Title: This Shouldn't be Happening...
Author: "Matrix Refugee"
AU Scenario: What if Mpreg was possible among programs...
Rating: PG-13 (Merv/Flood pre-slash)
WARNING: Read at your own risk...
Author's Note: I'm amazed at the reaction I'm getting for this fic. Even my faction buddies in the MxO (( :Waves to the Devil's Advocates on Recursion: )) have been reading it and giving it the thumbs up (( Thanks for the comment in faction-chat the other night, Vita!)). I know a LOT of people are squicked by Mpreg, but I think I've manage to avoid the "squickening" aspects of this fic-form.
Disclaimer: I don't own the "Matrix" series, its characters, concepts or other indicia, which belong to the Wachowski Brothers, Paul Chadwick, Warner Brothers, Village Roadshow Pictures, Joel Silver Productions, Burlyman Entertainment, Monolith, Sony Online Entertainment, etc.
Chapter Five: Unforeseen Development
As if things couldn't get worse, a few mornings after the day the nosy little girl had wandered in, as Flood was in the washroom, retouching the roots of his hair -- which had begun to betray touches of its "natural" dishwater-blond color -- Aesculaepius entered unannounced.
Flood glared at Aesculaepius's reflection in the mirror he faced, as he blotted his hair dry. "Excuse me, but didn't you ever learn the human trait of knocking on a washroom door before entering it?"
The physician came to his side and eyed the bottle of hair bleach that stood on the ledge of the sink. "How many times have you treated your hair since you came here?" he asked, completely serious.
"Twice including this treatment. I have to keep some semblance of normalcy now that something utterly abnormal has been foisted on me," Flood replied, slinging the towel over a nearby rack.
Aesculaepius put the cap back on the bottle and took it in hand. "I'm sorry but I can't let you do that again. There's too many tetrogens in it that you've needlessly exposed your child to."
"Correction: His offspring," Flood retorted. "So what am I to do then? Let my appearances go to seed on account of a parasite that's gnawing at my insides!"
"You can't risk your -- his child's health: it could put you at risk as well if something catastrophic were to happen to the little one," Aesculaepius replied, patiently.
"Oh yes, of course: can't possibly run the risk of giving him a two-headed child when its time comes," Flood said with a sneer, and tried to grab the bottle out of Aesculaepius's hand.
The physician calmly stepped out of his impatient patient's reach. "I am very sorry, but I'm afraid I must insist."
"And I must insist as well," Flood snapped. "I'll remind you of this very incident should you ever have greatness with child thrust upon you and I should happen to catch you in the act of engaging in one of your own pleasurable necessities that could put your offspring at risk."
Aesculaepius smiled thoughtfully. "I had considered undergoing a similar procedure, purely as an experiment--"
Flood stared at him and scanned the other program's code to see if Aesculaepius had a glitch somewhere in his "brain". "You'd better be joking about that," he concluded, pushing past him on his way out.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The rain didn't fall in torrents, but it fell just hard enough to make itself an utter nuisance for the denizens of the Chateau sub dimension. And it had gone on like this for nearly two weeks. The autumn tended to be rainy, but never like this: the sun hadn't showed itself through the clouds once in that time.
Feronus, one of the Merovingian's Lupine guards, scurried across the rear gardens and down the slope toward the Chateau guard houses, his leather jacket hiked over his head to keep the raindrops off. Reaching the barrack for the others of his kind, he pushed open the door and shook himself off, sending water flying across the floor of the common room at the front of the building.
Cain and Abel, his immediate superiors in name only, were trying to adjust the signal on the television in the far corner of the room.
"Looks like it's TV celibacy night," Feronus said, watching them tinkering with the cable hook-up.
"Not unless we can get this thing to work," Abel said.
"I think it's the dish wobbling in the wind out there, or something got wet up there," Cain added.
"Monsoon season came on with a vengeance," Feronus said, shucking his jacket and slinging it on a peg in the wall. "Got any idea why the boss ordered the bucket brigade?"
Cain gave up twiddling with the recalcitrant television and sprawled out on a worn sofa. "That's just it: he didn't order it."
Feronus cocked his head curiously. "He didn't?"
"Nope: we're trying to figure out what's up with the waterworks before he gets back from the City," Abel said.
