Page 37 of The First Omega Made
“Oh. Well, I assume the same stuff I do with Nex—uncle stuff. Hmm. Sign me up for some extra babysitting duties, I guess. And if he learns swear words—you can’t be mad.” Gorm grinned and rested his hands on his knees. “Oh! And I wantto help name him! Something cool, like the original hybreed names…”
“What was your lab number?” Noel glanced at Gorm.
“G01-81-3,” he said. “Generation 01 because I was from some of Nirem’s stock, eighty-first iteration and third in my batch. So, G0, R is the 18thletter and M is the 13th. Boom. Gorm. I ain’t that coordinated, so it fits.”
“Damn good mechanic, though.” Vil nodded.
“So, Doc is N03-2. I am N03-1. Sarge should be N04, I think,” Noel pondered.
“N04,” I mused and brought up a touchscreen with a gesture, drawing the character out. N04-II… I moved the dash between the two roman numerals. “Noah.”
“I like that. Noah…” Doc smiled and Gorm nodded sagely. “I approve.”
“So, this is what you want?” Vil crossed his arms and stared us all down one at a time, those endless black eyes of his scanning over us.
“I’ve wanted a child since the moment I saw Nexus.” He rubbed at his eyes and kept a hand experimentally rested on his stomach.
“And it’s a dream for me, in a strange way. There will be part of me in them, my original form—because I don’t think this body inside Shafa exists the same way.” I touched my chest, my claws raking over where the faintest lines of scars were. Noel did fantastic work on it.
“Open up the scope and look if you can stand it.” Noel shrugged before going off to grab Nexus and leave, no further words spoken. Doc would need to hunt him down later to teach him what was to come.
“I’m not going to lie. I don’t want to be nobody’s Papa, but I’ll go the extra mile. You ever want another kid sometime down the road, we’ll talk about it. But I won’t be a piece of shit aboutit.” Gorm nodded and stood, stretching out before approaching Doc with an outstretched hand. He laid his palm over Doc’s belly, next to his hand and twisted his lips as if in thought. “Yeah. I’ll be good to the lil guy.”
When he left, Vil followed with a polite wave.
“Aww. No Jerry Springer.” Merriel audibly sighed. “I miss television.”
“You still have the broadwave!” I shouted up at him and received a grumble of displeasure.
“Vil won’t give me the sermon-free version! Besides, the most entertaining show is Tal Gone Wild, and the video is shit this far out. And they censor the cloaca.”
“Eh.” I turned my attention back to Doc; the expression that met mine was nothing short of bliss. “So, you sure about this?”
“Are you?”
“Hell, no, but I’m not wasting a chance for a family.” Colthraxians never had family. But I was no longer—or was I? I glanced up at the 4D, and Doc nodded, getting me on the table for a peep. Merriel threw up a view screen in my field of vision, and I looked away from it as Doc panned and almost closed it out before I could look.
His face was a blank, one I very much wanted to read as I turned my gaze upward and… What little pieces of me there was left were nothing more than my skinless organs surrounded by vascular tissue, as if I were being absorbed. My brain itself had fused to the spinal cord like a small tumor, and I hadn’t felt any of it. I closed my eyes, wincing as Doc hurried to close the window and have Merriel quiet.
“I’m so—” Doc started.
“No. Not a word. Don’t be. We knew it was… We—I’m not in violation of the Leminiscate Resolution. I didn’t take over a body. One took over me.” I pulled myself off the bench and sank to my knees in front of Doc, staring up at him with everyounce of love I could muster tight in my chest. “You’re a fucking princess, now. You know?”
“Pff. Princess? I’m not the one who wears a tiara around when I’m randy.” Doc sneered, and I tried to scrub that mental image of Gorm from my mind.
“You kissed me and turned me into a prince. There’s no more toad or frog or whatever left.” I smiled and Doc shoved at me. “Can we have a happily ever after?”
“Sure. Maybe we can spend some time on Paradise for a while, take some time off from the ship and all the madness.” Doc gave me a hopeful smile and whatever he wanted, I would give.
Chapter Twenty
Doc
Nineteen days to port left, and I was already gravid as hell. My belly, full and rounded, hung low in my chest in a way that had Noel impressed.
“Was I ever this big?” Noel sat on my stool swinging his feet as Nexus batted at his tail playfully.
“No, but we induced you early. Maybe you would have gotten bigger!” I glared but couldn’t muster any venom in it. “Now, are we doing the gross thing or not?”
