David Robbins - Houston Run

“What are you doing here?” Lynx questioned.

Melody cleared her throat, then gazed into his eyes. “I came to find out if you’re hungry. Would you like something to eat?”

Lynx’s brows furrowed in consternation. “Eat? Are you for real? Who can eat at a time like this?”

“I don’t understand,” Melody said. “Why are you upset?”

“Don’t you know what they’re going to do to me?” Lynx responded.

“Primator said I was to be neutered.”

“You will be,” Melody confirmed. “Day after tomorrow. That’s the soonest you could be squeezed into the schedule. They can only do so many a day, you know.”

Lynx snorted. “Lucky me!”

Melody seemed confused. “Why are you taking this so hard? It’s a simple operation. You’ll be back on your feet in no time.”

Lynx walked right up to her, glaring. “I’ve heard of dingbats, sister, but you take the cake!”

Melody retreated a step. “Why are you acting this way? You won’t feel a thing, believe me! I don’t know what it’s like where you come from, but in Androxia most of the male mutants are neutered. That’s just the way it is.”

“And the males don’t object? They don’t resist?” Lynx asked.

“No. Why should they?” Melody replied.

Lynx shook his head contemptuously. “And for a minute there, I actually thought you had the brains to go with your looks!”

Melody was upset by his insult. Her green eyes blinking rapidly, her fists clenched at her sides, she edged around him to the right, making for the door. “You are so… strange!” she cried, and moved toward the door.

Lynx turned and gripped her left wrist. “Wait!”

Melody recoiled, tugging on her wrist. “Let go of me, you… you savage!” She swung her right fist and struck him on the right shoulder.

Lynx reluctantly released his hold, his shoulders slumping. “All right!

Get out of here! I just wanted to talk to you, but you’re obviously too self-centered to waste time with a barbarian like me. So get lost!” He turned his back to her.

Silence descended.

“I am not egotistical,” she stated after half a minute.

“Want to bet?” Lynx responded without facing her.

Her voice lowered, softened. “I would like to talk to you.”

Lynx turned. “You would?”

“I have a break in fifteen minutes,” Melody said. “If you want, I’ll come back and we can talk then.”

“You’ve got a deal, princess,” Lynx said.

Melody opened her mouth to speak, then pursed her lips and walked to the doorway. “Are you certain you won’t have something to eat?”

“I’m too excited to eat,” Lynx declared.

“Excited?”

“Yeah. About seein’ you again,” Lynx told her.

Melody stared into his eyes. “Are you always so blunt?”

“You call this blunt?” Lynx rejoined. “You should see me when I’m not being formal.”

Melody smiled and exited, closing the door behind her.

Lynx expected to hear the key rattling in the lock, but nothing happened. He moved to the door and tried the knob.

It was unlocked!

Lynx crossed the cell to the cot and sat down. Had Melody deliberately left the door unlocked? Had she forgotten to lock it? Or were the lousy Superiors playing some sort of trick on him? He discarded the last notion as ridiculous.

Fifteen minutes, she’d said?

Lynx thought of her face, and her lovely eyes, and shook his head in wonder. Never had he imagined the possibility of meeting another genetically engineered mutant like himself. The Doktor had rarely created two of a kind; he had always been too busy experimenting, continually striving to improve on his creations, to bother with such a trifling detail as producing compatible pairs capable of mating. Which had always struck Lynx as odd, because, as he’d reasoned at the time, breeding pairs would have increased the numbers of the Doktor’s Genetic Research Division dramatically, if not geometrically. Although the Doktor had never admitted as much, Lynx had always suspected there were ulterior motives behind the Doktor’s action, or lack of it. The Doktor might not have wanted the mutants to breed on their own because, as he had demonstrated again and again, the Doktor had been fanatical in his compulsion to dominate every aspect of their lives. They were his creations, his creatures, his mutants, and he had exercised complete control over them from the test-tube to the grave. Another element in the Doktor’s decision not to produce mating couples may have been the loyalty factor, Lynx speculated. Mutants with a mate and offspring would be no different from married humans; they would be loyal, first and foremost, to their mates and their children. And the Doktor had demanded total loyalty from his mutants.

Lynx sighed.

In all his two dozen years as a mutant, he’d never seen another one exactly like himself in every respect. He’d seen genetically engineered mutants resembling frogs and lizards, alligators and snakes, bears and boars, lions and tigers, and many, many more. But no two were ever precisely identical. The Doktor had never produced a male and female of the same type. Lynx had encountered other cat-men and even cat-women, but none of them had resembled him beyond a few superficial feline features.

Lynx idly gazed at the window.

Some of the Doktor’s mutants had secretly mated. Lynx had known several of them very well, and he’d been privy to their darkest secret. Try as they might, and those mutants had enthusiastically tried, they could not perpetuate their lineage. The females simply could not become pregnant. Lynx had heard two rumors pertaining to the problem. Some of the mutants believed the Doktor had intentionally created them sterile, incapable of reproducing. Other mutants had been convinced the sterility stemmed from their genes. Only exact matches, so the reasoning had went, could successfully breed. Disparate pairs were doomed to disappointment.

Lynx had listened attentively to their plight, and sympathized with their dilemma. But he’d never met a female mutant he’d been attracted to.

Until now.

There had been a few, Lynx remembered, he’d cared for a lot. One, in particular, had been a female with the hybrid traits of a human and a bobcat. Despite his affection, he’d never seriously considered mating with her. And she had come the closest of all of them. Frog-females, lizard-ladies, and tigress-tomatoes had done nothing for him.

And now this!

Lynx chuckled. Who would have expected it? After all these years, to discover a potential mate in a city governed by a demented computer and his android flunkies!

What was his next step?

Lynx nervously wrung his hands. How should he go about this? he asked himself. He didn’t want to blow it. An idea occurred to him and he leaned back, musing. The Doktor had given Primator his secret technique for altering human embryos in a test-tube, for creating genetically engineered mutations. But even though Primator and the Superiors had learned the technique, they would have started from scratch as they developed their mutants, just as the Doktor had done. Was it possible then. Lynx speculated, that Primator was replicating the Doktor’s earlier efforts? Was Primator producing mutants similar to those previously created by the Doktor?

It would explain Melody.

There was a tap on the door, and Lynx started, jumping to his feet. He hurried to the door and opened it.

Melody was in the corridor, a tray of food in her hands. “I thought you might like some food anyway. I wouldn’t want you to starve.”

Lynx stepped aside and motioned for her to enter. “Has it been fifteen minutes already?”

Melody walked past him and deposited the tray on the cot. “Ten minutes,” she told him. “I received permission from the floor supervisor to take an extra five minutes on my break.”