Chimera

  “Who’s this?” asked Nathan.

  “This is Juniper. Juniper, I want you to meet Nathan. He’s my boyfriend. We’re going to get married someday.” Assuming marriages were ever performed again. Maybe Dr. Cale could do it. We could exchange dishes of ringworm, and promise to love, honor, and run like hell before we got captured by the government.

  “Hello, Juniper,” said Nathan.

  “Sal,” she said suspiciously.

  Nathan blinked. “Sal?”

  “She’s a chimera,” I said, answering the question he hadn’t asked. “I found her at Jack London Square, in the middle of a mob of dead sleepwalkers. I think… I think that when she ingested a second implant, it somehow managed to destroy the original and take over the body. It had a better interface. She’s a person now.” Because the cousins weren’t really people, were they? They were my relatives, and they mattered, but they weren’t people. I wished I could do something to save them, but they didn’t think. They didn’t understand. All they did was act, and action wasn’t enough.

  “Wow.” Nathan’s eyes narrowed as he studied Juniper, now assessing her as a scientist and not as a surprised boyfriend. “Hello, Juniper. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “She hasn’t had time to pick up much English,” I said. “I only found her yesterday. I need to talk to your mom about how she taught Tansy and Adam to talk and write and stuff. I don’t think I can do it by myself.”

  “Fortunately, you won’t have to,” said Dr. Cale. I turned to see her rolling up behind me. She reached out her hands. “Let me see her.”

  I didn’t want to. Dr. Cale was my ally, and I trusted her more than I probably should have, but she was also the woman who’d cut me open once to serve her own scientific ends. It was impossible to swallow the fear that she’d do the same thing to Juniper. At the same time, she was the one who’d successfully tutored and raised three chimera, and she had never hurt them. I couldn’t stay here if I wasn’t capable of letting myself relax when she was near Juniper.

  “She may not want to stay with you,” I cautioned, and unhooked Juniper’s arms from around my shoulders. The little girl gave me a reproachful look. “It’s okay. Dr. Cale is our friend. She just wants to hold you for a second, and see how healthy and happy you are.” Please let that be true, I thought, and handed Juniper to Dr. Cale.

  “Sal?” said Juniper, looking back toward me as Dr. Cale settled her upon her lap. It was clear that Dr. Cale had substantially more experience with children than I did: She got Juniper settled in a matter of seconds, despite receiving no actual help from Juniper herself.

  “Aren’t you a strong girl?” asked Dr. Cale, looking at the side of Juniper’s face. Juniper turned toward the sound of Dr. Cale’s voice, and was rewarded with a bright, close-mouthed smile. “Hello, sweetheart. I’m Dr. Cale. I’m sort of your grandmother, I suppose. It’s very nice to meet you.”

  “Where’s Carrie?” I asked.

  “You mean the woman who drove you here?” asked Dr. Cale. I nodded confirmation, and she scowled. “She nearly shot Fang in the shoulder. If his reflexes had been a bit worse, we’d be performing emergency surgery right now. What in the world possessed you to choose her as your escape route?”

  “Her husband checked out clean before he was put in the Pleasanton quarantine zone. Then he drank the water.” I jerked a thumb toward the sign behind me. “You know about the water. He got sick. He died. Carrie was the best option I had for getting out of there before the same thing happened to me. I didn’t realize how unstable she was until it was too late to find somebody else who might be willing to help me out.”

  “Fishy and Daisy are bringing her in. We’re going to put her in one of the isolation rooms for now, while we figure out how we’re going to deal with her being here. You know we can’t let her leave.”

  I’d always known that on some level. Hearing it from Dr. Cale just confirmed what I had already been pretty sure of. “I know. But being here is better than being there. Trust me.”

