8.10 Why do you have to be a heartbreaker?

Michael Kyoti became an old man with little fanfare, because he was far more excited about something else to make a fuss of his birthday…

Yes, he and Rae were expecting their sixth child.  Rae wasn’t entirely impressed with this chain of events; she had assumed she was too old to have any more children, but Michael was thrilled, as he’d been wanting another child for a long time.

Seth was the first of their five children to discover a new baby brother or sister was on the way, and he started panicking.  Babies smell and mess things up, don’t they?  He was extra-fastidious in cleaning and tidying the house that day.

He was also very keen to talk to his friends online to find out signs of how he could tell if the new baby was part of the government’s evil alien agenda.

Jono, Seth’s twin, had other things on his mind and didn’t really care one way or the other about the baby news.  He was getting very interested in swimming.  He loved the outdoors, and loved the feeling he got from working out, so he made more use of the pool than any other Kyoti had done throughout the family’s history.

He also liked to sit at the outside desk and chat, troll on forums or play chess.  Jono was thinking about the future and he had a strong idea what he might like to do when he left school – he just needed to make sure he was ready for it.

Michael and his elder friends were chatting about how being grey didn’t mean life was over.  Michael was about to become a dad again; Joel was dating Michael’s daughter Gemma, and Sarah had a new love as well…

…she was seventh in the line of Nicola Kyoti’s conquests.  Gemma looked on in bewilderment – how could all these crazy people be falling for the evil alien replicant plot?  Didn’t they know the truth about Nicola?

With Sarah romanced and ditched, Nicola was running out of friends that she hadn’t yet destroyed, so she went to the park to play the guitar.  She played all through the night, and once the sun came up, she’d found more new friends whose hearts she could relish breaking.

One Jabe Garcia, the brother of Gemma’s boyfriend Joel, was the next to fall into Nicola Kyoti’s trap.

As she walked away from him, he was incredibly angry and became very concerned for his brother.  Was it really a good thing for Joel to be involved with a family that could produce someone as callous as Nicola?

As she walked away from Jabe, she didn’t feel the pang of regret most people would feel after letting down a loved one – she simply picked up her phone and invited over her next conquest.

Den Jupitus became the ninth Valley resident to succumb to Nicola’s charms.

Only one more conquest and she would have achieved her dream to tear apart the town by breaking the hearts of its citizens.

Although Nicola was on a mission, she still made sure she found time to tell her mother just how disgusting it was that she and Nicola’s father were having a new baby when they were practically pensioners.

Joanna Kyoti had always been the good one, the calm in the storm, but she had become increasingly isolated, withdrawn and depressed.  Since teenhood she’d been comfort eating and hiding in her room.  When she’d announced her desire to become a policewoman, no-one in the family had supported her.

She was becoming increasingly angry and frustrated.  How come Nicola could just decide she wanted to destroy so many people’s lives?  How come Gemma’s sole ambition was to marry a rich man?  How come her parents were even thinking of having another baby at their age?

Joanna couldn’t take it any more.  She felt like she was cracking up, like everything she once thought she was – good, sweet, clever Joanna – was changing.  She didn’t know who she was any more.  Eventually she snapped.  Maybe all she should want from life was to be Swimming in Cash.  So she sold some of the old family paintings that had been in the family for years, and she sold one of the old sports cars to replace it with a Margaret Vaguester.  It felt good to be reckless for once, and in a weird way, it was fulfilling.  She got a strange glow from the experience.  Something in her personality had shifted in a real way.

She kept on pursuing a career in the police, but suddenly she didn’t feel as much of an urgency to get to the top of that career anymore.

Joanna wasn’t the only one fulfilling wishes.  Nicola had invited her friend Jon over for a bit of romancing.

…followed by a bit of heartbreaking.

Ten broken hearts ought to be enough to make her mark on the Valley once and for all.  Nicola Kyoti was incredibly satisfied with herself.

Whilst the younger adult Kyotis were having these milestones, their parents were having another, as their sixth and final child was on his way.

Alfie Win Kyoti arrived safe and sound, with no idea of the craziness of the family he’d just been born into.

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