Hikari cuddled up to Tailmon as Daisuke and Taichi seemed to be trying to burn themselves around the fire.
"Nooo... if you do that the fire will go out!"
"No, it won't, we have to do it this way."
"Too bad we don't have Biomon yet." Sora said. "She could keep that silly fire going."
"Or set the boys on fire." Miyako snipped. Sora hugged her around the waist and made her lean back.
"What's up with you?"
"I want to know why Koushiro kun invites Ken chan to join his company and not me!"
Ken flushed at the loud outburst, and Izzy looked up from his D-terminal wide-eyed in fear.
"He probably didn't want to insult you." Ken offered with a glimmer of a smile. "Considering your level at electronics, when Digisoft falls flat, you should probably stay out of the way."
"It will NOT fall flat." Koushiro protested, closing his D-terminal. "I didn't think about you, Miyako. I thought you'd already signed on with a company."
"Well, I'm thinking about it." Miyako said, looking away from him still unappeased. "But really, you could have asked. Why don't you fight for me? Don't you think I can provide your company with good service?!"
"Eto... you could provide us the service of changing our name?" Ken said offhandedly. Miyako glared at him. Then chuckled.
"So you do make jokes. I'd never noticed before."
"Yare, yare." Ken used his fingers to comb a tangle out of his long dark hair. "We should have brought a blow dryer."
"Soo, it's pretty cold." Takeru said softly taking a spot next to Daisuke. "It shouldn't be this cold in the Digital World this time of year."
"The weather's been weird lately." Tailmon informed them. "Just after that castle appeared."
"A castle?"
"Un, I'm not sure, I was flying by at the time, but I think it was here on File Island."
"Great." Jyou muttered. "It's deja vu all over again."
"Let's just get some sleep. We can deal with it in the morning." Yamato pulled his jacket over Taichi and his head.
"Looks like I've been put to bed." Taichi gave a muffled laugh.
"Ch'. What Agumon would say." Koushiro muttered sarcastically under his breath.
"So, Koushiro are you going to look at dirty pictures on the Internet all night or are you going to bed?" Mimi asked sweetly. Koushiro grabbed his nose.
"Eech. Quit it. I'm doing an important analysis."
"Do it in the morning." Ken snapped reaching over and confiscating his D-terminal.
"Geez. Someone is moody." Koushiro grumbled as he settled down to sleep.
"FOOD!!" Gomamon's happy cried echoed through the Digidestine's makeshift camp. "You're holding out on us, Ken!"
"Whaa?" Ken squinted groggily at the Digimon gathered around him. Apparently they'd found something in his sweater, or maybe his pockets. What in the world? I don't carry food with me... Just the- oh, dammit!
"Wait." Ken struggled to get up, inadvertently knocking poor Wormon to the ground. "Oh, sorry. Wait, Gomamon!"
"Ken wouldn't hold out on us." Daisuke protested sleepily.
Jyou jerked up with a sour look on his face. He didn't appreciate being woken up so abruptly, even by his Digimon. He snatched whatever Gomamon had been holding and held it close to his face for examination.
"Ehhh...?? You do NOT want to eat this, Gomamon. I don't even want to think what it would do to you." Jyou grimaced and put on his glasses. Progesterone? Why is Ken taking Progesterone? It says it was prescribed by Dr. Tanaka... wasn't she that...? oh my.
"Awww. It's not food? I'm hungry."
"No, it's not food. Here ya go, Ken." Jyou eyed him as he handed back the bottle. Ken was looking pale again, but it could be the rough night's sleep. "Dr. Tanaka?"
"She's the head of the research lab where I work." Ken explained pocketing the bottle again. Don't be nosey, Jyou.
"Well, let's get some real food!" Gomamon insisted. Jyou stood and looked around.
"There might be something edible around here. Or something poisonous."
"There's a vending machine not to far from here." Tailmon informed them, kneading the ground with her claws. "We could go get something for everyone."
