Chapter 8: The Emptying
The pressure dropped low in her pelvis and held, and Becca felt the first of the eggs press against the inside of her like a stone under a heavy sheet. She got her knees wider on the pad and pushed without being told. The egg moved a finger's width, then stopped.
"Come on," she said to her own body. "Come on."
The nurse was at her side with a tray. Vance crossed the room with a steel bowl in his gloved hands. The fourth tank beat its red light, faster now, a pulse like a fist on the inside of a door.
"First one," the nurse said.
The contraction hit and rolled. Becca pushed through it with her teeth bared, and the egg came free with a wet heavy pop against the tissues of her. It dropped onto the pad beneath her, small and slick and round, trailing a thin rope of fluid.
The nurse caught it up in a cloth and laid it in the bowl.
Chloe's hand found the back of her neck, warm and dry through the sweat. "That's one. You did that."
"Eleven more."
She heard it inside herself, the shift of the clutch realigning, the next egg sliding down into the place the first one had left. There was no gap between them. Her body had made a queue of it, a single long line of hard round things waiting their turn at the gate.
"Your body knows what it's doing," Vance said.
"It doesn't feel like it's asking for my input."
The next one came faster. The contraction built to a peak and held and Becca bore down into it, and the egg slipped out with a rush of warm fluid, landing soft in the tray the nurse had angled beneath her. Then a third, almost on its heels, so that she lost count for a moment and had to ask.
"Three," the nurse said. "You're on three."
"Three of twelve."
"You're a third of the way."
"I'll put it on my resume."
The fourth tank's light stuttered and went bright, a hard red burn that filled the corner of the room. The shape inside it pressed full against the glass, six pale eyes fixed on her, and its limbs flexed against the panel like it was trying to find the seams.
"The hell is it looking at," Becca said.
"Doesn't matter what it's looking at," the nurse said. "It's contained. Keep pushing."
She did. The fourth egg took three contractions to come, stubborn, turning sideways inside her in a way that made her see white at the edges of her vision. Chloe's hand was there, steady on her shoulder, and Vance's voice came from somewhere far off counting her breaths.
"Again. Open your jaw. Good."
The egg turned and slid and dropped, and the relief of it made her head swim. She let herself hang on her elbows for a moment, breathing raggedly, her belly still huge and heavy beneath her but lighter than it had been.
"Four," the nurse said.
"How many do I still feel?"
"All the rest. You'll know when you're done."
The next contraction came up before she was ready for it. It rolled through her like a wave taking a beach, pulling everything out from under her footing, and she felt two eggs move at once, a double pressure low in her that split her focus down the middle.
"No," she said. "No, not both, I can'tâ€""
"You can." Chloe's voice was right in her ear. "You can do anything. Just push."
She pushed. The double pressure crowned and tore and came out together, two hard shapes dropping into the tray with a wet double slap. Becca collapsed onto her forearms, gasping, and the room swam in and out around her.
"Six," the nurse said.
The tank pulsed in furious answer. The blue thing on Becca's wrist pulsed with it, a hard bright double flash, and she felt it all the way down through her teeth.
The double pulse faded from her wrist and the pain came back in its place, a deep grinding ache that settled into her pelvis like a weight. She pushed up onto her hands again. The tray beneath her was slick with fluid and the two newest eggs lay in it, each the size of her fist, faintly luminous in the cold light.
"Let's go," she said. "Next one."
The seventh egg came slow. It took four contractions, each one building on the last until her arms were shaking and her vision had gone gray at the edges. Chloe was behind her, one hand braced against her lower back, the other gripping her shoulder hard enough to leave marks. Vance counted her breaths in a flat monotone from somewhere she couldn't see.
"Push on the top. Good. Hold it. Let it come down."
She pushed and the egg dropped out, heavy and wet, into the waiting tray.
"Seven," the nurse said.
Becca let her head hang between her arms. Her breath came in ragged gulps. The dome of her belly still hung low and heavy, but something had changed in the deep of it. The eggs were loose in her now, a shifting mass of hard weights that rolled against each other with every shudder of her muscles.
"Just checking," she said. "Still twelve?"
"Seven out. Five to go."
"Great."
The eighth egg crowned and stalled. She felt it press against the outlet of her, a hard round pressure that wouldn't move, and the contraction that was supposed to deliver it faded before it could. She sagged forward, panting.
