The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) (19 page)

"No.  I am completely empty."

She giggled suddenly.  Strange, how she could release droplets of water in sadness and then, her teeth showed and her sight holes crinkled at the edges indicating happy.  Confusing.

"No, I mean here," she tapped his breast.  "Could you love me here?"

"Maybe next time.  Is there an opening I am not aware of?"

"I meant that you would feel something for me.  That you would want me...as a Link."

"Oh, I do not think that is possible."

"Why?"  Happy immediately vanished and the entirety of her features sank into sniveling ruin again.  "Is it because I'm not Plutian?"

"No," he said, tapping his chest in the same area she had, "if this is the place in the human body where the wanting feeling manifests, mine manifests there only for Karma."

Wind drew away from him.  There was a severe knotting of extensions over her own feeling-manifestation area.  She pinched her sight-holes at him.  Phuck was fairly sure that this was a display of anger, but he was unsure as to how Wind could talk of mating, then loving, and suddenly switch to pure fury.  Whatever the reasons, he felt a sudden urge to guard his pain berries.  This dragonwind of manifestations puzzled him and brought up a sensation of fear for his lower region.

"Karma?" she spat.  He nodded.  She sneered.  "Diem's sister is not going to have one thing to do with you.  She doesn't do Plutian.  She doesn't do anyone.  Diem would never allow it.  You have more chance of mating a hampig than doing it with Karma."

"Contrary to rumor, hampigs are not attractive to me."

"Which is how Karma looks at you."

"Hmm," Phuck said.  He wondered if Wind was right.  It was helpful information to have and he could possibly use it to change his strategies.  He decided to return to his cabin and process on it a bit more.  He turned away from her.  "Well, good life to you, Wind of Breed House.  It was good mating with you."

"Please..." She grabbed his sensory extension and dragged it to the fleshy slab that stretched between
her vision hole and food receptacle.  "Please think of me, Phuck.  I could make you happy.  Think of me instead."

He thought first of his tender urine straw and how it would likely remain that way for days, as it rubbed against the rough fabric of his pants.   With that in mind he answered her.  "I will think of you, of course."

***

Wind watched the overseer trundle off, his gait uncharacteristically bowlegged.  Her heart battered her ribs as if it could burst through her chest and drift after him.  She hadn't expected the sadness that clung to her when he disappeared into the shadows of the spindlings.  He was Plutian.  Her father, her entire House, would be ashamed. 

However, they were fairly ashamed of her now.  But they hadn't experienced what he'd done to her either.  He made her feel the thing she was sure she'd never truly felt before: loved. 

That sweet burst of Phuck's essence, which had frightened her only until the moment it collided with her skin, had released a million delicious explosions inside her.  Every inch of her tingled.  When she opened her eyes, the world around her was breathtaking.  The thin and reaching spindlings, the plus
h
shor
b
brush and the sturdy growths of satisfying gorne were all dressed in the gauze of the moonlight.  She had stared at them as if she'd never seen them before.  Her first breath, after being permeated with Phuck's energy, was filled again with the scent of the Sex that Dick-Edd had slathered on her.  After that, she'd jumped Phuck and rode him like an untamed dragon for hours.

Then the Sex wore off.  But she didn't want Phuck to stop touching her.  No matter how awful he smelled, no matter how large and odd the black hole in the middle of his face appeared, none of it could devalue the way he made her feel. 

She closed her eyes and relived his hands, pleasingly firm and capable on her skin, as they had been hours before.  His tongue was just as slick and wet and, quite possibly, even more skilled than any human she'd ever had.  And his mating.  Oh, his mating.  Between thrusts, he'd sent bursts of his energy that shook through her, devouring her guts like a drum beat.  There was nothing more incredible than the great size of him, pushed up inside her, flush to the balls, as the blast of his lust pummeled her. 

She had found herself imagining behind closed eyes, as he took her breast in his mouth and ground his body into hers, that he gazed upon her with absolute enchantment.  That he sent each gush of energy as a proclamation.  It had to be.  No other man had ever filled her with ecstasy so completely.  And no other man had ever loved her.

Wind realized, with a horror that equaled her surge of desire, that love was an incredibly easy thing to do.  She loved Phuck.  There it was. 

But he had said he loved Karma.  He had seemed eager to get away.

He had to be wrong.  As did she.

It was the only way any of this would work. 

