Maniac’s Mayhem

“We want to be like you?” the little girl whispers into my ear, making me grin uncontrollably.

I pat the girl’s head. “You want to learn how to use a sword?”

Shinon shakes her head wildly. “I can already do that.”

"Uhm then in what way do you want to be like me?” I ask, trying to keep a kind smile on my face.

Shinon points between me and Evelin. “We want the ability to hug my sister like the two of you can.”

I nod, sending a quick notification to my princess about the situation and that we would probably have another daughter at the end of the day. Cali, for her part, jumps off her chair and walks up to Shinon, wrapping her tiny arms around her.

“You can always hug me.” She says with a smile, looking up to her sister.

Shinon freezes for a long moment, then slowly moves her head to look at me. I smile, patting Cali’s head and carefully dragging her off Shinon into my own arms.

“That is really sweet, Cali, but I don’t think that is what they meant,” I say, hugging the child.

Cali looks up at me, confused. “Then what did they mean?”

I smile, putting the girl down. “Uhm, let’s talk about that tonight, okay sweety.”

Evelin stands up, reaching her hand out to Shinon. “We need you to make a brain scan, but we can’t leave this room at the moment, so is there someone we should call to go with you?”

“Can Mum come?” Shinon asks with pleading eyes.

Evelin nods, looking at me as I start up a voice call with my princess. It only takes a moment for her picture to jump into my vision, and I move myself to my digital mind space to take the call.

“Maniac, did something go wrong?” Princess asks, giving me a concerned look.

I frown at her, “Is that the only conceivable reason you can think of for why I would want to talk to you?”

“No, but it is the most likely option,” she says with a wicked grin.

I give her my best pout. “Our daughter wants an implant. For that, she needs to get her brain scanned, and she would really like for her mum to be there. When do you have time?”

Princess nods and her eyes rapidly flicker through some information. “I have some time in about fifteen minutes. I will see you then. Can you do some mental prep for her please?”

I give her a nod. “I will make sure the little gremlin is properly prepared.”

We hash out a little more details, but it’s sorted out rather quickly, and I reappear in the room where Evelin is talking to Shinon while Cali is playing with some plush animals on the floor.

“Hey, Princess will be here in ten or so minutes, so make sure you go to the bathroom and have something to eat if you are hungry.” I say as I walk toward the kid.

“Okay, anything else?” Shinon asks, giving me an unsure look.

“You will be laying on a big machine that makes a lot of noises so if you want some music or something to hold.” I start explaining.

Shinon nods, running into their room and coming back out with Snowball gripped tightly within her arms. I chuckle slightly to myself. “Sorry, kiddo, but Snowball can not come with you into the machine. They can, however, wait for you outside.”

Shinon's eyes flick between the fluffy fox and my own before giving me a short nod. Putting the fox on one of the chairs before she runs off again, coming back with a pair of headphones.

It does not take much time after that for my Princess to swing by and take the little girl and the fox down to the medical room. Shinon's small body visibly bubbling with nervous excitement.

I leave Evelin alone allowing her to play with Cali while I return to our mind space using our digital uplink to converse with our AI. “So what do you think, is it possible to, you know, do the same for Shinon as you did for us?”

Lyssa is confident that there will be a solution to summon both of them at once if they indeed have the same ability as you two or any version there of.

I smile happily to myself, though there were certainly parts that made being whatever we were complicated it was not something I wished to ever get rid of. The extreme loneliness that we had always been plagued with was now finely gone.

“Do we have enough points to afford the procedure?” I ask. Points had always felt a bit nebulous to us and we just spent them whenever we wanted without much thought, much to the chagrin of a lot of our colleagues.

It depends. Lyssa assumes, however, that the experiments have changed some child’s brain function, making Lyssa fear that a more custom solution might be required.

“And let me guess, such a solution is expensive?”

Naturally, though Lyssa thinks you should not worry, both Vanguard Liquid Catalyst and Vanguard Sparkling Magenta Explosion have already offered to sponsor any of the medical expenses the kids might require.

I grin widely at that. Bubble’s funds were decent, having earned about as much points as me but being more frugal. Glowstick, however, had heaps upon heaps of points, so squeezing her dry would be easy. I decided to jump on that opportunity early and sent Glowstick a message about Shinon most likely having to go to a medical procedure soon and if she could help that would be great.

“Lyssa, what are our points like in the first place?”

Your current point total sits at 497.

“Honestly, a lot more than I was expecting.” I point out, “But not really enough to do anything interesting with anytime soon.”

Jumping back into reality with my projected body, I spot Evelin and Cali playing with Daisy and realise that raising the children should probably come before anything else and worrying about points is pointless. I walk into the living room, patting Cali on the head and sitting down next to her.

We spent the next couple of hours just goofing off with Cali. Playing with toys and Daisy and generally tiring out the little menace. When Cali is down for her afternoon nap, we both get to cleaning, making sure the house is not an absolute mess.

When we are finely done with most of the cleaning and working on some of the dishes. “So what do you think our other daughter is like?” Evelin asks.

I shrug. “Unsure, but there is a good chance we already met her, and we did not realise,”

“You are right.” Evelin agrees. “Just you know, I hope those two or three or however many feel safe enough to introduce themselves individually.”

I give a short nod. “That is the goal, isn’t it? How nice would it be if our goals were easy for once?”

Before Evelin can comment on that, there is a loud ‘ding’ and the door to our house opens up and Glowstick and Bubbles walk into the room. “Hey, Cierra said we all needed to talk,” Bubbles says with a smile.

“Uhm I guess, want to sit?” I say, motioning at the couch. “So Shinon and … we don’t know the other's names yet, anyway they want to be like us where they can split up so I guess there might be something we need to discuss but I am not sure.”

“Do you have enough points for the upgrade?” Glowstick asks.

“Not sure yet. Lyssa had not sent me the price yet, but I am sure you have enough points for it,” I say with a bright smile.

“Of course I have to pay,” Glowstick sighs out.

“Well, you are the oldest among us and you know taking care of the younger generation and all that?” Evelin butts in.

“You know it was a lot less stressful when only one of you could talk at the time.” Glowstick complains.

I give her a toothy grin. “You know what they say: Double the trouble, three times the hustle.”

“I don’t th…” Glowstick pauses. “You know what? Never mind, just send me the cost and I will pay for it.”

I raise my arms in a victory position. “Thanks Glowie you’re the best.”

For some reason I can’t deduce, Glowstick puts her head in her hands with a deep sigh.

I turn to Bubbles. “So, how is school going?”

“It has been mostly introductions so far.” Bubbles admits “so lots of parties,”

I smile, “Parties are good for getting the full school experience.”

“You don’t know what school is like, do you?” Glowstick asks.

“I kind of assumed it was nothing like how it was shown on tv but beyond that, I have no clue,” I admit.

“Maybe you should try going to school at some point,” Bubbles suggested.

I shrug. “Maybe when Crow is back. “I look at Evelin for confirmation.

Evelin gives a short nod. “Taking some classes on bio-engineering sounds fun,”

We continue talking about possible classes we could take when we get the time to actually go out for a while. It does, however, rely on the kids and how well adjusted they will be when Crow comes back. At some point Cali does wake up and joins the conversation, switching it more to the education of the children.