“Dante has set up a monitoring station in the next room. As you pointed out, you can’t go to the med center. We brought the med center to you. It’s fully equipped. A little antiquated, I’m afraid, because for some reason the cyborgs hadn’t gotten around to preparing for parenthood—possibly because that wasn’t supposed to be an option for us, but fortunately for us Dante is not only fully qualified as a medic, he is also into research and development.”
Amaryllis studied him uneasily, but she knew he was perfectly capable of carrying her, willing or not. She decided her dignity would suffer less if she went on her own steam.
Reese and Dante were both stone faced when she arrived in the examination room with Cain. If she’d been in any doubt that they were still furious with her, that cinched it, but she felt more like she was climbing onto an autopsy table than an examination table. When she’d settled, Dante moved the tray of instruments closer and began by checking her vitals. Her belly clenched when he picked up the scanner and slowly moved it over her.
He was silent for so long after he’d finished, studying the read out, that she couldn’t stand it anymore. “It says unknown life form, doesn’t it?” she said shakily.
He glanced at her then. “The one you used at the med center did because it was calibrated for cyborgs.”
Amaryllis thought that over for several moments. “You mean … it’s because you … or … uh … Reese fathered it?”
“Reese fathered the child,” Dante said without inflection.
Amaryllis’ gaze darted to Reese. If possible, his face was more stony than before, but it was the look in his eyes that made it impossible for her to maintain her own gaze. “But … it’s normal?”
Dante gave her a look. “So far as I can see. Why would you think otherwise?”
Amaryllis didn’t know whether to be relieved or not, but she could see Dante thought she was referring to them. “Because I wasn’t born normal,” she said stiffly, ashamed to admit it, but unwilling to allow Reese to think that she’d expected it because of what he was. “It’s why I have the cybernetic limbs, not because of an accident.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Relief? Uncertainty? After a moment, he turned away, moving to the table along the wall. When he returned, he was holding a strange looking object attached to a tiny portable computer. “What is it?”
He shrugged. “A prototype, and a crude one at that. But I think it will serve well enough for our purposes.”
Amaryllis was horrified when she discovered that the strange looking probe was supposed to be inserted in her vagina. Reluctantly, she lay back and allowed him to carefully push it inside. He set the tiny computer on her belly and flipped a switch. Amaryllis stared at the screen for a full minute before she realized that the shadowy object she was looking at was the child inside of her. As grainy and blurred as the image was, wonder filled her and so much relief she thought for several moments that she would burst into tears again. She could see two tiny arms and legs. “It’s … it’s the baby!” she said, uttering a sound midway between a sob and a chuckle. “It looks … perfect!”
Dimly, she was aware that Reese and Cain had moved closer, peering over her head at the image on the screen as it moved its arms and legs, kicking, twisting around.
Abruptly, her heart seemed to stop in her chest. Her mind went blank as she saw an appendage sheknewshouldn’t be there. “What’s that?”
Dante frowned. “What?”
“That … that thing. There.”
There was a gleam of amusement in Dante’s eyes when he looked at her again. “A penis.”
“Oh my God!” Amaryllis exclaimed, dismayed. “She’s got a penis?”
Cain and Dante burst out laughing and even Reese chuckled. “No, buthedoes,” Cain said.
Chapter Thirty
They werenevergoing to let her live that down, Amaryllis thought darkly. The first words out of Cain’s mouth after the baby’s birth were, “My God! She has a penis!”
Naturally, Dante and Reese had thought it was hilarious. She would’ve hit him with something if she hadn’t been so overjoyed to see that the baby was, in fact, absolutely, perfectly beautiful. There was also the fact that she’d been too tired to look for something to throw at him and they all needed a good hit over the head and she certainly didn’t feel up to that.
There was a definite advantage to having three doting fathers around, however. Except for feeding the baby and cuddling him from time to time, she rested while they fought over who had to change his diapers.
Despite the fact that Dante was adamant that he could pinpoint the exact moment of the baby’s conception, he arrived earlier than expected … and later. He didn’t conform to the development of either the human gestation period or the accepted cyborg gestation, which was considerably shorter due to the fact that cyborgs had been developed with rapid cell regeneration to accelerate maturity. By the time Amaryllis’ secret was out, however, he’d reached the stage in development for rapid growth. Within a month he’d doubled in size. In the following month, he doubled again, coming into the world at a whopping eight pounds.
Reese was inclined to take full credit for his son’s perfection. He was modest enough and thoughtful enough to credit her with it, but she could tell, deep down, he really thought it was all his doing.
They’d been angry with her for weeks after her escapade that had nearly gotten her killed. Cain hadn’t been joking about ‘the punishment’ and, in fact, it had been far worse than she would ever have thought it would be.
It wasn’t just the ‘no sex’. She pretty much got the cold shoulder from all three of them, and that went on for weeks, not just ‘a week’. She’d begun to think that she could stroll naked in front of them, and wave it at them, and they would ignore it.
By the time they’d begun to unbend a little, Amaryllis had finally realized something important. They truly loved her. They didn’t just think they did. They felt it and that was why they were hurt and angry that she hadn’t trusted them enough to talk to them about her fears. They couldn’t look at her afterwards for weeks without wondering if what she’d told them was true and she really hadn’t intended to run away, and they couldn’t look at her without remembering how badly she’d scared them when they’d thought they wouldn’t be able to save her from her folly.
Convincing them that she loved them just as much in return was a long, tiring, and thoroughly enjoyable experience for all concerned.
