The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) (4 page)

Maeve shivered and bit down on her lip.  This was nuts.  She should leave the Archive and get her clunker back from the Valet and zoom off...where?   Back to the flat she couldn't really afford?  Back to a life of struggle, with no hope of being pitied and saved, since her parents were going into chamber lock down?  She thought of the gossip mags, that might be time-capsuled so her parents could read them when they woke up in 2030.  Seventeen years.  The way things were going now, she'd be homeless at best, dead at worst.  The Profanyl Chambers seemed more like a chance than a risk, considering the life she was stuck in now.

She released her lip.  "How many people have gone through this and come out okay?"

"All of them," Casper's dry grin reminded her of a burnt-out physician, tired of assuring patients with colds that they weren't terminal.   "Once we refined the system, we conducted volunteer testing of humans in the chambers over a twenty year period.  All of our volunteers were able to regain consciousness."

"How many had side effects?"

A pager buzzed from Casper's coat.  He twirled to catch the pocket and fish it out.  He stared down at the screen.

"I'm sorry, I'm needed downstairs.  I'll send an assistant to bring you down when you are ready."  He turned to leave, but Maeve caught the sleeve of his coat.

"You didn't answer me.  How many of them had side effects?"

Casper Bergen only shrugged. 

"All of them," he said and he closed the door quietly upon leaving.

***

Maeve opened the treasure chest and the scent of pine wafted from it.  The lip, eyebrow, septum rings and her Industrial barbell hit the bottom of the lock box with resounding tinks.  She kicked off her boots and slid, commando, into a pair of the loose cotton jammies from the rack.  She didn't really need a bra and she wasn't into panties of unknown origin.

She kept her own socks on and slipped her belly ring into the top of the ankle band, instead of dropping it into the box with the others.  The ring was a small silver dream catcher, embedded with a pink diamond. It was her first piercing, obtained at the age of twelve and a good-bye gift from her last, pissed-off nanny, Agnes, who resigned immediately after she was caught one morning, fucking the guy who delivered grocery orders, on the mansion staircase.  She probably wouldn't have even gotten fired, except that in her embarrassment over being caught and read the riot act, Agnes let fly that Maeve's parents should be hung for child neglect.  That did it.

Agnes was fired, just as she simultaneously quit. Maeve stood in the doorway, jaw trembling, eyes wide and glossy as Agnes packed her bags.  Agnes had been more like a big sister than a nanny, and she was the closest thing Maeve had to any real ally in the house.

"Don't you dare cry, Maeve the Brave,"  Agnes had said, tipping a whole drawer of underwear into her suitcase.  Instead of replacing the drawer, she tossed it on the floor.  "You'll be fine.

"Don't go." Maeve bit her lip on her whimper.  Crying wasn't brave.  "You be brave and stay."

"It's not about being brave for me, it's about standing up for myself."

Maeve still needed her caretaker to stand up for her too.  But Agnes wasn't going to do that.  She was still busy cussing out Maeve's parents under her breath as she trashed the room they'd given her as part of her wages.  As Maeve watched the suitcase fill to the top, she couldn't hold back the tears any longer.

"Please," she begged, "stay!  Don't go, Agnes.  Nobody else talks to me.  I'll be all alone if you go!"

Agnes paused.  "They're not going to let me stay now.  Not after what I said to them, even if it was the truth."

Maeve knew she was right.  Mr. and Mrs. Aypotu were black-and-white, bottom-line people.  Forgiveness was soft gray. 

"I'll tell you what," Agnes said.  "You can come with me."

Maeve's whole soul floated up, beaming.

"I want to get you a present before I go.  Your parents will love it."

Maeve's soul deflated as she understood what Agnes meant.  Agnes was still going, still leaving Maeve behind.  She was only taking Maeve somewhere for a present, before she left for good.

"What is it?" Maeve asked.

"That belly ring you wanted," Agnes said. "I'll sign as your legal guardian."

"Oh," Maeve said.  Her guts rolled a little.  It wasn't what she really wanted.  She wanted Agnes to give her a key to her new apartment; she wanted a room wherever Agnes was going to live.  Instead, she trundled along behind Agnes and her suitcase, not even having to sneak away with the fired nanny, but walking right out the front door with her.

