"That's noble, Ms. Aypotu," Casper said. "But entirely unrealistic. My job is to help. To explain. To run the systems. That is what I was hired to do, and I need to do my job."
"The people that are waking up, do you even know how that's happening?"
He frowned, pushing up his wire rimmed glasses. "No," he said.
Maeve stared at his face. Or, more accurately, the wire mechanism on his nose. She reached up and snatched off Casper's glasses.
"Metal?" she asked. At the same time, she pulled up her own shirt, exposing a belly ring hanging from her navel. She pointed to it. "Metal?"
Casper's lips made an o. He felt his face, felt up his pocket, removed the pad of paper and the pen.
"I was positive I removed those," he said. "Why didn't I think of it? Were you wearing any metals?"
Maeve nodded. "I had my belly ring in my sock."
"You weren't supposed to do that."
"Well, I did."
"Oh my," Casper said. He flashed around in a circle. Twice. Three times, as if his brain was churning and his body had to follow. "It's the metal then...it's the metal! How many guests smuggled in metal?"
Maeve smiled. "Let's go ask them."
But Casper's shoulders fell. Maeve reached for his sleeve.
"What's the matter?"
"If they smuggled in metals, then it might be interrupting the stabilizers, but that's not something I can affect from the exterior. I cannot introduce a metal without compromising the system. This doesn't change anything."
"There is no more Archive," Maeve said, waving a hand at the dark that stretched out beyond them. "We've been ditched, don't you see that? There is no job. They left us, or maybe they just forgot us."
"Why would you think that?"
"Because I found a room and I swear I could hear something on the surface from inside it."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Hot Season Six, Year 2095
Wind walked behind Blink, not out of respect or submission, but to keep an eye on him. To get away from him, if possible. The latter was the goal, but Blink seemed to have the same ideas and kept digging at her with questions, so he could listen instead of keeping his eyes directly on her.
"So how did you ever trick a Rha into considering you as a Link? And why wouldn't he have you stay for his House Party?" he asked.
Wind stumbled on a loose ground stone and instantly wondered if she was stealthy enough to come upon him without his knowing; if she could hit him hard enough to drop him. She didn't want to kill him. She didn't have the stomach for that. But she didn't have enough of an idea where the sweet spot was located on a skull—the one that would render a man unconscious, rather than dead. He turned when she didn't answer, a smirk on his face.
She ignored it. Of course, he wasn't giving up that easy.
"I don't understand it, Wind. Why would a Rha choose you? You, with three children, when there are virgins to be had?" He knew exactly what he was doing. He was always reminding her of that night out on the Earthen floor, beneath the spindling trees, when they'd both lost everything. She had long ago abandoned the idea that it was any more her fault than it was his, but he always seemed to want to paint it that way.
"He chose me because he's not a drunken fool that would ever think to steal a woman's virginity. He is a man of quality," she bit back. "And, if you need know, I chose him because he's not a man that would forget that I was the love of his life, or who would run off to play dice and drink vats of distilled gorne with his friends while I was bedridden with his first child and stuck in a guard shack."
Blink sunk his walking stick into the path a little harder than before, but he didn't turn back to her. His stick made a consistent slap against the dirt. Since his eyes weren't on her, Wind took the opportunity to search for an alternate route, away from Blink.
"You still haven't answered me," he said from up ahead. "How did you persuade a man of quality to come to speak intentions for you?"
"You act as though I am so repulsive," she said. It took a moment for him to answer.
"No, you are not repulsive. Not your body, anyway."
"How dare you!" she flamed. He turned, a grin teasing his lips.
"Dare me. Go ahead," he said, stepping closer. "You do every time. Why not now? You aren't Linked yet. We could have ourselves some mating..."
"We could not."
"Sure, we could. It's nothing we haven't done before." He inched closer, his smile broadening. She pushed her foot behind her, readying to run. She was less frightened of encountering a strange man in the woods than she was of staying near this familiar one.
"I cannot go to a Link with another man's child in my stomach," she said.
