Busted Flush

  In spite of the fact that Drake was scared and uncomfortably naked, he lay down and closed his eyes.

  Waking up from the drug was like swimming up from the bottom of a very deep pool. His hospital room came slowly into focus. Drake rubbed his eyes. The good nurse was there. Gerald, that was his name, was friendly and would talk to Drake about video games.

  “Hungry, buddy?”

  Drake’s senses were coming back online. His stomach was empty enough it hurt. “Is it breakfast or dinner time?”

  “Foodwise, it’s whatever time you want it to be,” Gerald said with a smile. “But timewise we’re talking late lunch. I can get you a sandwich or a burger with fries. Maybe some ice cream.”

  “Oh, snap. A burger and fries would be killer.” Drake’s mind was now firmly focused on food and wasn’t turning loose until he was comfortably full.

  Gerald gave him a high-five. “I’m on it. You may have a visitor before I get back, or so they tell me.”

  “Another doctor?” Drake asked.

  Gerald laughed. “I expect so. There’s not much of anyone else around here.” He ducked out the door with a wave.

  Drake was annoyed when the new doctor showed up before Gerald got back with his burger. Drake had been expecting a mad scientist type, mostly because this all seemed like a bad movie. Instead, the man was younger than Drake’s dad, maybe in his mid-thirties, had all his hair, and didn’t wear glasses. He did have a white coat and a clipboard, but that was standard issue for this place.

  “Hello, Drake. I’m Dr. Fitzhugh.” He extended a hand. Drake shook it warily. “I understand you’ve been having bad dreams.”

  “Yes. It’s because they give me this stuff to make me sleep.” He looked straight at the doctor. “Can you make them stop giving it to me?” Although Drake’s first idea was to find his parents and go home, he was also sick of being put to sleep.

  The doctor nodded and scribbled on his clipboard. “I see. That medication is a nonopiate, but it can turn loose the subconscious in an uncomfortable way. I’ll make a note of it.”

  Drake smiled. “Okay. Can I go home soon?”

  “I’m also recommending that you be transferred to another facility.” He put a hand on Drake’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, son, but we have to figure out exactly what happened to you, and we don’t seem able to do that here.”

  “Will my folks be at this place?” “Just remember everyone is trying to help you. Have a good trip.” The doctor stood and left the room with a rustle of his white coat and no further explanation.

  Mom? I don’t feel real good.

  Niobe Winslow felt her oldest child dying, felt him melting away like so much ice cream dropped on a summer sidewalk. Soon there would be nothing left of Xerxes but memories. And another hole in her heart.

  Through their bond she felt the warming lamps perched over his incubator; needles squirting filtered blood and synthetic proteins into his forearm; plush swaddling.

  Hang in there, kiddo. Momma’s coming.

  Month-old Xerxes was the longest-lived of Niobe’s seventy-six children. Xue-Ming had lived nineteen days, thirteen hours. Xander, eleven days and change. Xerxes’s breakthrough longevity had slipped through her defenses, bolstered her with vain and foolish hopes.

  He’d been so strong. So healthy.

  Her chair clattered to the floor as she jumped to her feet. The joker to whom she’d been reading rocked back and forth on his bed. His head, a featureless extrusion of flesh and bone, knocked against a white-spackled patch on the wall. The orderlies had given up on repainting it.

  She righted the chair with her tail as she yanked the door open. “Sorry, Mick. Gotta go. Back tomorrow.”

  Knock. Knock. Knock. Little flakes of plaster rained down on Mick’s sheets. The door slammed behind her.

  A bell chimed the hour. She ignored it.

  I feel funny. My tummy hurts.

  Almost there, kiddo. Just hang in there, ’kay?

  She ran through the corridors of the Biological Isolation and Containment Center, a facility carved into the caverns of an old salt mine deep under southeastern New Mexico. The corridors glowed with light from fiber-optic skylights connected to an array of heliostats on the surface. The skylights shone brightly; one could forget that the desert was half a kilometer overhead.