They went to the Piercing Parlor and Maeve laid back in the reclining chair, hiking her shirt up over her belly.  She picked out the banana bell with the dangling dream catcher.  The alcohol hit her nose like a pin and she took a sharp breath as the guy jammed the needle through the upper edge of her navel. 

"It's over, Maeve the Brave." Agnes smiled and kissed her forehead.  Then she sent Maeve home alone.  Maeve walked back to the huge, lonely house where she was as much of a fixture as the faucets and counter tops.  The piercing prickled and burned beneath her shirt.  Her feet were sore after several blocks of walking.  The way home seemed a lot further now that she was walking alone.  Maeve's faith in both life and people was destroyed.  She did the only thing she could.

She kept going. 

Maeve secreted the piercing away beneath sweaters that fall and winter, so her parents wouldn't see it before it was healed.  She liked to rub her fingers over it while she sat at the dinner table, alone, fantasizing about their anger when they finally saw it.  It was a changing symbol for her
—first of abandonment, then of survival.  Finally, it was a middle finger that no one ever saw, so she eventually pierced her eyebrow and then her lip and the middle of her nose to make sure they did.

Her parents noticed.  It warmed her, how they insisted she remove the trash from her face.  The piercings became the way they spoke to each other, in demands and resentments and holes that kept cropping up all over Maeve's body. 

But nothing was ever removed.  Nothing was left open to heal.

Maeve made sure the belly ring lay flat as it could against the inside of her ankle.  It was a symbol of her entire life, and
Maeve was taking it with her.

CHAPTER
THREE

Hot Season 5, Year 2095

Diem kicked off his boots, covered to the shins with iridescent, bronze muck.  Dragon eggs weren't always great at hatching themselves, and when they weren't, it meant for hours of pounding away at them.  Even when successful, the end result was always a huge mess.  The eggs stood hip-high, were wider than one and a half men, and chipped away in sharp pieces that left mounds of dust behind.  They popped and splattered when the infant dragon, half the size of the egg or less, was finally liberated.  Diem had had to sledge open a dozen eggs that afternoon.  Seven hens survived. 

Good for business but hard on the body, Diem wasn't in the mood to have the conversation Gra Breathe was intent on having with him now.  He knew what she was angling at, since she'd shoo'd
everyone out of the Fly House kitchen and common dining area, just to have a talk with him.  Privacy in a House of nearly 300 humans was no small feat.

"It's her face, isn't it?  You can't be so superficial, Diem.  She might have a horse face, but..."

"Whatever a horse's face is, it doesn't change anything.  It's not her face that makes my decision about her, Gra.  It's her."  He pushed the boots aside and worked his hands out of his gloves.  Protective as they were at keeping his hands from being sliced to bits by shards of dragon shells, the gloves were monstrously heavy and so hot inside that his hands were slick with sweat.  He let the gloves fall to the floor with a thomp. 

His biceps ached.  He hadn't expected the
sheathen
he was training, to abruptly lay a catch of eggs in the middle of his training session, but it wasn't a surprise that the new mother wouldn't let him near her catch.  He spent three hours trying to move her off by throwing a heap of hampigs into her gullet and when he finally managed to get at the eggs, he recognized that the
sheathen
had been holding back from laying them for some time. 

The new hens were already tapping inside the shells.  Diem wasn't willing to risk the death of any of the catch with a mother dragon that didn't have the sense to open the eggs when her young were knocking.  He went right to work, sledging open the eggs, which was even more brutal with a livid sheathen bucking at her tethers, while she tried to roast him from the sidelines. 

He was sure that his afternoon wasn't much different than what was about to happen in this kitchen.  He didn't have to look at his Gra to know the expression that was tacked to her face.  She was an Older.  Her expressions had been worn so many times before that the lines were embedded and their meaning was obvious.  The streaks of wrinkles caught between her eyebrows had deepened dramatically in the last two months of talking over this subject with Diem.  He made his way past her toward the bathroom, ready to change clothes, but mostly ready to avoid his Gra.

"Did you speak with Wind today?  Have you promised her all your dances for the House Party?" she asked.  He stopped, only a foot from the door, and
dropped his head back with a sigh.

"No."

"You cannot keep avoiding her, Diem."

"I'm not.  I never saw her.  I spent the day opening a new catch."