"Weird. I figured he ordered the raindrops 'cause they made a nice soundtrack for getting cozy with his latest squeeze," Feronus said, hunting for a recent issue of the Sentinel in a pile of rumpled newspapers on a table.
"He hasn't been around since he sent Fussbudget off on whatever fool's errand; he's been staying in the City, taking care of business from there," Cain said. "At least we won't have to listen to him muttering about his beltline. Didn't know those damn mimosas he's always chugging were so fattening."
"Come to think of it, that's when the rain started," Abel added, adding to Feronus's trouble by digging in the pile of newspapers as well. He paused and looked from Cain to Feronus. "You aren't thinking what I'm thinking."
"What, Whitey rigged the rain machine?" Feronus asked.
"I wouldn't put it past him," Cain said. "Whitey used to be a rain regulator way back when. And you know how he's been bristling about the stuff the boss pulls on him after hours."
"Yeah, but do we all have to get wet because of it?" Feronus said, cocking his head and tapping the sides of it to get some errant water out of his ears.
"The boss 'll do something about this once he gets back," Cain said. "Though you know how he is: if he takes a shine to something, he lets it stay, regardless of what the rest of us think about it."
"Yeah, but let him try and like getting splonked on every time he steps out the door," Feronus muttered.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sunlit days continued and even the nights brought clear skies over L'Ecole de la Tour.
Since Flood, by habit, didn't eat solids unless appearances required it, the offspring within him had started feeding off his code. To compensate, his shell drew in any available moisture from the air around him, He noticed clouds forming against the near-distant mountain peaks visible from his window, but as those masses of moisture drew near the airspace immediately above the school, they quickly broke up. Within a matter of moments after that, he sensed a rush of nourishment entering his shell, bringing with it a sense of renewed energy. But that soon faded.
He swore he could feel the thing growing within him, increasing in strength and size and complexity with every passing hour, its development infinitesimal yet enough that his program senses -- far stronger than those of a mere human -- easily detected it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At about the same time his Lupines had suspected the cause behind the continuous rain, the Merovingian had arrived at the guesthouse for his every-other-weekly visit to his involuntary surrogate. As usual, Aesculaepius met him at the door and as they walked along the corridor to the male brood-mare's chambers, the physician gave him a detailed report on the patient's condition.
"And how does he fare in essence?" the Merovingian asked.
"He's still considerably annoyed at his confinement, but he seemed calmer a few days ago after I recommended that he should rest in the sun by an open window."
"Perhaps for a moment he had grown accustomed to his condition and his circumstances," the Merovingian said, as the Brother Porter who silently accompanied them pushed open the door to Flood's rooms.
They found the patient reclining on the sofa in the front room, his head propped on several pillows, a handkerchief draped over his face to keep out the daylight. The Merovingian leaned over Flood and lifted the square of linen from the shorter male's face.
Flood muttered something that might have been a curse under his breath, then opened his eyes. "Here to inspect your work in progress, my lord?" he asked, looking up in the Merovingian's general direction. "I would rise at your approach, but doctor's orders being what they are, I must remain where I am."
The Merovingian seated himself on a chair which the Brother Porter drew up for him, close to the head of the couch. "We can dispense with the formalities… And so, how fares my young surrogate on this fine autumn day?"
"I believe the phrase that fits best is 'bored out of one's gourd'," Flood replied.
The Merovingian reached down and patted Flood's cheek with a brutal tenderness. "Pauvre petit, it shall not be for much longer until you are delivered of my child, five months remain to your confinement."
"If it doesn't drain me dry first; I swear the rest of me has grown thinner since the creature's presence started growing visible," Flood grumbled.
The Merovingian leaned down and kissed the point of Flood's chin. Still leaning close, and gazing into his chief lackey's face, he added, "It is without a doubt a trick of the eyes, or you have been gazing too long and with too much worry at your reflection."
Flood snorted and turned his gaze away from his superior. "I can barely look at my reflection any more without feeling utterly repulsed or without wondering for a moment who let in this bloated intruder who happens to have my face."
With a smile, the King of the Exiles laid a tender hand on Flood's belly. "And which intruder do you refer to? Your reflection or my heir?"
Flood winced with disgust, trying to pull in his stomach muscles. "Touché… a palpable hit, sir."
"Let us hope our child shall have our shared ability to fence with the mere power of the tongue," the Merovingian said, caressing the front of Flood's vest.
