Episode 6 - Thunder Across a Blue Sky

  Chapter 58 - Legacy

  Regina laughs with full-throated abandon, cutting across the conversation of the room. I turn from my chat with Blake and Rhett to look over my shoulder at what amused her so much.

  She leans one-sided against one of the standing tables, Adrian looking tired and uncomfortable at whatever set her off nearby. Collected on the table are four or five empty glasses now, a fresh one gripped in her hand as she holds her waist while laughing.

  “Oi boss. You might wanna…?” says Blake sideways down to Rhett, who has a pained expression on his face as he watches his mother.

  “Yeah, I know,” mutters Rhett, stepping away from us to approach. He swoops silently behind her, beginning to organize the glasses.

  I wrap both hands around my cup and watch. “She seems… fine?”

  Blake twists his mouth sideways in thought, a heavy silver chain hanging around his neck just below the white collar of his shirt, matching the sheen of his septum ring. “So far.”

  Another bout of laughter pulls a visible grimace from Adrian, Rhett pausing too to comment back, which only seems to amuse Regina further. “You think we should help?” I ask.

  “I wouldn’t. Not our problem,” replies Blake.

  “I’m going to help.” I lower my cup and turn to join the conversation, walking in partway through Regina’s retort once she catches her breath again.

  “-If anything, this plan should be more desirable to you. We can’t be wasting money and the time of these women if you are going to keep on planting girls in them,” she says.

  “I am planting nothing,” replies Adrian firmly. “You are the one who wants this.”

  “You should want it too. Otherwise, the older you get, the worse it will become. You hate the medical teams enough as it is. You’ll hate them more when we have you plugged into half a dozen machines to keep you breathing long past your expiry date.”

  “This isn’t the place to talk about this,” commands Rhett, but he lacks the usual firm bite his orders carry, snatching Regina’s half-empty glass from her hand now.

  “Isn’t the place to talk about what?” I interject as I join.

  Rhett throws me a warning glance. Adrian just seems exhausted at more people intruding into the conversation.

  “We’ve been contracting some breeding farms to reproduce Adrian,” explains Regina with a chuckle. “Given finding a second Vespa has proven futile all these years. I am only teasing him about his upcoming fatherhood. This might amuse you. Did you know of the three women we paid for, two took and he’s thrown girls for both of them? Aquila will be all women soon.”

  “Why would that amuse me?” I mutter, watching Adrian closely. He shifts his blanket, tucking the edge over his shoulder to cover the corners of his dried skin where the edge of the nest irritates him.

  “I just thought you’d appreciate knowing all the real firepower at Aquila has always been the softer-gender,” says Regina, unrepentant and giving me a friendly poke with one immaculate fingernail. “I can be recycled one-day knowing I left behind a legacy of fiery women after me.”

  I sniff and meet Regina’s eyes. “Softer-gender. That’s a… way to put it.”

  Regina gives a full-throated laugh. “I was obviously not talking about you.”

  Rhett clears his throat. “The extra expense of ensuring the gender is usually reserved for management, are you sure-”

  “Adrian is in management. He’s been a co-owner for years,” says Regina dismissively. “It is a riskier gamble to try a few more times stretching resources thin, only to find out we get more girls. One more try, and we get it right. Aquila has the funds for it these days.”

  “And what if none of them manifest the way you want them to?” asks Rhett.

  “That’ll be your problem, not mine. I’m setting you up the best I can. Speaking of, how goes it with the latest girl?”

  I hide my face, conscious suddenly of an unintended warmth flushing my cheeks, and I shrink to Adrian’s side, who only looks thankful the conversation is moving on from him. In an effort to not be part of what I’ve walked into, I put myself between him and Regina and Rhett, lowering my voice. “Is what she said true?”

  Adrian sighs. “I don’t know. First I’ve heard of it now. Guess of the three we paid for, only two stuck, and the most recent report on their progress included the genders while they monitor the dam’s pregnancies.”

  “Do they know who you are?”

  “No, not their business. Or rather, their business is not asking those types of questions.”

  “What if they take after you?”

  Adrian grimaces. “With luck, they’ll take after their mothers. There was some interesting bloodlines in the candidates we picked. Aquila has no use for women with drones, not like my old employer did at least. It’ll be Rhett’s decision when it is finally time, but non-productive mouths are a luxury few can afford.”

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  “They’re your kids? You’ll still be a co-owner.” I mutter.

  “Minority owner. Rhett’ll get both Regina and Owen’s slices, taking the company back to majority ownership by one person again. And I didn’t want children,” replies Adrian, lowering one hand to grip the armrests of his chair.

  “So you’ll abandon them?”

  “They don’t even know who I am to be abandoned by me. Don’t think about it if it bothers you.”

  I frown, lifting my eyes to look at Regina and Rhett, who has his face lowered as he listens obediently to her lecture. “She’s a year older than you, but that won’t matter. Good family, member of the Konryuukai. She’d be an excellent connection to secure,” continues Regina.

  Rhett stacks the glasses he’s taken off her in one hand. “Have you already arranged something?”

  My heart catches in my chest, my mouth feeling dry suddenly.