"Come on," she said. "Come on, you stupid egg."
"It's turned," the nurse said. "It's come down crooked."
"Fix it."
The nurse's gloved fingers found her from behind, blunt pressure against the slick inner wall of her, and Becca felt the egg shift, a hard roll inside her that made her whole body clench. Then the pressure was straight and the next contraction came up and she pushed through it with a sound that wasn't quite human, and the egg slid out in a rush of warm fluid.
"Eight."
"Fixing it worked. Do that again if you have to."
The ninth and tenth came together, twins like the last pair, but harder. She felt them wedge side by side in the outlet, two hard balls pressing against each other and against the wall of her, and no amount of pushing would move either of them. Vance stepped in. His gloved hand found her from behind, careful, precise, and he worked one egg past the other with a steady pressure that made her cry out.
"Push now," he said.
She pushed. The first one dropped free, and then the second followed it so fast that the nurse barely got the tray under it in time. Two wet slaps against the steel, and the tray was full.
"Ten," the nurse said. "Two more."
"Two. Okay. Two."
The contractions came faster now, nearly on top of each other. The eleventh egg moved down with the rush of a wave and pressed against her and held, and Becca felt the exhaustion hit her like a wall. Her arms buckled. She dropped onto her forearms, face against the wet pad, and just breathed.
"Becca." Chloe's voice was close, soft. "One more after this. You're almost done."
"I can't."
"You can. You've done eleven. One more."
"I can't, Chloe."
"Yes you can. Do it with me." Chloe's hand found hers and laced their fingers together. "Push on the next one. I'll count."
The next contraction came up slow and deep, and Becca pushed with it, hand gripping Chloe's, jaw locked, the whole world gone down to a single point of pressure in the base of her. The egg moved. It turned and slid, and she felt it crown, a hard round stretch that made her see white, and then it was out, a wet heavy landing in the tray.
"Eleven," the nurse said.
"One more."
The last egg felt different. It sat deep and still, heavier than the others, and when the contraction came up and she pushed, it didn't move. She pushed again on the next wave, harder, and felt it shift a finger's width, then stop.
"It's stuck," she said. "It's stuck."
"Push," Vance said. "Harder."
"I am pushing."
"Push like it's the last thing you'll ever do."
She bore down with everything she had left. Her body folded itself around the effort, every muscle from her jaw to her calves locked into a single long scream of pressure, and the egg moved. It slid down the channel of her, slow, a hard endless weight that seemed to take a year to travel a hand's breadth.
The contraction peaked and began to fade and she kept pushing anyway, through the fading, through the gray at her vision, through the shaking in her arms.
The egg came out with a wet, heavy pop.
"Twelve," the nurse said. "All twelve."
Becca's head dropped. She hung there on her elbows, breathing in long ragged sobs, her arms shaking so hard she could barely hold herself up. The tray beneath her was full of eggs, a neat row of slick round shapes, each one faintly pulsing with a light of its own.
The relief came like a wave pulling back from a shore. She felt it start deep in her, a loosening of everything that had been clenched and held, and then it came up and out in a single long rush of warm fluid that spilled from her in a gush, running down her thighs, pooling on the pad beneath her and dripping over the edge of the table onto the floor.
Her belly sagged. The great heavy weight of it was gone, reduced to a soft rounded curve that still hung low but no longer dominated her frame. She looked down at herself. The skin was loose, streaked with fluid, and the blue thing on her wrist had gone still.
The fourth tank exploded into motion.
She heard it before she saw it: a hard wet thudding against the glass. The red light was white-hot, strobing in the dark chamber, and the shape inside it threw itself at the panel again and again, six tentacles splayed, slamming its body flat against the barrier. The glass rang with each impact. The whole column shook.
"She really doesn't like that," Becca said.
The tank kept pounding.
Becca let herself fall forward, face-down on the pad, and did not get up again.
Becca woke to a ceiling she knew. White, featureless, the single light panel humming at the edge of hearing. She blinked at it for a long moment, trying to remember where she was, and then the weight of her own body told her. She was in her bed at the Atheneum. Her bed, her sheets, the familiar lump of the pillow under her skull.
Chloe was sitting on the edge of the mattress, one hand wrapped around hers. Her thumb moved in a slow circle across Becca's knuckles.
"Hey," Chloe said. "Hey, you're awake."
Becca worked her mouth. It tasted like copper and dust. "What happened?"
