"Ah-ha! I see what the trouble is." Mint green Vivica Stein said as she carefully snipped what looked like what might have once been an umbilical cord noodling out of Puck's open lower abdomen.
"What is it, Viv?" Viktor, her husband, asked as he bent over the shriveled mass that his wife held up in one of the family's many antique surgical basins.
"I think it's a fetus." She frowned, looking down. Genetics were more her specialty, not obstetrics, but the little hands and feet were a dead giveaway.
"A baby?!" Mike blurted, holding his niece's limp hand as she lay deactivated on the slab with his new paw-like one. "What the… Puck, is there something you need to tell—?"
"Well, whatever it is, it's alive." Vivica thoughtfully probed the pathetic remains with a scalpel.
"Really?"
"No." Vivica and Viktor said in unison, expressions unconsciously mirroring each other's.
Mike Schmidt, or the composite thing that called itself Mike Schmidt shook his head, eyes closed, Puck's secret briefly forgotten. No matter how often he'd seen them do it, the Stein's weird synchronicity when working on something in the family's lab still unnerved him.
Without waiting for Mike's answer, a smiling Vivica passed the basin to her husband, "I think it's viable. We've never made a baby before. Well not from scratch! Schatzi, do me a favor and set up that incubator we ordered from Amazon by mistake?"
"You mean the one I thought was a computerized Keurig coffeemaker last Christmas?" Victor started to rummage around in the cabinet over the lab sink, "I made the cat with it last week, so I know it works."
Mr. Stein was very proud of "Patchy" – so named because he couldn't exactly decide what color of cat he wanted so he'd made them all in one cat. Even the eyes were mis-matched, like their daughter Frankie's. The little hands just made it cuter – plus it made a great lab assistant.
"Who's is it?" Mike looked sorrowfully down at his switched-off niece, adding, "Oh babe'girl, why didn't you tell me?"
"Well, we know it's hers. The father's anybody's guess." Vivica said, all but bouncing with excitement at the prospect of a new challenge. "Do you mind if we incubate it? Frankie's been asking for a little brother or sister ever since she started babysitting. Now that things are safer..." Vivica trailed off, one perfect brow arched questioningly. "We'd give it a good home, whatever it turns out to be."
Standing, Mike interrupted, "We can't afford this, but it deserves a chance – I'll talk to the wife about it. Raina was raised Catholic, wanted kids before all this…" he gestured around him, "Started– just put it on our ta-"
"Mom! Dad!" Frankie burst into the basement lab, "I just got my first paycheck! Can I give you half towards that dent and keep the rest to buy… Oh. Oh!" She squealed, pushing past Mike as he left the lab while taking the basin from her mother. "Is this my little brother or sister?"
"No, darling, 'fraid not." Viktor said as he plugged the incubator formerly identified as a coffee machine into the big industrial outlet he'd installed when they first moved in. He studied the flashing lights on the front panel, "This is for somebody else. Now, where'd I put that manual?"
"Oh." Frankie said, dents and a new pair of Jimmy Choos forgotten, "Whose it for, then?"
Thoughtfully studying the fetal remains, she walked past Puck's unconscious body and sat down on the counter next to the now warming incubator. She passed the basin to her father, a thought crossing her face, "So Mr. Schmidt wants another kid?"
"No." Vivica said, suddenly uncomfortable having just done the math on Puck. "Puck was carrying cargo the whole time and we just found out."
"Oh. Her." Frankie said flatly, gesturing at where Puck lay. Though Frankie had tried to make friends with Puck, Puck had given her the cold shoulder. She was having better luck with Raina and Maggie, and a baby might be even more fun than a cat who could text!
This in mind, Frankie blurted out, "I'm getting an A in Genetics I. Can I help make this one?"