"Why not? It would increase the Fly House's population."
"Diem will kill any man that tries to touch me."
"You think so?" He was too close now. His heated breath on her face, his rough hand reaching for her waist. She couldn't run. Blink was faster and stronger and if he caught her, he would make it hurt.
She flinched when he touched her, but held herself firm. Her mind raced as his smile grew wider and his manhood tapped her belly.
"Come 'ere," he whispered. "Let's have us a good hating. Just like we did, when we made Hush."
"I'm not a dragon," she snapped. "Don't speak to me like we are animals."
"Oh, but you are just as fiery as any swol. Yes," he murmured reaching down between her legs, "you need a good hating, don't you?"
He dropped the walking stick and ran his now-freed hand up her neck, cupping the back of her head in his palm. He pulled her to him, eyes closed, lips ready to meet hers as he prodded the cleft between her legs. She arched against him and he moaned.
"Yes," he whispered, letting go so he could catch the edge of his shirt. As he swung his arms up over his head, Wind dropped. She grabbed up the walking stick and came up swinging against his bare chest.
The first strike met his ribs with a crack.
Her adrenaline raced as the stick jumped back with the resistance of his body. He yelped and she swung again. He grabbed for it and missed. She aimed for his head. He miscalculated, not raising his arms in time. The walking stick contacted his temple with a hard thunk. Blink went limp, dropping to his knees first and then onto his side.
Wind had no idea if he was dead.
She didn't care. Her blood was ripping a loop through her body. She flung the stick and ran. Off the path and into the spindlings, she ran and tripped, got up and ran again. She ran until her chest burned and she couldn't catch her breath. She squatted down in some heavyshorbbrush, listening for the pounding of his feet to come.
She remained crouched in the brush until her bones ached and then she waited a little longer. She watched two shebele meet for a mating, she saw a woman flee through the woods at a distance and a man chase after her. With no sight of Blink, she finally stood.
"Hiding?" the sticky strand of a horribly familiar voice asked from behind her. A hand grasped her arm and spun her around. Breed House's overseer, Dick-Edd, stood before her, his mouth curled in a smile that reminded Wind of a molded bread crust.
"No," she said. The Plutian tipped his head to one side, the smile stuck in place as if he couldn't relax his lips if he tried. Unlike Phuck, Dick-Edd's face was accurate and un-smudged, but it still didn't make him look human. His features were as crusty and inflexible as spindling leaves. It was always unsettling to look at him. Wind shivered.
"You are telling a lie," he said. "Are you cold?"
"No."
"Not a lie or not cold?"
"Neither."
"That is a lie. At least one of them, for sure."
"I'm not a liar, Dick-Edd," Wind said. She wished the archaic gave her more satisfaction. She would rather have called him a limp flex, but he would have cored her without a second thought. "I was running from Blink. And I'm not cold, it's just that my skin is crawling."
"Crawling skin? Could it be gornewarvils? They're not usually in thesho
rbbrush, but they are rampant in the wild gorne. Were you rolling in the gorne?" His eyebrows twitched with the suggestion. Wind turned away, but the overseer's grip tightened like jaws, his nails digging into her skin. "Do you like to?"
"Like to what?" she asked.
"Lay in the gorne."
Wind swallowed hard. She had to move carefully. Dick-Edd was not the same brand of idiot as the Fly House overseer. While Plutians didn't understand sarcasm, the difference between him and Phuck was that Dick-Edd had no admiration for humans. He didn't care in the least about whether or not they respected him. He didn't blink an alien eye at killing one of the House children if quotas weren't met, and he didn't care if he spilled his venom and cored a woman while trying to mate with her. In fact, mating humans was known to be his guilty pleasure, since Plutians considered humans to be animals. Plutians mated differently, but when they assumed the human form, many seemed to enjoy the amenities their genitalia afforded. But, as Dick-Edd had been heard to say, Since Pluto is so far away, the delicious receiving hole of a hampig or a human will have to do.