"You delivered all twelve eggs. And then you went out. Turned your head and just went to sleep." Chloe laughed, a little wet. "You snored through the cleanup."
"Did I."
"Like a chainsaw."
Becca pushed herself up onto her elbows. The room tilted, then settled. She looked down at herself. Her belly was still soft, still carried the rounded curve she'd had before all this started, but it was empty now. Flat in a way it hadn't been in weeks. No weight. No pressure. No clutch of hard round things rolling against each other.
She rested her hand on it. The skin was warm through her shirt, and felt strange.
"What about the fourth tank?" she said.
Chloe's face shifted. "After you passed out, it went crazy. Throwing itself at the glass, over and over. Vance had to call in two more guards to stand watch. It didn't stop until they dimmed the lights in the donor wing."
"Crazy."
"I mean really crazy. It wasn't trying to get out. It was trying to get through the glass at us."
"At us?"
Chloe looked down at their joined hands. "Vance thinks it was mad. Because of the creature inside you. The one we expelled."
"That thing I pushed out."
"It was its spawn. He said that. The fourth creature, the big one, it wasn't just feeding on the others. It was putting its own young into them. Into you." She paused. "Then we took the pill and pushed it out, and the eggs that came after were wasted. He thinks it was watching all of that. The tank faces the room."
Becca stared past Chloe at the far wall. The blue thing on her wrist pulsed once, slow, a dim throb she could feel down to the bone.
"So he killed its kid," she said. "We killed its kid."
"That's what Vance believes."
"What's he going to do with it?"
"He's trying to decide." Chloe squeezed her hand. "He was still arguing with his supervisors when I came in here. Something about whether they can keep it contained at all, or whether they should put it down."
"Put it down."
"It's been killing the other creatures. It's dangerous. But it's also the only one of its kind they found, so killing it means losing whatever it is, whatever it was trying to do." Chloe shook her head. "He talked to himself about it for half an hour. I thought he was going to pull his own hair out."
Becca looked down at her belly again. She let her palm rest flat against it, pressing gently. Nothing answered. No shifting weight, no pressure against her wall. Just her own soft flesh.
The blue creature on her wrist rippled. Its tiny head turned toward her, one pale eye blinking up at her face. She stroked its smooth little skull with two fingers, and it pulsed against her arm, warm, content.
"Hey, buddy," she said. "Still here."
It curled into her touch, tentacles tightening gently around her forearm.
Her hand drifted back to her empty belly. She rested it there, palm flat over the soft curve, feeling nothing move beneath it.
Chloe's hand came down and settled over hers.
"Are you okay?" Chloe said.
"Yeah." Becca kept her eyes on the ceiling. "Different. But okay."
They sat like that for a while. The light panel hummed. The blue thing on Becca's wrist throbbed slow and steady under both their hands.
Becca kept her hand on her belly, palm flat over the soft empty curve. The silence in the room felt loud. She pressed gently, searching for something that wouldn't answer.
"I feel empty," she said. "Hollow. Like something's been scooped out of me and nothing's been put back."
Chloe shifted closer on the mattress. "That's because something was. You carried twelve eggs for days. Your body doesn't know what to do with the quiet yet."
Becca shook her head. "It's not the eggs. It's the gestating. The being full. The having a purpose." She rubbed at her belly with the flat of her hand, slow circles over the loose skin. "Now it's just me in here."
"You're not just you. You're still you."
Becca didn't answer. The blue thing on her wrist rippled, its tiny head lifting, one pale eye blinking up at her face as if it had heard something in her voice.
It pulsed. Bright. Deliberate. Twice in a row, and each pulse traveled down her arm into her chest.
She looked at it. The small tentacled body wrapped around her forearm, the smooth domed skull under her thumb, the way it leaned into her touch like a cat begging for attention. The idea came up slow, like a bubble rising through deep water.
"Hey," she said. "Could you lay more eggs?"
The blue creature went still. Then it pulsed so bright it lit the underside of her jaw, a hard electric blue that filled the room for a single heartbeat. It throbbed against her wrist like a second pulse.
Chloe made a sound, looking between the creature and Becca's face. "Wait. You mean, in you?"
"Where else?"
"Becca." Chloe's voice had gone thin. "You just pushed twelve eggs out of your body. You didn't even have a break. Your arms were shaking, you passed out on the table, you woke up an hour ago."
"I know."
