Maria’s lip quivered. She tried to speak but could only look miserably at Mac.
Charlie was confused. Was there something else going on?
Mac pressed his lips together. “It’s not just the fur,” he told Charlie. “Show her, Maria.”
Maria began to cry. Slowly she turned around and pulled a ropelike coil of something out of the back of her jeans.
It was a tail.
CHAPTER 7
Skills and Complications
“Oh my,” said Charlie, staring at Maria’s tail.
“Right?” said Mac.
Maria turned to face them, leaving the tail swishing in the air behind her. “This is a nightmare!” she howled. The sound pierced the air louder than any of them expected.
Mac patted her shoulder sympathetically but warned her to keep her voice down. He pointed to Charlie’s open window. “We don’t want anyone to hear,” he said.
“I know,” sobbed Maria, softer now. She stepped out of the light to be safe.
Charlie reached out and hugged her, trying not to recoil when she felt the scratchy fur against her neck. Hastily she pulled away and looked at Maria’s tail. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
Maria sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I look hideous.”
“No you don’t!” said Charlie. “Don’t say that.” She looked at Maria all over. “So, you’ve got some fur and a tail. Is there anything . . . else?”
“That’s all I know so far.”
“She doesn’t feel like testing out her monkey abilities quite yet,” Mac warned Charlie, as if he’d had the conversation with Maria earlier. “We started looking through these papers in Maria’s bedroom, but she got nervous that her mom would come in and see her like this, so we came here.” He opened the Talos Global envelope and pulled out a large stack of loose pages along with the Project Chimera folder. He showed the top document to Charlie. “We found this page, but we didn’t get very far with it—you’ll see why.”
Charlie squinted at the top paper in the light streaming from her bedroom window. The heading said, “Proposal: Mark Two.” Charlie scanned the page and saw a lot of big scientific words she didn’t recognize. “Is Maria’s the Mark Two?”
“We think so,” said Mac. “Her device has two lines around the TG logo. Yours has a pentagon and it’s the Mark Five, so it makes sense. Which means mine’s the Three and Kelly has the Four.”
“What does this say about Maria’s bracelet?”
“We didn’t get that far,” said Mac. “Basically all we know is that Maria is part monkey, so we figure she can do what they can do. Jump, swing from trees, parkour type moves.”
“We need to find the section about how to change back,” Maria pointed out.
“I know. We have a lot to read here.” Mac sat down on the patio in the lighted spot and spread out the Project Chimera papers in front of him. He squinted and held one up to read. Maria sat next to him in the shadows, glancing furtively up at Charlie’s window.
Charlie noticed and realized Maria didn’t want to sit in the light. “I’ll get a flashlight for you,” she said. She climbed back up the wall to her bedroom window, went inside, and grabbed the emergency one from the upstairs hallway. She could hear the soft drone of her mom’s voice downstairs, so she knew the coast was still clear. She ran back to her room, closed the door, and went out the window and down the stucco siding again.
“Check this out,” said Mac when Charlie sat down. “There’s your dad’s name.” He handed her a paper.
Charlie looked at it. It was the one she’d seen in the warehouse. She glanced over the other names, spotting Dr. Quinn Sharma’s, then read the page, which was like an introduction letter to the project. “Basically there were five biologists from Talos Global assigned to Project Chimera, including my father. This is talking about how each of them would experiment with a ‘device of their own making.’ So they each got to choose the animal powers.”
“Cool,” said Mac. “I wonder what mine is.” He glanced at Maria, then added, “But figuring out Maria’s is more important.” He turned back to his papers.
Maria flashed him a weak smile. “Thanks.” She looked at Charlie. “Did Dr. Sharma say why she sent the Mark Five to you?”
Charlie explained how the device had come to be in her garage and the confusion with the names.
“That is so weird,” Maria said, sounding a bit brighter now. “Mr. Dr. Wilde doing crazy inventions like this—did you freak when you found out?”