"I cannot," she said. "I just came from Fly House."
Dick-Edd came to full attention. Mention of Fly House usually did that to him. He and Phuck had a long-standing hatred for one another, made worse since Phuck was showing signs of prosper above and beyond the Breed House. There were rumors that Phuck was Hope Marketing dragons and even though Wind knew it was true, it was the one secret she'd keep for the Fly House because it benefited her nothing.
"What was your business there?"
"My father sent me to speak with Rha Diem. He will be coming to speak intentions for me."
"Rha Diem is coming here?" Dick-Edd's grip on Wind loosened. "And he wants you?"
"Yes." Wind gulped down the lie. The Plutian released her.
"When does Rha Diem come?"
"I'm not sure yet. He's very busy." Wind squirmed, rubbing her arm, but it was less from the pain of the overseer's grip and more from how his eyes suddenly scoured her, as if they were lifting the lie right off her surface.
"Busy with?" Dick-Edd prompted.
"With his House, I would gather."
"He would like to speak intentions, but he didn't give you indication of when he would come?"
"No," Wind said and the overseer took hold of her arm again. This time, his nails pierced her skin and she whimpered.
"You lie," he hissed. His grip tightened until she was sure he would snap the bone. She twisted and cried, but he didn't let go. "What was Rha Span's purpose in allowing you to go to an enemy Rha?"
"Because I want him! I want to be linked with him!" Wind howled. Her joints felt as though they were popping loose. Wind decided that her secret might benefit her in keeping an unbroken bone. "My father wants to join the Houses, so we can control their Hope Marketing of the dragons!"
The alien's mouth opened in what a human would call surprise, as he released her and she sank to the ground at his feet. There it was, the confirmation of the Fly House's hidden jewel that had been passed around and concealed from him for so long. Phuck was bartering dragons in the Hope Market.
"You lie then about Rha Diem's intentions," he reasoned, "because you have failed your father?"
Wind broke down. The Plutian released her this time and she fell at his feet, crying into the dirt. "Yes. I failed. Rha Diem doesn't want me."
"Does Phuck know of this?"
"I don't know..." she sobbed.
"Stop this noise you make!" Dick-Edd kicked the heap of her, making her squeal. "Does Phuck know of this, yes or no?"
"I don't know! He wasn't around when it happened!"
"Get up, Wind of Breed House," Dick-Edd told her. He held out his hand. "Out of my goodness, I will help you. You will have your Rha."
"What? How?" she asked, but her sniveling dried away. She took the overseer's hand. The skin didn't feel quite right.
"I have studied human scent as part of my trainings, and now it will finally benefit me. I will give you a combination, a scent to rub on your skin, that will attract your Rha."
"Why do you want to help me?" Wind asked. Her curiosity of his answer didn't affect how little she cared what his answer was. He would aid her, and in her dismal spiral of helplessness, she finally had a hope to cling to. Her real concern was what payment he would require and how she would avoid it.
"I am Plutian. It is my planet that owns the Earth and it is my place to control the Hope Market, not Rha Span's. Not Phuck's. If I can help you capture Rha Diem's attention, then you will persuade him to train his dragons for me."
"He will," Wind said, knowing the entire thing was a lie from the moment it left her lips. Diem wouldn't want her and he'd never train his dragons for Dick-Edd. Plutians seemed to believe that human men were under human women's spells once mated, and although Wind would agree that some were, she also doubted that she could ever control Diem in the way Dick-Edd thought she could. But she wasn't about to let go of the only hope she had. "I'll do it."
"Then come with me," the overseer replied. "I will coat you properly and send you back to The Fly House."
A dull quiver swam down her spine, but she followed Dick-Ed, hopeful that they wouldn't stumble upon Blink along the way.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
August 3, 2095
Maeve had shown Casper the lighting fixtures and with a few taps and several frowns, he'd told her that the things in the ceiling weren't lights. But he didn't know what they were. He had decided to do tests and that had been that. It was a week and a half ago.