"I noticed," Breathe said, motioning to the streaks of egg-muck all over him.  When he moved toward the bathroom again, she said, "When do you think you will talk with her?"

He stifled his groan.  "I don't know, Gra.  Soon."

What he meant was, never, if he could manage it.  He knew his Gra meant well, that she wanted him linked with Wind so that the Fly House would have a
Rha
's wife that could produce him children.  All they had to secure the Rhaship right now was Diem's younger sister, Karma.  Since women no longer took the position of Rha and since Diem wasn't about to allow any men to get within fifty feet of his sister, there were no male heirs to take his position if the need arose.

"You need to consider W
ind, Diem," Breathe persisted.  "We need to make sure that the House is secured with a future Rha. You don't have forever to create a successor.  Children need time to grow up."

"First, you are assuming she'd birth males."

"Enough births and we are sure to have at least one."

"Second, you are assuming that we have enough currency to make her purchase from Rha Span."

"I don't expect you to make a legitimate deal with Span," she said.  "It's not like he is an honest man.  I'm sure he wouldn't be above trading something...like what you have out at your shack.  I would expect it would only take trading one for you to gain a wife."

"Wife." Diem puffed a laugh at her archaic.  The old words and old ways and old manners that were no longer used since the scorching, were largely referred to as the archaic, and no matter how ancient they seemed to him, Gra still used them.  Diem found it amusing.  He shook a finger at her and stepped close to whisper to her,  "You should not risk speaking aloud about that shack, Gra.  Our overseer could hear."

"Don't speak to me like I've no idea , Diem.  I was Rha for a good long time and the Lord's made it so I'll always be older than you.  Don't try to tell me that Puck doesn't know all about it.  How could he not, since he's dealing in the Hope Market with you."

"Gra," Diem began tightly, but then he relented.  Gra Breathe and Karma were his only true family and he hated to be harsh with them, even when it was warranted.  Instead, he decided to change the subject and lighten the mood.  "Puck?  Why not call the overseer by his real name?"

Gra Breathe grunted.  "That is not his real name and I don't care how funny it is to all of you to use the archaic that way.  I don't care that he thinks it is a pet name and I don't even care how much he deserves to be called it.  I am still a woman of class, even if you consider it archaic, and I won't call him by something so obscene."

"A woman of class, you definitely are," Diem said with a grin.  He pushed open the bathroom door to make his escape, but Breathe touched his arm.

"At least think on it, Diem," she said.  "I am sure Rha Span would agree, that just one would be more than fair payment for his daughter."

Diem laughed.  "It would be worth six of his daughters, especially if they are all like Wind."

"Then consider this: that business you are conducting is such that joining Houses could bring us unity and protection we may need in the future.  You two could discuss it at the coming House Party."

The conversation was becoming too dangerous to speak of it openly, but even worse, it was hitting a raw nerve so close to the truth that Diem winced.   

"Enough of this, Gra.  That linking is less about trade, than it would be about making Fly House vulnerable to Span.  I don't care for Wind enough to risk my dinner for her, let alone giving Span the chance to get his claws into our House."

"Then you must make that decision public and seek out other girls at the party," Breathe said.  Her whisper became so faint, Diem had to keep his ear close to her lips to hear it.  "I'm going to tell you, Diem, the way I see it, you may be avoiding Span, but you are still risking Fly House with your quiet business.  Working with
Phuck as you are, you are just dealing with a different set of claws.  And those aren't even human."

"I will think on it," Diem said.  He stepped into the bathroom and closed the door to put a definite end to their reckless conversation.  Gra Breathe was right, of course, but it didn't change the situation one bit.

***

Diem saw her coming.  He didn't get up to meet her, but remained seated beneath the rickety overhang of his shack.  He didn't like her coming to his dragon grounds at all, but what was even more surprising was that she would chance coming to it by herself. 

She had to travel through the woods and a woman on her own in the woods was risking the chance of a male coming upon her.  Even escorted, a woman would have to hope that the male with her was stronger or more clever than the male they encountered, but a woman on her own would have even less chance of escape.  The Houses had long ago decreed that the creation of children was paramount to the survival of the human race.  It had been expected, when the law was made, that the act would be consensual and as pleasant as possible.  But the law had deteriorated quickly, as offspring became status among the Houses, to the point that the law eventually had no other expectation, but that the act would result in pregnancy.  Although Diem insisted that the men of his House only partake in consensual sex, it was not an easy rule to regulate or maintain.    

