Amelia, Ch 284- Trevor
"So, why the meeting?" Taylor asked.
"It's not really a meeting," I corrected, looking at the slowly gathering group. Zach and Emma were first to make it, and had found one of the chairs to claim as their own, Emma sitting in Zach's lap. For all the separated dorm situation implied, there wasn't really a crackdown on PDA or anything. Not that there was a lot of it to crack down on, really.
Dinah and Lisa were, apparently, having a powwow before I called them. They didn't object to my request, so it couldn't have been too important. At this point Amelia and Taylor were never not with each other, so they showed up second to last. Missy and Theo were last. I sort of interrupted the last five minutes of their date before curfew kicked in. I was pretty sure waiting to the last possible minute was Missy's form of personal rebellion against being treated like a child.
While waiting for them, I set up a monitor system, and a hologram of Victoria popped up. "So, what's the sitch?" the girl asked. I had considered calling up some of the others, but I really didn't know any of them well enough to be comfortable doing this to them.
"I said this was for fun, not business," I reminded all of them. "But trust me, it's going to be hilarious."
"You just want to stay up late," Emma accused. Rubbing her curfew exemption in my face again.
"Yup, you caught me," I laughed. "And I used sweet little Riley for my evil plots." I patted Riley on the head. Although her current growth spurt meant it wouldn't be long before we were the same height. Then again, my genes destined that I would never be that tall. Lisa gave me that Cheshire look that made it clear she saw through my scheme, or at least Riley's involvement in it. She opted not to speak up about it, however.
"I helped!" Riley agreed happily. And by 'helped', she means 'did all the actual work'. After her declaration, she went over and joined Missy on Theo's lap.
"Presenting to the audience, our future photo albums," I announced like something from a circus. The first clip of the slideshow appeared on the holographic display. Over on Vicky's end, she'd have to accept a video screen showing the pictures. Using a hologram to look at another hologram gave shit resolution.
"Mom?" Taylor gasped. Amelia's face showed the same shock as they both stared at the tall, slender woman on the hologram. The image zoomed focus on the woman's lightly freckled face and dark brown eyes. She was delicately pretty, a little shorter than Taylor. That was our icebreaker.
"Not quite," I corrected. "Meet the theoretical offspring between you and Amelia. Complete genome sequence, the blended average of over ten thousand possible outcomes of your genes. With bias made for correcting known genetic disorders using our technology."
"I... I don't know what to..." Amelia stuttered.
"She looks like Audrey Hepburn," Theo observed.
"At least the royal heirs will be completely adorable," Vicky chimed in. "Good news once your planet gets around to having celebrity media. Riley, you're in charge of teaching her to be absurdly cute, I'm in charge of playing dressup."
"Deal!" Riley eagerly agreed.
"Don't we get a say in this?" Taylor objected.
"Nope," Vicky stated. "Aunts and grandparents get to spoil the kids and leave the parents to deal with the results. I'm pretty sure it's the law. And if it's not, then it will be as soon as I show this to Mom."
"Vicky, I've disowned people before, I just want you to keep that in mind," Amelia threatened.
"You can have a copy of the images, if you like," I told them. "But that's just the first. We're far from done tonight."
"How many more do you have?" Zach asked.
"A few," I smiled at him. "You're first, by the way. Be proud, you get a full four combinations. No one else has that many." I finished with a deadpan. "You stud."
"Damn straight," he smiled broadly. "Ow!" He put up his arms to block any further jabs from Emma. A series of brown haired individuals appeared on our screen, along with one in auburn. "Why do they all have the same hair color?" he asked.
"Because you have a type," I answered. "Tall and blond. Your hair color's dominant, theirs are all recessive. Except Emma's, kinda. Red hair follows a different set of rules that'll mix and match with other hair colors in weird ways."
"Let's start with this one." I pointed at the first grouping. "This is Zach and Crystal. Who couldn't make it to this showing." Because I didn't call her, I wasn't sure she would see the humor here.
Like all of Zach's combos, they were tall. Zach's own genes capped him out at six three, though his power's regeneration would bump him to a height of around six five by the time he was done growing. And of his pairings, most of them were pretty tall as well. The Crystal options were actually second shortest, at six foot, and five eight for the boy and girl, respectively.
"I want a copy of those," Vicky requested. "Let my cousin see what coulda been. Ooh! Please tell me you got Taylor and Crystal!"
"Ask me about it later," I instructed. Taylor and Crystal? There has to be a story in there that I don't know about. "You're next." The screen flipped to the next set. Where the first set were attractive, this pair were beautiful. Zach and Vicky were both naturally tall and broad, plenty of room for muscle on their frames. The girl was six foot. Vicky's features seemed to mostly win the genetic battle, leaving the children with nearly perfect features. It wasn't a surprise, Riley made Vicky's genome from the ground up to be flawless. The next six generations of her offspring would be statistical impossibilities of good genetics.
