Chapter One: A Mindblowing Malfunction
Lisa smirked as she finished the machine. It was a masterpiece. She had finally created a machine that would be able to reverse someone's gender. She had not yet been able to create a function that would allow the machine to change people into third and fourth genders. But for now, its ability was to change men into women and women into men. Lisa had released a press statement about this machine just three days ago and how it was almost complete, how soon she would be able to give people the gender affirming transformations they deserved.
Already, her emails were being overwhelmed by messages from various LGBTQIA Organizations, offering to fund her research, from transgender individuals thanking her for her work. From Christian and other religious organizations calling her a servant of the Devil, saying that she would burn in Hell for affirming these people's sin, telling her that God would judge her and not kindly. Lisa mostly ignored these emails. They didn't upset her, though she was working on things that would protect her in the probably unlikely event that she was attacked by one of these losers.
"Lisa. Come down. Pop Pop and Granny Myrtle are here." Rita said. Lisa's screen in her room lit up and Rita's face came up on it. Lisa saw the rest of the family all downstairs, greeting Pop Pop and Myrtle. Myrtle was wearing an ugly Christmas sweater and she'd apparently knitted one for Pop Pop as well. The new house that the Louds lived in was extremely technologically advanced. Lisa herself had provided much of the technology. She called it her LoudTech House. The floors and surfaces were self-cleaning. There were androids in it that took care of picking things up and putting them away.
Each room had a computer for each person in it and the computers were layered with levels of protection unheard of even in the CIA and FBI buildings. The androids were connected to a central computer that had a list of commands. The house had cameras throughout it that analyzed the area and determined what if anything the androids needed to do. There were some that had security functions, some that had housekeeping functions and some that had social functions.
"Affirmative, Mother." Lisa said. She typed some commands and the machine whined as it went onto its secondary scan. The scan would take about four hours. Lisa put the time into the phone so she could go back upstairs when it finished. Lisa went downstairs.
"Hello, Pop Pop, Grandma Myrtle." Lisa said, hugging Pop Pop.
"Ahh! There's my Lisa Hug." Pop Pop said, hugging her back.
"Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy Yule to you, Lucy." Pop Pop said, knowing that Lucy celebrated the Pagan celebration of Yule. Lucy was a talented Witch. She was the leader of a local coven that met in the woods of Royal Woods where two Ley Lines supposedly met. Pop Pop wasn't sure he believed in any of that. But it hurt nobody for Lucy to believe in it.
And she made a lot of local people very happy with the articles she published in a local journal about magic and the deities and holidays. Lucy's coven had been well-organized. She had each of them do research on a specific specialty and put out an article each week on that subject. Lucy felt obligated to offer people alternatives to mainstream religion. Her Wicca Weekly did just that.
"And a Happy Yule to you as well. May Saint Nicholas treat you well this year." Lucy said softly.
"Lisa, how is your gender swap machine going?" Myrtle asked.
"Quite well. I'm running diagnostics on it as we speak and within the hour, it should be ready to give people the gender affirming transformations they deserve." Lisa said.
"Good for you, sweetie. Our little scientist." Pop Pop said. Lisa nodded, checking her phone. It told her that the secondary scan was ahead of schedule and would be finished in three hours and forty-two minutes.
"Dinner will be ready in a few minutes, everyone. Let's all get settled around the table." Rita said as Lynn started putting out the food. With Rita's writing career and Lynn having several locations for Lynn's Table, the family was doing quite well. Over the past few years, Rita had put out four books. Her first book was so successful that she was able to quit her job as a dental assistant and dedicate herself wholly to writing. And the fact that Lynn's Table was expanding so quickly meant that they had plenty of disposable income now.
Lynn had three locations around Royal Woods, Hazeltucky and Huntington Oaks and now that Royal Woods was growing, he was planning to bring a second location to Royal Woods, across town from the first one. Rita was almost done with her fifth book, all in the same series about the silver haired adventurer. She had worked in parts for her other kids as well. They filled various roles in the books and she was considering writing a book that featured each of them as a main character.
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"Okay, thank you everyone for taking time out of your lives. I know that the older siblings are all out on their own. Lori, your golfing career is going great. Leni, you're well on your way to being a famous fashion designer." Rita said.
"Well, maybe not famous yet. But Reininger's is featuring one of my winter fashion lines. I totes have great gifts for all of you from it!" Leni said eagerly.
"And I'm literally not playing golf right now. Especially during the winter. But Bobby is working on his new job and I'm at home while he gets adjusted." Lori said.
"Luna, you and Sam are about to grow your family… and you and the Moon Goats are just back from a national tour." Rita said. Luna chuckled.
"Well, yeah… We're really happy. Sammy is about to give birth to twins. A boy and a girl. Aurah and Mason." Luna said happily.
"And Luan. You and Maggie and Benny. Running Funny Business as a throuple." Rita said.
"Yeah. And Benny's cool about me being with both of them now." Luan said. Lynn scoffed.
"Of course he is! What man wouldn't want two girlfriends?" She asked. Luan chuckled nervously. That wasn't really what Benny was bothered about. It was that Maggie had a distinct preference for women, and while Luan was pansexual and didn't prefer men or women, he was anxious at first that she would leave him for Maggie.
