"Prince Namor—Welcome." I said. "I'm Joviana. Are you simply here for the wedding, or have you come to confer with Victor?"
"As arid and barren as the dry land is, in comparison to my realm." Namor, said, staring like a man transfixed. "Yet it somehow brings the fairest flowers forth, and grants them mobility and voice. I am here for your wedding, but I wish it were not so—or, rather, that it was I who you pledged to."
I had never had anyone fall in love with me at first sight before. I found it annoying—especially since it wasn't Namor's first sight of me. He had seen me –he had even spoken to me—and he had once called me a 'drylander cow'. That was before I lost the weight, however, and before Victor and I…were Victor and I. Partially I blamed my new hairstyle, but very likely it was simply that Namor was prone to falling in love with women who were already safely attached or otherwise unavailable.
He took a step toward me. "No." I said, firmly, leveling a finger at him. "Don't. Don't you dare fall in love with me, I won't have it. I don't like the ocean. I can't stand the beach. I like forests and fresh water and mountains. I know the ocean is far, far bigger than all the land masses combined, but I don't want to rule it with you. Please make yourself at home in the castle—flirt with the maids if you like—but as far as I am concerned—forget about it." I left, hurriedly, and found Victor in the cyborg labs.
The cyborg department was becoming quite important in terms of the Latverian economy—ever since their focus turned to medical applications. Artificial nerve fiber, microprocessors implanted in the brain that managed transmitters able broadcast signals to and from the brain past a broken back or neck, and restore sensation and mobility to the paralyzed—the world came to Latveria for these things. The department was working on artificial limbs that would behave and feel like the real thing.
Several scientists, technicians and assistants were scattered around the room, working on various experiments and projects. For some reason, the head geneticist was there, also, standing beside Victor, who was in the center of everything, studying an oversized monitor which had two different gene-patterns displayed on it. One was normal looking—the other was like nothing I had ever seen.
"Good evening, my dear." he said, his eyes moving over me—I could see his glance pause, noting the change in my hair.
"Good evening," I replied, after looking at my watch. It was evening—my sense of time was off-kilter, due to the whole 'end of the world as we know it' episode. What with the afternoon tea, it would be hours before I was ready for dinner—I felt a little guilty, knowing I had imposed it on Bisitra, Ulrike and my mother. I hoped it wouldn't spoil their appetites.
"What is it I'm looking at?" I asked, to distract myself from that.
"The results of a paternity test on a young man who claims I am his father." Victor told me. "His name is Victor Mancha. Not only am I not his father, his progenitor was nothing human. It was a reprogrammed Doombot who put that bit of misinformation into his head. I think it is most definitely time to account for every last Doombot, and to retire them from service."
"I agree." I said, looking at the screen. "Who was his father, then?"
"You wondered how Wanda could possibly have believed that she and the Vision—being an android—could have children together. Here is the answer—the robot Ultron, in his latest self-upgrade, devised a way to make his nanites behave like chromosomes—the result being this young man. He is a cyborg—an organic cyborg—living tissue and living metal at the same time."
The first version of Ultron was the creation of Dr. Hank Pym, my friend Janet's ex-husband—during one of his periodic bouts of mental illness. Consequently, the robot had a hatred of all human beings—which had grown into a hatred of all organic life. He spent a great deal of his time devising ways to destroy it. The situation was made all the more pathetic by the way Ultron kept trying to have interpersonal relationships.
"Who is his mother?" I asked. "She had to be human, did she not?"
"She is. Her name is Marianella Mancha. Her previous occupation was that of a 'drug mule'—one of those unfortunates who swallows pellets of heroin and cocaine prior to traveling to the United States, where she delivers them to the distributors. She did not bear the boy—she merely supplied the genetic material. He was gestated in a clone tank to full maturity—and consequently has the attendant psychological and emotional problems."
While the rest of the scientific community was struggling to clone sheep, cats and dogs, the costumed adventurer community had been cranking out perfect human clones for decades, and transcending the need for a host mother all the while. Clones that were subjected to accelerated development, so that the result was an adult rather than a baby, were prone to all sorts of identity crises, socialization issues, immature and inappropriate responses—because implanted memories did not take the place of real human interaction. The most famous example of this was Mister Sinister's clone of Jean Grey, named Madeleine Prior—who had predictably gone insane and betrayed the X-men.