"I trust you're referring to the use of a well-turned phrase?" Flood asked, trying not to feel nauseous and at the same time trying to blame that feeling on his condition -- though it certainly hadn't caused that effect so far.
The Merovingian regarded him fondly. "Well-turned phrases from a youth who, by virtue of the code from his progenitors, will doubtlessly have a well-turned form."
Flood shifted so that he slid out from under his employer's touch. "If I knew that you were coming on to me, you do recall that Aesculaepius has forbidden you to engage in any and all carnal relations -- the ones which would delight me as well as the ones that would delight you."
"Of course I was made well aware of that," the Merovingian replied, his tone maintaining its hint of indulgent cheerfulness, yet his face lost its delighted smirk and took in a crinkle of annoyance. "And I would do nothing to endanger the life that is within you." With that he rose, but remained standing over him. "And if you are to gestate in peace, I shall then leave you to brood."
Flood snerked sourly, catching the word-play in that last remark. "I've had people accuse me of having a brooding look to my visage, but that's the first time the original meaning of the word fit me, though I would hope a bird sitting on a nest would feel more comfortable and less bored." He closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of his employer leaning over him for a parting kiss.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next day several of Sophie's friends were chattering in the study hall: they'd spotted the Merovingian entering the guest house and they'd started speculating over what had brought the King of the Exiles to the school and its environs. Sophie half-listened in silence, bent over her laptop, typing the answers to her essay questions. She had a feeling this visit from the Merovingian had had something to do with Mr. Flood.
She decided then and there that she would pay the poor Exile a visit, to see how he was and to try getting his mind off his difficulty.
Making sure that the Gardener and his assistants had taken their shovels and rakes to another part of the school grounds first, she approached the guest house, her palmtop in her blouse pocket and the stylus for it thrust through the knot of her hair. She found the French doors open and let herself in, treading silently across the carpeted floor. No sign of Mr. Flood: he must have been resting in his rooms. Cocking an ear toward a corridor that, from the kitchen sounds in the distance, clearly lead to the dining hall, she approached another corridor leading in the opposite direction, into another wing of the house. She phased her vision to code view and scanned the interiors of the rooms she passed.
Behind the third door on the right, she spied a note of code that might have been him: the knot of different-colored code that didn't match the rest of him gave him away. Phasing her vision back to unparsed view, she was about to knock on the door when she heard footsteps approach behind it. She backed away and headed up the hallway, ducking around a turn and begging the Codestream not to let that being come her way.
She heard footsteps in the hallway, heading toward the common room and hopefully toward the kitchen. With a sigh that meant relief, she returned to the door and knocked on it.
"It's open, you should know that by now," Flood called from within.
She pressed down the latch, trembling just a little and pushed open the door. She stepped into the sitting room of a small but airy apartment with white-washed plaster walls hung with tapestries and a scarlet and moss-green Persian carpet underfoot. The afternoon sunlight shone golden, framing the figure of the man sitting on the wide window-seat, leaning back on a pile of cushions, a newspaper folded against his tented knees, the lower edge resting against his middle-chest area.
"That was quick, Aesculaepius," he said, not looking up.
"It's me," she said, blurting out the first thing she thought of.
Flood looked up from his newspaper, an annoyed pucker crossing his face. "Oh, it's you," he said. "The little girl with the errant page from her little essay."
"Yes, I, uh… was passing by the guest house and I thought I'd take a look in on you," she said.
"Likely story: I'm not fooled by it for a moment." He turned his full attention back to the newspaper.
"You're very lonely here, aren't you?" she asked.
He looked at her sidewise without lifting his head, the gaze from his golden-brown irises seeming to run right through her to her very code. "You're an intuitive program, aren't you?"
"My mother is one; I think my father isolated some of her special coding and added it to me when they made me," she said.
"I should have known from the start: you're nosy enough. Well, you must have a name, child. Tell me what it is."
"It's Sophie, that's short for Solaphine," she said.
"And your father was that weedy-looking house builder, or at least that's what he made himself into after he refused the chance of an existence, namely working for my esteemed employer. You do realize that there could have been trouble if he wasn't already married to your mother, seeing that she and my employer's wife are 'sisters', to use a human term."
"No, I didn't know that… He wouldn't let anything happen to us, would he? Just because my father wouldn't work for him?"
