This is the end of Madison’s World Season 3. There will be a week or two break before i come back with a brand new story. I would like to say the 17th but being realistic it will probably be the 24th.
Greg sat quietly while McKenzie and Chelsea worked at the computer.
There was nothing else for him to do.
That was the part that kept tightening inside him. The simple uselessness of his position. He had supplied what he could. Old email addresses. Passwords, or what he hoped were still passwords. The payment account he had used. The name of the portal. A few fragments of confirmation language he remembered from before Smallara shattered the scale of his life and rearranged all practical responsibility into someone else’s hands.
Now McKenzie had the keyboard.
McKenzie had the screen.
McKenzie had Chelsea leaning beside her, one hand on the desk, dark ponytail sliding over one shoulder as she squinted at the portal and pointed out buttons Greg could not see clearly from inside the habitat.
The girls were not doing anything dramatic.
Clicking. Typing. Reading. Frowning. Waiting for pages to load. Muttering about security questions. Arguing over whether a dropdown meant account settings or placement settings. The sounds were ordinary computer sounds, but to Greg they carried the weight of judgment. Key presses. Mouse clicks. The little tap of Chelsea’s nail against the screen when she found something. McKenzie’s sharp exhale when a password worked.
Greg stood near the front of his habitat, one hand resting against the little railing McKenzie had added near the door. The littlecino Chelsea had brought him sat mostly untouched on the table behind him. It had become room temperature, from treat to object, while the room shifted away from the easy afternoon McKenzie had meant to have.
That sadness struck him harder than he expected.
Not Akari.
Not the money.
Not even the Little, not at first.
McKenzie had come home early.
That was what lodged beneath his ribs.
A rare free day. Only a short practice. No work shift. No long evening trapped in someone else’s schedule. She had come home with Chelsea, coffee in hand, joking about tennis dads and littlecinos, ready to exist in her own room with her friend and maybe, if Greg wanted, let him be nearby without pressure.
And he had dropped this on her.
He watched his oldest daughter sit at her desk with shoulders drawn tight, her tennis bag still half unpacked near the closet, her drink sweating beside the laptop. Chelsea sat close, less silly now, the playful edge drained from her face by the seriousness of the screen.
Greg had done that.
Again.
He had taken one more ordinary piece of McKenzie’s life and made it carry adult weight.
McKenzie clicked something, read silently, then leaned back.
“I don’t know if I can take this from Madison if it’s approved,” she said.
Greg looked up.
McKenzie did not turn toward him. She kept her eyes on the screen, as if looking at him would make the sentence too real.
“I mean, it just feels wrong.”
Chelsea glanced at her. “Canceling it?”
McKenzie rubbed at her forehead. “Yes. No. I don’t know. All of it.”
Chelsea shifted in the chair beside her, turning just enough that her knee bumped McKenzie’s desk.
“You should do what feels right, Kenz.”
McKenzie let out a small, bitter laugh. “That is not helpful.”
“It is the only thing I’ve got.”
“I was hoping for, like, wisdom.”
Chelsea made a face. “From me? Bold.”
Despite everything, Greg almost smiled.
Chelsea leaned forward, elbows near her knees now, more serious beneath the joke.
“I mean it,” she said. “You ultimately have to live with this too. Whatever the choice is.”
McKenzie was quiet.
Chelsea looked from the screen to her friend.
“You’re the one who has to look in the mirror. You’re the one who has to tell Madison, or not tell Madison, or watch her find out. You’re the one who has to keep living in the house with her after.”
McKenzie’s jaw tightened.
Chelsea’s voice softened. “And she’s your sister. Not, like, an abstract moral puzzle.”
That carried weight.
Greg saw it.
McKenzie’s eyes flickered, not away from the screen, but inward.
Greg stepped closer to the habitat door.
“She’s right, McKenzie,” he said.
McKenzie finally looked at him.
Greg forced himself to hold her gaze.
“This is something I did. You shouldn’t bear the sins of my choice.”
McKenzie’s expression flinched slightly at the word sins.
Greg continued anyway.
“And you shouldn’t do something you don’t feel comfortable with just because your mother and I are scared or worried or made mistakes.”
“Mom is more than scared,” McKenzie said.
“I know.”
“She is terrified.”
“I know.”
“She thinks Madison is going to replace her.”
Greg nodded slowly. “I know.”
McKenzie stared.
He deserved the doubt.
Greg rested both hands on the railing now.