"Do you really want to go through all this again?"
Becca looked down at her belly. She ran her palm over the soft curve, the skin still loose and tender, the weight gone. Then she looked at the creature on her wrist, still pulsing, still bright, still warm against her skin.
"It's different this time," she said. "The first time I didn't know what was coming. I didn't know what the creature was, or what the eggs meant, or what my body would do. I was rattled the whole way through. Scared every second."
"And now you're not scared."
"I'm not not scared. But I know the shape of it. I know the pain, I know what the contractions feel like, I know how to push, I know what comes out at the end." She stroked the blue creature's skull. "I'll know what to do this time."
Chloe's hand tightened around hers. "That's not the same as wanting it."
Becca stayed quiet a moment. Her hand rested on her empty belly, and the blue thing pulsed against her wrist, steady, patient, asking nothing but willing all the same.
"No," she said. "But it's close enough."
Chloe was quiet for a long moment. Her hand stayed on Becca's, thumb moving slow.
"Are you sure?" she said.
Becca looked down at the blue creature's small pale eye. "No. But I'm ready anyway."
"Those are different things."
"I know."
Chloe let go of her hand. She stood, moved to the foot of the bed, and pulled the sheets down to Becca's ankles. Becca bent her knees and shimmied out of the loose pants Chloe had dressed her in, then the underwear, pushing them off the end of the mattress with her heel. The air touched her thighs and belly, cool and clean.
She lay back. She settled her breathing, slow, deep, the way the nurse had taught her before the bonding trial. Her belly rose and fell. The soft empty curve of it moved under her palms.
She looked down at her wrist. The blue thing pulsed there, warm, patient.
"Okay," she said. "I'm ready when you are."
The creature lifted its head. Its tentacles loosened around her forearm, one by one, releasing their grip with small wet sounds. It crawled over her wrist, over the back of her hand, and dropped onto the surface of her belly.
Its sticky tentacles pulled lightly at her skin. Each tiny step left a damp trail, a cool tickle that raised goosebumps across her stomach. It traveled slowly, unhurried, a small blue weight navigating the soft round slope of her. She felt every footstep, every pull of those little suckers against her.
It reached the bottom of her belly and stopped, perched just above her crotch. Its head tilted up. Its single pale eye looked at her face, waiting, asking a question it couldn't speak.
Becca gave a shallow nod.
The creature lowered its head. One tentacle uncurled from its body and touched her entrance, a light, exploratory press against the slick inner lips. She felt it test, taste, read the texture of her. Then it slipped inside, a thin cool thread sliding past her walls.
A shiver ran up her spine. She let her knees fall open wider.
The tentacle moved gently, curling and probing, finding the soft places, stroking the hidden ridges. It was unhurried. It traced and teased and worked her slowly, patiently, until she felt herself grow warm and slick, the dryness replaced by a wet readiness that made the creature pulse against her.
It withdrew the first tentacle, then pressed two back in together. Slightly thicker. She felt the stretch, the slow give of her body accepting it. The tentacles moved in counter-rhythm, curling and uncurling, coaxing more wetness from her. Her hips shifted off the mattress without her deciding to.
Chloe watched from the foot of the bed, hands folded in her lap, eyes soft.
The creature pressed the rest of its tentacles in. The small limbs slid past her entrance, joining the two already inside, until the cluster of them filled her in a way that was strange and full and not unpleasant. The creature's round body came up against her opening, pushing against it, stretching it wider.
"Easy," Becca breathed.
The creature paused. Then it pressed forward, and the bulbous head of its body began to sink past the ring of her, a slow, wet, deliberate push. Becca felt it wedge and stretch, felt the pressure of it sliding deeper, inch by inch, a small round weight moving up inside her.
She pushed with it without being told. The creature slipped further, its body passing through her in one long relentless motion, and then the last of it drew inside like a smooth stone dropping into a pool.
She felt it travel up her, a cool moving weight passing through her pelvis, and then it settled somewhere above her entrance, deep in the hollow of her womb, and went still.
A small mound pushed her belly out. Not the great heavy dome of before, just a gentle bump low in her abdomen, visible through the loose skin. The creature pulsed inside her once, warm and content, and the mound shifted slightly, as if it were getting comfortable.
Becca laid her hand over the bump. The skin was warm. Something moved beneath it, small and alive.
She puffed out a breath and let her head fall back.
"Okay," she said. "Okay."