Wind sunk down onto a rock and reasoned away what he'd said, replacing it all with much softer speculations.  Maybe the overseer was simply attracted to the idea of mating his Rha's sister.  Maybe it was that Karma was easily the least intimidating woman on Earth.  She had no breasts to speak of, slight hips, and a tendency to blush the most unbecoming shade of puce.  Not to mention the girl's miserable boon of virginity.  She knew nothing of pleasing a man, thanks to her brother.   

Wind smiled to herself.  She had so much more to offer.

Although he was long gone, she decided to give follow.  She let her imagination spin away as she stumbled along, thoughts leaping—from the texture of his bed, to the scent of his morning skin—until they all landed in a covetous fury, impaling every desire Wind had, on the spike that she imagined waited for her, in Phuck's lap.

***

Maeve sat, soaking in their words.

"Since you're fine, I'm going to get back to the House," the second man, the one called Eon, had said.  He wasn't talking to Maeve, of course, as she was still tethered to the wall with the fabric muffling her words. 

"Good life," Diem had said from over his shoulder as Eon went out, closing the door behind himself.  Diem was heating something on the counter.  Maeve watched, swooping back and forth from the edge of the bed, trying to see around the man's broad shoulders. 

He cracked a bit off a small pod and a tiny flame rose up from some tinder he had in a bowl.  He took down another dish from the shelf, poured something like flour or oatmeal in it, and added water from yet another jug on his shelf.  He balanced the dish of his mixture on top of the bowl that contained the flame.  He stirred the mixture in the top bowl once or twice with his finger. 

Maeve wondered how stagnant and old the water was in the jug.  Her mouth turned to sand at the thought.  Her tongue stuck to the fabric and she tried to swallow despite it, which produced a glugging sound.  He turned his head toward her as if she'd called his name.

He brought his dish of whatever toward her, but eased down onto the floor with his back against the wall.  He was far enough from her that she couldn't kick him.

Maeve was determined not to tell the Neanderthal anything, which was pretty easy with the thick strip of fabric still wedged between her lips.  But her body was used to three meals of eggs a day and, sometimes, even traded snacks in between.  Her belly howled in response to the first delicious whiff she got of his warm food.  

Diem dipped his fingers into the dish and brought them to his mouth.  There was a brown, lumpy glob of cereal on his fingertips.  He blew on it to cool it, and the scent wafted over Maeve.  She inhaled deeply, against her will.  The smell was, gloriously, unlike eggs.  It smelled heavy, like comfort, warm and grainy.   He slipped the food between his lips.  She licked her own as she watched the smooth muscles in his jaw chew and swallow.

The rag in her mouth soaked up her saliva as she watched Diem dip his two first fingers into the dish again.  She watched his lips mold around his fingers as he deposited the food on his tongue.  Maeve swallowed lint.  Her eyes dropped to his throat, engrossed, as if watching him swallow was a spectator sport.  He dipped his fingers back into the bowl.

"Want some?" he asked.  Maeve's gaze snapped to his.  There was a glint of temptation in his eyes, a challenge.  Fuck him.  She shifted her position, turning her head to look at the other side of the room.  She'd just have to get her mind off the gnawing in her gut.

From the sound of it, he continued to eat.  She glanced back just as he finished the meal.  He got up and dropped the dish in a bucket beside the counter.  She couldn't help but stare at the bucket longingly, fantasizing about licking the rounded plate just once, until his body blocked her view.  Her eyes flicked to his face.

"Ready to talk?" he asked. 

Damn it. 

She nodded. 

The fabric in her mouth was awful,  her tongue was so dry it felt cracked, she was starving and tired and fucking resolve just took a kick to the nuts.  He'd won.  Fine.

She'd have to fix that, but at least she'd eat first.

He removed the gag, but didn't untie her hands.  Instead, he sat down on the bed and removed his own boots.  They were thick things, heavy soled and laced through holes punched in the raw material.  The laces were made of some kind of cord.  It all seemed so primitive that just studying his boots made Maeve feel a little light headed.   

"Was that a dinosaur outside?" she asked. 

"Dinosaur?" he pronounced the word oddly, like it didn't fit on his tongue.

"What was the animal outside?"

"A dragon." He chuffed like she was an idiot, but then zeroed in on her with curious eyes.  "What is a dinosaur?"

She couldn't answer.  Her mind was too busy curling over the memory of the beast outside and trying to reconcile that with reality, to be able to give this dope a lesson in world history.  Dragons didn't exist.  Dinosaurs did.  The guy had to be pulling her leg, except that this was a pretty damn elaborate punking.  She'd seen the thing outside.  It breathed fire.  She doubted that a mechanical dragon could move like that one did.