“The last thing your mother and I want is for your relationship with Madison to be soured by our choice,” he said. “By my choice. If this has to be stopped, I should be the bad guy.”
McKenzie gave him a look that was almost pitying.
“Dad,” she said quietly, “you’re just a few inches tall. Smaller than Mom even.”
The sentence entered the room with brutal simplicity.
Greg looked down.
Chelsea winced.
McKenzie’s face tightened immediately, but she did not apologize because the truth of it mattered too much.
“You can say you’ll be the bad guy,” McKenzie said. “But you can’t get on your laptop. You can’t call Japan. You can’t stand in Madison’s doorway and take the hit full sized. If this happens, it happens through me.”
Greg had no answer for that.
McKenzie turned back to the computer because looking at him hurt too much.
“And Mom being scared doesn’t make everything set in stone,” Greg said after a moment. “We don’t actually know what will happen.”
McKenzie clicked again, harder than necessary.
“No,” she said. “We don’t.”
The page loaded.
Chelsea leaned closer. “Wait. Is that it?”
McKenzie’s shoulders stiffened.
Greg could not see the screen clearly from where he stood. He could see only light reflected on McKenzie’s face, the faint movement of text, boxes, headings.
McKenzie read silently.
Then her lips parted.
“Well,” she said. “We’re in the portal.”
Greg’s hand tightened.
Chelsea shifted closer. “And?”
McKenzie kept reading.
“It looks like the application is still processing,” she said. “But it says provisionally approved.”
The words made the room smaller.
Greg closed his eyes.
Chelsea frowned. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know for sure.” McKenzie moved the cursor. “Here, let me hover over it. Maybe there’s a pop up or something.”
Nothing happened.
Chelsea leaned in, pointing. “Wait. Click there.”
Greg tried to see where she pointed.
He could not.
The inability scraped at him. Once he would have been the one at the screen. He would have leaned over the laptop, read terms, opened tabs, searched definitions, made decisions with full-sized hands and a full-sized voice. Now he watched two teenage girls navigate the legal machinery of a purchase he had made when he still believed himself competent to control its consequences.
McKenzie clicked.
A small panel opened.
She read silently at first.
Then her expression changed.
Not confusion.
Understanding.
“Oh,” she said.
Greg’s hand tightened against the little railing. “What?”
McKenzie did not answer immediately.
Chelsea leaned closer. “What does it say?”
McKenzie swallowed and read aloud.
“Provisionally approved means the applicant has passed background verification, household suitability review, and financial screening. Applicant is approved for placement pending successful match identification.”
The room went very still.
Greg closed his eyes.
There it was.
Not pending background check.
Not waiting for some responsible authority to discover the mistake and stop it before it became real.
Approved.
He had passed.
The version of Greg Wessen who still had full sized hands and a bank account and the confidence to click submit had already cleared the gate. The system had looked at his paperwork, his income, his home, his intended recipient, his requested criteria, and found the application acceptable.
McKenzie read the sentence again, quieter this time.
“Approved for placement pending successful match identification.”
Chelsea leaned back slowly. “So they’re not deciding if Madison gets one.”
McKenzie’s voice was flat. “No.”
Greg opened his eyes.
“They’re finding her one,” Chelsea said.
McKenzie nodded once.
The words seemed to settle over all three of them.
Finding her one.
Not reviewing. Not debating. Not weighing whether a Japanese Little should be placed into a household where both parents were now Littles themselves, where the intended recipient was a teenage girl already struggling with ownership and care and the impossible emotional knot of Cindy Wessen.
Finding.
The machine was already looking.
McKenzie scrolled down.
“There’s a matching explanation,” she said.
Chelsea moved closer again.
Greg tried to see the screen, but the text remained too small, too far, too much a part of a world he could no longer reach.
McKenzie read silently, lips pressing tighter with every line.
Then she said, “It’s not just finding someone who already has every skill.”
Greg looked up.
“What do you mean?”
McKenzie’s eyes moved across the screen. “It says criteria matching includes personality compatibility, shared interest likelihood, present traits, projected adaptability, education capacity, and placement readiness by the agreed date.”
Chelsea frowned. “English, please.”
McKenzie kept reading, then paraphrased because the language was too clean to let stand.
“They find someone who already fits Madison in the ways that matter most. Personality. Interests. Attachment style. Values. Whether she would probably respond well to Madison specifically.”
Greg went cold.
Chelsea leaned closer. “And the rest?”
McKenzie clicked a link.
A new page opened.