Of course she wouldn't. She loved Benny and Luan equally. And Luan was glad that Benny was coming around to Maggie being in the relationship. But he still had moments where he was a bit insecure. Both Maggie and Luan assured him though that he had nothing to worry about.
"And Lynn… You and your Olympics career. In the 2020 Olympics. You shocked the world by coming in first in your first Olympic Triathlon." Rita said proudly.
"Ahaha… Yeah… Well, Lisa helped a lot with my physical training. That LoudTech Total Gym really did the trick." Lynn said, slapping Lisa on the back, causing the brunette scientist to gasp as the wind was knocked out of her.
"Please refrain from slapping me that hard. I do not wish to have difficulty breathing when I present my gender affirming machine to the world." Lisa said calmly, still trying to catch her breath.
"Sorry, dude." Lynn said.
"And Lincoln, you did fantastic on your SAT, ACT and CLT and you're going to Northwestern University." Rita said. Lincoln smiled.
"Well, I'm prouder of my comics. I could probably be fine without going to college. I'm already successful with my Full Deck Gang comics and the other comics I do." Lincoln said.
"What are you working on these days, Lucy?" Pop Pop asked as he took some mashed potatoes.
"I'm working on a poem to submit to Young Writers Weekly. They're compiling a book of poems from dozens of young writers." Lucy said.
"Anything else you're doing?"
"I'm doing research on ancient Pagan religious customs, mostly from Europe, but also from Central and South America." Lucy said.
"That's my assignment this week for Wicca Weekly." Lucy said.
"Good for you." Pop Pop said. The whole family was digging in.
"What are you doing these days, Lola?" Myrtle asked.
"I'm about to be in a commercial for a high-end fashion line." Lola said proudly. She had aced the try outs. She and Lindsey Sweetwater were both there and rumor had it that it was a close call, but Lola got the role.
"And you, Lana?"
"Working with Lisa on a futuristic model car. Lincoln is going to be the test driver hopefully. He's gonna be going away to college almost five hours away, so we want him to test the gas efficiency, its effectiveness on the road, how good the tires are, the breaks and so on." Lana said.
"And what if it isn't any of those things?"
"Lincoln has fairly high regenerative abilities thanks to his bionics.
"In addition, the car has safety measures that will prevent severe injury." Lisa said calmly. Lincoln wasn't terribly affirmed by that. But the previous car Lisa had given him as a gift for his 17th birthday, shortly after he'd gotten his license, had been incredible. This car, whatever was in it would likely be even more advanced.
"And you, Lisa?" Myrtle asked.
"I'm working on a computer that can produce a book that is indistinguishable from one written by a person and another program that will produce fashion lines indistinguishable from one created by humans. I don't disparage the talents of my siblings. But my talent is for technology. I'm using what I've learned from my siblings to create programs that can do everything they can do." Lisa said.
"What about a program that can write songs?" Luna asked. Lisa called her android down.
"Bring the most recent song." Lisa ordered.
The android came down and handed Luna some sheet music with lyrics.
"Whoa! This is really good, dude. How did you manage this?"
"I programmed in everything that you have taught me. I programmed in thousands of songs from all genres of the past six hundred years and programmed it to recombine them. This is a combination of Electronica and Baroque." Lisa said.
"Does the program provide a sample of the music itself?" Luna asked.
"Of course." Lisa said.
"Music Bot, please play Electric Freedom." Lisa commanded. The android began to produce an interesting sliding sound. It sounded like violins and other instruments, but had a metallic twinge to it with an electric undertone.
It hardly sounded indistinguishable from something made by a human. But it was close. Luna was impressed.
"Not bad." Luna shrugged.
"I'm still not satisfied with the results. I'm working on tweaking it so that it will be perfect." Lisa said.
"Well I like it. It's catchy." Myrtle said.
"Lily, how is your art doing?" Pop Pop asked.
"Great! I've got a painting of our family. Music Bot, can you carry the canvas downstairs from my gallery?" Lily asked.
"Of course." The android said, going upstairs and carrying the painting down carefully. She was going to enter the painting in an art contest. It was more interpretive than photographic.
Lily was highly talented, but she'd added some personal touches to each of her family members based on how she interpreted their personalities and talents. Each of them had an aura around them signifying who they were as people. Myrtle and Pop Pop examined the painting, amazed at her talent.
"Wow, Lily! This is amazing!" Myrtle said happily. Lily had wanted to finish the painting before Lincoln went away. Lisa had refused to give Lily a full bionic implant. But she was naturally talented at creative interpretation, which allowed her some unique perspectives on how to draw her family.
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Dinner lasted almost two hours. Pop Pop and Myrtle had to get back to the retirement center though. They headed out to the car that Lisa had given them. It was as advanced as Lincoln's car and it drove for them, which was good because Pop Pop was having some trouble seeing in the dark and he had refused bionic upgrades. He said that he admired Lisa's talent, but he didn't have any ambition to be more than human. So he just let the car drive for him.
Lisa went back upstairs and saw that the scans were almost finished. They had gone much faster than she had expected. But the machine was very hot. She wasn't sure what was going wrong. She had put everything in correctly. But there was a loud, high-pitched whirring coming from the machine and as Lisa tried to shut it down, nothing happened. It just kept going, the whirring getting louder, turning into a scream as there was a loud *BANG!* and suddenly the lights went out.
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A/N: Thank you for reading the first chapter. I look forward to continuing the story. Please read and review.