Rob Thurman - Basilisk

Stefan looked at me with a more familiar expression. He didn’t get it, despite what he said. “No, they’re not like you. I get that, believe it or not.” He got up to move to the bathroom, shoving my head lightly as he passed me. “I’m glad you get it too.” He closed the door behind him, and I heard the shower start. I fell back across the bed and stared at the dingy yellow ceiling. No, he didn’t get it and he wasn’t going to. He couldn’t understand Institute-born were never kids, never children. It was the damn age thing; otherwise he would’ve gotten it and known a murderer when he saw one. I wasn’t the only one who’d spent years surrounded by killers. Stefan had done his time too. He was like me in that way.

We were two peas in a poisonous pod—or two peas who’d escaped their pod and were living the life they wanted. Hardworking, good people who wouldn’t hurt a fly if they had their way. I noticed Stefan’s gun was gone. It would be with him in the bathroom and I remembered the man he’d shot only this morning.

Okay, maybe we fell somewhere in between.

Sitting up, I reached for the laptop in my duffel bag and checked to see if Ariel was online. She kept both late and early hours, the same as I did. She’d once said there was so much to do in life that she would sleep when she was dead. I pointed out she was a Buddhist and would never be dead, only reincarnated. She said I was a smart-ass. And I was smart, but I hadn’t meant to be an ass. It was a clear supposition: You can’t sleep when you’re dead if you’re never actually dead. Then she said she was Buddhist only on Tuesdays. She practiced a different religion or philosophy every day. How else could you learn?

It was a good point. I personally thought Buddhism was too challenging. With Christianity, you said you were sorry and poof, you were forgiven. In Buddhism, it didn’t matter how sorry you were. If you did the crime, you did the time—boot camp for your soul. That was why I hadn’t picked a philosophy or religion yet. I wanted to check out all my options and find the one with the most loopholes combined with the least amount of time consumption. I had things to do. Garages weren’t going to blow themselves up, now were they?

Ariel was online. Her icon picture popped up immediately on IM. Instant messaging was a little riskier than e-mail for hacking, but I had so many fake addresses bouncing this and my many e-mail addys nearly a hundred times around the globe that you’d have to be a computer genius times ten to track my location. Institute personnel, except for Jericho, had never had the imagination for that—hacking is an art, not a science. Institute students didn’t have access to the Internet, and no World of Warcraft basement dweller-hacker wannabe knew I existed. Security was as good as I wanted it to be.

Where’ve you been, Dr. Theoretical? We were supposed to watch Tombstone tonight. I promised I wouldn’t mock your preoccupation with horses and testosterone. And then Ghostbusters to see who of us could diagram a working proton pack first. I had popcorn waiting and everything.

We had a standing weekly movie . . . thing. It wasn’t a date, definitely not; only a . . . thing. We watched the movies at the same time and IM’ed back and forth, either mocking it or betting we could do it better. The flux capacitor battle had been going on for months now.

Ariel’s icon was her smiling face Photoshopped onto a mermaid’s body with tasteful shells covering certain areas. Mine, since I’d taken her suggestion to heart, was a floating grin, wide and wicked, and nothing else. The Cheshire cat—now you see me, now you don’t.

And to Raynor—now you never will again.

Family emergency , I typed back. W hich means I’ll have to turn my paper in early. You’re absolutely certain the solution would work giving all the hypothetical guidelines? The surplus chromosome on the extra DNA strand would become inactive?

Yes, yes. Will you stop questioning my brilliance? There was a smiley face icon, but, like me, Ariel couldn’t leave anything alone. The usual yellow smiley face was now pale pink, the eyes had lashes, the bottom had a scaled tail, and the top had a wild pink seaweed mass of hair. It also had Poseidon’s trident, which meant she was annoyed. I’m going with ninety-five percent chance of efficacy. But it’s all work, work, work with you, cutie. And worse, you won’t share. That chromosome is like nothing I’ve seen and you’ve only given me half the information on it and won’t tell me where you discovered it. But, hey, I get it. No one wants to share the Nobel.

I would’ve laughed at that, but more in resignation than anything else. I couldn’t go to a real college and I couldn’t practice in a field, not one that attracted science types. The Institute was gone, but day care remained. I had no idea if they had the older children’s files or not—my file. For now, it was coffeehouses, bookstores, and in Bolivia, busing tables in a restaurant where tourists tipped as if the money were superglued to their hands. No Nobels. But if I did get one, I’d share with you. Promise.

There was a pause; then the icon’s trident disappeared and a bowl of popcorn appeared instead. Okay, you’re still my Bernie, but don’t forget, there are lots of guys around here who’d love a movie night with me right in my own apartment building, but I chose you and your brilliant-ass lives in Texas! Sorry to hear about your family, though. Hope everything turns out all right. She didn’t pry. That was one thing that had made me so comfortable with her at first—that and her ability to keep up with me in any scientific field. Same time next week for cowboys and proton pack races?

Bernie was yet another fake name to go along with Parker and Sebastian, and Texas was a fake home. But movie night was real and I was afraid I was going to miss it for a while . . . if I was lucky—forever if I wasn’t. I didn’t say that, though. All my life was hiding and living a lie. Ariel couldn’t be any different, whether I wanted her to be or not. I’ll bring the butter, I typed.

The icon bounced and turned red in the cheeks. Aren’t you the naughty one?

For the popcorn , I typed hastily.

“You are in way over your head, Misha. And tell her it’s cotton candy–flavored butter because it makes you think of her hair. See where she runs with that one.”

Once again I ended up slamming the laptop shut in midconversation to keep Stefan from bugging the hell out of me. “Would you stop that. And how can I be in over my head?” I added reluctantly. “I’m not a virgin. I’ve had sex seven times”—six and a half, I admitted to myself, but that was need-to-know information only—“and Ariel is a research colleague and e-mail friend. That’s it.” I finished the rest stiffly, slightly embarrassed as it wasn’t strictly true, in my mind anyway, and I also knew Stefan was more than aware of it. He was also aware as much as I was she couldn’t be any more than that, although we had different reasons for that knowledge. I waited for the teasing, but it didn’t come—not exactly.

Stefan had one of the towels wrapped around his hips. It hid the ugly scar on his thigh that had come from a bullet from Jericho’s gun, which had broken Stefan’s thighbone like a brittle winter branch. He limped sometimes now in cold weather or after a long day because of me. He’d taken a bullet trying to save me. That I’d done the same for him didn’t matter as it wasn’t the same. Couldn’t be the same. Chimeras are hard to kill. People are not. He didn’t seem to notice when he limped.

I never failed to.

“Yeaaaah. Seven times. It’s impressive. I’m getting the number tattooed on my arm I’m so proud.” He sat back down on the bed. “But you’re a virgin.” He held up a hand when I started to protest. “An emotional virgin. You haven’t been kicked in the teeth by someone you love yet and Pinky there looks like a girl who could rip out your heart, play tennis with it, stick it back in your chest, and continue to lead you around by your di—um . . . nose. But the first time is the worst. Once you get past that, it gets better.”