"No, but that connection by marriage makes it easier for him to keep track of your family and see that no harm comes to you. He takes care of his own, those on his payroll and those on the fringes of his domain."
"He doesn't seem to be taking very good care of you," she said, trying to keep her gaze from dropping to the front of Flood's vest.
Flood shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, at the very least, he spared my dignity from the worst of the gossip by sending me here. As far as I can tell, the few people who can look past my employer long enough to notice me at all, think that I merely succumbed to the pleasures of the table. Likely story, but it's much better than horrid truth."
"So why not just be honest about what's happening to you?" she asked. "It's nothing to be ashamed of at all."
He sighed impatiently. "Ms. Reykmann, you have to realize that I have a reputation to maintain. If word got out that I had been impregnated by my employer and if were known how this abnormal occurrence was thrust upon me, I would be the laughingstock of the entire Exile world, and I would lose all competence with my -- er, with my employer's human contacts. No one would be able to mention my name without some wag bringing up the fact that I'd been knocked-up and certain people would question whether or not I'm really male at all. Which they already do and this knowledge would only throw lighter fluid on the flames of their speculation. I've heard from one of these contacts that there are more than a few who think I must be either a female in disguise or that I'm neuter, though I'm told that most of these thoughts came from tank-brains who can't get it through their armor-plate thick skulls that a man might be just as male as they are even if he knows the difference between a Windsor knot and a four-in-hand."
"They talk about you and …him… being together, don't they?" Sophie asked, lowering her voice so no one but Flood would hear her. "That must hurt your feelings."
"It's a wellspring of embarrassment to say the least," he admitted.
"They really bother you, don't they?" she asked.
He shrugged. "They're free to think what they want to, but if they go mouthing it to everyone who'll listen, they're spreading damn lies. My quirks don't run toward other males."
"You're afraid someone will say you had something like this coming," she said.
He emitted a harassed sigh. "You can save your psychological speculations for a more interested party. Your chatter is tiring me out, and in my delicate condition, I can't have that happening."
She leaned down and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "It's all right: I forgive you for being snappish. My mother got testy like that when she was having my little sister."
Ordinarily, Flood would have immediately winced at this unwelcome touch, but something somewhere in his behavioral parameters accepted it; better that hand on his shell than nothing, and he had had nothing in the three weeks since he'd come here, aside from Aesculaepius's professional prodding. This would seem less confining if the Merovingian had sent a female physician to attend him, but beggars certainly couldn't be choosers.
"You'd better leave before I mention to my attendants that there's been an intruder in my rooms," he said, pulling out from under her touch.
She stepped back skittishly, but she kept her gaze on his face, her violet eyes wide and innocent in that way that always made him grind his teeth. At least through most of their exchange, she'd avoided looking at him below his shirt-collar.
"It's all right. I didn't mean to stay long," she said. And with that, she went out quickly and quietly; at least she moved well, no danger of her tripping on something. He didn't feel up to helping a hobbledehoyden off the floor… or much else, for that matter.
On her way back down the hallway, Sophie nearly ran right into a grey-haired but young-looking male program, a physician by the look of his coding.
"Oh dear," she said, quailing back from him.
The physician regarded her calmly but with concern. "What brought you in here? You know that students aren't allowed to come in here, unless some of their kinsfolk are visiting."
She dropped her gaze to her feet in shame. "I was… I was visiting someone… he's another Exile, so that makes him my kinsfolk." Pulling her confidence together, she looked up at the physician. "Isn't that true?"
He took this thoughtfully; she could almost hear his intellect parameters processing the information. "You were visiting Flood, weren't you?"
"Yes," she admitted, her voice squeaking a little from fear at being caught.
He drew in an audible breath. "I'm sorry, but you really shouldn't go near him: he can't be disturbed because of his condition."
"But he's lonely here," she said.
He put a hand on her shoulder and guided her to the door. "I know that, but we have to take all due precautions around him."
"I've been around pregnant beings before. I helped my mother when she was carrying my youngest sister," she said.
"True, but this is another matter entirely: he's a male carrying a child. His shell wasn't designed for this kind of stress. I can't let anything upset him, not even someone who's worried for him." They had reached the terrace behind the guest house. The physician let her go and turned to face her. "I'm sorry I have to tell you this, but you'll have to leave him to rest."
All she could do was nod and turn away, heading back to the dormitory.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To be continued…