Eliza gently strapped the sleeping Kaylen into the pod, careful as not to wake her up.
When Eliza was clamping the final harness around Kaylen's hips, the garter went taut and threatened to snap.
Eliza stared at Kaylen with disbelief in her eyes.
'This girl…' Eliza gulped. 'Did her ass increase in diameter again?!'
Eliza subconsciously reached out to feel her own butt, feeling it to be enough to be a handful, filled with taut muscle and fat.
If a woman's butt had a bad ratio of muscle to fat, it would start to look like a crumpling soggy sheet of paper. Most would use collagen shots or silicon to fill this gap-
'What the hell am I thinking about.' Eliza felt disappointed in herself. 'I must be insecure…'
Eliza had been a very successful woman, graduated several degrees, earned masters in all of them except for one, which she currently held a doctorate on. She had beaten men on their own games, became the best there was. She was currently one of the few Class 7 personnel.
Successful, graceful, smart and diligent.
Confident?
Eliza could only laugh in self mockery.
She looked at her calloused hands, her petite but nearly all muscle frame. Her flat chest, her sharp eyes and unfeminine jaw line.
She looked more like a feminine version of a man but less of a woman.
Eliza smiled bitterly as he remembered Johan. Who was the only person who saw he as a woman.
'The idiot just had to die to even admit it though…' Eliza shook her head.
Eliza readjusted the straps on the harness and finally secured the sleeping Kaylen to the wall.
She breathed comfortably with her eyes closed, probably off to Neverland again.
Eliza's expression visibly softened.
'I wonder, sugarplums…' She stroked the stray locks of hair on Kaylen's face. 'I wonder of you see me as a woman…or a man….'
Eliza closed her eyes and showed a rare expression of weakness on her face.
'I don't even want to know… I'm too scared to ask…' Eliza trembled. 'I just want things to stay the way they are… just like you…'
Eliza clenched her jaw as she wiped the tears away.
'I'll get everything fixed. You wait here, I'll make sure nothing will change.' Eliza drew herself close to Kaylen's sleeping face, feeling the warmth of her skin, hearing her soft breathing, the way her pale skin emanates that rosy red glow.
Eliza wished this moment would last forever. She did not want to go.
'I'll protect your happiness…' Eliza swore to the sleeping Kaylen. 'I'll protect our little world.'
She drew closer towards Kaylen's face.
'I swear by my life, sugarplums.'
And they kissed.
Eliza relished the warmth of Kaylen's lips, the sweetness of her breath, the smell she gave off.
She wanted it to remain in her memory forever, she wanted to bite down harder and just devour Kaylen whole right then and there.
But she held herself in.
'At the right time…' Eliza drew back and traced Kaylen's soft lips with her fingertips. 'At the right place…'
Eliza smiled as she gently tapped Kaylen's nose.
'I'll definitely marry you, sugarplums.'
Eliza was about to kiss Kaylen again when a prompt from IRIS popped up.
[Dr. Eliza Stewart. The Executive board is waiting for you.]
"Tch." Eliza clicked her tongue, her sharp expression returning once again.
As Eliza floated away from Kaylen, she turned back to look one last time at Kaylen's sleeping face.
'Wait for me, sugarplums.' Eliza smiled softly. 'I'll be back soon…'
Eliza then put on her sharp expression and headed to the conference room.
She did not manually maneuver around the place but instead took the exclusive access tunnels of the security team, easily bypassing obstacles and arriving at the security checkpoint in less than ten minutes.
"Dr. Stewart." One of the security personnel greeted her. "Authorization Code."
"52-3-26-15-November-13-43, Stewart, Eliza." Eliza spoke.
The light blinked green as the computer finished cross comparison of Eliza's voice with the prerecorded version and concluded at a 98% accuracy.
Eliza passed through the steel door that opened and arrived at a long corridor tiled with synthetic redwood and lit with ornate LED lamps.
Eliza floated down the hallway towards the room with a 7 meter long table with padded velcro, lined with a little more than 20 seats. Among the seats, 18 were already occupied by the directors and the head research specialists with the rest of the administrative higher-ups.
"Pardon me for being late." Eliza spoke as she floated down her seat.
"Busy making out with your bitch, huh?" The director of the mechanical department spoke hatefully.
"My personal matters are none of your concern, Miss Stadtford." Eliza narrowed her eyes.
"I can't believe a filthy slut like you became head of Extraterrestrial Research Department." Stadtford rolled her eyes. "You can't even tell basic biological differences, you are just a massive mistake."
Eliza clenched her fists. "Miss Stadtford, must I remind you to watch your tongue? It might get cut off at any moment after all…"
"What, like how you cut it off when I was asleep?" Stadtford chuckled. "Bitch please, why would I be afraid of a coward?"
"That's enough, you two." Director Lindon spoke from across the table.
"Oh, come on, Marx." Stadtford spoke unreservedly. "You're… what were those called again? Believers of that popular religion 800 years ago? They were Christians, right? Surely you wouldn't side with this bitch that can't figure out that there are only two genders, right?"
Director Lindon narrowed his eyes at Stadtford.
"Yes, I am a Christian." Marx spoke sternly. "What role does that play in any of this?"
"Didn't your god tell you something about man and man is a no and a girl and girl is also a no-no?" Stadtford winked. "Come on, tell this bitch something to make her snap out of her delusions."
"Yes, the Almighty God spoke about that. And that it is considered a sin." Director Lindon sighed. "But that does not mean I have the self-righteousness to condemn other free beings to hell just because they chose something different from what all others did."
"Besides, we have bigger issues than homosexuality." Marx added. "God may have said it is a sin. But securing a future for humanity comes first."
"Wise words." Eliza smiled. The director had a point.
"If you have such an almighty god, why'd it have a rapid decline all of a sudden a century after it peaked?" Stadtford still did not let the issue go. "That doctrine would have been helpful in convincing idiots that there are only two genders."
"Universalized Education killed it." Marx mumbled.
"What?"
"No, nothing." Lindon spoke. "Anyway, it seems that everyone is now present, let us start the meeting."
Eliza looked around the table to see that all the seats were now occupied.
"Alright then everyone, setting the formalities aside, we are in this meeting to discuss the recent troubles we have discovered within the last 20 hours." Director Lindon spoke out. "Let us begin with the damage reports."
"Ship hull has lost 15% integrity during the solar winds."
"23 external modules got breached, they have been sealed but a lot 30 of our heavy equipment stored in them were damaged."
"We have received a total of 20 major cases of pipeline leaks, all of them now resolved."
"We have a major breach in the rear hull from an explosion that resulted from a methane gas leak. Currently under repair."
"The greenhouse 1, 3, and 5 have sustained a total of 70% damage from the storm and all greenhouses sustained 15% damage from malfunctions."
"We have 30 personnel casualties. 12 expired."
"We have a radiation leak in A9. Currently under control but not resolved."
"SOCS has gone offline."
"All external communication modules offline. Still calculating damages."
"Arm 1 has sustained 60% damage from debris. Currently under repair and out of commission."
"Lethal gas leak in E4, still being resolved."
"6 personnel pods malfunctioned. 2 personnel expired."
"Only 60% solar panels intact. Solar Sails jammed. Still trying to resolve."
After the others finished their reports, Eliza was left for the last one as the rest of the table stared at her in anticipation.
"The Xenogen tanks are infested."