, puked in my cactus and was gone again. "
Maybe Lillian shouldn't have asked.
Brent scratched his beard, "Ahh, here's what happened to the cactus."
The ringing of the cell phone saved Lillian from the conversation: it was the campers.
"Work?"
Brent leaned over his girlfriend's shoulder, hugging her waist.
"Yep, I have to go up to Neuve Ville."
/
It had been since the beginning of the summer that Lillian had checked out a small community hidden in the woods between Noiresylve and Neuve Ville.
There were perhaps thirty people, most of them men who left in the morning to go to work down in Neuve or up in Noire, and returned in the evening. Hardly anyone knew they were there, they didn't make any noise, they were clean, they didn't even light fires not to be busted.
Two-times former top ranger Fabien had stumbled upon their camp on one of his patrols, after his truck had stopped and one of those campers had restarted it. "We once lived in the area, in regular houses."
The group's chosen spokesperson explained that all of them worked seasonal jobs that could only pay for their food in the expensive Northwest. In winter they were much less and they used electric radiators.
Lillian and Fabien weren't princess and the pea, yet they wondered how one could live like that: especially when the mercury dropped two digits below zero, it usually started in October.
"We are weak links in society. We cannot afford the inflated prices of rents and so we made do. We will stay here until some forest ranger 'rats us out' and we'll be forced to scram."
The two former top rangers had talked to John, asking him not to spread the word too much: if no one knew they were there, tucked behind an escarpment, off the beaten path by tourists, animals and park rangers themselves, it meant that they didn't hurt anyone.
Fabien had had to drive for half an hour before getting back on the road he had come from.
"In the end they are no nuisance, we will not remove them."
Fabien and Lillian did not bring anything to that group, nor did the group ever ask. Nevertheless the rangers had offered their contacts and their availability, you never knew.
Lillian had pictured she would spend the end of the afternoon at Brent's, trying on the necklace had made for her, to wear with her Viking apron dress; but when she showed up at the camp, she felt more than thirty pairs of eyes on her.
"You said that we could stay. "
The spokesman gave her a printed sheet: copy-paste of the bible, bonfire section, campsites and so on and so forth, validated by the official stamp of the RNP.
No signature.
"We didn't break any rules. Don't chase us away."
Lillian felt her hands itch, clearly understanding that something had been done behind her back.
"Who told you to leave?"
"One of you folks, the one with the dark hair and the bun; he threatened us to dismantle everything and call the police."
The spokesman looked down, dejected. "He called us tramps."
Lillian felt a pang in her side: it was the burn of no longer having the authority she needed.
"Are you sure this notice was issued by the top ranger?" She closed her eyes, inhaled. "My superior?"
"Who knows. He just said he was a forest ranger. "
Lillian no longer felt all of the group's eyes on her, once she had anger and cell phone handy.
The campers watched the lady ranger flex her sculptural muscles as she raised her cell phone to her ear; they heard her dive into a series of invectives in a deliberately controlled tone.
"Where are you, you wretch, miserable, ignorant, -... Noiresylve? All right, come down. I don't care,YOU HAVE TO COME DOWN NOW. "
They watched her close the call and sit down neatly on a bench.
/
Shortly thereafter, everyone reacted to the sound of tyres screeching. In too short a time to walk the path, a young man emerged from the woods; he wore his hair in a bun and had dimples on his cheeks.
The top ranger didn't glance at them, reserving only a mischievous look at his colleague.
"Talking to me like that...I hope for you that you're in deep shit."
Lillian continued the assault, "In deep shit, yeah, these people are! You ugly pile of scrap metal. "
"Careful."
Out of nowhere the campers had seen the boy's eyes change; they fell silent, perhaps without even knowing why, but Lillian wasn't fazed.
"They have nowhere to go, and you have the nerve to chase them away?"
Seventeen had no idea why Lillian was acting so spiteful until she slapped the crumpled notice in his chest.
Then a member of the group stepped forward, sizing up Seventeen.
"No, lady, leave him alone. We've never actually seen him."
"That's not him I was talking about," the spokesperson interjected.
Lillian was already convinced they were telling the truth: Seventeen could not be confused.
"So who did this? "
"The one who wants to evict us has long dark hair, yes, but he's not this kid: he's got curls."
Lillian could finally identify the culprit, "That vermin!"
"This notice would count only if I drafted it myself."
The cyborg crumpled up the paper and the group witnessed incredible self-ignition.
"What a show-off..."
Lillian watched the ashes fall from his hand: she was still furious, but she felt relieved.
"My name is Seventeen, I'm in charge here. And I have no problem with you."
There was a collective breath of relief, and Lillian rolled her eyes," No, his name is Modesty. "
"Then we're...counting on you. " Laughed a very young camper. "And if the other ranger comes back?"
"I'll beat him up."
Seventeen noticed that Lillian had stomped away. And that, for once, it wasn't his fault.
"Perhaps she will."