  As both a voluntary committal and a trusty, Niobe had the run of the place. It was the nation’s foremost biological research center, where an army of doctors and scientists struggled to cure hundreds of patients of their afflictions. The facility resembled a wagon wheel tipped on its side: a central hub, with radial spokes connecting it to an outer ring. In places, the outer ring connected to the original warren of mine tunnels, some large enough to swallow a freight train. The pie sections of the wheel were color-coded, like a Trivial Pursuit piece.

  Niobe ran around the rim of the wheel. This wing (minimum security, voluntary committals) was decorated in shades of green, complete with oil paintings of forests and verdant hillsides. The corridors turned orange and red as she approached one of the medical wings.

  Her tail caught an orderly’s medicine cart as she skidded around the corner toward the infirmary. The cart flipped. Hundreds of pills skittered along the floor.

  Over her shoulder, she yelled, “Sorry!”

  “Damn it, Genetrix . . .”

  Half the staff thought that was her real name. Genetrix. The Brood Mother.

  The connection to Xerxes strengthened when she entered the infirmary. But still their telepathic link felt staticky, like a radio tuned slightly off-station.

  Niobe weaved through a maze of EEGs, EKGs, respirators, dialysis machines, and still other devices constructed specifically for her children. Doctors and nurses surrounded the oversized infant incubator where Xerxes lay, working frantically to keep him alive.

  A tangle of tubes and wires snaked from Xerxes’s body to the machines. His skin, smooth and rosy-pink just this morning, hung waxy and sallow from sunken cheeks. Rheumy cataracts leaked sour-milk tears down his face. Even the thick black head of hair he’d styled into a little Elvis pompadour to make her laugh was coming out in clumps.

  She had promised to take him to Las Vegas.

  Mom? I’m scared.

  “I’m here now,” she said. “Don’t be scared, okay?”

  “Mom . . .”

  “Hush, kiddo.”

  A single thought, through a blizzard of psychic static: I love you, Mom.

  And then Xerxes was gone. The blanket sagged, empty but for a slurry of organic molecules. The ammonia-and-hay odor of dead homunculus wafted out of the incubator. Niobe sobbed. One nurse hugged her tightly, patting her on the back and murmuring encouragements, while another collected the dead child’s remains in a sample jar.

  The chimes sounded again, louder this time. A low voice on the PA system. “Genetrix to therapy two. Genetrix to therapy two, please.”

  She didn’t want to go. But Xerxes’s death had slipped a knife into her gut, and every secret, selfish thought gave it a vicious twist. Regularity was crucial. Generations yet unborn—but cherished no less—would drop like mayflies, if not for BICC’s rigid methodologies. And so she went, for the sake of her future family.

  Therapy room two mimicked the layout of Niobe’s own quarters, except for the larger bed (a California king-size mattress) and the curtains along one wall.

  Christian was seated on the edge of the bed. He looked up when she walked in. “Where were you? They’re going nuts in there.” He gestured at the curtains with the long, knobby fingers that always felt warm and strong on her hips.

  “With Xerxes.” She wiped her eyes. “He passed. Just now.”

  He grunted, pulling the shirt of his BICC uniform over his head. The soft blond hair on his body didn’t catch the lights, so his chest looked slick and bare.

  “He was scared,” she said, walking behind a bamboo privacy screen in the corner. Niobe had insisted on the screen. As she draped her sweatshirt over the top
of the screen, she added, “He would have liked it if you visited.”

  “Who?”

  “Xerxes.”

  “Oh.”

  The bristly hairs at the base of her tail snagged the waistband on her sweatpants. As she worked them free, she added, “You could come, next time.” Christian said nothing.

  She scooted under the covers while Christian had his back turned. The linens made scratchy noises as she pulled the sheets around her. She wished she had shaved her legs, wished the wild card hadn’t given her pig hair.

  The nightstand clunked as Christian dropped a prescription bottle into the drawer. He popped a pill in his mouth. She pretended not to see any of it. The pills made her feel ugly. Uglier.

  She lifted the covers for him, but he paused to draw the curtains, revealing a long mirror along the far wall.

  “Maybe we can leave the curtains closed, just once.”