“Totally.” Charlie looked at the letter again. “It also says here that the government wanted my dad and these other scientists to make devices that would enhance the United States military. To make our soldiers unbeatable.”
“Wow,” said Maria. “So, are the soldiers who fought us part of the military? That doesn’t seem right.”
“No, they’re not, since Dr. Sharma said the government shut down the project before they had a chance to experiment on humans. So they must be something that this Dr. Gray guy created.”
“Who are the other scientists?” asked Mac. “Do you know them, too?”
“Nope. Besides my dad, we just know Dr. Sharma so far. And she told us about Dr. Gray and Dr. Goldstein. The fifth one’s name is . . .” She hesitated, then found it on the paper. “Dr. Nubia Jakande.”
“Hmm.” Maria turned back to her research. She set a page down and picked up another one, then set that one down too.
Mac studied the one in his hand. “Here’s some more about what Talos Global does. Biogenetics.” He skimmed the page, then frowned. “It’s all just superscientific terms that I don’t understand, about DNA and junk like that.”
“There’s got to be something more about my device,” said Maria, growing anxious again. “Isn’t there an instruction manual? Or anything written about the Mark Two after it was already made?”
“I haven’t found anything like that yet,” said Mac. “Maybe since they shut down the project before the devices were finished, they never got around to writing manuals. That seems like something you’d do after you have the device just the way you want it, right?”
Charlie’s heart sank. She’d been hoping for an instruction manual for her device, too. “Yeah, that makes the most sense. But maybe at least we can find out what kind of monkey DNA they used in Maria’s. And also figure out what animal they used for yours, Mac.” She scoured the pages.
After a while Maria set down the flashlight. “None of this is helpful. I’m stressed out.” She looked frustrated and tired of trying to read through the scientific gobbledygook. They were getting nowhere. She stood up and hugged herself in the chilly night air, then bounced up and down a little. A few minutes later she began testing out her jumping in the shadows.
Charlie and Mac saw her and exchanged a look. “See if you can get her to try out her ability,” Mac whispered. “At least that’ll give us some information. We’re not finding anything good in here to help us.”
Charlie turned to Maria. “You look pretty light on your feet,” she said, trying to be casual. “How does it feel? Any different?”
“A little. I feel springier, I guess.” Maria stopped jumping and looked self-conscious.
“I’ll bet you can do stuff like that soldier named Miko. Remember her? She’s the one who swung around the street sign.”
“Yeah,” said Maria. She crossed her arms over her chest and stopped jumping.
“Why not give it a try?” suggested Charlie. “Nobody can see us back here. Maybe if we can watch you in action, we’ll be able to figure out more about your device.”
Maria shrugged and looked doubtful. “I don’t know. It feels . . . embarrassing.”
“Come on, Maria,” Mac said, standing up. “I’ll put my armor on too. And Charlie can stand in the dark and chirp like a weirdo. We’ll all look ridiculous together.”
“Yeah,” said Charlie. “Please?”
Maria sighed. “Fine. I may as well.”
Mac grabbed the papers and
Charlie picked up the flashlight, and they followed Maria over to one of several large Ficus trees that lined the cinder-block wall around Charlie’s backyard. Charlie automatically started chirping in the darkness, and the trees shimmered and turned into silvery shadows. After a moment she grew annoyed by the sound. She lifted her sweatshirt up over her mouth and the noise stopped. Things went dark again.
“Well?” Maria said to Mac. “Aren’t you going to put your armor on?”
“If you insist,” said Mac with a grin, like he’d been dying to mess around with his device again but was valiantly putting Maria’s problem first. He clicked the buttons like he’d done in the warehouse.
Maria smiled. “It doesn’t feel so bad when you two are doing weird things too.”
While Mac’s silvery suit flowed out of his device like mercury and encased him, Maria reached up for the lowest branch. It was just a little too high. She jumped halfheartedly, which sent her springing nimbly into the air. She grabbed on to the branch and swung on it, hanging above the ground and moving slowly back and forth like a gymnast preparing to start a routine.