"Dragons don't exist," Maeve said.  Diem cocked his head, furrowing his brow as if he didn't know what to make of her. 

"Where did you come from?"

"Earth," Maeve said.  "Where is this?"

"Earth," Diem answered.

"What year is it?"

"It's Hot Season 6."

"What the hell does that mean?"

His tone softened to an embarrassingly sympathetic pitch.  "Are you wrong in the head?"

"No.  Are you?"

He obviously didn't believe her, because instead of retaliating with an insult, he kneeled down and continued in a calming tone, "If you tell me what House you belong to, I'll make sure you are delivered back to it."

His sincerity sent a horrified jolt up Maeve's spine.  "You're not kidding, are you."

"Kidding about what?"

Damn.  Her limbs went loose.  This was all wrong and maybe the clock in the Archive was right after all.  Maybe the chambers were time-traveling chambers, who the hell knew?  But, forward in time and things should've been all tech'ed out...cars that ran on air, and food in capsules, Beam-Me-Up-Scotty shit to visit friend's houses.  But everything here suggested she'd landed with in cavemen era instead.  This wasn't a joke.  Something had gone horribly wrong and now—

"My name is Maeve Aypotu," she blurted.  He drew back at her sudden zeal, but she had to know what the hell was going on.  "You don't know who I am?  You don't know my name?"

"It's an odd name." He shook his head.  "I've never heard of anyone named anything like it."

"I don't know how that can be..." she whispered.  "My father owns Aypotu Drugs.  All seven continents have done business with us.  You've got to know who I am."

Diem's expression didn't show an ounce of recognition.

"The Archive," she said, her voice climbing.  "Have you heard of that?"

He shook his head.  "No.  What is it?"

Maeve swallowed down her pride and used Casper's words.  "It was an experiment."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Hot Season Six

Phuck burst through the door of his cabin and scurried to lock it behind him, in case Wind was still following him.  Closing his eyes, he leaned against the secured door and released his captive breath.

"Running from something?" a voice asked from across the room.  "A dragon, perhaps?"

Phuck opened his eyes to 38596—the head of all the Plutian overseers, or Shetbahg, as the humans had named him—standing in his temporary dwelling.  38596 had taken human form for this visit, but unlike Phuck, the superior's  physical manifestation was impeccable.  Flowing blond locks, a rigid nose, red lips.  The way the lips pursed, however, was not a good sign.

38596 didn't relish business trips to Earth.  Phuck had only seen him twice in total.  The first was when Phuck was assigned to the Fly House, and the second was when 38596 escorted Phuck to Earth for a brief tour and list of expectations before returning to Pluto.  Phuck hadn't seen him since, but had continued operations as directed, shipping dragons back to Pluto on the scheduled trans that showed up as routinely as the seasons came and went.  There was no reason for 38596 to be anything but pleased, which created a stir of anxiety that churned through Phuck. 

Phuck's thoughts raced to his Hope Marketing.  He couldn't dissolve the worry that 38596 might know of Phuck's forbidden bartering and immediately panicked that his superior might properly assess that Phuck was nearly defecating as he stood before him.  Phuck's brain scurried to bury his guilty thoughts the way hampigs burie
d
shor
b
scales for the Cold Seasons.

As was respectful, Phuck cranked his head back, exposing his neck to his superior.  Staring up at the ceiling of his cabin, he was aware that 38596 could fire off a line of acidic spittle at any second that would permanently separate Phuck from his beloved head.  Sweat gathered in the folds of Phuck's human skin bag as he waited to be severed.  The more Phuck stared at the ceiling, the more he believed it was likely that 38596 had come to do just that, since Phuck's previous twelve shipments had been coming up smaller and smaller, due to the skimming that had become more common to all the Houses. 

Phuck stopped himself from swallowing, although he was nearly choking on his own welling venom.  He listened hard for any warning that 38596 was about to strike, hoping a split second would be in his favor, in which he could dart out of the way and hurl his own venom back.  It would be traitorous, an unforgivable crime, but suddenly—

"Release," 38596 said.  Phuck straightened his still gloriously-attached head over his rotators.  The superior did not look pleased, but at least he had not struck.  "Do you know why I have come?"

"Yes," Phuck said, then cursed himself for his wrong answer.  He often spoke the truth too soon, not quick enough to accurately calculate the full value of a good lie.  "My shipments have been less than expectations."

"It is refreshing to hear such honesty," the superior said, as he clasped his sensory extensions behind his back and rested them on his buttocks.   "Why have the shipments been short?"