  “Wait—you mean they actually put you in the general quarantine?” Nathan sounded horrified. “But the Colonel—”

  “His wife didn’t want me in the military housing. He may be willing to lie to himself about who I am, but she’s not. She knows I’m not her daughter, and she’s not going to forgive me for taking Sally’s place. Ever.” I paused. “Dr. Cale, where’s Tansy? And…” Saying the name felt wrong. I forced myself to continue anyway. “Where’s Anna?”

  “Anna’s host body experienced extreme tissue rejection when confronted with the implant,” said Dr. Cale. She handed Juniper a pen. The little girl looked at it quizzically before beginning to wave it around, looking fascinated by the existence of material space. “She was already going into organ failure when Dr. Banks brought her to us. Things went quickly after we lost you.”

  “Oh.” Anna hadn’t been with us for long, but she had been a chimera, like me, or Juniper. I’d hoped that Dr. Cale would have been able to save her. “And Tansy?”

  “You were right: They didn’t remove her primary segment from the host’s brain,” said Nathan. “She’s stable.”

  “What he isn’t saying is that Dr. Banks is a butcher,” said Dr. Cale, expression darkening. “He sliced my little girl open like a side of meat. She’s on life support, and yes she’s stable, but if we have to move her again, we’re going to lose her. The damage to her host body’s brain was so extreme that even patching her back together isn’t going to save her—not the Tansy we knew. We can transplant her core segment into another host if we happen to acquire one. She’ll lose most of who she is, but she’ll survive. That’s the best we can hope for at this stage.”

  Finding another host would mean finding a human being who was willing to donate their entire body to a tapeworm who needed it. It was an oddly abhorrent thought, even knowing that was the way that I’d been made. However involuntary Sally’s donation had been. “Aren’t there lots of people around? Maybe one of them has been injured enough to qualify.”

  “I don’t have any brain-dead bodies in storage, if that’s what you mean, and I’m not Steven. I won’t place one of my babies in the mind of someone who’s still at home.” Dr. Cale stroked Juniper’s hair with one hand. “It’s also not that simple. Finding Tansy a new host will mean finding someone who’s at least a basic tissue match to her original host body. If we don’t do that, it’ll be Anna all over again. All our hard work will be lost. Tansy may be lost, too.”

  “Isn’t there any other way?” I missed Tansy. I missed her more than I would have thought possible when I first met her. She was my sister. She’d been lost because of me. I wanted her back.

  “I could rebuild the human portion of her genetic code from the ground up. That’s what Sherman did when he put the eggs in the water supply: He was aiming for the best broad-spectrum compatibility with the people they might infect, rather than shooting for a specific person’s DNA.” Dr. Cale gave me an unreadable look. “If I did that, though, I would be wiping her epigenetic data. The parts of her that are Tansy wouldn’t carry over—she’d just be another chimera, assuming the procedure was successful.”

  “So we’d get someone new, and we wouldn’t get Tansy back,” I said slowly. “I don’t want that.”

  “None of us do,” said Dr. Cale. “That’s why she’s still on life support. We’re trying to find another way. Barring a miracle, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  I worried my lip between my teeth, trying to take some comfort from the drums that were beating in my ears. If there was comfort there to be found, it was well outside my reach. “Oh,” I said finally. “Is that why you’re back here?”

  Dr. Cale nodded. “The basic structure of the lab was still intact. It was a place we could run to quickly, without putting ourselves too squarely in one of the existing danger zones. We couldn’t go very far. This was the best option we had.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  Juniper, apparently tired
of Dr. Cale’s attentions, turned and held her arms out toward me. “Sal,” she said.

  “Exactly,” said Dr. Cale.

  Unlike the candy factory, which had been large enough to contain the lab, provide living quarters for everyone who worked with Dr. Cale, and even allow us to grow our own food, the bowling alley was limited. It was still an enormous space, even subdivided as it had been, but it wasn’t enough for everything it would have needed to be if it was going to be our only headquarters.

