Chapter Thirteen: The Grudge — Part 5

This girl was young, probably no older than twenty. Her body type was cheeky, hippy, and relatively muscular, her pale skin covered in freckles, and her hair shaved back to a quarter inch of stubble. Her lobes in both ears were pierced. She had six rings along the exterior of her left ear and eight total rings in her right. Three of those in the right ear were along the edge, but one was through the tragus, one the antitragus, and two through the rook. All of her piercings were steel or titanium, polished either to a chrome-like sheen or a dull satin finish, with no fanciful stones or colorful accenting save for one ruby, hanging proudly from her left earlobe.

“I’m assuming the smaller one is mine.” Yap said, with some consideration, touching her child with a gentle hand.

“Yes ma’am.”

“And the other one, is it a girl?” Yap asked, curious.

“Yes she is.” The response was uncharacteristically shy, considering the girl looked something like the feminine and attractive but still butch side of a gender traditional lesbian couple.

“Has the father come to stay as well?”

“The father is unimportant.”

To this Yap smiled rather uncharacteristically. “I was rude. I didn’t ask your name.”

“Joanie. My girl’s name is Toni.”

“Joanie, and Toni.” Yap began, as if testing the name, remembering now, that this beautiful woman had at one time worked as a busser at The Point of entry. “Joanie and Toni. I think we are all going to be good friends.”

“I would very much like that.” Joanie said. “He’s done. You should hold him.”

Yap took up her baby and held him close to her chest, the boy sleeping as Yap held him. “I wish I could feed him.”

“I could pump, you could use bottles. It’s supposed to help with bonding for the mother to feed the child.” Joanie said.

Nikkei came in, smiling. “How are you two getting along?” She asked, squeezing Yap tightly.

“Me and Joanie, or me and the boy?”

“Any or all, honey.”

“All is good.” Yap said.

Joanie saw Nikkei lean in around Yap, putting her arm around Yap’s shoulder while cuddling in close around the baby, and found herself inquisitive. “Who’s the father?”

“That is unimportant.” Nikkei replied, not looking up from the boy.

“I do think,” Joanie said quietly, “that we can all be good friends.”

“We’ll have to be. He’ll need a name.” Nikkei said.

“Kamau.” Yap exclaimed, “That decision was made long ago.”

* * *

Yap cared for Kamau with a careful touch and gentle words. She used a bottle filled with Joanie’s breast milk to keep her child healthy, and to encourage a strong bond. Days passed into weeks and months, Yap, always careful about her child, oblivious, apparently, to anything but Kamau’s needs. Nikkei, always at her side, proved inadvertently cautious. Throughout what would be known as a peaceful, sleepless time, Orchid maintained the business and politics of keeping peace with the other galactic super powers, both hume and extraterrestrial, while Bamboo and Jun became closer friends. She invented massive and complex real-time computer formulas to deal with the constant chaos associated with conniving politicians, scheming mob bosses, and independently wealthy individuals who felt they could buy or sell their way into a share of Orchid, Bamboo, and Nikkei’s combined power and seemingly infinite resources.

Over this time, Joanie learned that Yap was an android, that Nikkei loved her dearly, that Orchid and Bamboo were twins with access to levels of technology unfathomable to most people currently residing on Earth — to include a large percentage of the off-earth population. Joanie and Jun had become friends, and through that friendship, Joanie gained knowledge of the fighting, philosophy, and psychic ability of Jun and Swift. In exchange, Joanie managed to teach Jun a thing or two about girl’s nights out. Though Pearl and Sissy came and went at their leisure, there were no more attacks on either of them, and whatever the cause, whatever the source, without further provocation or assault, the slow conclusion came about that two would suffer no further harassment, perhaps because they chose to stay with Orchid. The years, in other words, began to pass peacefully.

* * *

Advertise Here