Phuck took the moment of 38596's shock and used it to knit an excuse.  If the excuse had been a scarf, it would have been a beginner's work, the gaping holes a reflection of Phuck's gaping mouth.

"Death," Phuck said.  He was shocked that he'd stumbled on what could be the perfect excuse
—it was an indisputable fact that dragon harvesting was variable and ridden with mortality.  The beasts, when grown, were exceedingly durable, but their young were another story.

"Hmmm," 38596 said.  "What is the percentage of death, per House?"

"Oh, uh...three percent, perhaps?"  Oops.  It was another accurate answer.

"Yes, three percent would be acceptable, but the shortages have ranged between three and five percent.  Explain."

"Explain," Phuck mumbled, the pumps and gears of his mind gnashing together, burdened by having to broker another decent lie.  A believable lie.  A lie that would keep his head secured above his sensory extension's rotators. 

"Explain now."

"Yes, now.  Of course, now.  Yes.  Now.  The shortage range is higher because...because I have not calculated my first answer correctly," Phuck stammered.  In the back of his head, the truth was flashing like a dragon with indigestion.  He struggled to keep it buried under his tongue instead of rolling out upon it.   "Three to five percent is the actual range.  However, I strive to keep it at three, I do.  Yes.  I work my humans hard to maintain that number, yes, very hard.  But it has been as much as five percent, it has.  The reason is, well, the reason is..."

"Yes?" The superior's brows
lowered, rattling Phuck's self-preservation mechanisms into overdrive.  His brain chipped away at the edges of the truth, trying to find a soft, weak spot to chisel off a lie.  And then it happened.  He cracked open the answer like a dragon egg, the idea springing up from the pieces of the truth like the most valuable heathen ever hatched.

"The reason is that I cannot control it.  We do our best, 38596, but the hens are fragile.  It is Hot Season.  Ice House always has trouble in Hot Season with storing the eggs.  The temperature of the cold seeds still varies, and it is hard to predict if it is too much or too little sometimes.  And the Hot House sometimes over-incubates the eggs that have gotten too cold.  I cannot speak for Breed House.  I believe Dick..." Phuck quickly pinched off the human's pet name for the overseer.  He doubted his superior would find it charming to be named by humans. "191225 would have to speak for his own shortages."

"And what of Ice House?" 38596 asked. 

"What of it?" Phuck said.  Surely Tiddy wasn't the overseer that had caused all this trouble, but then again, Tiddy liked to think she was the hub of the entire dragon trade.  The new eggs came to her first for incubation.  Tiddy seemed not to notice what came or went, except when Phuck was coming and going.  She seemed to notice him greatly. 

"21141231185 reported the shortage after noting the consistent decline in shipments.  She was rewarded for her keen observations." 

Silently, Phuck cursed several Plutian curses upon Tiddy's head and her House.  She'd been willing to do anything for him, slipping him an egg here and there, while batting her amorous pink eyes.  He'd removed her hand from his urine straw the last time he'd accepted one egg.  Only one.  He'd told her that his mating cost was two eggs, not one.  Could that be why she'd reported him?  He was clueless. 

Still, Phuck made himself an oath that if he happened to ever find Tiddy in a dark portion of Fly House's lot, he would be sure to let her know that her pink eyes were not stylish or unique.  They were ugly as an albino ratfish's and he'd be sure to end any ideas she had of ever mating with him again. 

"Rewarded?" Phuck asked.  "Rewarding a liar only earns a larger harvest of lies."

"You believe her to be lying?"

"I do not know for certain, but believe?  Yes, I must believe she is."

38596's eyes flashed.  He wasn't a skilled superior for nothing.  "She is lying about there being a shortage?"

"Well, I would suppose," Phuck stammered again.

"But you said yourself that there were shortages."

"There have been shortages, yes, there have.  But the shortages were due to deaths."

"You know this for certain?"

Phuck wanted to scream, suddenly lost in his lie.  Was he certain?  He didn't know anymore.  What had Tiddy told the superior?  Tiddy knew Phuck was skimming eggs and raising them for sale on the Hope Market, but she'd been paid dearly for her contributions with his powerful, Plutian mating.  He'd pounded her with his vibes until she was a boneless, pink-eyed glop of human skin bag on the floor of her cabin.  Did 38596 know about that?  But if 38596 knew all of what had been going on here, why hadn't he severed Phuck's head the instant Phuck had exposed his neck?