"To what purpose did Ultron decided to have a son?" I asked.
"That the boy might be a sleeper agent, unbeknownst even to himself. As you might expect, the boy has powers. He is infiltrating the costumed adventurer community, befriending them and learning their secrets, their weaknesses. When Ultron decides the time is right, he will activate the hidden programming, and the boy will turn on his friends, wanting only to destroy them."
"Destroy them by killing them, you mean. It'll never work."
"No," Victor agreed. "It won't. But, come, my dear, why have you sought me out?"
"To tell you I was about to call on Robert Angevin's services, concerning the matter we discussed. I have a question, though—about cloning. Is accelerated growth an option, or a necessity?" I asked.
"It is a necessity unless one is prepared to wait two decades or more for a clone to grow up—or unless one has a time machine, and uses that to circumvent the problem." was Victor's answer.
"So one could remove a clone from the tank at any time after it was developed enough to live independently—like a baby being born?" I clarified.
"Absolutely." Victor gave me one of his 'I will stare the meaning out of you' looks. "Why?"
"The way in which Ultron used it—as an incubator, or gestator, for what was essentially a test-tube baby of a most unusual kind—his son. More and more women are choosing to defer motherhood until they need the services of a fertility specialist. Some wind up with quintuplets as a result—others face nine months of bed rest, or have to engage the services of an egg donor, a host mother or a surrogate mother. Suppose there was a clinic—a chain of clinics—which offered an alternative to all of that?
"I'm envisioning a bank of infant-sized clone tanks, intended to gestate an embryo for nine months in a perfectly safe environment—no possibility of miscarriage, no exposure to drugs, alcohol or cigarettes, a perfectly balanced nutrition feed, a simulated heartbeat playing constantly, as well as the parents' choice of language tapes, Mozart, or other music for optimal intellectual development. Fetal development constantly and non-invasively monitored by trained professionals—if pre-natal surgery is indicated, it is carried out—the result being a guaranteed healthy baby at the end of it all."
I became aware that the entire room had fallen silent, and everyone was staring at me. Feeling self-conscious, I said, "It's hardly a new idea. Robert Heinlein—and a dozen other science-fiction writers—have put forward the same concept. Nor am I the one who developed the technology." Had I a pin to drop, I would have done it, just to hear it echo.
Victor broke the silence. "My dear, were you a piece on a chess board, it could only be a knight—the only one able to leap over others, and the only one which moves at right angles to every other piece. I can already see that I will never have to conquer the world again. I will end up simply owing it. Make note of the day and time," he said to the room. "This is a moment at least as socially significant as the development of the oral contraceptive—if not more so."
He turned to the head geneticist. "Your department works intimately with the clone vats. You have one week to come up with the specifications and requirements for a gestator of the appropriate size which can be mass-produced."
"Yes, my lord," the doctor said. She was grinning widely.
"Now that we have changed the world yet again today, my dear, let us go together to call Mr. Angevin." Victor suggested. Together we left the lab.
It was difficult, but necessary, not to start talking about my birthmother the moment we were out in the hall. This was not something for ears other than ours. So I found something else to talk about. "Prince Namor has arrived."
"He's two days early." Victor commented. "Never mind—he is welcome."
"I think he means to be in love with me now, after having been in love with Sue for so long." I said.
"The devil he does!" Victor said, stung.
"It's all right—I told him I didn't want any of it. I'm not sure that will be enough—perhaps we should do a lot of gazing deeply into each others' eyes over dinner."
"I might speak at length on the flattering change you have made to your hair." Victor observed.
"You like it, then?" I reached up to touch it.
"Yes. Do I detect the hand of your maid at work? I have noticed some tendency toward this since she began doing your hair."
"Yes, at the behest of my mother and my dressmaker. The three of them ganged up on me."
We had reached the communication chamber. Once we had gone in, and the door was shut behind us, Victor said, "Now—tell me."
I did. While I was explaining, he brought up the article. "I see—the approach the news service is taking is one of guarded curiosity, not of scandal and outrage." he said. "This is the time to nip it in the bud."
With that, he placed the call to Robert Angevin.