“The rest they teach,” she said.
No one spoke for a second.
McKenzie’s voice lowered as she read. “Matched Littles may undergo language instruction, cultural familiarization, household expectation preparation, recipient preference education, activity development, and placement readiness training prior to transfer.”
Chelsea’s mouth parted slightly. “Activity development?”
McKenzie scrolled. “Dance, if the recipient lists dance as a preferred shared activity. Fashion presentation if the Little has an existing interest or aptitude. English instruction if fluency is requested. Stuff like that.”
Chelsea stared at the screen. “So they aren’t just finding a bilingual dancer fashion Little who already magically exists.”
“No,” McKenzie said. “They are finding a Little who naturally matches Madison, then teaching her how to live in Madison’s world by the placement date.”
Greg felt the sentence like pressure in his chest.
Not fabricated.
Prepared.
A Little somewhere in Japan, not yet assigned but possible, would be selected because the system believed she and Madison could genuinely fit together. Then the rest would become coursework. English. Dance. Household expectations. Madison’s routines. Madison’s style. Madison’s favorite things. The social shape of Madison Wessen’s life.
Madison’s wants would become preparation.
Madison’s dream would become a curriculum built around someone who might actually want to learn it.
Chelsea looked from the screen to Greg.
“What criteria did you submit?”
Greg did not answer fast enough.
McKenzie slowly turned toward him.
“Dad.”
Greg rubbed a hand over his face.
“I filled out the main application,” he said. “Age range. Female. Japanese origin. English and Japanese capacity. Preference for someone close to Madison’s age. High adaptability. High social bonding potential.”
Chelsea stared at him. “High social bonding potential is a phrase that makes me want to leave my body.”
Greg nodded faintly. “It didn’t sound as bad then.”
McKenzie’s face said she did not believe him or had doubts at the very least.
Greg continued, “There was also a compatibility section. Preferences. Personality questions. Guardian style alignment. Recipient expectations.”
McKenzie’s eyes narrowed. “How would you know Madison’s answers?”
Greg looked at her.
The silence after the question was terrible.
Chelsea’s expression shifted first.
“Oh no.”
McKenzie’s voice dropped. “Dad.”
Greg swallowed.
“I had Madison fill it out.”
McKenzie stood so quickly the desk chair bumped Chelsea’s knee.
“You what?”
Greg stepped back from the habitat wall on instinct.
“I didn’t tell her what it was.”
“That does not make it better.”
“I know.”
“What did you tell her?”
Greg looked down at his hands.
“That it was a personality test.”
McKenzie stared at him.
Greg’s voice became quieter.
“We were hanging out. Just the two of us. Father daughter night. I told her I found a fun Guardian personality test online.”
Chelsea let out a tiny, horrified laugh. “Oh my god.”
McKenzie did not laugh.
Greg kept talking because if he stopped, he might not be able to start again.
“She thought it was funny. We were on the couch. She had snacks. I read some questions out loud and let her answer. Some she typed herself. Some we talked through.”
He could see it.
The old living room.
Madison curled beside him, knees tucked under a blanket, half arguing with the test because Madison always argued with personality quizzes when they did not understand her nuance. Her laughter when a result called her nurturing but high intensity. The way she stole popcorn from the bowl and asked if wanting a Little with cute style counted as aesthetic values or bonding priorities.
Greg had loved that night.
He had loved how easy it felt.
He had loved being chosen for a piece of Madison’s dream.
Now he heard himself describing the memory and understood he had been collecting data.
McKenzie’s voice was thin. “Madison filled out Akari’s personality match.”
Greg closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Chelsea whispered, “That is so messed up.”
Greg nodded.
“I know.”
McKenzie’s hands curled at her sides. “She thought she was playing a game with you.”
“I know.”
“She thought it was father daughter time.”
“It was,” Greg said, then hated himself for how quickly and defensive the answer came.
McKenzie’s eyes flashed.
Greg lifted both hands. “It was. And it was also this. That’s the problem. I’m not going to pretend I didn’t love spending that time with her. I did. I was happy. She was happy. She thought it was a quiz, and I thought I was doing something beautiful for her.”
McKenzie looked away.
Greg’s voice broke slightly despite his effort to keep it steady.
“And I used it to help the system find her match.”
That was the more accurate horror.
Not build.
Find.
The Japanese placement program was not pulling any random Little from a list and sanding her down until she resembled Madison’s fantasy. The portal was colder than that, and in some ways more convincing. It used the information Madison had unknowingly given, the preferences, the bonding style, the social answers, the ideas about care and routine and affection, to identify a Little who might naturally fit her.