“This feels weird,” Maria said.
“Try something else,” encouraged Charlie through her sweatshirt. “Pull yourself up, maybe.”
Maria frowned, then went along with what Charlie suggested. She did a pull-up, then swung her foot around, hooking the back of her knee over the branch. She made it look effortless.
“Wow, that’s great!” said Charlie. “Keep climbing!”
Maria continued cautiously, reaching for the next branch. “There’re a lot of leaves here,” she muttered. “A whole lotta leaves.”
Charlie turned toward Mac, who had set the envelope on the ground and was punching buttons on his device. A second later, a laser light zipped around his neck so quickly Charlie almost thought she’d imagined it.
“Hey!” said Mac. He brought his hands up to the helmet and lifted it off. “It’s removable. How about that!”
“Cool!” said Charlie. She glanced at Maria, feeling sorry for her friend, then bent and picked up the envelope to try to decipher the papers again. She trained the flashlight on the Proposal page they’d looked at before. “Hey, Mac, do you see any familiar words at all on this page that might give us a clue to what kind of monkey she is?”
“I noticed some Latin. I was planning to look up the words at home.” He put his helmet back on and peered over Charlie’s shoulder, then pointed to the terms and sounded them out the best that he could. “Genus Alouatta monotypic. Subfamily Alouattinae. Those words sound like they might be animal details.”
“Hmm. Well, you of all people would know.” Mac was a pretty big animal fan and knew all sorts of random facts about them. Charlie took the sheet from him and scanned it. “What’s this?” She pointed to a line at the bottom of the page and read it aloud. “I predict any enhancements will subside naturally once subject’s chemical levels return to normal.”
“So Maria’s fur will go away on its own?” asked Mac. “But when?”
“When whatever with her chemical levels,” muttered Charlie. It wasn’t terribly helpful, since they had no idea how to know what Maria’s chemical levels were or what normal was. Charlie handed the paper to Mac, who studied it, then shoved it back into the envelope and started messing around with his device buttons again.
Charlie turned to watch Maria, who was still swinging gingerly by one hand, then the other, reaching out to get an idea of how far it was to a branch in the next tree. She pumped her legs to gain momentum, then squealed in fright and let go, flying through the air in order to reach the next branch. For a second Charlie thought Maria would come crashing to the ground. But she caught the branch and hung on.
“That was great!” said Mac, forgetting his device for the moment. “Can you try to use your tail for something?”
“I’m not sure how to control it,” Maria began. And then, “Whoops! There we go.” Her tail began batting from side to side. Maria’s face wore a look of sheer concentration as she tried to direct the tail to move the way she wanted it to. Eventually she flipped it up into the air and its tip wound around a higher branch. Immediately the tail released and flopped down. Maria’s face fell. She concentrated and flung it up again, and it wound around the branch. This time it stayed put. Maria let go of one hand, hung on with the other, and tugged on her tail to see if it would stay stuck. It did.
“Prehensile tail!” said Mac, as if that were a good thing.
“What does that mean?” Charlie asked.
“It means she can use her tail like an extra hand,” Mac said, growing more excited and impressed as Maria cautiously let go of her other hand and hung from the branch by her tail. “She should be able to grab on to things with it and use it to swing and make her stride longer.” He clunked over to her. “You’re doing great, Maria. That’s so awesome.”
“This is sort of fun,” Maria admitted, growing bolder. She began swinging back and forth from her tail, holding her arms out at her sides. “Look, I’m flying.”
Suddenly her tail grip slipped and she began to fall. As Charlie automatically sprang forward to catch her, Maria reached out a hand instinctively and grabbed a branch, catching herself and swinging around it. Then, with a look of terror on her face, she let go, flew through the air, and reached for another branch. After a few more moves like that, her look of terror turned to determination. She swung around each limb, found her rhythm, and soon she was moving from tree to tree around Charlie’s backyard. After a moment she came back around to where Mac and Charlie were standing and landed only a little shakily on her feet in front of them, out of breath but grinning.
