Page 37 of Victoria's Embrace

Snitch, standing almost two feet taller than her in his big form, just smacked his scaly lips and waved them in.

Running behind him, they met Thegan, Vi’kail, and Luna’eva at the door to the cloning suite. Once everyone was crammed inside, she tasked the octofly to patrol the hallway and alert them to anyone arriving on the level then sealed the door shut behind her so it could only be reopened with her code.

Despite the fairly large size of the room, she had to squeeze between bodies to make it to the center where Cloud and Lilac were standing next to the cloning machine. Eyeing the two upright, tube-like things, she felt her stomach flip uneasily.

Feeling Cloud rest a hand on her shoulder, she looked up at her friend.

“There is no need to be anxious. I will take care of you.”

“I know, and I trust you. We just don’t have this kind of technology where I come from, and I’m nervous. Will I feel different?”

She’d missed the speech everyone got before being cloned because she, Thorn, and Vi’kail had all left before their turn to look for Thegan.

“Your skin will be more sensitive. You will be stronger, faster, and harder to kill, but you will still feel like you.”

“So what you’re saying is I’ll basically be a badass. Okay, yeah, that’s exciting. Let’s do this. Snitch first, then—”

“What?” Vi’kail cut in.

Looking at him, she repeated, “Snitch first, then you, Thorn, and Thegan, then the lupka.” That time all three of her guys and Snitch tried to argue, but she held up a hand. “No. Y’all are going first. You’re the ones who get sent into danger first, so you’re the ones getting cloned first. We need our front line of defense done in case we have to fight our way out of here before we have time to do everyone.”

For a second it looked like they couldn't decide whether to be impressed or irritated, but they gave in. Not gracefully, of course, but her logic was sound. It didn’t hurt that she compromised by agreeing to go after them instead of waiting for her turn until everyone else was done.

“Would anyone like any special abilities added while I am designing the clones?”

Victoria started to relay Cloud’s question automatically but stopped halfway through and whipped a surprised look up at her. “Wait, really?”

The first thing that popped into her head was how cool it would be to fly like Superman, but she pushed that aside and tried to think tactically. Her gaze slid to Snitch and narrowed thoughtfully.

“Do you map genetics while the person is in the machine?”

“Of course.”

“Could you duplicate and er, splice the trait that allows Snitch to turn invisible into us?”

“Crik me! That’s brilliant, baby,” Vi’kail exclaimed.

“I could try. I have never attempted to apply that trait. It would not have made sense for Zhrovni’s tournaments.”

Victoria nodded. “What entertainment is there to be had if the gladiators aren't visible for the spectators?”

“I will try this,”Cloud agreed, sounding excited.

“Snitch, are you okay with this?”

His eyes slid to Tesha, who he’d decided was his friend despite the lupka being unsure of the arrangement, bounced his shoulders, and gave an excited, “Mrrp!”

She could see the wheels spinning in his devious little mind about what kind of mischief he and Tesha could get up to if they could both turn invisible and sighed.

Glancing around at everyone else she asked, “Would anyone else like invisibility powers?”

Most said yes, but to her surprise, there were a few who declined. When she asked them why, she got wry looks. Apparently, they had no interest in passing that trait to their offspring.

Blinking a little owlishly, she muttered, “Oh. Okay, that’s a damn good point.” She thought about it for a second but… nah. It was too practical for right then to pass up.

* * *

Cloud and Lilac worked tirelessly,cloning one after another, but there was only one machine. Despite their best efforts, it took hours.

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