"Hey, Emma?" Vicky asked sweetly.
"Too late, bitch, get your own," Emma growled, wrapping her arms around Zach. She was smiling, however, there was no actual malice in the words.
"Fiiine," Vicky whined exaggeratedly.
The next set was the Zach/Emma combo. Shorter than the others, by a couple inches. Like every Zach combo, brown eyes. Emma's curvy good looks paired well with Zach's size and height, creating a female that was tall and very curvy, and a boy somewhere between 'quarterback' and 'guy from a romance cover novel'. Both had dark auburn hair. Vicky gave out a whistle.
"You can't have them, either!" Emma declared.
"Spoilsport," Vicky muttered.
"Moving on," I pressed the button, and got the last pair. They were giants, frankly. The girl amazonian, six one with playboy model curves. The boy would be Zach's height, without the powers to boost him up.
"Holy shit, who's that with? Alexandria?" Zach asked. Emma, Missy and Vicky figured it out first, and signaled that to the others with a series of shrieks and laughter.
I smiled. "Oh, that's just you and Theo," I informed. "Really good genes, I'd say."
"Oh god, this needs to happen," Vicky giggled mercilessly.
"Sorry, Zach," Emma managed to spill between her laughs. "It really does. Theo, I volunteer my boyfriend to have your man-babies whenever you want."
Missy's right, Theo's definitely cute when he blushes.
I waited a couple minutes for the laughter to die down. Even Taylor and Amelia had relaxed enough to join in, despite the one truly serious combo shown thus far being theirs. "We're not done yet," I told the group. The next slide picked up. A darker toned man and woman, with rich, wavy black hair and naturally bronze skin. "Say hello to the Vicky and Chevalier mix."
"Know what? Emma, Theo, you two can fight over Zach all you like. I've changed my mind," Vicky said. She tilted her head off to the side. "Mom, remember what we talked about yesterday? I now have photographic evidence!" Wait, she actually talked about that? To her mom? I chose not to point out to her that the way her genes were optimized, she'd actually have to dip her children in acid to make them unattractive. "Oh! Is it time to ask about Taylor/Crystal?"
"Well, I had one more planned first, but sure, we can do that first," I agreed with a smile. Taylor was blushing and hiding in Amelia's shoulder, but she was laughing along with the rest of us. The brunette children that popped up were tall and slender, though not like thin like Taylor. Rounder faces and generally softer features. Where the Taylor/Amelia mix was tall and almost ethereal, this pair was more normal looking. Definitely very cute, but not noteworthy.
"Oh no!" Lisa exclaimed, laughing hard. "You really did it! That's. That's not Crystal and Taylor. It's Sarah and Danny!"
"That's why you didn't ask Crystal to sit in, isn't it?" Victoria asked. Oh, fuck, I've lost some of the crowd. I was expecting it to bother Taylor, who just looked a little weirded out. I didn't think it would upset Vicky, but she seemed legitimately angry about it.
"Pretty much," I smiled, pretending I didn't notice. Through the limited senses of the interactive holograms, I hoped Vicky couldn't read my emotions too much. "Moving on, let's see who gets this one first. Lisa's automatically disqualified."
I hit the screen to show a pale woman with deep green eyes, cute freckles, and jet black hair. The was also the shortest of the ones seen thus far, only making it to five five. Everyone looked for a second, and then Lisa started clapping slowly. She'd stopped laughing, but didn't lose the smile. I looked around for any takers.
"I give up," Missy admitted first. "What combo's that?"
"Oh, that one's mine," Lisa answered. "Alexandria's the other half."
"I thought Alexandria was taller," Taylor replied.
"Her powers at work," I informed. "Turns out, Alexandria's natural body type is really petite."
From there, we moves to truly silly examples. The shockingly large number of blondes on the team made interesting mixtures something of a rarity. And I tried not to pair anyone up in a way that might make anyone jealous or honestly uncomfortable, which limited the number of splices I could do with Emma to Zach and Vicky. The Emma/Vicky combo was, predictably, a strawberry blond bombshell. Everyone had a good laugh at the Lisa/etc combinations. Especially the ones we affectionately dubbed 'repeat' and 'smugbug'. The 'everyone on the team combined' option was... unremarkable looking. Downright boring, even.
We even got the Theo/Missy/Riley combos in. I had no doubt that Lisa figured out the ploy, but didn't say or do anything with that information. Either way, Riley's little hobby was out there, but introduced in a mostly non-awkward way. As long as Riley followed my advice to say nothing about it later. Let them approach her if they wanted to and were comfortable with it. And in the meantime, it was a good laugh that we all needed.
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A/N- If you pay attention, this chapter DOES manage to work some plot relevant details. And stealth confirmation of stealth hints strewn waaaay back in the story.
But mostly it was just for funsies.