The top ranger was just watching her, sighing with his hands in his pockets.
"Maybe you should go after her..." the youngest camper suggested in a whisper.
And indeed Lillian's voice soon rang out from the forest.
"I'm angry: aren't you coming after me?!"
/
In line in the café in Neuve, Seventeen sighed in annoyance.
"Fuck that Lill, your ex does all this shit you immediately think of me."
"He said dark hair - ... I thought it was you."
"Because, basically, I am a bastard."
"No! Not now. "
Lillian had repented; her best friend was many things, but he wasn't a bastard.
"And before you thought I was? "
"Absolutely. "
The resentment was gone already, Seventeen laughed to himself.
"You owe me an apology. "
"Fuck it Sev, it's your fault; next time, don't do your hair like Joel. "
Seventeen took his hairband, his stick-straight locks fell under his collarbones in all their lazy excess.
"There. Happy?"
Lillian chose to look elsewhere.
"Anyway I understand them, the rents are getting prohibitive here. "
Seventeen listlessly grabbed two bars of chocolate from the counter.
"Yes, mine is high; but after all, I make so much more money than you… "
"Hi guys! " Tweeted the cashier.
"What was your order?"
"Er ... the chocolate and two Americano."
Lillian relieved herself of a bill, queuing to another part of the counter.
"What were you doing up in Noiresylve?"
Seventeen seemed nervous to her, he hadn't even given himself time to sit down with her: he had wolfed down the chocolate bars standing up.
"Half the village's flying the coop, seriously. Soon Dubochet will ask me to go up and patrol. "
In Noiresylve people complained of fearful raids.
Lillian had to laugh: if only Clémence Poyaz had moved her butt with the same zeal, when everyone had warned her of the landslide!
"I've talked to some of them, I'll see what it is. That village really sucks. "
Seventeen drank his still hot coffee in a few sips; only later did he realise the name scribbled by the bartender on his cup. "What the -...?"
Lillian greeted him with a sly smile. "Good evening, Seven-McQueen."
Seventeen widened his eyes, with genuine surprise. "But are they retarded ?! Even the wrong number."
"McQueen. Right, you do like cars and you're quick," Lillian smirked. "So quick..."
Seven-McQueen showed off his devilish smile, eyebrows-eyes-mouth.
"You said that."
Lillian showed him the distorted name marked on her cup. "...Leanne."
"Nice crappy name."
"That's rich. By the way: what will you name the little Sev or little Carly?"
Carly had drafted a list of nature-themed names. Seventeen hadn't thought about it yet, but they both liked the idea of honouring their way of life; Carly complained that she still hadn't come up with a boy name that fully convinced her, but that wasn't a problem: Seventeen hoped it was a girl.
/
Evening dawned in a cyclamen-red sunset, reflecting in a glow against Kate's window.
Ronan loaded the dishwasher, absently listening to his partner over the phone.
"You can also leave her until Sunday if you want, I'm having fun with her. Tomorrow? Ok, Lazuli, I'll wait for you. Good night. Say hello to Lapis and Carly."
Ronan thought that, in an ideal world, it would be nice to have a family with Kate. She reminded him that when a girl is nearly fifty the time to get pregnant is long gone; she was happy as a grandmother.
But the podcast producer did not consider himself inferior to the one who had lain with 24-year-old Kate: he had found satisfaction in looking after Marron, he had grown fond of her as if she were his, by blood.
"I think that for Marron, the maternal grandfather will be only you," Kate rested her head on his shoulder, watching the sunset with him.
Ronan kissed her hair. "It would be an honour..."
"In this family, blood is not important."
Kate had stopped believing that blood was the most important criterion many years ago, before her children were even an idea.
Marron had already been sleeping for a long time, in the room that Lazuli had occupied for the first eighteen years of her life.
Kate went to check on her once more, overwhelmed by the vaporous reminiscences of her first months as a mother; the times when she woke up with a start and feverishly checked the cribs beside her bed, fearing the babies were not breathing.
But Lazuli's room was a perfect bubble of calm: the curtains were carefully drawn, the evening light filtered through the shutters and lit with a single beam the locks of pearlescent hair inside the cradle.
One granddaughter was calm compared to twins, however Kate dragged herself to the end of the day: she almost fell asleep watching sleeping Marron hugging the sock she had taken off.
And in the torpor of their sleep, grandmother and granddaughter did not see the window.
They didn't notice that, a metre from them, legs had slowly come out from behind the curtains; and that, with deathly silence, feet had touched the floor.
/
Thoughts of the author:
A few chapters ago I mentioned the "figure" that we see here in action.
It was an anxious chapter that I broke with lighter moments. I wrote about a moment of empathy between sisters-in-law, by the couple Seventeen / Lillian 😂😂 just kidding.
I like their unconscious ambiguity, like they're a lost couple (and by that I'm not saying he'd leave Carly for Lillian. I hope you get the message).