✅ Project SETI Trilogy

Chapter One - Part X: Delivery

          Gabriel, by himself, brought Nova to one of the rooms that were designed specifically for such deliveries. Julia had wanted to be there too, but she hadher own schedule to keep and reasoned that Gabriel could handle it on his own. The room looked similar to the preoperative and examination rooms with the usual accompanying monitoring equipment, but the bed was adorned with cozy pillows in varying shapes and sizes, and there were four glass incubators along a counter. They were about two-thirds full with a synthetic self-heating amniotic fluid that would supply the eggs with the needed nutrients and warmth for about a week—more than enough time to install them in new surrogates.

          Gabriel was making his preliminary arrangements, and while he did, Nova got undressed and laid down on the table. Gabriel then rigged him up to the monitoring equipment, which included a three lead ECG, a pulse oximeter, a blood pressure cuff, and a cluster of small tab-like electrodes arranged around and on his belly.

          "These things—they aren't nearly as big as your main guy here, as you saw," Gabriel explained with a gloved hand resting on Nova's belly, "but they aren't small either. It's probably going to hurt, like... a lot," he shifted to hold his face reassuringly, "but I'll be here to help you through it. Daddy's gonna take good care of you."

          Nova beamed as Gabriel moved away to lift his legs into stirrups and strap them down. "You always do."

          "Honestly though, even with the size of them... I expect this to go quite smoothly, given your... experience doing this type of thing," Gabriel jabbed with a wink. He grabbed the incubators and situated them within arm's reach of the wheeled stool between Nova's legs.

          He chuffed and blushed at the reference to his egg kink. "Yeah, but... these are... really far up there."

          "I'm sure you'll get the hang of it. And this will help too," he held up and tapped the syringe he'd just drawn. "It's going to induce labor, very quickly and suddenly. Most patients describe it as—"

          "Very intense, I know, Gabe."

          He stopped trying to find a vein and looked down at him with a knowing smile. "Yes. Of course you'd know. That was my bad," he said playfully as he snapped a tourniquet onto his arm. "Okay baby, you ready?"

          "I was fucking born ready," Nova declared as he braced for the prick of the needle.

          Gabriel expertly inserted it into a vein and pushed the translucent green drug at a steady rate, and at the same time, he carefully watched Nova's reaction to it.

          "Hoh—ohhhh my god," Nova exclaimed as his whole body rapidly went into active labor. He shivered intensely from the sheer rush of all the sensations hitting him at once.

          "Stay still, stay still," Gabriel gently commanded as he pushed the last of the drug into his bloodstream. He held his arm still with his free hand when he was unable to oblige his request. "Okay, there we go. All done."

          "Oh—" he was cut off by an involuntary gasp. His water broke, and a considerable amount of fluid burst from his groin. "—oh my fucking god, Gabe...!"

          Gabriel abruptly stopped as he moved from Nova's side to between his legs and managed to avoid being splashed.

          "Heh... does it feel that good, baby?" He teased him as he quickly patted down the stool with a nearby towel and sat down.

          Nova inhaled sharply through his teeth as the first contraction hit. He met his gaze with a certain intensity in his eyes that Gabriel had never seen before, and for some god-forsaken reason, that feral sort of look caused his own groin to tingle.