  The mattress bobbed as he climbed in next to her. “They go ape-shit when we do that.” As he plumped a pillow under his head, he added, “Besides, it’s all for the kids.”

  A cotton tent raised itself farther down the bed, below Christian’s waist, as he laced his fingers behind his head. The pill had worked, whatever it was.

  She leaned over to kiss him, but he pulled away.

  “C’mon, Niobe. They’re waiting.”

  No warmth between her legs, no tingling desire. Not that it mattered.

  Niobe sighed. She took care not to glimpse the mirror as she straddled Christian, not to see her shapeless, doughy body; her tail; her acne.

  Christian laid his hands on her waist, strong fingers wrapping around her hips. He never touched her stomach, or her back, or her breasts. She wanted his arms around her, but resigned herself to holding his shoulders. His fingertips dimpled her flesh as they found a rhythm.

  Her tail convulsed. Niobe groaned. The ovipositor widened for peristalsis with a tearing pain that robbed her of breath. The first egg in a clutch was always the worst.

  Christian finished with a little convulsion of his own, but not before she was already climbing down. She wanted to hide behind the privacy screen, but Pendergast and the others were adamant about recording every detail of the birth process. At least the sheets made a passable toga; Niobe had a lot of practice.

  Christian rolled off the bed. He pulled his boxers on.

  The first egg formed at the base of her tail. Through clenched teeth, she said, “Won’t you . . . unhhh . . . stay?”

  He pulled his shirt back over his head. “What?”

  “Don’t you want to”—another burst of pain as the first egg passed midway along her tail and the second formed—“meet the little ones?”

  “Can’t. Docs gotta examine me.” Christian combed his hair in the mirror. “I’ve explained this before.”

  She wondered why they couldn’t examine him before each session, but couldn’t catch her breath enough to ask. The tip of her tail tore open to pass a sticky, pineapple-sized egg. She deposited it in the square marked on the floor, where the cameras on the other side of the wall and in the ceiling could film the hatching from multiple angles.

  Christian opened the door.

  “Maybe you could come by and see them later?”

  “Maybe,” he said. And then he was gone.

  Niobe dressed while the trio of eggs wobbled, shuddered, and expanded. The first disintegrated with a little pop, overlaying a talcum-powder smell on the odors of antiseptic and sex. In its place stood a three-foot-tall homunculus: stocky, bald, but with a bushy, fiery red beard.

  He rubbed his scalp and looked around the room with wide, coal-colored eyes. “Mommy?”

  Niobe smiled. She opened her arms. “C’mere, Yves.”

  They hugged, her son strong and healthy in her arms. She tried not to dwell on that. He felt the twinge through their bond, though, and said, “Look what I can do!”

  He ran up the wall on two feet. She watched him dance upside down on the ceiling while the second egg hatched.

  Yvette was tall and lithe—or would have been, were she of normal size—with waist-length auburn hair, sharp cheekbones, and almond-shaped eyes. Stunning.

  Thanks, Momma. The girl kissed Niobe on the cheek, then settled in her lap. She smelled like summer rain.

  “Mom!” Yves kept dancing overhead. He moved on to an Irish jig, complaining, “Mom, you’re not LOOK-ing!”

  “That’s fantastic, kiddo! We should sign you up for Riverdance.” Better yet, Niobe imagined, a trip to Ireland.

  The third hatchling, Yectli, had pale, nearly translucent skin, a shock of white hair, and eyes like the wide, bright New Mexico sky. Albinism as a mild form of jokerism? The kid got off lucky.

  “Better than that, even,” he said, reading her thoughts. He swelled his chest and cocked a thumb at himself. “Watch what I can do.”

  Yectli turned toward the mirror and held his arms out. Ten little lightning bolts crackled from his fingertips to the mirror. Through the wall Niobe heard a crash, then somebody yelling for a fire extinguisher.

  “I did it for you, Mom,” said Yectli. “I zapped that camera good!”

  The room smelled like ozone.

  Drake was securely belted into a helicopter seat with a soldier on either side of him. This was so nuts it almost made him laugh, but he was too miserable for that. He wondered why he needed to go someplace else in the first place. The doctors and soldiers scared him, but he wasn’t going to show it. And he wasn’t going to let them make him cry.

