Interlude: Understanding Arrangements

Lisa Loud awoke from her post-partum rest period with a pleasant afterglow, the torment of childbirth having been replaced with a pleasurable high that would drive a lesser woman to helpless addiction. Which was actually a pressing concern considering she was planning to market the formula within the foreseeable future.

Note to self; investigate regulatory options to prevent birthing addicts from becoming a societal-

She found herself jostled, someone was lightly shaking her arm.

"Leese, are you awake?"

She was indeed awake, but she had hoped to restrict knowledge of that fact for some time. Alas, her brother's voice was in the tonal frequency that indicated he thought she needed to know something, so she sighed and reached for where she remembered depositing her glasses before her 'torment' had begun.

Granted she didn't strictly need them, but the lenses had a number of features built into them that were imminently useful for a woman in her many professions. And as she blinked her eyes into focus she saw a set of figures surrounding her bed.

To her left were two of her sibling units, each bearing two new relations. Evidently Lynn had managed to push herself into an early labour somehow- given the speed at which was she attempting to neuter their brother unit and their advanced pregnancy it was practically inevitable regardless. Furthermore from her general demeanour it could be easily expected that she had used the formula to bypass the majority of her discomfort- Lily likely 'spilled the beans' for the sake of either aiding her sibling unit through the birthing pains or to simply further her perversions.

Likely both.

Lola of course had been spared the rigour of the nine month bloating and embarrassment that came with acting as an incubator, and now she held two of the four infants Lisa had housed. None of the infants both any overt signs of malformation or tampering, and the scientist was pleased to place a nominal check on her mental to do list.

To her right though was her brother and parental units. Her parents were flushed and visibly excited, likely driven to emotion by the birth of their new grand children. Lincoln meanwhile seemed to be more composed as expected from his generally calm demeanour, and within his arms was…

A swaddled infant with her hair colour.

"Ah," Lisa nodded. "I see you have brought S-12."

Lincoln blinked and looked down as if confirming that he was holding said infant. "… You mean Lulu?"

"Yes, that was the name I submitted," Lisa held out her arms to receive her personal offspring. "If you don't mind?"

"Uh, sure," he hesitated to transfer the girl. "But, there was this thing earlier-"

Lisa Loud was a patient woman under most circumstances that warranted it. Today however was the day she had spent nine months preparing for and she was eager to observe the culmination of her Programmed Organics Theory personally. "I'm sure you can explain after you have transferred my offspring."

"I-" Lincoln exhaled through his nose, indicating some measure of frustration for her lack of conformity to social norms. "Okay."

He gently cradled the infant with all the expected care for the smaller 'human', Lisa noted that most of the others in the room subconsciously moved back slightly. Intriguing, had S-12 already displayed her enhancements?

Her question was quickly answered. As Lincoln passed the swaddled infant, S-12's eyes opened from the motion and affixed themselves upon the receiving human. The little 'human' looked over the larger with an intellect that was far beyond that of her peers, noted the hair and eye colour and moved one of her eyes to compare them to what she could see of herself in the warped reflection of the hospital bed rail. It only took her two thirds of a second to be sure in her conclusions- and Lulu Loud looked back to her progenitor with both eyes.

And promptly 'smiled' again.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," Luna shuddered, her sentiment echoed with the other sisters gathered further back in the room.

Lisa held out her offspring for a casual examination, and found no aberrations beyond what had been installed. She met eyes with her child of science and smiled. "Why hello S-12, I've been waiting a long time for this day as well."

"Dang sweetie, she scared the cripes out of us," Lynn Sr uncomfortably chucked. "The hospital went into shutdown for half an hour even."

True enough, the facility was still getting back to regular operation- Lisa's name being the only reason Lulu hadn't been taken under security for quarantine.

"Are you okay sweetheart?" Rita leaned forward and touched her daughter's leg. "I'm sure you can fix whatever's wrong with her but you don't have to hide-"

"Nah, she's fine cause she knew." Lynn's eyes narrowed at the genius. "Not even you're cold enough to see that on your kid and not freak."

"Of course she knew," Lola huffed. "There's no way something like that happens naturally."

Lincoln was looking at her with something… hurt? "Leese?"

Lisa Loud regarded her familial units and decided a calm, practical approach would work best. "S-12 had certain… ailments due to the nature of her conception."

"She was inbred." Lori's hands twitched as they cradled her swelled stomach. "Of course something would go wrong-"

"It was a consequence of my admittedly reckless approach of directly injecting Lincoln's semen," Lisa interjected. "The sperm provided to everyone else was screened by my equipment to ensure that what harmful defects there were was removed from the supply used in the 'incident'. There was another exception with Lily, but I have already confirmed no defects have occurred in her progeny."

The room relaxed slightly- but Lincoln stared at the still open and undulating toothy 'flower' in place of Lulu's regular mouth. "… That's not a defect is it Leese."

There was no question in his voice.

"No," Lisa looked down at S-12 with another smile. "I corrected the initial deformity within the first trimester with ease- but I chose to replace the damaged code with something more effective than simple human DNA."