Fifteen more were awake and the Archive had become a rotten pumpkin of a party. Everyone's hope had caved in a bit since Casper announced that he'd done the math and the munchies were going to run out.
The scramble to amass as much as possible began immediately. The hoarding triggered deals being made—exchanges of toothpaste for underwear and the like, and then the fighting had started. And it got serious when Maeve was woken by a ruckus between Steven and a chubby, elderly woman, named Lillian, in the middle of what she thought to be the night, over a washcloth.
A fucking washcloth.
"Give it to me, you barbarian!" Steven shrieked as Maeve yanked open her door. Three doors down, in the middle of the hallway, Lillian had a toilet brush hoisted over her head, poised to bash Steven in the pie-hole.
"Whoa!" Maeve shouted, but the two were so locked in battle, it didn't phase them.
"This is mine!" Lillian hollered, clutching the cloth behind her back. "Find your own!"
"You can't just break into a room I locked and take whatever you want!"
"Who made you the king of anything?" Lillian fired back. "You don't own the rooms here!"
"Well then," Steven said, striding to Lillian's suite door, "I guess I can go in here and make myself at home then..."
"The hell you can!" Lillian actually took a swing with the bristled brush, but Steven ducked, skittering through the door of her suite.
"Maybe I'll sit around naked on the bed..." he called out from inside. Lillian shrieked, charging in after him.
"Keep your fuzzy nuggets off my sheets, Steven!"
Maeve walked over to the doorway, reached in and hand-cranked the lights. Steven's face lit up as the room did, his arms full of hair spray bottles and one of Lillian's lamps, still plugged into the wall. Maeve grabbed hold of Lillian before the woman could launch herself at him. Maeve held tight to Lillian's jiggling center, as she struggled to get free.
"Seriously!" Maeve shouted and caught a glimpse of Casper walking by in the hall. "Casper! Get in here and help me out!"
The scientist shuffled into the door, kneading his wire rims up the bridge of his nose via a wrinkling of his nose. It was the middle of the night and the bags under his eyes said he hadn't slept in a while.
"What's going on?" he murmured. Lillian threw her toilet brush at Steven.
"This little turd is invading my room!"
"Crazy woman!" Steven countered, ducking the brush.
>
"Little help?" Maeve said, struggling to keep hold of Lillian. Casper shrugged.
"How can I help?"
"Oh for God's sake!" Maeve shouted at him. "Be a man!"
Casper shrugged again. "I am a man."
"Get him out of my room!" Lillian shrieked, stabbing a finger in Steven's direction. Steven's eyes darted between Maeve and Casper and the sliver of space between them that would allow him exit. When it was obvious that Casper wasn't going to take hold of Lillian or strong-arm Steven out of the room, Maeve groaned. It was all up to her.
"Leave her stuff, Steven," she said. Steven shook his head, clutching the hairspray so tightly the metal canisters clanked together.
"No way. What's she going to do with all this anyway? She's hoarding everything!"
"What are you going to do with all that hairspray?" Casper asked. He peeked at Steven's head. "You don't have that much hair."
"It's for trade!" Steven said. His eyes shot between them, like a trapped animal anticipating his escape.
"You try to take that out of here and it'll be at least two against one," Maeve told him.
"Two?" Casper turned to her. "Are you expecting me to fight him?"
"Obviously not," Maeve said dryly. "Me and Lillian will take him down."
"See there?" Steven hissed to Casper. "The women are teaming up against us."
"You're crackers," Lillian said. She relaxed in Maeve's grip. "You can let go of me, little honey. That boy's going mental." Then, to Steven, "You need a straight jacket, not hairspray."
"I'm mental?" Steven shrieked. "Look at your suite! You're trying to say you're not stealing from everyone else?"
"I have good news," Casper said, "if any of you would like to hear it."
Maybe out of surprise alone, they waited for him to continue, but when all Casper did was look from face to face, Lillian shouted at him, "So spill it already! What do you have to say? Can you get the outer doors open yet?"
The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) Page 12