  Shortly after Dr. Cale and her people had returned to the bowling alley, with chaos reigning in the streets of Clayton and Concord, she had set her people to securing the area. I didn’t need to ask what “securing” had meant, or how many bullets they had gone through: The subtext of death and regret was written clearly in the word itself. Clearly, but not cleanly. None of our hands were ever going to be clean again.

  “There are almost no sleepwalkers left in Clayton,” said Nathan, leading me across the bowling alley parking lot, toward the apartment buildings on the other side. It was dark, but it looked like pieces were missing from the fence between the two places, making it possible to walk straight through. “The ones that weren’t killed have been contained in the old Kmart. We’re keeping them fed and giving them plenty of sterilized water. Mom wants to see whether they’ll eventually start recovering.”

  “I think it’s possible.” Juniper was getting heavier and heavier as I carried her. After I’d taken her back from Dr. Cale, she had locked her arms around my neck and refused to let me put her down again. It was almost comforting. No matter what terrible surprises were waiting up ahead, there was someone in this world who needed me more than anything else. She trusted me to take care of her. I was going to do exactly that.

  “So does she. She says the neural connections between a sleepwalker’s implant and host are damaged, but that they can be repaired or worked around in some cases. Maybe even reach the level of a chimera’s connections.” Nathan stole glances at me as we walked, like he was reassuring himself that I was actually there. I was doing the same thing in response. I loved Juniper with all my heart—it was almost frightening, how quickly and completely I had come to love that little girl—but part of me wished she had taken to Dr. Cale more, so that my arms would be free. So that I could put them around Nathan.

  This is what every parent with a new baby feels like, I thought, and felt laughter bubble in my chest, even as wonder swelled in my heart. I was a parent now. I was a parent like every other parent, ever, regardless of species. Species didn’t matter. Only love, and survival, had a place in the game.

  “Carrie…”

  “Your friend’s been sedated, and Mom’s got her under observation. When she wakes up, Fang will come and get us. I know you’re going to want to be there.”

  Was I really? Carrie wasn’t a “friend,” not the way my coworkers at the shelter had been friends, before everything changed. Carrie was an acquaintance that I’d been able to use for a while but who didn’t really know anything about me. She already thought I was insane for bringing her to Dr. Cale. How was she going to respond when she found out that I was a monster, like the one that had killed her husband?

  But she was here because of me. She was trapped because of me. I owed it to her to be there when she woke up, even if all I could say was that I was sorry things hadn’t been different: that I was sorry she had never really had a chance.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  Nathan’s question was so abrupt that I actually stopped walking. He continued for a few feet more, his feet crunching on the gravel, before he realized I was no longer in motion. He stopped, turning back to face me, and what little of his expression I could read through the dark was bleak, all hard lines and self-recrimination.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “I should have found another way. I could have found another way, if I’d stopped and thought about what I was doing. I’m so sorry, Sal. I let them take you because I was scared, and because I thought we’d be able to turn right around and get you back. But they loaded you into that truck, and…” His voice trailed off hopelessly. “You were gone. Before we even had a chance to come up with a plan for breaking you out of there, you were gone.”

  “Nathan.” I started walking again, closing the distance between us, and raised my free hand to touch his cheek. “I was never mad at you. I’m not mad at you now.” I had said it before. I would say it again, and again, until he started to believe me. “You left because I asked you to. If you hadn’t been willing to leave me when it was the only way to save yourself—when I’d traded myself for the chance that you’d get out—then I would have been mad. We’re a team. That means we have to trust each other.”

  Nathan chuckled thickly, and I realized he was crying. “It’d be nice if trusting each other took you away from me less often. Can we try that, please?”

  “I think we sort of have to.” I nodded toward Juniper, content with her head on my shoulder and her arms around my neck. “Who’s going to take care of her if I get captured again?”

  “I like the kid already.” He offered his hand. This time, I laced my fingers with his, letting him hold me. Let Juniper get heavy and dig into my hip. It was too important that I stay connected to Nathan for me to worry about something so inconsequential.