Someone with the right temperament.
Someone with compatible interests.
Someone who would not merely tolerate a girl like Madison, but might respond to her. A Little with a personality profile that suggested attachment, enthusiasm, adaptability, affection, and the kind of emotional rhythm Madison wanted from someone close to her own age. The program was searching for natural fit first.
Kinship first.
Friendship first.
Then preparation.
That was what made Greg feel cold all the way through.
Because after the match came the education. Language instruction if the Little’s English was not fluent enough. Household expectation training. Cultural preparation. Recipient preference study. Dance, if the Little had the coordination and interest to make it possible. Fashion familiarity if she already leaned that way. Madison’s hobbies, Madison’s routines, Madison’s likes, Madison’s social world, all turned into curriculum around a Little who had already been judged likely to thrive in that shape.
Not any Little becoming Akari.
A Little who could have been happy with Madison being guided into becoming Madison’s Akari.
Greg looked at the floor of his habitat.
“It is not fake,” he said quietly.
McKenzie looked back at him.
“That is the part I keep coming back to. They are not just making someone pretend. They are trying to find someone who might genuinely fit her. Someone with the right personality, the right interests, the right kind of attachment.”
Chelsea’s expression tightened.
Greg swallowed.
“And then they teach her the rest,” he said. “The English. The expectations. The household rules. The things Madison likes. The ways to make the placement work.”
McKenzie’s voice was quiet. “So Madison designed the life.”
Greg looked up.
McKenzie’s face was pale.
“And they are finding the person most likely to want it.”
Greg had no defense.
“Yes,” he said.
The laptop fan became the loudest thing in the room.
Chelsea leaned back slowly. “That’s almost worse.”
McKenzie looked at her.
Chelsea shrugged, but there was no humor in it. “I mean, if it was just some random Little being forced into a Madison costume, that would be awful. But this means Madison might actually get someone who fits. Someone who likes what she likes. Someone who makes sense with her.”
McKenzie stared at the screen.
“Someone who feels real,” Chelsea said.
Greg closed his eyes again.
Akari had always felt real to Madison.
Now, for the first time, Greg understood the system was trying to make sure she would be.
Chelsea leaned toward the screen again, reading another section.
“There’s a personality fit score,” she said.
McKenzie clicked.
A page loaded slowly.
Greg felt every second.
Then McKenzie inhaled.
“Recipient profile complete,” she read. “Guardian Little compatibility parameters stored. Matching in progress.”
Chelsea looked sick.
McKenzie’s voice lowered. “Matching in progress.”
Greg sat down heavily on the tiny couch behind him.
The littlecino trembled slightly on the table.
McKenzie kept reading, slower now.
“Placement office will identify and prepare suitable Little candidate according to approved Chelsea whispered, “Prepare.”
The word did enough damage on its own.
Greg stared at the floor of his habitat.
There was no way to make the memory harmless now. No way to separate Madison laughing beside him from the form she had unknowingly completed. No way to extract his love from the machinery it had fed.
McKenzie looked back at the screen.
“What’s the agreed upon date?” Chelsea asked quietly.
Greg answered before McKenzie could scroll.
“Madison’s sixteenth birthday.”
Both girls looked at him.
“The idea was a sweet sixteen present,” Greg said.
The words sounded obscene now.
They had not sounded obscene in his head then.
Chelsea stared for a full second.
Then she leaned back in McKenzie’s chair and let out a long breath.
“Wait.”
McKenzie closed her eyes briefly. “Chelsea.”
“No, wait. I’m processing.”
“Do it silently.”
“I cannot.”
Chelsea pointed vaguely toward the laptop, then toward Greg, then toward the whole idea in the air between them.
“Your plan was to secretly acquire this Japanese Little, around Madison’s age, female, naturally compatible with her, then have her trained in English, dance, style, household expectations, all the dream specs, and reveal her at Madison’s sweet sixteen?”
Greg said nothing.
Chelsea’s eyes widened with horrified admiration.
“In front of all her friends?”
Greg looked away.
“Oh my god.”
“Chelsea,” McKenzie warned.
Chelsea ignored her.
“No, I’m sorry, but from Madison’s point of view? That is insane.”
Greg’s jaw tightened.
Chelsea’s voice was not mocking now. It was almost awed, which was worse.