He had to calm down, but Phuck found it impossible to act normally under these circumstances.  What was normal?  Was standing there gaping, normal?  It was so easy to portray normalcy until now that he needed to so desperately.  For the life of him, he couldn't remember what normal felt like, what it sounded like, or how it looked on his human form.  Was his back column this tight when normal?  Were his sensory extensions always this sweaty at the tips?

Exhausted, Phuck fell back on the truth.  He answered in a clanking, mechanical tone,  "I don't know anything for certain.  All I do know is that death occurs frequently during harvesting."

38596 circled behind his worker and when the Superior's arm came down with a slap on Phuck's rotators, the lowly overseer nearly dispelled a nest of drait in his pants large enough to cradle his dehydrated pain berries.

"The irregular supply is exactly the reason that Pluto can no longer rely upon the dragon trade alone for its sources of goods," 38596 said.  Phuck's stomach dropped. 

"Are you insinuating that the dragon trade will be terminated?"  Phuck gulped.  Terminating the trade would also end Phuck's position on Earth.  It would mean Phuck would be shipped back to Pluto, to toil as a commoner.  His hopes of ever gaining independence from his miserable planet would be lost.  He slouched beneath the Superior's heavy hand as 38596 leaned closer to one of Phuck's noise detection holes. 

"This is why Pluto has decided to expand its trades," the superior whispered.

Phuck's cranial processor clicked with the information.  Whirred, even.

"Expansion?  More dragons?"  Phuck asked.

"And to accept no more than three percent shortages on shipments," 38596 added. 

Phuck was overwhelmed at the prospect.  More eggs meant more profit, more possibility.  But a three percent shortage allowance?  It meant the Houses would have to take turns skimming, to work together, if they were to maintain their back-room dealings and do it while staying alive. 

But with an expansion, there would have to be larger portions of land for each of the Houses.  Phuck's House being the most important, there certainly had to be more land in it for the Fly House.  There was prestige in that.  There might even be a more impressive dwelling in it for him.  Phuck began to dream of all the possibilities that would come with more as 38596 gave a severe growl to clear his throat.

"Oh no," the superior said.  "There will not be more dragons.  The trade will continue on as it is, but 1295 has found another commodity to offer our neighboring planets and outlying planetary systems.  It is an exciting venture.  A whole new trade, based right here on Earth."

Phuck's honest thought flowed out of his speech hole.  "What else would other planets want?  What other trade would be compatible for operation in this atmosphere?"

38596 gripped his inferior's shoulders.  He searched the edges of the central dark hole in Phuck's face, presumably, to locate the worker's eyes.  When 38596 seemed confident that he'd locked onto Phuck's gaze, the superior overseer grinned. 

"Humans," he told Phuck.  "We mean to harvest humans.  Pluto will be the first to operate a Human Trade."

***

"An experiment," Diem repeated, his mind struggling to grasp what this woman was talking about.  She spoke differently, looked differently, and she'd obviously come from somewhere that wasn't the Houses.  But how, without Forge detecting her and from where?  "You can't mean in the scorching?  You are too young for it."

"What scorching?" she asked.  "What was scorched?"

"Everything," Diem said, watching her reactions with curiosity.  He tried to figure out if she really believed what he was saying.  "The whole Earth.  We lost everything."

The woman's eyes pegged onto the wall across the room and stayed there.  He recognized the stare; it was pure shock, the same look as what Karma wore the first time he'd had to explain to her what men sometimes did to women who walked th
rough the spindlings alone. 

"Where did you come from?" Diem asked.  She blinked.  He could see her hiding things away in her eyes.

"I came from 2013," she said.

"You're Plutian?" he growled.  He had seen no indication of it, even though she dressed oddly.  She used the archaic.  Plutians didn't do that.

"What are you talking about?  Oh my God, speak English!" she growled back.  "The Archive froze me—no, not freezing...they gassed us to sleep, to preserve us because the Earth's atmosphere was full of holes.  It's way underground.  I went there in 2013.  The year was 2013."

It was Diem's turn to feel the shockwave as it widened his eyes and dropped his jaw.  She couldn't be from the past.  Not that long ago.  A body couldn't last that long.  And the dragons
—they would've sniffed out humans, even underground, wouldn't they?  He was no longer sure.  But there was no way—

"You're lying," he said. 

"Yeah, right.  That's it, I'm lying."  She grimaced and looked away.  Her stomach howled.  Without looking back at him she said, "I talked, that was the deal.  Can you at least give me something to eat before I starve to death?"

He thought a moment and then decided there would be no harm.  He didn't want her to die.  If she actually did belong to a House after all, and he mistreated her in any way, especially as a Rha...