Scaled Baby Daddy

Chapter 1

TILDA

Iwake up three seconds before my alarm because motherhood has rewired my brain into a haunted security system.

For one glorious breath, I lie still in the dark and pretend I am a woman with options. A woman in a quiet apartment. A woman who sleeps until her alarm and drinks hot coffee while looking wistfully out a window at the neon fog rolling over Novaria’s lower skyline.

Then something metallic clatters in the next room.

I open my eyes. “Oh, for the love of—”

Another clatter. Then a soft, fascinated toddler hum.

I throw back my blanket and sit up so fast the room tilts.

My apartment is one of those narrow, prefab units that look temporary even when they’ve been standing for fifty years.

The walls sweat faintly in winter, the heating vents rattle like they’re making a political statement, and the kitchenette is so close to my bed I could season eggs from the mattress if I had no self-respect left.

Which, on some mornings, feels optimistic.

“Jesse?”

Silence.

That’s worse than a scream. Jesse is never louder than when he’s being quiet.

I stumble into slippers, scoop my hair into a knot that would insult knots everywhere, and push open the bedroom door.

My son is in the living area wearing only one sock and a diaper, standing in a pool of blue light from the street-facing window. He’s very small. He’s very beautiful. He is also holding the toaster upside down like he’s trying to understand its spiritual purpose.

“Jesse,” I say, in the tone of a woman standing one inch from the edge.

He looks up at me with those solemn eyes. Red-gold scales shimmer faintly over his cheeks and along his arms in the early light. He got that from Bron. He got the impossible strength from Bron too, which is lovely in theory and catastrophic in a cramped apartment full of discount furniture.

“Toast,” he informs me.

“No. Not toast. Fire hazard.” I cross the room and gently take the toaster from his hands. It’s heavier than it looks. So is he, in his own way. “How did you even reach that?”

He points to the cheap dining chair shoved against the counter.

Right. Of course. He built himself a crime.

I set the toaster out of reach and crouch in front of him. He smells like sleep and baby shampoo and the faint mineral scent that always clings to his scales after a bath. My heart does that stupid thing it always does, tightening until it aches.

“You can’t climb before dawn and reorganize the appliances,” I tell him.

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

He blinks.

I sigh. “Because if you crack your head open, I can’t afford the med-gel deductible.”

He considers this. “Okay.”

He says okay to everything with the serene countenance that says he has no intention of compliance.

I scoop him up, and he goes willingly, warm and solid against me. Strong. Too strong for his age. Half-Vakutan, full headache.

“Breakfast,” I say. “We are doing breakfast, clothing, and basic civilization. In that order.”

He presses his face into my shoulder. “No civ’lization.”

“Honestly? Same.”

I set him in his booster seat—which has survived six separate repairs and the application of industrial straps I bought from a dockworker who assured me they were “probably not stolen”—and move to the kitchenette.

The coffee maker wheezes like it has one foot in the grave and a lawsuit pending.

I start it anyway. Then I crack eggs into a pan, slice fruit, and warm up grain mash because the pediatric nutrition guide insists hybrid toddlers require balanced proteins, trace minerals, and enough calories to power a small siege engine.

From behind me Jesse says, “Mama.”

“Yes?”

“Chair sad.”

I turn. “What?”

He points at the dining chair he used as a ladder. One back leg is bent at an angle no chair leg should ever attempt. Splintered composite peeks through the faux wood finish.

I close my eyes.

Of course the chair is sad.

I walk over, test it carefully, and the leg gives with a dry little crunch. The whole thing lists sideways like it’s drunk before sunrise.

Jesse watches me with deep concern. “I fix?”

“No,” I say quickly. “No, sweetheart. You have fixed enough things.”

He frowns. “I sat.”

“I know you sat.”

“Chair broke.”

“Yes.”

He spreads his hands in a tiny gesture that somehow conveys both innocence and a complete refusal of accountability. “Rude chair.”

A laugh slips out before I can stop it. “Yeah. Very rude chair. Openly disrespectful, really.”

He nods, pleased that I understand.

I drag the mangled thing toward the wall and prop it beside the other broken household casualties awaiting either repair or surrender. The pile now includes a lamp, two drawer handles, a holo remote, and a toy shuttle Jesse dismantled with the focused serenity of a bomb technician.

Childcare centers don’t want him. Not for long.

Not once they realize he can pull a mounted rail out of drywall or bend playpen bars because he got curious.

The last sitter smiled at pickup and said, with the brittle calm of a woman leaving a war zone, “He is exceptionally advanced,” which is professional shorthand for your child folded our furniture like laundry.