“That was seriously cool,” Charlie said.
“Yeah?” asked Maria.
Charlie nodded.
“Can you scale the wall?” asked Mac.
Maria looked at the wall, which was about eight feet tall. “I think so,” she said. She ran and jumped and caught the top of it with one hand, then pulled herself up. “Easy,” she said. “Give me something harder.”
“Hmm. Okay. Come back down and try a horizontal wall run,” suggested Charlie. “Run along the ground, then keep running sideways up the wall. Then see if you can push off and leap for a tree limb.”
Maria raised an eyebrow and tugged at her beard. “All right,” she said.
While Maria made a few unsuccessful attempts, Mac muttered something excitedly under his breath. Charlie turned. “Hey,” she said, looking more closely at him. The moon glinted on his armor, but instead of it being completely smooth like it had been earlier at the warehouse, she could now make out thin lines in a large leaflike pattern covering the suit. “How did you do that?”
“I’m not sure,” he said excitedly. “It looks like I have some sort of scales. But they’re stuck flat and they don’t do anything cool as far as I can tell.” He clicked his device and Charlie watched. The images on the screens on Mac’s bracelet were in black and white, not color like on Charlie’s, and it looked like they were missing some words of explanation.
“What’s that supposed to be?” Charlie asked, pointing to the screen, where a dotted outline of an animal was the only thing represented.
“I think the media part of my device wasn’t quite finished when the government shut down the project,” said Mac. “It’s all pretty low tech compared to yours. This drawing looks like an anteater.”
“Is that your device’s animal?” Charlie wrinkled her nose. “An anteater?”
“I hope not,” muttered Mac, but he sounded worried that it might be. “I don’t think eating ants is an especially useful ability. Besides, anteaters don’t have shells. Maybe it’s an armadillo.”
“Whatever it is, at least you have protection.” She pounded on his shoulder. “Can you feel this?”
“I can feel the pressure, but it doesn’t hurt at all.” Mac continued clicking through the screens. There didn’t seem to be very many options for Mac’s suit. When he found himself coming across t
he same tabs again, his shoulders slumped. “That’s it?”
“Do you think you just overdid it with clicking the buttons and you’re stuck in some weird part of it?”
“Maybe.” Mac looked up. “Especially if the media part wasn’t finished—could be like a website glitch, where they forgot to put in the code for a home button on one of the pages. Know what I mean?”
Charlie nodded.
“I should probably shut it down and see if it will reset.” Mac clicked a couple more times and suddenly the suit liquefied and started swiftly pouring back into his device.
“I’ll bet there are more cool things you can do,” said Charlie. “Whoever made this one wouldn’t have put all the fun in just turning the thing on and off. It’s got to have more features, like the helmet thing, that you just haven’t found yet.”
“You’re probably right,” said Mac, somewhat cheered by the prospect. Soon he looked completely normal again.
Maria came jogging back to her friends, sweating and breathing hard. “I saw you looking through the papers again. Did you find anything else about my device?”
“Only that the ‘enhancements’ will ‘subside naturally.’” said Charlie. “That’s good news but not very specific.”
“So there’s no button to turn it off?”
“It doesn’t look like it,” said Charlie. “But there are a lot of papers that we haven’t read yet—we’ll keep searching.”
“Maybe now that you’ve actually used the abilities, your chemical levels will change,” suggested Mac, though the look on his face made it obvious that he was just grasping at straws to make Maria feel better. “The device could have some sort of sensor that can detect when you’re done needing it.”
Maria remained dubious. “I hope so,” she said. “This fur has got to go away soon or I’m in big trouble.”
Charlie handed the envelope to Mac and glanced at the house. “Maybe you two can keep searching for more information tonight. I . . . I’ve got to go inside soon. My mom will freak out if she can’t find me after everything that happened today.”