“The only way you could be more goated in her eyes is if the Little came in on a full sized pony while Rihanna and Beyoncé sang a duet.”
McKenzie stared at her.
“Not helping.”
“I know,” Chelsea said. “But am I wrong?”
McKenzie opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Looked back at the screen.
“No,” she said bitterly. “You’re not wrong.”
Greg felt the words hit harder than Chelsea’s joke.
Because he had known it.
That was why he had done it.
Not the pony, not the singers, not the ridiculous spectacle Chelsea had conjured. But the look on Madison’s face. The gasp. The tears. The way she would turn toward him, all shining disbelief and worshipful love, because he had made the impossible possible. He had imagined that moment so many times while filling out forms and shifting money that it had become the reward he fed himself.
Madison happy.
Madison thrilled.
Madison seeing him as the father who understood her dream.
Greg swallowed.
“I wanted to make her happy,” he said.
McKenzie’s face softened for half a second.
Then hardened again because softness alone could not hold the size of the problem.
“I know.”
Chelsea leaned toward the laptop again, more subdued now. “So what happens next?”
McKenzie scrolled further down the page.
“They’re still searching for a Little,” she said. “He’s approved, but no one is lined up yet. At least, not officially.”
Greg held on to that.
No one lined up yet.
It should have been enough to make the room breathe again.
It did not.
“Maybe they won’t find one,” McKenzie added, though she did not sound like she believed it.
Chelsea gave her a look. “A female teenage Little with compatible interests, the right personality profile, enough Japanese fluency to start from, and until Madison’s sixteenth birthday to be taught English, dance, household stuff, and everything else?”
McKenzie did not answer.
Chelsea tilted her head. “Kenz, that’s not impossible.”
“I know.”
“If anything, the system sounds like it’s built to make impossible sound like paperwork.”
McKenzie looked at her.
Chelsea shrugged, unhappy but honest. “I’m just saying.”
McKenzie stared back at the screen.
“I know,” she said quietly.
Greg looked between the two girls.
“So we wait?” he asked.
McKenzie’s jaw tightened.
“No,” she said.
Chelsea looked at her.
McKenzie began clicking through the portal again, her movements sharper now.
“We gather everything. Every form. Every term. Every note. The whole recipient profile if I can get it. I need to know exactly what Madison told them without knowing she was telling them.”
Greg flinched.
McKenzie did not soften.
“And then,” she said, “we talk to Mom.”
Greg nodded slowly.
Chelsea leaned back in the chair.
“And Madison?”
McKenzie’s hand paused on the mouse.
For a long moment, she did not answer.
Then she said, “Not yet.”
Chelsea’s face tightened. “Kenzie…”
“I know.”
“If Madison finds out everyone else knew…”
“I know.”
“No, I mean nuclear.”
McKenzie looked over at her.
Chelsea’s voice was quiet now.
“She’ll hear one thing. Akari is real. And everyone tried to keep her from her.”
McKenzie looked back at the screen.
“That’s why she can’t find out until we know what we’re doing.”
McKenzie did not turn around.
The light from the laptop made her face look older than she was. No one spoke after that. Not for a while.
The room settled into a different kind of quiet, not peace, not calm, only the exhausted stillness that came after a truth had become too large to keep moving around. Chelsea stayed beside McKenzie, her usual jokes tucked away somewhere out of reach. Greg remained seated on the tiny couch inside the habitat, the littlecino cooling on the table near his knee, his hands clasped together because he did not trust them to be still otherwise.
McKenzie worked.
She saved everything.
Screenshots. Terms. Matching pages. The provisional approval notice. The recipient profile summary. The section about education capacity. The compatibility parameters. Every sentence that made Madison’s dream less like a wish and more like a process already in motion.
Chelsea helped quietly, naming files because McKenzie was too tense to care about organization.
“Akari portal one,” Chelsea said.
McKenzie gave her a look.
Chelsea winced. “Sorry. Japanese placement portal one.”
McKenzie did not smile.
But she kept the file name.
Greg watched them.
Every few minutes, McKenzie asked him another question.
“What email did you use for the payment?”
“Was there a backup phone number?”
“Did you ever get physical mail?”
“Did Madison ever see anything from them?”
Each answer became another small humiliation.
Yes, that email.
Maybe, that old number.
No physical mail that he remembered.
No, Madison had not seen anything because he had been careful.
So careful.
The word meant something different now.
At some point, Chelsea stood to stretch and walked toward the habitat. She crouched by the front, not reaching in this time, only lowering herself enough to speak without making Greg crane his neck.
