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Iijima, who was apparently one of those friendly, hands-on type of people, grabbed Lixxie round the shoulders like an old friend and said, "Ah, but a good sex kitten has the spirit of a wild cat!" He imitated a cat's claw swiping through the air. "Ne, alley koneko?" Iijima had to smile in amusement at the pun.

It was an effective jeer. Ariko scowled at Iijima. "Teme!" Her jaw was clenched in anger and her delicate little hands balled into fists. Iijima cluked his tongue.

"Be nice when we have guests, Aricchan. Now, what is it we can do for you?" Iijima switched his attention from Ariko to Lixxie in full, squeezing his captive's shoulder.

Then Iijima released her, clapping his hands. "Excellent! Do you have any preferences? I've got a whole batch of profiles from the programmers--"

Ariko stood up. "Iijima-san!" she practically screamed at him. She took a short breath and looked at Lixxie with a degree more restraint. "There are some forms you need to fill out."

"And she can fill them out after she's picked a cabbage and knows we have something for her," said Iijima, secretly rattled by Ariko's outburst but trying not to show it. He managed an expression of shocked dismay towards his young colleague to cover his upset. "It takes time to get the cabbages ready. She can fill out forms then."

Ariko sat down heavily in her chair and crossed her arms. "Suki ni shiro," she said contemptuously, turning up her nose at Iijima. She spun around in her chair so her back was to them.

"Domo, ohime-sama," replied Iijima, working in as much bitter sarcasm as he could. Sometimes children could be so impossible. Though, knowing Ariko's genetic origins, he did not expect her to become any easier as she aged. Dr. Akari was notoriously temperamental.

Before Lixxie could try and escape from this little feud, Iijima gestured to the Employees Only door. "Right this way, Lixxie! Let me show you what we have available today and see if we can't send you home with a cabbage all your own." He smiled in such a welcoming, friendly way it was hard to resist the invitation.

The moment the door was closed, Iijima resumed his more cheerful mode of chattering. "I apologize, Ariko isn't always so bad, she's at that special time in a young girl's life. She just started menstruating. That, and she gets it from her creator, our esteemed, illustrious leader!" Iijima snorted as if that were amusing, and to someone with any idea who he was talking about, maybe it was. "That's our little Aricchan. I hope she didn't scare you too much!"

Iijima led Lixxie all of ten feet down the hallway to a wooden door that read "IIJIMA, Sadanobu" underneath several kanji characters. The red stain and polish of the door looked completely new. The white name placard, by contrast, was dented and scratched and screwed onto the door slightly off-center. Iijima swept the door open with gusto. "Tada!"

His office, if it could be called that, looked like it had been converted from a janitor's closet. It was all of four feet wide and maybe six and a half feet long. There was a window at the far side that seemed to be a late addition to the room. The jagged marks of an electric saw were visible at the corners, filled with white caulk to seal out the sunny outdoors beyond. The cuts looked like old battle scars against the teal-colored walls. A desk sat on the right, unimpressive beneath stacks of notes and disks.

There were two cork boards, one on either side of the office. The one above the desk contained notes and office alerts and diagrams of molecules, all the official work-related postings a person might conceivably need. Colored Post-Its were scattered throughout with notes in a hodgepodge of German, Japanese, and English. The cork board on the other side was the exact opposite. There wasn't a single thing there related to work at all. Instead, it was littered with flyers for concerts, post cards from around the world, a giant snowboarding poster, and photos.

As interesting as the little molecular diagrams on the other wall could be (even to someone without any clue what they represented), the photos were more compelling. There were pictures of Iijima out drinking with friends, at an amusement park with a pretty girl, standing in Paris and Rome and at the Pyramids, in graduation robes with his parents and possibly sisters and a brother, standing atop a mountain dressed in snowboarding gear and grinning. There was even one of him in a lab coat holding a little blonde baby with a familiar disgruntled frown.

Iijima kicked aside some stray papers on the floor and pulled a small chair out of the corner, plopping it down next to the chair already at the desk and gesturing for Lixxie to sit.

"Thank you!" said Iijima, seating himself in the chair beside Lixxie and tapping a key to awaken his computer. The CPU was mysteriously absent from the room, only a shiny clear plastic keyboard, strange hand-size silver mouse, and small black flatscreen on the desk. All the little connectors and wires were visible in the keyboard. The mouse was more like a science fiction movie prop. It accommodated Iijima's whole hand. Between the mouse and the keyboard, the regular flatscreen seemed out of place, though it matched well the rest of the room. The screen illuminated to a green-and-black fractal desktop. "Let's see," said Iijima, settling his hand into the mouse. "What sort of a child are you looking for?"

Iijima just grinned. Such naivete! "We can do that, actually have a couple of boys out in the yard right now. Dark-haired, too. Human's fine, or do you want something else?"

Iijima was oblivious to the macabre nature of this system. Allowing people to pick and choose every aspect of their children was almost Frankenstein in nature. To him, this was just an exercise in genetic engineering, with a dose of raw nullspace thrown in. Nothing to it.

"Alrighty, then!" said Iijima, clicking twice, and a diagram came up. Iijima switched both his hands to the keyboard and typed out a string of of commands. One of the squares on the diagram flashed red. Iijima hit the return key and and it went blue. Iijima hit two buttons, the program disappeared, and the desktop reappeared. He stood up from his chair, indicating it was time to leave.

Using his unusual height to his advantage, Iijima reached over Lixxie to open the door. Given the cramped space, that was prettymuch the only thing he could do. Once they were out in the hallway he was able to move back into the lead. They went out the same door as before into the reception area and past Ariko's desk (she was mysteriously absent). "This is my favorite part!" said Iijima as they crossed to the front door. He cracked his knuckles. "Nothing like getting down and dirty!"