Rob Thurman - Chimera

“I said ordinary, not normal. If they were like you, they’d be anything but,” he said straight-faced. “Anyway, I think you were right about Jericho. He must’ve been a mutation, the first chimera to have the healing ability and the increased intelligence. As for stronger and faster . . .” He frowned. “He is strong and fast, but I don’t think much more so than, say, an athlete. Nothing in the supernatural range, at least.”

Thank God for small favors, I thought with relief. I thought he was probably right. Michael himself had seemed strong when he’d pulled me into the car after I’d been shot, but it could’ve been the strength of adrenaline.

“I’m guessing he studied his own genetic makeup and found the mutation. He determined where he was different from other chimeras, and that was his starting point to making more like him. I can see that.” This frown was deeper than the first and ripe with confusion. “What I can’t see is how he made the leap. Altering a few replicating cells, that’s possible. Altering an entire person, I can’t begin to guess how he could do that. There’s gene replacement therapy, but the books didn’t really cover that in much detail, but enough to know the scientific world isn’t quite there yet. To treat a disease, yes. To remake a whole new person . . .” Shaking his head, he finished his thought, saying with self-disgust, “I’m smart, but I’m not that smart. I just don’t see how it could be done. It seems impossible.”

“You’re smart enough. We just need better books,” I contradicted before bringing up a more difficult subject. “What I really want to know is whether Jericho’s process is reversible.” I saw his shoulders immediately tighten at the question as his face smoothed out to the mask I’d seen that first day in the Institute. “Not for you, Misha,” I clarified immediately. “You’re fine the way you are. Hell, perfect in my book. I wouldn’t take that healing trick away even if I could. And as for the other, you wouldn’t hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. I know that as well as I know anything in this whole goddamned world.”

He remained silent, but his shoulders relaxed slightly. Standing, I walked over to him, scattering puffs of red dirt as I went. Sitting beside him on the rock wall, I said quietly, “It’s the other kids. I know some are like you, Peter, and John. But some are like Wendy. If someone can’t undo what Jericho did to them, they won’t ever be free.” Rescuing the children was a premature thought at best, but I wanted to keep it in mind. Even if it were possible, it could be a long time before anything could be arranged. Maybe years. Regardless, giving up on the kids without even thinking about what could be done for them seemed the worst sort of betrayal. And they’d been betrayed enough in their short lives. I didn’t know if I could help them, but I wasn’t going to forget them.

“Just something to think about,” I added, bumping his shoulder with mine. “You ready to go? Grab lunch? You’re too skinny, kid. We need to fatten you up.”

His lips curved. “Bab . . .”

“Don’t even say it,” I warned, cutting him off with a scowl. “I’m nobody’s grandma, not even yours.”

“Uh huh.” It wasn’t as literate as the majority of his responses, but combined with the amusement that softened his features, it got the point across.

We were back in the car and on our way before Michael asked seriously, “You honestly wouldn’t change me if you could? You wouldn’t want me to be normal?”

“You are normal.” I shot him a grin as I turned his previous words back on him. “Just not ordinary.”

“That would make me extraordinary then, right?” Reassured, he slid quickly from uncertainty into the home base of cocky smugness; professor to teenager in less than sixty seconds flat.

“Don’t push your luck,” I said without any real heat. But all the while I was thinking that he wasn’t far off the mark. Not far at all.

Lunch turned out to be more exciting than I’d planned. It wasn’t the fun fest that had ended up with me shot in a parking lot, but neither was it hot dogs and a football game on the big screen. It just goes to show that it’s true what they say. No good deed goes unpunished, “unpunished” being the euphemism for many things. It could be a mild inconvenience or it could be a royal ass kicking. My punishment lay, as it usually did, somewhere near the ass-kicking end of the spectrum.

Picking up the pregnant girl was my first mistake.

Several minutes into the ride, Michael spoke up. He’d been busy entertaining the malevolent Zilla. Out of the cage and creating havoc, it was a must-buy option for every car—air, power locks, carnivorous eel with fur. And then there was the odor. What genetic manipulation had given Michael in healing and supersmarts, it had obviously taken away from his sense of smell in the worst sort of robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul scenario.

“I was thinking,” he contemplated as the ferret perched on his shoulder. “One of the books mentions a Dr. Bellucci who . . .” He stopped and reached over to tap my arm. “Stefan, there’s a girl.”

I’d already seen her. She was standing nearly half a mile past the park entrance. On the gravel shoulder she stood prim and proper as a princess attended by her royal hound. They matched, the two of them. Woven into two thick strawberry blond plaits, her hair was nearly identical in color to the red-gold color of the dog sitting upright beside her. An unusual dog, it looked as if someone had wrestled Lassie to the ground and given her a marine buzz cut.

The girl was wearing jeans, a long lavender sweater, and a thigh-length white jacket trimmed in blatantly fake fur. Some Muppet had apparently given its all in the name of fashion. Together, she and the dog were pretty as a picture and completely out of place in the middle of nowhere. Those were the first things you noticed. That she was about nine months pregnant came as a surprising distant second.

“What’s she doing out here?” I muttered, my foot automatically easing up on the gas as we approached her. One hand was resting on the dog’s smooth head while the other was held shoulder height in a breezy thumbs-out. She was hitching. The princess was actually hitching, dog and all.

“Are we stopping?”

“Not hardly,” I retorted, getting my foot back under control. Feeding the car gas, I steered us into the opposite lane to give the girl a wide berth.

“But”—his head swiveled to keep her in view—“she’s pregnant, and she’s out here alone.”

“And that’s a big fat clue, isn’t it? No pun intended.” Hearing the engine of our car, she turned to face us while waving her thumb with almost-imperious demand. Royalty all right, even if only in her own mind. I swung the wheel even wider. “This is an urban legend in the making. Why doesn’t she have a cell phone? Everyone has a cell phone. Her dog should have a cell phone. Maybe she’s not even pregnant. She could have accomplices hiding in the woods, a gun in her purse, or an armed dwarf under her shirt. Who the hell knows? She could rob us and leave us for dead. Maybe even feed your damn rat to her dog. The possibilities are endless, kid.”

“All from a girl and her dog? And I thought I had trust issues.” He returned the ferret to its cage. “I’ll clean out the back.”

I was about to tell him there was no point, but at that moment in the rearview mirror I caught sight of the girl leaning over, clutching her stomach, and the happy hitching thumb gone. Even the dog looked worried.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

And just like that we were saddled with a hitchhiker. I didn’t kid myself. I would’ve kept driving and called her a cab—hell, no cabs out here; I’d have called 911. I would’ve let the local sheriff give her a ride, but with this . . . and in front of Michael. I’d told him I’d been a criminal, and I’d told him I would change. Passing up a pregnant girl at the side of the road possibly in labor didn’t make me appear particularly changed, but change I would. I’d promised Michael and I’d promised myself.