Lincoln's mouth tightened. "Leese…"

"I took sufficient precautions," Lisa dismissed. "A thousand simulations under varying conditions to ensure that there was no chance it could harm her in any way."

"You could have just fixed the DNA," Lincoln bluntly accused. "You're smart enough to do this- you're smart enough to do that."

"True, but she will be the better for her enhancements." Lisa calmly replied and was about to continue with a list of how Lulu had been improved, and why they would allow her a more fruitful life when Lincoln's expression cut through to her. There was a mix of emotions, the expected horror, the confusion and…

Fear.

Lisa's mind put together the obvious, and for just a moment she cursed her own intellectual tendencies.

"I promise Lincoln," she insisted. "I have not hurt Lulu, she's going to be fine- no matter what happens."

Lincoln's jaw clenched, then released as he looked at the wiggling abomination. "Can you change her back?"

"If she agreed to it." Lisa nodded.

"Agreed?" Lincoln turned back to her.

"She has rudimentary mental abilities, but I would not consider her capable of making such a decision for a great many years yet. I admit that I was… overly enthusiastic in making these changes in the first place without considering her consent." Some feelers from Lulu's throat reached towards Lisa's face, and started tapping around. "But as you can see she is none the worse for them."

"Leese…" Lynn groaned. "She been out for less than a day and she's already nearly shut the hospital down!"

"And nearly gave me a heart attack," Lynn Sr pressed a hand to his chest. "I swear…"

"I will be acting as her personal physician, she will never need to go a hospital in the foreseeable future." Lisa offered. "Additionally I will be able to employ a harmless restraint of sorts to prevent her enhancements from effecting her daily life until she is old enough to decide herself."

Lola frowned, looking at her own children.

"I should also note that I have performed no post conception alterations upon any of the other children," Lisa quickly informed.

"Better not have…" Lynn muttered, pulling away from the bed a bit. "Seriously Leese- your own kid?"

"Will have a better starting position than anyone else on the planet- even compared to myself." Lisa curtly replied, tiring of the opposition. "If nothing else I believe that you can all appreciate that sentiment of desiring that for your progeny."

The room quieted, the low murmur dying out.

Finally Lincoln spoke up once more. "Let me see her again."

He held his hands out, his face impossible to read. Even Lisa's own careful examination couldn't reveal any obvious intent.

Still though, she handed the little body back to her father's grip. Lulu's eyes widened a bit as her feelers lost track of her mother's face, but relaxed when Lincoln turned her around to face him.

The two feelers bumped into his shoulder first, then traced their way to the skin of his neck. They poked and prodded for a bit before following the curves of his throat up to his jaw, then the fleshy tips traced out his chin, lips, nose, cheeks and eyes. They flinched away when they got close to the blue orbs, but stayed around his face- just feeling around for details.

"What's she doin' Leese?" Luna queried with a note of worry.

"Learning," Lisa informed. "She has been… informed about certain details of the real world, but she has yet to properly experience anything from outside of her previous 'accommodations'."

Lincoln sat down in a cheap hospital chair close to the window as Lulu continued her 'observations', drawing her body into one arm. He raised his free hand to one of the feelers, and gently brushed it with a single finger.

The feeler twitched, then turned to follow the hand. Lincoln let her trace the finger, then he twitched it a bit. The feeler flinched back and Lulu let out a little whine, the other tendril jerking back.

Lori stared at him, "what are you doing?"

Lincoln didn't answer, instead remaining still. Lulu's tendrils remained in the open, and slowly drifted back to his face and hand, this time he started moving slowly- letting the abomination get used to his movements before he started tracing the tendrils in turn.

Apparently they were sensitive.

"Hue hue hue!" A wheezy little sound emitted from the inhuman throat.

"Did she just…"

"Laugh? Yeah, she's laughing." Luan nodded.

Sure enough, while the rest of her face was unreadable thanks to her nature, her two brown eyes had a happy look to them.

Lincoln nodded. "… Okay."

"Okay?" Lynn stared at him. "Okay what?"

" 'Okay' to my suggested arrangement I should imagine," Lisa nodded in satisfaction. "It should-"

"But no more 'modifications'," Lincoln's eyes snapped to Lisa. "And you're going to work with the rest of us to help raise her like a person. She's not an experiment she's-"

"Our daughter." Lisa nodded. "I promise that I never thought otherwise."

A door opened, letting through a frazzled looking nurse bearing a clipboard. She looked up at Lisa's last comment, "ah, so this is the father? We were told you weren't- nevermind, if you're here would you like to be put on the birth certific-"

Her eyes looked over the white haired man and the weird suction cups that were stuck to his face, then followed down the attached 'strings' to their source.

The nurse had already been up on night shift, so it took her a moment to properly understand that she wasn't seeing things. She was a medical worker, so she'd seen her fair share of horrifying bodies and cruelly cut short lives. Alas, while the poor nurse was prepared for many things, little Lulu's exposed eldritchian orifice was not one of them.

"WHAT THE FUCK!?"

And thus the Hospital went into lockdown again.