"Yeah." Hikari yawned. With a little wobble she made it to her feet. "I'll be back in a minute."
"I'll come." Ken offered in unison with Taichi and Daisuke. The boys looked at each other.
"Rock paper scissors?" Daisuke asked. Ken forced back a grin.
"Sure."
The boys held their fists out.
"Rock paper scissors!"
Predictably Daisuke and Taichi both stood with a rock, and Ken with paper.
"See ya." Ken said as he took and looked to follow Hikari. "Hey. Where'd she go?"
"She left with Takeru" Yamato replied, still hiding from the sunrise with his jacket.
"Tanaka..." Koushiro was running his hands over his hair, attempting to make it lay flat again. No luck. "Isn't that the kooky genetics doctor I keep hearing weird things about? Doing illegal experiments on human subjects?"
"It's not illegal. And everyone had given consent. And she's not... okay well she is a little kooky, but everyone I've met at that level of intelligence is a bit..." Ken replied trying to keep his voice calm. You haven't eaten anything yet, you can't get sick!
"Well, since you worked for her, mind cluing me in on the facts verses fiction?" Jyou said as professionally as he could manage. Ken shrugged and pulled on his sweater, feeling a little safer within it. Daisuke had bought it for him that past Christmas, when they were still together. He was always trying to dress him up, since he rarely forged a style of his own. Ken was tall, but still very thin. It was hard to find something that would fit properly, and he always stuck to the same colors, white primarily, then red, blue and black.
The others began pulling themselves together, and aside from Koushiro and Wormon, didn't seem interested in the upcoming scientific discussion.
"I hear she's found a way to have men carry children?"
"What?" Koushiro twitched. "Carry? Like get men pregnant? That's impossible."
"You should know it isn't, Koushiro. A male pregnancy isn't all that different from a female one, only you need to have two operations. What you basically need is a good blood supply."
"Where's he going to carry it? A shopping bag?"
"No. The regular place. And anyway, pregnancies outside a womb aren't unheard of. They even occur in women, but they're dangerous. The egg can attach itself to any place where there's a blood supply., only there's a chance it could tear loose, and she'd die of blood loss." Mimi handed Ken a hairbrush as he spoke.
"Give that to Kou kun when you get done, will you? I think he's going to hurt himself."
Ken grinned and nodded, tenderly brushing his hair out of the Kaiser style spikes that it seemed to want to stay in. Must have been from sleeping on the ground. He passed the brush along to Koushiro.
"How does Dr. Tanaka plan to get around that?" Jyou asked, grateful his hair wasn't as difficult as the other boys. He just pulled it back to the nape of his neck.
"Her first tests involved transplanting a woman's uterus into a compatible subject, but this has a few problems, namely the chance of rejection. It's far too risky to exist as a long term solution."
"She's tried this?" Koushiro asked. Ken tried to imagine getting Koushiro and the doctor in a room together and decided it would be a very bad idea. Despite his intelligence, Ken was sure he'd rub Dr. Tanaka the wrong way.
"A few basis experiments. We haven't done a full run though."
"WHY??"
"Mostly because it's a bit dangerous and we wanted to be sure of as much as possible before trying something like that."
"Why would anyone bother to do such a bizarre experiment??"
How can I explain this without it sounding as personal as it is? Ken creased his brow pensively, and attempted to answer: "Because... we wanted to save lives. Even in our day and age, infanticide is committed because the baby is the wrong sex. Little girls are ritualistically mutilated, and sometimes they die from it. There are some cultures that won't stop the violence, and we don't have the access to make them stop.. I guess... we figured it would be easier to change the possibilities than to change peoples minds."
"That's a noble goal." Sora said, getting in on the conversation. Hikari and Takeru came back into the camp laughing about something. "I could bring it up in my women's group."
"Soups on." Takeru announced distributing the packages. "And juice. What noble goal?"