  The helicopter was flying over desert scrub and they were headed more or less toward the setting sun, so Drake figured they were headed west. They might be flying over Pyote. Hell, it could be New Mexico or Arizona for all Drake knew. Desert didn’t look like much from the air. The soldiers spoke to each other every now and then in some kind of military talk that didn’t make much sense to him, but most of the time they were quiet.

  Drake was already tired when they took off, and by this point he could barely keep his eyes open. The seat hurt his butt, but the discomfort didn’t keep him from sliding off into sleep. He couldn’t tell when the dream started.

  He was naked in the middle of a landscape covered with fires. His feet burned. His ass hurt. Even his nose and eyes hurt. The whoop-whoop-whoop of helicopter blades caught his attention and he began waving his arms. The chopper door opened and something silvery fell heavily to the scorched earth.

  “Pick up the garment and put it on,” boomed a voice. The helicopter settled to the ground, sending a cloud of dust into Drake’s nose and eyes.

  Coughing, Drake unfolded the silvery suit. It was like nothing he’d ever seen before, one-piece, but zippered everywhere, and he struggled to get his arms and legs inside. He was relieved to have something to cover himself with, but this was bulky and he’d sweat like a pig in it. There was a hood with dark plastic where his eyes would go, but Drake didn’t pull it over his head.

  A person dressed in a suit like the one Drake had just put on beckoned to him from an open door. Drake squinted and ducked down as he moved toward the helicopter

  “Hey, kid. You okay?” The soldier on his right side was nudging Drake in the ribs.

  Drake sat up straight, straining his belly against the confines of the safety belt. He was still having the dreams, even without the medication. Maybe there was still some left in his system. That must be it. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  The helicopter slowed and descended rapidly. Drake craned his neck and peered through the window plate. The chopper was kicking up a bunch of sand around the small, asphalt landing area that was ringed with a few blinking lights. There were more soldiers, or guards of some kind, waiting when he stepped outside.

  One of the soldiers from the helicopter held Drake aside while the other one talked to a uniformed man who’d been waiting for them. The man was young, Hispanic, and built like an athlete. His uniform was sharp and pressed, but it wasn’t the same as the soldiers’ outfits. Drake squinted and made out the letters
“BICC” on a badge he was wearing. The soldiers got back into the helicopter and the BICC man walked over to him. Drake felt a powerful hand on his shoulder.

  “Hello, Drake,” he said. “Welcome to your new home.” He headed down a concrete ramp with Drake in tow.

  “I don’t need a new home,” Drake puffed. “I want to go back to Pyote, where my family is.”

  They reached a large, metal double door with guards on either side. One of them waved Drake and the BICC man through. The door opened into an elevator. The man guided Drake in and waited for the doors to close, then inserted a key and turned it. They began to descend. It took a long time. In fact, it was probably the longest elevator ride of Drake’s life.

  “Who are you?” Drake tried unsuccessfully to push the hand off his shoulder.

  “You can call me Antonio,” the man said. “Or you can call me Justice. It’s up to you, but use a respectful tone in either case. That goes for how you speak to everyone here.”

  “Yes, sir.” Drake almost choked on the words. The doors opened into a reception area with more guards and a couple of people sitting behind their desks, typing or maybe just trying to look busy. They all stopped what they were doing when they saw Drake.

  Justice guided Drake over to the nearest desk. There was a woman sitting behind it. Her pinched face and ugly-ass hair made Drake think she hadn’t had any fun in her entire life. “Show Drake Thomas as arrived.”

  “Affirmative, sir.” She pushed a button on her desk and another door opened with a faint hiss.

  Drake followed Justice into a huge, brightly lit area. The illumination came through a glassed-in ceiling at least twenty feet above the floor and looked like natural sunlight. Drake didn’t see how that could be the case given how far down they’d come. Corridors radiated out from the center in several directions, like the spokes of a bicycle. There was a kiosk in the very center with a couple more guards. Drake could see they were carrying automatic weapons and heavy batons. Again, no one was smiling. This was feeling more and more like a prison to him.