Sci-Fi Short Story: Part 4

Loredana Tanveer caught herself couldn't keep her eyes off the sleeping baby girls for the past ten minutes. The sturdy mountain house near Massiola was warm and cozy, despite the snowstorm that was starting outside. The wind grew stronger. It howled in the chimney, stubbornly tried to frighten, and even threw handfuls of wet snow at the closed shutters. But Loredana wasn't afraid— for recreation in the foothills of the Italian Alps, a personae-mask, called survivor, had been specially designed for her, which offered a wide range of knowledge, from building a fire in a winter forest to deer hunting and providing professional medical care. The sleeping girls were mesmerizing, and she still couldn't believe that they were hers, flesh and blood, so independent, sweet, vulnerable, and unknown. Wrapped in a huge bearskin, the twins slept by the fireplace, where a sizable log burned meditatively. They were pretty tired today, all three of them, and Loredana was in no hurry to carry her daughters into the bedroom. The little girls' birthday had been wonderful – with a long ride on a robotic sled, a gallon of hot cocoa, sledding, sculpting, and a whole gallery of "snow angels" in the courtyard of their rented cottage. Birthday... already their fourth, although it seemed to Lore as if she had left the maternity ward of the family clinic only yesterday. How quickly the time flew by! Exactly one year has passed since the ‘root personae’ were constructed for the twins Zsofia and Paola, which have already managed to merge with their natural personalities. The life experience, systematized by their shells over a dozen months, was very bright, carefree, and naïve . Now, over the sisters' ‘personae’, rested the simple half-masks of dream generators, making the children smile carefreely and tremble, like puppies, their legs. Loredana sighed sadly. She remembered her first conversations with her parents. Their indignation... incredibly cynical, considering how old her mother was when she gave birth... "Lore, come to your senses, you're only sixty-nine, you're still just a girl!" ...their failure to understand... "We really want heirs, but not from a soulless DNA constructor!" ...their worries and sadness... which were predictably replaced by love... "These are the most wonderful little ones in all Three Houses!" ...and support... "Sunny, you'll become the best mother in the system!"