  We walked the rest of the way to the fence hand in hand. Nathan ducked his head as he stepped through, and I did the same, letting him guide me.

  The gap led to a dry, dead lawn. The apartments here were built on two levels, with open-air parking underneath. To my surprise, as we got closer, dim lights came on in the carports, concealed by the structures above them. Concrete stairs with rusty iron handrails led to the second-floor balcony. Nathan started for the nearest set.

  “This whole block is on generator power, and we have motion sensors on the carports—all the carports, not just the inhabited buildings. That way if anyone comes here looking for signs that people are still around, they’ll think they’ve found a wiring error. They exist in this area. Too many architects building too many towns too quickly during the big tech expansions of the naughties and the teens. There are all sorts of redundant systems and channels no one understands.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Mind the steps. A lot of people have skinned their knees on these things.” Nathan shook his head. “I should probably have chosen something on the ground floor, all things considered, but the second-story apartments are more secure. I didn’t want us to have to move again until this was over.”

  All things considered… I swallowed, took a deep breath, and asked the question that had been gnawing at me since we’d started walking across the parking lot. “Nathan, where are the dogs?”

  I didn’t need to see his face to hear the smile in his voice. “Waiting for you.”

  He stopped at the first apartment, producing a set of keys from his pocket and unlocking the deadbolt. Silence reigned. He knocked twice on the door, and then pushed it open.

  Two things happened in quick succession: The lights came on inside the apartment, revealing a small living room with threadbare brown carpet and an old, stained, comfortable-looking white couch. And we were swarmed by dogs. Beverly and Minnie might not be a whole pack by themselves, but they were more than capable of swarming when excited. Their tails wagged wildly as they tried to shove themselves as close to me as possible. Minnie’s stocky bulldog body kept her low to the ground. Beverly, a sleek black Lab, reared up onto her hind legs, planting her forepaws on my upper arms as she shoved her muzzle first at me and then at Juniper.

  To her credit, Juniper—who had probably never seen a dog before—merely blinked at Beverly and made a small whimpering noise. It seemed more inquisitive than distressed.

  “Hi, sweetie! Hi, my babies!” I said, and ducked my head to let Beverly wash my face with her tongue. Beverly made a whining noise that was not dissimilar to the one Juniper had made. She licked me one more time, and then Nathan was there, gripping h
er collar and pulling her back.

  “Down,” he said. “Both of you, down. Guard. Watch.”

  To my surprise, the dogs quieted immediately, sitting down and turning their eyes on the open door. There was a wary tension in their bodies that hadn’t been there a moment before. I turned to stare at Nathan.

  “I had to teach them some things while you were away,” he said. “Fang has experience with dog training, and there’s a Petco near here—we raided the place for all their books on obedience and quick behavioral adjustment. They’d attract too much attention if they barked all the time, and they were incredibly upset when you didn’t come home. So was I.”

  He turned to close the door, locking the deadbolt. He gestured toward the curtains as he turned back to me. “Blackout curtains, triple-thick. We’ve scanned this whole neighborhood, and we’re creating zero light pollution when the doors are closed. It can get stuffy sometimes, but we won’t give ourselves away.”

  Juniper was still watching the dogs, her arms locked around my neck. If the dogs were a danger, she clearly believed I would prevent them from harming her. She was learning who her friends were. That made me feel better about the situation. Chimera were fast learners, all of us, and if Juniper was no different, she might stand a chance at survival.

  “Let me show you the rest of the apartment,” Nathan said, reaching for my free hand. I let him take it, and he led me onward, to the kitchen.

  The apartment was small. Living room, kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms at the back, one larger than the other, dominated by a king-sized bed and dresser set. The other room must have belonged to the children of the people who bought that bed: The walls were covered in crayon marks and stickers, and the two beds, one against each wall, were sized for smaller people. The air was musty, but it was nothing compared to the air in the Old Navy, or the diner, or under the dock. In a world that was crumbling into dust and decay, this apartment might as well have been a showroom.