The Process Only Works For Valeria

"...nothing happened," Franklin said as he stared at his hands.

Valeria was now doing cartwheels that would have made Olympic athletes weep.

"Strange," Reed Richards said. "The genetic factors involved must be incompatible with the Y chromosome."

"It's okay, honey," Sue Storm said as she gave her son a hug. "You still have your immense psychic powers."

"But Valeria can benchpress, like, a car!" he whined.

"800 pounds," she said. "Barely an EV."

To cheer him up, they had tacos for dinner. Superpowers were wonderful, but the kids devoured their tacos with a relish that swiftly overwhelmed everything else. For once, no emergencies interrupted, dinner. Ben and Johnny drank Mexican beer, Reed made guacamole, Alicia told the kids about her adventure in Teotihuacan, studying the native architecture as part of an archaeological group invited by the Mexican government. Sue smiled; even with her perfect body, it was moments like this that she really treasured.

That night, as she prepared for bed, she saw with surprise that Reed had left the lab to join her.

"I didn't tell Franklin or the others," he said quietly. "But I'm a bit worried about the results of the transfusion."

Sue felt a chill roll over her, like someone walking over her grave.

"Are the children alright!?" she said.

Reed nodded. "Yes. But I've been studying the factors in your blood. They're not just incompatible with the Y-chromosome, they're actively antagonistic."

Sue's brow furrowed. "What does that mean?"

"It means...Franklin might not be able to pass on the Y-chromosome. If he has any children, they'll all be girls. Valeria will only have girls as well. And their children will only be girls," Reed said. "Super-strong, super-tough, super-fast, but all of our descendants from here on out will probably be female."

"That's what Superia wanted!" Sue Storm realized. "She...she's trying to bring about the future of Femizonia. By making us the parents of a race of Femizons."

Reed nodded gravely. "By making you the mother of Femizons. I'm still unaffected."

"Is there anything we can do?" Sue asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm not sure we should do anything. Femizonia is one of many alternate futures. Our children are, well, still children. There's no guarantee we'll have any great-grandchildren; so too, we might come up with some genetic treatment or alteration in the meantime that counteracts the Y-chromosome antagonist. Currently, they're both healthy. I don't like the idea of experimenting on them unnecessarily."

"No," Sue Storm said. "But it doesn't feel right, doing nothing either. It feels like that's letting Superia win."

They lay down next to each other. Sue Storm felt her perfect body. Strong, fast, resilient. Yet had she just poisoned her children in an effort to help them? Had she doomed her own bloodline, erased all the sons they might have had?

"I have to do something," Sue Storm said aloud.