"I'll clue you in later." Hikari whispered to him. Ken glanced over to them, trying to decide how to feel about that. They aren't standing that close together. I think. Hikari and Takeru have always been good friends... why do I care??
"I don't care how cruel they are to women, we aren't going to be able to get men to do without them and have the children themselves." Koushiro complain. "Besides, then we'd just end up with a bunch of civilizations without women. The species would die out."
"Not really." Ken said absently. "We can now create a fetus from the DNA of two individuals."
"So has she gotten around that barrier? Of rejection, I mean?" Jyou prodded gently.
"Yes." Ken replied with a nod. "With the use of cloning, and other genetic factors, Dr. Tanaka has been able to develop an artificial uterus from that can be made to match the man's blood type, so rejection is much less likely. From there, they can get a blood supply from the kidney, or the groin muscle if he's lost a kidney. Progesterone can be supplemented, to smooth the ride, but that part's really just a precaution. Like I said, the blood supply is more important."
"So those stories I've heard, about Dr. Tanaka cloistering some poor guy and making him carry a fetus to term...??" Jyou continued leaning forward as if to catch the answer. Ken flushed.
"That's untrue. She didn't force anyone to do anything. That's the problem."
"What?"
"And, he's not being cloistered... well, not intentionally." Ken looked around thinking that one over. Might as well be.
"How can you not exactly be cloistered?" Koushiro asked, catching the hint that something was going on over his head and he didn't like it. Ken paused. He'd been about to open his drink.
"Well, you could... get... sucked into the Digital World." Ken said, suddenly bursting into laughter. Hikari began giggling again and hugged him.
"Huh? You?!" Koushiro grabbed his nose again and had to pick up a leaf to stop the bleeding. "How did she convince you to do that?"
"What?" Daisuke perked up looking Ken over. "You're kidding, ne Ken chan? Ne?"
"No." Ken rubbed the sides of his face. He hadn't really wanted to tell them, but if they were prospectively going to be stuck here, he couldn't keep it from them. "She... well. Dr. Tanaka wanted to keep the beta testing... in house, so to speak. But she never wanted me to be the first to carry a child to term. She didn't like my chances due to my body type."
"So what happened?" Yamato asked. Taichi started looking Yamato over. I wonder if he'd be interested in doing that for me?
"Basically, she wanted to see if we could get the process started. After three months, we'd transfer the fetus over to a donor couple, and the woman would carry the baby to term." He dropped his hands to his knees. "The money was great, and she knew we could use it. Besides the fact I kind of agreed with her at the time. Not as much as I agree now... but still. It was enough for me to think it was worth my while."
"Dammit." Ken felt tears slipping down his cheeks again. "But, they... wanted a boy. They backed out on us."
He took a breath and continued. "They told us a girl wasn't worth it. They told us to terminate the experiment... I couldn't do that. Just because she was a girl. I didn't even realize then... I just couldn't let them kill her."
"Oh, Ken chan." Daisuke whispered. He walked over and gave Ken that warm embrace he knew Ken missed so much. Hikari started to intervene, but decided against it.
He looks so happy with Dai kun holding him... I didn't think he could bring himself to say it so soon. Good job, Ken chan.
"I didn't realize then that Dr. Tanaka had used my DNA to create Sam. She hadn't planned on telling me, but I found out... three days ago. I demanded to know if she was mine."
"She wanted her experiment to be a success, right down to the baby's genetically altered high IQ." Jyou concluded. I should report her. I can't believe she did that to one of her workers. At nineteen! And that couple...
"This is definitely going to make our stay in the Digital World more interesting." Yamato laughed. Taichi punched him.
"Quit it."
"I'm just lightening the mood. Chill out, Tai kun."
"I guess this was the surprise you were talking about, Ken." Wormon intervened. "So what does that mean anyway?"
"It means..." Ken blushed and chuckled, as he put a hand to his belly. "I'm gonna get bigger."
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