A young-looking woman sat down in an armchair in the center of the stage with a microphone placed in front of it, while the audience applauded. "Welcome to the show," she said. "I'm Lenore! Tonight for the audience I have a special interview show for you--Venned children. We all know, of course, that it's impossible to Venn children, but for the twentieth anniversary of the first Venn machine, minus five days, I've prepared a lineup of guests, both famous and not. And now, let me introduce my first guest, Amber Manzi, who you all know as the superheroine Mandala on Mutants Five."
A very attractive teenage Asian girl walked onto the stage and sat down on one of the many other chairs.
"Since the topic of the show is Venned children, can you explain your circumstances to the audience?"
"Yes. My fathers met eighteen years ago when they were Venned as the leading man and woman in the Kung Fu revival movie. I was born a year after they met."
"So you're not really Asian then?"
"That's a matter of opinion, Lenore. There were protests when I started playing Mandala. Cartoons of me as a white person with fake yellow makeup and a Fu Manchu mustache. But on the other hand, Asian-Americans do still get discriminated against sometimes, like in management, and I'm pretty sure that not being 'really' Asian wouldn't help there. Now, any time someone asks me if I'm Chinese, or Japanese, or anything specific, I have to say 'no'. It's not like I have a connection to any country from Asia. But I'm not sure that that's all that 'Asian' should mean."
"Do you eat Chinese food? Listen to k-pop?"
"Seriously? I do for the same reasons that other people do. Not because that's what I am. I do have 1/4 Greek heritage and I rarely eat Greek food."
"Your previous roles, I believe, are white?"
"Yes, I went into acting as soon as I was old enough to Venn. The gossip and politics sites said that I'm showing my 'true self' whenever I Venned in order to play a white person. I finally decided that enough was enough and I took the role of Mandala because if I didn't confront this attitude I'd go through my entire life never being able to act using my own body. You could say that I'm playing Mandala to spite the clickbaiters."
"But how often does it really matter? Aside from things that only matter because you're an actress?"
"You mean would it matter if I wasn't famous? It's hard to say. It's there in the background, but it only affects me so much. I may be a 'fake' race, but I still look like a regular human. There are lots of worse things my fathers could have done than changing my race. Like moving to New Jersey."
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Lenore said, "The rest of my guests are not famous people. Just young adults who are still affected now by decisions made by their parents in the early days of Venn machines. Alex Grindlay is a high school student in Los Angeles County. Alex?"
The person who walked onto the stage was gender-ambiguous, in a way. Alex seemed male if you looked at the top half of the body--stubble, masculine features and haircut, broad shoulders, no noticeable breasts under his shirt, but Alex also had a narrow waist, smooth shapely legs, and was wearing a light grey skirt and heels which were obviously intended as feminine.
"So Alex, tell me your story."
Alex's voice was that of a normal teenage boy. "My parents were Venned with a lower half body part swap. It's what this episode of your show is about, right? It was just a couple of weeks of playing around for them, but for me it's my life."
"Do you consider yourself a boy or a girl?"
"When I was growing up I didn't know. I was called a girl because my parents weren't sure whether their Venn counted as a cosmetic change. It turns out it didn't. I'm a little closer to 'boy' because things like voices and faces are really important, but I think of myself as more inbetween. I do use the girl's restroom and I need tampons every month."
"But do you do boy or girl things?"
"Is there something like that, aside from clothes and sports? I had both action figures and baby dolls, if that counts."
"Do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend?"
"A boyfriend--hi Steve! If you think that answers your question about what I am, I don't think it really does."
"I'll accept that. Now, you look old enough that you can probably Venn. Have you ever tried it? Do you think you would ever do it permanently?"
"Of course I've tried it. Who hasn't? When I'm a boy or a girl at least I know what I am at that point. Nobody looks at me funny and I don't feel like I stand out by being myself. But I'd rather not have to change what I am forever just because other people are causing me problems. I think everyone should be able to be accepted for who they are."
"Have you met other people your age affected by parents who Venned?"
"Only online. Oh, and I met Amber Manzi in the waiting room. It doesn't matter what people say, she isn't 'fake' by being the way she was born."
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"For our next guest, let's welcome Jackie Banks, from San Bernadino!"
The girl who walked onto stage was almost college age and she was accompanied by three men, who were all old enough to be her father.
"Jackie, you weren't physically affected by having parents who were Venned. So could you tell us why you're here on this show?"
"I'll let them explain."
One of the men started to talk. "We were all members of Delta Upsilon Omicron and it was Pledge Month. So we did some stunts with Venn machines. Two of us combined into one body with the other becoming a girl."
Lenore said, "Then Jackie, these three people are all your parents?"
"Exactly." Jackie smiled at all of them. "It gets complicated. It's like when they started allowing gay marriage. Every time I have to get parental permission, fill out a form, apply to college, they only let you put down two parents."
Lenore said, "I'd think that would happen more than it does."
The second man said, "We've met others, Lenore, but it's still pretty rare. If you Venn and immediately change back your genes change back too. If it hadn't been Pledge Month, Andy and I wouldn't have been Venned into one for long enough to matter."
"So how do your living arrangements work?"
Jackie said, "After my parents finished college, I was a little bit over three years old. They were roommates until I was seven, then two of them moved out but also stayed."
Lenore looked puzzled.
"Venned into two people so they be in two places at once. What parent hasn't done something like that?"
"Oh, right."
