AVA

Smog covered the atmosphere of Utopus. Effluence flooded the sea. The patrols of a very powerful government marched the streets armored and armed. Outdoors was unsafe. The safehouse manor was supposed to feel safe. To her, the context just felt...dark.

Darkness surrounded her, though she felt that she should see a glow. Cold ( Cold, correct? and dense) rested on her back. She stood rather than rest. Somewhere through the darkness, she sensed the sound of an unseen door. Then there were footsteps. Cologne; she smelled cologne for some reason. She had a caller!

"Ava? Ava! Wake up now."

She opened her eyes on someone else's command. A man wore a lab coat and held a heart locket. Random thoughts flooded her head as she moved her head to access the spectacle of the man and acknowledgment crept to her features.

"Father!" she declared.

Doctor Douglas Steel beamed at her even as the laboratory doors opened once more to reveal a brunette teenaged boy and a woman close to the doctor's age with frosted blonde locks. The boy's green eyes met Ava's blue ones and they waved as would long lost pals.

"One moment." Doctor Steel ordered them as he carefully snapped the heart locket around Ava's neck.

"Now," he added as he stood next to the two late arrivals as the clamps on the gurney released from Ava's arms, "what do you say?"

"Adan!" Ava declared through an aura of adknowledgment. Then, she turned her head to face the stone-faced woman. Suddenly, something else snapped to her memory and she lost some of the joy and spunk as she met the older woman's countenance.

"Hello, mother." she added, casually.

Doctor Steel and Adan approached Ava once more.

"Nervous, dear Ava?" the doctor asked, gently. "We are togetherness."

"Hey, sis." Adan added as he presented a portable computer and a book.

Ava took the portable computer and leatherbound book before she turned back to her brother.

"There were some...doubts...about a stuffed animal as well," Adan added with a chuckle, "but you're a teenager now, so..."

"...I love these presents!" Ava answered as she threw her arms around Adan (Her brother felt warm! Was she supposed to feel so cold?) "A stuffed animal would have been swell too!"

"He'll fetch one for you later, dear." the mother shot back, coolly.

Dr. Steel glared up at Evelyn as Ava's face found confusion. Adan took over the speech.

"We'll both track down a stuffed bear; he should be around my...our...old nursery somewhere." he blurted.

The doors opened to the hallway and Ava chased her older brother down the hall. The doors to the lab closed once more and the adults were afforded some secrcy.

"Evelyn," Doctor Steel groaned as he stroked the nose in wear*ness, "we have spoken about this; be more open to the get-together. Ava's our daughter!"

"Eve was my daughter!" Evelyn insisted, haughtily. "Ava's a spawn between you and your work!"

Doctor Steel huffed and slumped back.

"My work, at present, was to restore our memory!" he retorted as he collected a nearby needle and stuck the palm. "We lost Eve three years ago, dearest, and no amount of cyber work can restore her. Ava is now our precious. The heart locket's computer recreates all of her mannerisms and memories."

"Well done, daddy," Evelyn scoffed, "once her personality catches up, we'll have just birthed a teenager complete with moody angst! Us two; and your laboratory table!"

"Be reasonable, Evelyn!" Doug s*ghed as the needle hung half our of the palm. His reactions were already slower; the more mellow moods; less antagonistic; more...

Suddenly, Evelyn smashed the flask across the room and nearly snapped off the needle.

"Be real, Doug!" she countered.

Doug scooped the needle back up and checked . Good; there was some potion left. He pushed the plunger and sprayed some into the atmosphere.

"You care for some too?" he retorted. "We both know of the calming, nurturing agents; especially to avoid an argument."

Evelyn glared, stone-eyed, at her husband.

"I gave up using when Adan and Eve were both two years old." she declared. "It wasn't my place to question your own audacity to continue."

"Well then." Dr. Steel slurred a retort. "I say that to do so generates euphoria; and might have cured your cancer. Science, my dear."

Evelyn felt as though she had just been struck by a bus.

"There was a 5% chance that continued use may have one day cured my cancer." she acknowledged. "A sense of sobriety remains on my side."

She had an argument; the doctor relented. Who was he to take up these arguments her?

"Doug," Evelyn added, "could that have happened to our Eve because we both used during procreation?"

"Preposterous!" Doctor Steel retorted; then, as the remorse crept to her face: "We had both twins when we both used; cancer only has Eve now. That loss can't be repeated; not to Ava. Don't you see?"

Evelyn saw the doctor's argument; the doubt was never whether or not she wanted to hear . She glanced coldly back at the needle.

"Well, now that 5% odds of facts are on our side, maybe we should have injected Eve when she was almost ten and they found the cancer." she snorted.

That wasn't worth an answer and even Evelyn was embarrassed by the words and tone. She and Doug locked eyes.

"I'm sorry, dear." she murmured-sobbed.

"Naturally." Doctor Steele answered. "The lab needs cleaned up; and your apology's not with me. My laboratory's sole problem remains the fact that privacy was not a strong foundation here."