Diem studied Wind's leisurely advance.  She obviously wasn't being pursued.  She stalked through the high grass toward Diem as though she were a predator herself. 

He chuckled at the thought.  There was no denying Wind's body was desirable.  As long as it would take a man to inhale his slowest, deepest breath, is about as long as it would take him to trace the curves of Wind's hourglass form.  Despite birthing three children, and if a man could overlook her face, Wind's body was a phenomenon, from the soft rise of her breasts to the delicate sway of her hips.  The woman's body, and how she used it, made every man Diem knew linger on thoughts of mating for days.  Diem knew, as a possible mate to her, that he should want to rip the arms off of any man that even glanced at her.  The problem was, he found it nearly impossible to give a damn.  

Her face was nowhere close to matching the caliber of her body, but what made her so unattractive to Diem wasn't that.  It was that he knew her details. 

Wind had a careless tongue and her ideas of generosity were based solidly on her returns.  What made her ugliest to him was knowing that she wanted to link with him solely because he was the Rha of Fly House. 

"Blessings," she greeted.  The dragons, in their caves at the opposite end of the House training grounds, shot streams of fire from the lattice-gated cave openings.  Diem whistled to them from the porch of the cabin, low and sweet.  The restless dragons calmed.  Diem put his cup down on the bubbled,
gorne stump beside him as Wind walked up.  He didn't bother to rise from his seat.

"Blessings," he returned, squinting up at her.  "What are you doing here?"

He didn't offer his lap to her, which would be proper, even if he was just seriously considering mating with her.  But he wasn't, so he didn't.

"I was hoping you'd promise me all your dances at the coming House Party," she swung her head to one side, the mane of her light hair cascading over her shoulder, the ends dancing on her breast.

"I won't be attending," he said.  Her head snapped upright.

Diem knew it was his mistake that he'd ever tolerated Wind at all; that he'd ever been intrigued by the curves of her body or mildly amused by her tenacity.  He realized more quickly than she, that her skin wasn't enough to satisfy his mind and that her tenacity wore his patience thin.  He'd spoken to her about it, and tried to be gentle, but she refused to believe he didn't want her. 

She had continued to visit Fly House for weeks at a time, which was only customary if a man from the House was considering a mating or a link with the visiting woman.  During a customary visit, a woman would typically contribute, by taking up some of the workload, which was intended to prove her worth to the other members of the House.  However, Wind's visits were what Breathe called 'a vacation', and which Diem took to mean a nuisance, since Wind didn't lift a finger, but insisted on being waited upon during her stay.

Diem continued to squint into the sunlight that shone beyond her.  She fastened her hands to her hips, but didn't bother to cast him a comfortable shadow.

"So it is true.  I am ashamed that I had to hear from your overseer that you are trying to increase Fly House's portion."

Ah.  So this visit wasn't only about dances or mating after all.  Well, not exactly.

"Had to hear?"  He stood, taking his cup with him, into the shack.  He hoped that turning his back to her would be offensive enough that she would leave, but her footsteps followed close behind him, so he continued to speak.  "You should be ashamed for listening to what is not your business, Wind.  And my overseer shouldn't have been talking to you.  My House's portions aren't your concern, so stay out of it."

Her tone softened.  "But as your Link, I would be..."

He silenced her with a sharp turn.  She plowed into his chest, but he stood rock solid, staring down at her with a hooded glare. 

"Even then, I would not discuss my business with you.  You forget your place as a woman, Wind, and you're forgetting your place with me.  I haven't visited your father or asked Breed House for your mating, have I?"

"You could."

"I haven't."

"But why not?  I know you like my body.  I see you watch me.  And I am the daughter of a Rha.  What could be a better Link for you?  Is it because I haven't offered myself to you?"  She stepped in close to him, snaking her arms up his chest and over his shoulders.  Her fingers stroked the sensitive cords at the back of his neck like a dry kiss.  He held his cup firmly, so he wouldn't spill the remaining
caffe
on the floor.  Pressing her hips to his, she rose on tiptoe, tilting her head in anticipation of his kiss.  When he made no move to assist her, she tugged on his neck until she could reach his lips.  Diem stood motionless as her mouth moved against his.