"After I was eleven I lived mostly with 'Mom'." She said the word 'Mom' nodding to the third man, with a slight bit of emphasis, like many teenagers did when their parents had gender-swapped. "I just started college this fall."
"Do you have any sisters or brothers?"
"I have five but I do have three parents to give me that many. My brother through 'Mom' is the one I lived with. They're all a lot younger than me. It's just like when someone has two parents and their parents separated to have their own families."
"What do other people think? And have you met others like yourself?"
"My friends are all cool with it. They're not like people your age who never grew up with Venn. As for others... Dad Robert said it's rare but I bet it's more common than you'd think. It's not as if you know how many parents the supermarket cashier has."
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"Our next guests are a group of siblings from San Francisco. Being born in the aftermath of Venn has been harder on them than on some other people. Let's welcome the Wagner siblings!"
There was some clapping, and some 'oooh's as they came out. One teenage boy and one girl were pushing wheelchairs holding another boy and another girl. The ones in the wheelchairs had no legs, but brownish fish tails instead. Attached to the wheelchairs was an odd device, almost like a shower head, which every few seconds pumped out a sort of mist that kept their skin, which had an odd sheen, moist.
They introduced themselves. The boy who was walking was named Rodney, the one in the wheelchair Murphy, the walking girl was Ursula, the one in the wheelchair Sirene.
"Let me get this correct," said Lenore. "You're quadruplets? Mermaid quadruplets?"
"Not quite," said Rodney. "Mermaids lay several eggs at once. At least the kind of mermaids our parents stuck us with being. There's really no such thing as a mermaid."
"What do you mean?"
"There's someone's idea of something they read in a book or thought was sexy in a cartoon. But there isn't a mermaid. There's no land of the mermaids undersea, no weird civilization that makes 'mermaid' into some kind of ethnic group. We're just special needs children who look like something that doesn't exist."
"Are you living with your parents?"
"No, we're living with our grandparents. They've used Venn to be younger and be in two places at the same time. Our parents were in a Venn zoo for a while. The court said that we didn't have to live with them. Right now they're off on some coral reef."
"And I take it you're Venned."
"Yes, I am," said Rodney.
Ursula said "Yes, me too."
Murphy said, "Me and Sirene try every day. I keep hoping that maybe this will be the day when I can play sports or get through a shopping mall under my own power." Sarcastically, he added "Thanks, Mom and Dad."
Sirene said, "I want to learn to drive a car. Wear makeup and perfume that doesn't wash off in two minutes. Go on dates."
Lenore said, "You don't sound happy, but from what you've said most of you wouldn't exist if you weren't mermaids. Humans don't usually have quadruplets."
"How could you say something like that?" exclaimed Sirene. "We are human! And all sorts of bad things can lead to someone existing. I can't believe you can't think of any. Some people were born because of rape. Some people were only born because their parents met when fleeing genocide."
"I'm sorry if it's a sensitive issue. I bet you get asked that a lot." The audience grumbled at Lenore.
"Most people know better." There were a few cheers from the audience.
Lenore said, "It looks like this interview is over," glancing to the audience again.
******************
"For our final guests, we have Stephanie and her younger sister Liz."
On stage walked a woman and a younger girl, barely teenage if that, who had green skin and leaves for hair. She was clothed, but she was wearing sandals and the ends of her feet ended in odd rootlike protrusions instead of toes.
Lenore asked "So, Stephanie and Liz, please tell us your story."
Stephanie answered, "Mom wasn't Venned for me, but she was Venned for Liz, like your other guests. Sad to say, she died a long time ago. It'll be sixteen years next month."
"How old are you?"
Stephanie said "Twenty-nine."
Liz said "Twelve."
Lenore asked, "Then Liz, if it's not too upsetting to talk about, you never knew your parents?"
"Mom? No, I never did."
Liz looked at Stephanie, who said "It's all right. You wanted to be on television."
Liz said, "I wanted to let other people like me hear that there are more of us around. Everyone in the audience, Mom was Venned for a month. She was part plant then, so so am I."
Stephanie explained, "It was the kind of Venn where you're a new species and you have children... differently. I don't think Mom ever planned to be self-pollinating, but she was. I found the seeds in a drawer and the whole family consulted with a Venn researcher. It's like... like freezing embryos without the freezing--they're not people yet. So I didn't have to plant them. But I did plant one. We built a special indoor hothouse. Seven months later my sister opened her eyes for the first time."
Liz said, "I wish I could have seen Mom."
Lenore said, "Have you had problems being a Venn child?"
"I sleep under a light standing in soil in the hothouse. It doesn't last any longer than anyone else's sleep. I don't like boys, I mean I don't like boys because I'm a plant person but I can Venn soon and then I should like boys. If you want to know if I can eat, yes I can eat. But not as much as everyone else does. Nobody ever tried to put me in a zoo. You can't put a plant in a zoo anyway."
"Do you produce seeds yourself?"
"Of course not, not at my age."
"So you said you do plan to Venn when you can."
"Yes."
"And you wanted to send a message to other Venn children. Have you met any of them?"
"There's a..." Liz struggled with the word. "hermaphrodite who lives nearby but they're like five years older than me. And there are groups on the Internet. That's about it. Sometimes I wonder if I should plant some more of Mom's seeds and have sisters like me. But I can't decide that. My whole family has to decide it."
"I see. Well, that's about all the time we have today. Next week, we'll have Venning and the Military-Industrial Complex. We speak to ex-soldiers who have had to stay corpses for years after being killed in the Second Korean War. Now let's roll the credits!"