“Mr. W?”
Greg looked up.
“Yeah?”
Chelsea’s expression was unusually serious.
“I know I joked earlier.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, I know. But…” She glanced at McKenzie, then back at him. “That sweet sixteen thing? I get why you thought it would be amazing.”
Greg’s throat tightened.
Chelsea shrugged one shoulder.
“I’m not saying the whole idea was weird. People get Littles. People plan surprise gifts. They ask sneaky questions, check sizes, pretend quizzes are just quizzes, whatever. That part is not some shocking crime.”
McKenzie looked toward her, tense but listening.
Chelsea kept her voice careful.
“And if Smallara had not happened? Madison probably would have remembered that birthday forever. Like, forever-forever. A Japanese placement, matched to her, trained around her interests, showing up for her sweet sixteen? Kenz, come on. She would have lost her mind.”
McKenzie looked down.
Greg did too.
Chelsea’s expression softened.
“You were trying to be this legendary dad.”
Greg swallowed.
“And then everything changed,” Chelsea said. “Now Cindy is Madison’s Little. You’re McKenzie’s. Madison already has this whole impossible thing with Cindy, and Akari is not just a gift anymore. She lands right in the middle of all of that.”
Greg nodded slowly.
“Yes,” he said. “That is exactly it.”
Chelsea stood again and returned to McKenzie’s side.
The clicking resumed.
Eventually, McKenzie closed the laptop halfway, then opened it again, then finally shut it fully with a soft, decisive sound.
The room dimmed.
“All right,” she said.
Greg stood.
McKenzie did not look at him yet.
“I have enough for now.”
“For now,” Greg repeated.
“Yeah.”
Chelsea leaned back in the desk chair and rubbed her eyes. “I hate paperwork.”
McKenzie laughed once, without humor. “This is not paperwork. This is like if paperwork had a basement.”
Chelsea pointed at her. “That is exactly what it is.”
Greg wanted to smile.
He could not.
McKenzie turned to him then.
“We talk to Mom tomorrow,” she said.
Greg’s stomach tightened. “Tomorrow?”
“Not tonight. Madison is at Krysi’s. Mom is with her. I’m not doing this over a tablet, and I’m not doing it when Madison could walk in at any second.”
Greg nodded. “Okay.”
“I need you to tell Mom exactly what we found. Not softened.”
“I will.”
“And Dad?”
He looked up.
McKenzie’s face was tired, but there was something harder underneath it now.
“You do not get to make me choose for you.”
Greg absorbed the words.
McKenzie continued, “I’ll help. I’ll look. I’ll gather information. I’ll protect Madison from finding out badly if I can. I’ll protect Mom from being blindsided if I can. But this started with you.”
Greg’s chest ached.
“I know.”
McKenzie’s eyes shone, but she blinked the moisture away before it became tears.
“So when we talk to Mom, you talk too.”
“I will.”
“No hiding behind being small.”
The words were sharp.
Necessary.
Greg nodded.
“No hiding.”
McKenzie held his gaze a second longer.
Then she looked away and stood, grabbing her drink from the desk.
Chelsea watched her carefully.
“You okay?”
McKenzie let out a tired breath. “No.”
Chelsea nodded. “Valid.”
McKenzie looked toward the habitat again.
Greg stood behind the clear wall, tiny beneath the lights she had installed, framed by a home she had built because she loved him and because the world had made love practical in terrible ways.
Her expression softened despite herself.
“You can finish your littlecino,” she said. “Then maybe come sit with us for a while. We were supposed to chill today.”
Greg looked at the drink on the table.
Room temperature.
Still sweet.
Still a gift Chelsea had brought before the day became something else.
“I’d like that,” he said.
McKenzie nodded.
Chelsea spun once in the desk chair, slower this time. “I vote for a deeply stupid movie.”
McKenzie sighed. “That actually sounds perfect.”
Greg picked up the littlecino.
The room did not return to what it had been.
It could not.
Akari existed more now than she had an hour earlier. Not as a person, not yet, but as a process. A profile. A match in progress. A future Madison had unknowingly helped design, and a future the Japanese system was now trying to find a natural person for.
But McKenzie opened the habitat door and lowered her hand for Greg anyway.
For a while, they would sit together.
For a while, McKenzie would be a daughter with her father and a friend with Chelsea.
For a while, the impossible thing on the laptop would stay shut.
Greg stepped into McKenzie’s hand and let himself be lifted.