I flip the eggs.

My chest tightens the way it has for weeks now, that ugly little knot of arithmetic and fear.

Rent due in six days. Utility notice blinking on my comm.

Jesse’s care getting harder to arrange. Prices going up on everything except wages, because apparently the one stable law in the universe is that corporations will watch you drown and invoice you for the water.

Behind me Jesse starts singing to his spoon in a language that is either nonsense or the beginning of a Vakutan war hymn. Hard to say. Bron used to sing under his breath too, low and rough and infuriatingly charming, like even silence was flirting.

I shove the thought away so hard it practically leaves tire marks.

Nope.

Not at six in the morning.

Not before caffeine.

I plate Jesse’s food and set it in front of him. “Eat.”

He stares at the eggs as if I have personally betrayed him.

“Eat,” I repeat.

“Want sweet loops.”

“We do not have sweet loops.”

“Buy.”

“With what?”

He thinks about that. “Money.”

“Brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that?”

He pokes an egg suspiciously. “Mama grumpy.”

“Mama is efficient.”

“Grumpy-ficient.”

I point a fork at him. “You are two. Who taught you sass?”

He gives me a level look that says, very clearly, genetics.

I snort and sit down with my coffee. It is too hot and a little burnt and tastes like salvation.

Outside, dawn spreads over Novaria’s lower urban rings in streaks of mauve, acid gold, and electric blue.

Freight lanes blink in the distance. Somewhere nearby a transit horn wails.

The building across from mine flashes a giant animated ad for cosmetic cybernetics, featuring a woman whose cheekbones could cut industrial glass.

Jesse stuffs fruit in his mouth with both hands.

I glance at the time and my stomach drops. “Okay. Okay, no, we’re late.”

We are always late. Even when we’re early, I am spiritually late.

I jump up, clean him with one hand, pack his bag with the other, and start our daily ritual of attempted dignity.

Shirt. Tiny pants. Soft boots. Comm slate.

Nutrient pouches. Wipes. Spare clothes in case of a toddler or apocalypse.

My work badge. My lunch. Jesse’s fossil-shaped rock, because apparently that is essential today.

When I try to put him in his jacket, he twists like a greased eel.

“No.”

“You have to wear it.”

“No.”

“It’s cold.”

“Fight cold.”

“With what? Your opinions?”

He scowls and crosses his arms.

I kneel in front of him, holding the jacket open. “Jesse. Buddy. Love of my life. Tiny tyrant of the lower districts. Put on the jacket.”

He narrows his eyes. “You say please.”

I stare at him. “You extort me now?”

“Please,” he says solemnly, demonstrating.

I inhale through my nose. “Please put on your jacket.”

He smiles and lifts his arms.

I get the jacket on him and kiss the top of his head before I can stop myself. “You are exhausting.”

“Yep.”

I carry him out the door, bag banging against my hip, coffee in a sealed cup between my teeth, and lock the apartment behind us.

The corridor smells like coolant, old noodles, and someone’s aggressively medicinal cleaning spray.

Mrs. Keth from 8B is already outside her unit trimming a fungus vine she swears is decorative.

She eyes Jesse over her spectacles. “He break anything this morning?”

“The economy,” I say around the cup.

She huffs out a laugh. “Good. It deserves it.”

I hand Jesse over to our temporary stopgap arrangement two levels down—a retired dock quartermaster named Fenn who has nerves of steel, a reinforced play area, and a suspiciously extensive knowledge of toddler grappling techniques.

He opens the door in a sleeveless undershirt with a mug the size of my future.

“Morning,” he says.

“Is it?”

“Nope.”

“Great.” I pass Jesse over. “He’s eaten, he has extra snacks, and if he starts taking apart your ventilation panel, redirect with blocks.”

Fenn grunts. “Kid likes tools.”

“Kid likes chaos.”

Jesse pats my cheek as Fenn takes him. “Bye, Mama.”

That nearly undoes me every single time.

“Bye, baby.” I smooth his hair back. “Be good.”

He gives me a look that suggests this is a philosophical disagreement.

Then I’m hustling for transit.

By the time I reach Brautigaum Plastics, the sky is fully awake and so is the building’s lobby display, which cycles through smiling employees, polymer innovations, and phrases like TOMORROW’S MATERIALS FOR TODAY’S VISIONARIES.

Every time I walk in, I have the same thought: if this company spent half as much on wages as it does on wall-sized propaganda, I could afford a chair that survives contact with my child.