Evelyn flushed out of shame and left to fetch the teens. She could hardly fault anyone for eavesdropping (expressly, Ava, who had just woken up to a brand new world) when she and Doug were the ones constantly quibbling as though they were toddlers at odds...

=========================

The false detour to the nursery was the furthest room from Doctor Douglas Steel's laboratory. It may have helped had the parents waited on the actual shouting. No, Ava had heard the start of the argument that had started at the worst place for her to overhear. There was no use to pretend and Adan sealed off the nursery.

"Maybe the bear was in Ev...your... room." he declared as he beckoned that Ava follow.

"Eve; you meant to say Eve." Ava declared. "Who was she?"

"My sister; you're my sister now." Adan answered as casually as he could.

Ava took a moment, then seemed to accept that.

"You're my brother." she observed proudly as the duo approached Eve's old room and Adan entered to emerge carrying a weather-beaten, chewed, and well-worn bear with tear-streaked ears.

"Here!" he sighed in relief. "I'm really glad that you're my sister too; and dad's super proud of you. Mom too. Just allow her t*me."

Ava was engrossed as she held the bear close to her heart pendant and the teenager leaned to nuzzlewhere the button nose was broken off.

"She's so cute!" she gushed as she swung the stuffed bear around before it occurring to her that holding the bear had caused her to run out of arms and hands for the book and pocket computer.

"You should have had this long before too." Adan added as he placed her computer and book to her old school backpack.

Suddenly, an adult shadow fell over the hall. Ava gulped and turned toward her mother's shadow over the bond*ng between the two teenagers.

"Oh, good; you found your bear!" Evelyn declared.

Ava held up the stuffed bear to cover the bottom half of her face as though it were a shield. She even smooched the back of the creature's felt head.

"Very good; picture perfect." Evelyn added before she collected up the backpack as well. "You'll want your bag as well."

Evelyn helped the backpack straps over Ava's arms.

"Mom?" Adan asked.

Evelyn glared at Adan as though startled by his voice; then glanced sorrowfully between each teenager.

"We're leaving your father." she answered, flatly. "He needs some...help to sort things out...* don't know anymore. I'll be in the car once you two sort things out."

Without another word on the matter, Evelyn Storey-Steel was on her way out the doors. Ava and Adan could only look at one another.

"Out; away from the safehouse?" Ava asked. "Smog! Disease! Sea effluence! The government's personal enforcers after lockdown hours!"

What Ava knew from judgment, Adan knew from experience. Through Evelyn's resentment, she knew of the threats as well.

"Come on..." Adan declared as he ushered her down the hall of Utopus's actual havenof the laboratory...

==========================

Doctor Steel had cleaned up again when the lab doors opened.

"Daddy?" Ava asked.

"Ava, dear!" Doctor Steel answered as she entered the lab and threw her arms around her father. "What are you doing u...Evelyn???"

Evelyn and Adan entered next. Evelyn was stone-faced; Adan was remorseful.

"Douglas," Evelyn declared, harshly, "I can't do this anymore. We are leaving now. Take the necessary time to sort your life out, then you may give us a call again."

Doctor Steel looked at her face and, despite the mellowing medication and return of his own daughter, let alone his son, he saw blood red.

"You ungrateful wretch!" he spat as he lunged, open-palmed, for Evelyn's face.

That palm passed through the target. The missed impact didn't stop the shock from Ava's face at the volatile reaction. Adan glanced to the ground and swallowed. Evelyn only looked upset as her eyes flashed red. A hologram; and one that had been RECORDING the whole sorry spectacle of the lab...!

"Goodbye, Doctor Steel." Evelyn's voice trailed off as her hologram faded away.

"No!" Doug shouted as he sprawled out on the laboratory floor. "What has happened???"

"Dad!" Ava answered as she tugged at the lab coat to help the scientist back to a seated shape. "Dad, I'm really here; I'm here with you."

Doctor Steel took saw the flesh of the cyborg creation and the two embraced one another on the lab floor for a moment. Then, a wail pierced through the tender moment. There came a pound at the door and Doctor Steel already knew why.

"Enforcement, Doctor Steel!" the sergeant barked. "Open up! We're here about a domestic disturbance!"

Doctor Steel unhanded Ava and staggered back up before checking the coat pocket. Good; the laser revolver was there.

"Stay here, Ava!" he ordered as the weapon found a hand. "Your dad has to have a talk with the nice officers; then, that ungrateful, wretched woman will pay for setting me up!"

The lab doors shut on Ava and Adan. Ava heard the door and, at long last, the laser blast. She no longer cared if that had been her father's trigger, or one of the cops. Had the doctor shot, he was now an even more wanted man. Ava's legs gave out from under her and she collapsed in the lab with the stuffed bear Familiar tears streaked the ears once more. What would Doctor Steel have done had he known that Adan had masterminded the trick before he and Evelyn were already gone...?