George Martin - Busted flush

"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.