  “Not more than I’ve already done. You are a little below her prospects, we will need some interest on her end to secure this. I want you to actually try wooing this one, would you? Don’t make me hunt down yet another girl for you.”

  His teeth audibly click as he speaks; his jaw is so tense. “Sure.”

  “I’m serious, Everett. You need a good match. Owen won’t always be here to help pay the bills when times are lean. You’ll have mouths to feed soon. If you’d be less of a grump, I’m sure you’ll have no problems with them.”

  “Maybe he just doesn’t want to be dating random women you set him up with?” I snipe suddenly, the words out of my mouth before I can even stop them.

  “Dating? Hah!” laughs Regina. “I hope he’s more than dating. This is courting. Bodies are expensive. Aquila isn’t large enough to have the statistical advantages to stop worrying about who breeds with what.”

  Rhett’s cobalt blue eyes watch mine, narrowing. He mouths a warning silently - Don’t.

  “Doesn’t seem fair. What if they don’t like each other?”

  Regina almost doubles in half, leaning on the table to keep her feet. Her laughter is so loud now I can feel the conversations growing silent, eyes drifting our way to watch but no one else brave enough to interrupt like Rhett and I had been.

  “Liking has nothing to do with any of it. You’ll be lucky to know the father of any children you bear.”

  I will break her.

  My mind’s eye trembles for a moment. Flashing images of rushing glass and the feel of wind in my feathers as Pooka drops midair and snaps his wings open, changing direction somewhere far across the city and beginning to wheel his way towards me.

  “I have no intention of ‘bearing’ you any children!” I reply defiantly, my control of my voice slipping.

  “Legacy does not care what your intentions are,” commands Regina, forgetting her amusement and suddenly serious. “Nor blood. Your blood is too valuable; you have a responsibility to pass it on to those who come after.”

  “I refuse. My blood can die with me.”

  I will be the last. We will fall together, and be hollow.

  “Conrad, stop,” interjects Rhett.

  Regina speaks over him. “You think you will have a choice?”

  “Mum-”

  I feel the last of my control slip. “Why? What are you going to do? Have someone rape me?”

  The room is silent. Adrian massages his temples with one hand below me to my side. I can see Shion looking up from a conversation she was having across the room, her brows knitted together. We gain height, wings beating powerfully against a dark sky. Rhett is as stone-faced as I’ve ever seen him, a red bloom of rage flushing in the corners of his cheeks beneath his dark stubble. Every building, every passing light is familiar. He slams the collection of glasses in his hands onto the table at Regina’s side, the bottom one cracking dramatically in his fist. We sense our bodies and bring them closer. We will rip and tear; we will be as terror in the night.

  Regina is silent. She looks up at me with dark brown eyes, so dark they might as well be black, and slowly she grins as she meets me unflinchingly. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I’m the one being fucking stupid?” I demand incredulously. “You are kidding-”

  “Careful, Special Operative. Mind your tone,” says Regina, continuing to lean against the table, composed and darkly amused despite the changing temperature of the room. The silent conversations almost feel like the chill of ice on the air. “You think we have the luxury of having you out of action for several months or years? Don’t get quaint ideas. Your time is more valuable to me working than breeding or milking.”

  With ?dawning horror at her language, I withdraw. “The breeder farms…”

  “Exactly. If anything, it is a mercy. It takes a cruel toll on the body, and I would have done similar if we could have afforded it. I wish it were not like this. My heart aches that we cannot have the luxury of family units like so many larger companies, but unfortunately that just isn’t the reality we live in. Our margins are too thin. Simple procedure at the end of the day, relatively painless in the scheme of things. Once they take a few eggs, it’ll be some other woman's problem to raise your offspring, and she’ll be well compensated for it as well,” says Regina matter-of-factly.

  “Well compensated?”

  “Yes. Paid. For labor. Like you are. Paid in Velo, paid in food, paid in clothing, paid in a place to sleep. Paid in air to breathe and water to drink. You have a right to complain only when you are not paid, and it is my business to ensure you always are. You will never make the sacrifices I have; that I can promise you.”

  I stare back at her, processing her words. She smiles, and there is a bittersweet twist to the edge of her red lips as she does so. Then she holds a hand out, taking one of my own between her fingers. Her nails run along the back of my hand, my skin prickling with an ominous shudder that runs down my arm and spine. There is a ?sadness as she looks at me next, a small moist gleam to the corner of her eyes that are just beginning to develop wrinkles as a sign of her age.

  “It is a mercy, truly. Trust me, if nothing else, trust me on this.” Rhett spins from the table, leaving the stacked glasses including the broken one behind him. Regina does not even react to her son. “Motherhood isn’t for everyone.”

  “You don’t decide things for me,” I spit back.

  “I know you. Better than you know yourself. You think I wasn’t a young girl once, burning with ambition? You can’t hate me for making you a mother against your wishes, and also hate that I took away the worst of its suffering too. Pick one, and get back to me.”

  Want? Hate? All I can feel is a boiling rage in the pit of my stomach that it's not my choice to make.

  The glass to the balcony shatters, and Pooka crashes through, billowing outwards into a black cloud.