Brian O'Grady - Hybrid

“Good morning,” he stammered, reacting more to her figure and the mess she was making than to her sudden appearance. Not knowing what to do next, he simply stared, a wet glass in one hand and a towel in the other.

She took a step into the kitchen and Phil stepped back. The air between them hummed like a power line. “We have some logistics to work out,” she said. “If you stay there, I can swing around you and sit over there.”

Amanda motioned to his dinette set, but there was at least ten feet of clean floor between her muddy boots and the chair. “Okay,” he said, and closed his eyes as she walked around him. When he opened them, there were six new boot prints on his kitchen floor.

“You did well in Los Angeles,” she said while slowly lowering herself into one of his polished kitchen chairs. She stretched out and Phil split his gaze between her long legs and the puddle that was forming under her boots. “Have you heard about Rodney Patton?”

“He’s pretty bad; his size makes it more difficult,” he said slightly distracted.

“When do you get out of here?” Amanda said, looking around his pathologically clean house.

“I’m not infectious anymore, so I suppose when they let me,” Phil said automatically, but he was struck by the realization that he could come and go just as easily as Amanda did.

“I’m trying not to read you, but some thoughts I just can’t avoid.” She still was smiling, but her face had become a little more serious. “We’re going to need a whole new set of rules, aren’t we?”

“There are others besides us,” he stated the obvious.

“I know. A generation of mutants, sort of like the movie X-Men .”

Phil hadn’t seen a movie in decades. “Yes,” he said. She made him feel awkward; it was one of his own personal emotions, and in a strange way, it comforted him. Unconsciously, he had started to borrow emotions from the minds around him, but Amanda’s presence triggered the old familiar clumsy feeling.

“I would like to try something,” she said, and Phil’s heart was suddenly in his throat, afraid of what she would say next. She had sealed off her thoughts completely, but he wasn’t so sure that he was as successful in hiding his own embarrassing thoughts. “It involves some risk.”

“All right,” he answered.

“I would like you to walk over here and take my hand. I’ve worked something out and I want to test it.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, my skin is already tingling.”

“Take a step, a single step, and see what happens,” she encouraged, and an unfamiliar feeling stirred inside him. He suddenly wanted to impress her; he was a thirty-seven-yearold man, and she made him feel like the twelve-year-old boy he never was, puffing out his chest as the pretty girl walked by.

He took a step and the tingling in his exposed skin didn’t change. The last time she had been this close, it wasn’t a tingling he felt: it had been a stinging, burning sensation. He took another, and still nothing changed. “All right, what’s different?”

He was only about four feet from her, and although the air was still charged, it wasn’t dangerous.

“Keep coming,” she prodded sweetly. He took another step and they were within easy reach of each other. Phil looked down and realized that he still was carrying the glass and kitchen towel; he quickly transferred the glass into his left hand. “Give me your hand.”

If anything the tingling had abated some, and the only uncomfortable sensation Phil was experiencing was desire. He was starting to breathe faster, but it wasn’t out of fear. “Are you sure about this?”

“No,” she said and reached for his free hand. There was a slight snap when they made contact, but neither let go.

Phil had braced himself for the searing pain he had felt with Reisch, but with Amanda, all he felt was warmth. It wasn’t uncomfortable; in fact, it was rather pleasurable, very pleasurable. He began to experience her physically; the smell of her hair, the curve of her hips, the weight of her breasts. The same primal instinct that had nearly driven him to kill Izhan Ahmed resurfaced. He began to run his hand up her arm; a sudden desire to take her body and possess her soul overwhelmed him. He took a step closer to her and then was flung backwards into his refrigerator. He landed hard and for a moment couldn’t breathe.

Amanda had gotten up and the humming of the air resumed.

“Oh my goodness, I am so sorry Amanda!” Phil said gasping for air.

“It’s all right, Phil. I’m used to a little sexual tension; that was a little more than I was comfortable with though.” She waited while Phil climbed painfully back to his feet, glass and towel still firmly in his hand. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” shame radiated from Phil. “It’s a natural human reaction, but you can’t let it take control. We have a mutual physical attraction, that’s obvious, but that doesn’t mean that we have to act on it.” Amanda returned to her seat and the humming in the air diminished.

“What just happened, with your, our hands?” Phil stuttered.

“That’s what I was trying to test.” She looked down at her hand and began opening and closing her fingers. ”I think if we anticipate contact, or proximity, and accept it, we pull back into ourselves. Somewhat like a cat and its claws. It’s a conscious act, though, because our natural state is to have our claws out.” She smiled and Phil could detect the faintest blush in her cheeks. “I sound like an expert, but all of this is just speculation.”

“If you aren’t an expert, then who is?” He meant it as a compliment, but it fell flat as the name Klaus Reisch hung in the air. “What happened to him?”

“I don’t know,” she said simply. “I would like your help in finding him; that’s really why I’m here.”

“He has more of the virus, more than all the others combined. He plans to. .” Amanda began to nod her head. “You know this already.”

“After he attacked you, we had an encounter. I saw everything that you saw.”

“I think he left some of himself inside me.” It was a revolting, horrible thought, and it was the first time Phil had admitted it to anyone, including himself.

“Perhaps, or he may have simply awakened something inside you.”

“That makes it much worse,” said Phil, as that uncomfortable thought circled in his mind.

“No, it doesn’t, it makes you human. We’re all very messy inside Phil, even me. We all have dark and secret desires that we would never admit, much less let others see. And for me, that helps put things in perspective.

“What makes Reisch different is that he believes that his infection gives him license to act on those dark desires.”

Phil nodded in agreement. “Before he was infected, Reisch was a strongly disciplined man; he resisted those impulses.”

“The infection strengthens them. All of us at some point are faced with the decision to resist or succumb.”

“Are you a good mutant or a bad mutant?” Phil said, paraphrasing the line from the Wizard of Oz . “So, what are we going to do about the bad mutants?”

“We can’t concern ourselves with them until after Reisch is dead.”

“He’s gone, out of our reach,” Phil said. “Or at least out of my reach.”

“Greg thinks he may have a lead on him. Are you up for a little fresh air?”

* * *

“That is a Hispanic male; five foot five, at most,” Ron Benedict said, pointing to a satellite photo of a farmhouse in eastern New Mexico. Greg and Amanda both nodded. Don Weiland had proven to be exactly correct. The factory-installed navigation system in Corrina Turner’s stolen Audi A8 was dead, but the after-market GPS transponder quietly answered its call.