Kelly Meding: Chimera

Marco activated the nearest screen as soon as we were settled, and McNally’s perfectly coifed face appeared. She seemed extra-stressed and a little pale. She wasn’t handing down good news today.

“Thank you, everyone, for assembling so quickly,” she said. “Marco, I’ve sent a file over to your terminal, which you should be receiving as we speak. It’s the only image I was able to find from security footage at our former ATF offices in Burbank.”

“Security footage of what?” Teresa asked.

“The man who came to us sixteen years ago and gave us the Warden. The man we only ever knew as O’Bannen.”

The world slowed down a moment. The Warden was a man-made device, powered by two telepathic Metas, that had removed our powers fifteen years ago during the final days of the Meta War. Until January, no one outside of a select few knew of the Warden’s existence. McNally and her late partner, Alexander Grayson, had admitted their part in maintaining the Warden over the years. She told us a man named O’Bannen had given it to them, claiming he worked for the Virginia branch of Weatherfield Research and Development. Later, no R&D company would claim the man, and they’d been unable to track him down for further questioning. He’d disappeared entirely.

“I was under the impression no images of the man existed,” Teresa said.

“As was I,” McNally replied. “Until I dug into the right system.” Her way of saying she’d done something she shouldn’t have, which meant she had a good reason for wanting to get a picture of this O’Bannen character.

It connected in my brain an instant before the second screen lit up with side-by-side images. One was the composite drawing of Uncle. The second was an enhanced security photo of O’Bannen. The similarities were too numerous to be coincidental.

“When Marco sent me your composite, I remembered O’Bannen,” McNally said. “I believe the man you call Uncle is the same person.”

The conference room felt silent while we all digested that tidbit. The news was both shocking and perfectly reasonable, like the corner piece of a puzzle we’d forgotten we were missing. Following up on O’Bannen and the people who created the Warden had fallen by the wayside, trampled over by so many other dire issues and crises. Now it was staring us in the face and laughing at us.

“How certain are you?” Gage asked.

“As certain as I can be with a sketch,” she replied.

“It makes sense,” Teresa said, her voice hollow and cold. “You told us O’Bannen claimed to work for Weatherfield’s sister company in Virginia. Maybe he lied about his name, but he didn’t lie about his employer.”

“So the people who stole all our powers,” I said, “are the same people who stole and brainwashed Meta kids, and the same people who cloned our family members?”

“In theory, yes,” McNally said.

“And you are certain there is no other existing information on O’Bannen?” Marco asked.

“Not that I’m aware of, but if I find anything, I’ll pass it along.”

“You’ve been a huge help, Rita, thank you,” Teresa said.

“You know I wish I could do more. Be careful.”

She ended the call. Marco left the two images frozen on-screen.

Sebastian leaned forward, staring up at the screen. “Is it me, or is this man eerily familiar?” he asked.

“I thought so, as well,” Marco replied. “The computer is searching for likenesses.”

Okay, the fact that two people in our little group thought he’d seen Uncle before was scaring me a little bit.

“O’Bannen is a good lead,” Gage said. “Marco, bring up the map of locations the kids gave us earlier.”

A map of the East Coast took over the screen where McNally’s face had been moments ago. Four black dots in four states were clustered within five hundred miles of each other. The only group we couldn’t place belonged to the late Louis and Summer, but I’d bet they were within that same radius.

“Where’s the sister office?” Gage asked.

A red star appeared in Virginia. Vienna, Virginia, to be exact, outside of Washington, D.C. It definitely seemed to be the center of the cluster of dots.

“Stratfield Research and Development,” Marco said. “Their security is tighter than Weatherfield. Even if they grant us access, we will learn nothing of value.”

“You’re right,” Teresa said. She stood up, shoulders back, spine straight. “We can’t visit the locations where the kids were raised because they could be traps, and we can’t visit Stratfield for the same reason.”

“So what do we do?” I asked, perplexed by all of the information we couldn’t do anything with. “Call them up and tell them we know Uncle’s secret identity?”

“No, we keep that to ourselves. Aaron’s an Alpha leader, so he can be told, but no one else outside of this room can know about Uncle. Not until we’ve confirmed it.” She gave both me and Ethan hard stares. “No one.”

Sebastian stood and walked to the other side of the conference table to stand behind Marco’s chair. He said something, and then the drawing of Uncle reappeared. “Marco, run this composite of Uncle through the database of Ranger images,” he said.

Marco looked up sharply, then his fingers flew across the keyboard as he acquiesced. I glanced at Teresa, who seemed as perplexed by the request as I was.

“What are you thinking, Sebastian?” Teresa asked.

“The vaguest memory from when I was a boy,” he replied. “I keep connecting that face to a Ranger uniform.”

Six months ago, several of us would have shot him down with shouts of that being impossible, that no Ranger could be involved in this. Now we knew too much about the less-than-pristine history of our forefathers. No one was dumb enough to dismiss this out of hand. Didn’t make the idea hurt any less, though.

“Dios,” Marco said. “Sebastian is correct.”

The screen displayed an obituary notice with two photographs. One photo was of a younger, almost identical version of our composite. The other was of a woman with a striking resemblance to the man in every way, right down to the nose and chin. The headline read “Switch Found Dead in Apparent Homicide,” and was dated thirty-one years ago last month.

I skimmed the obituary notice, unfamiliar with this particular Ranger. C. J. “Switch” Kemper had been a Ranger less than two years before she was found dead of unnatural causes, her body nearly unrecognizable. Her power, apparently, was the ability to alter her appearance from female to male at will—a very unusual and controversial power. She was helping to investigate the disappearances of four other non-Ranger Metas at the time of her death, and had no family to speak of.

“So this means what?” I asked. “Switch faked her death thirty years ago and her male alter ego went to work for Stratfield R&D?”

“Looks that way,” Gage said. He seemed utterly horrified by the thought.

“Why?”

“I’ll be sure to ask when we catch her.”

“Marco.” Teresa’s voice was strangled, almost hoarse, and every set of eyes in the room landed on her. She walked toward him with slow, almost pained steps, her face pale and wan. “Take the female photo and age it thirty years, please. Make her hair white.”

We waited in horrified silence while Marco did as asked. He posted a familiar face on-screen next to the younger version—a face I’d never seen in person, only over a video conference call once.

“Damn it, I hate being right sometimes,” Teresa said. “Someone get Dr. Kinsey in here right the hell now.”

The female Switch had aged perfectly into Dr. Nancy Bennett.

Ethan left like his ass was on fire. Teresa moved away from the group, shoulders heaving, probably trying to calm the fuck down. I didn’t know what to say to anyone, so I just sat there like an idiot, trying to get all of this to make sense. Reconciling the fact that we’d been duped into handing over the body of Patricia Swift, as well as private, vital information about Noah and Dahlia, to our goddamned enemy, and we’d done it all with a smile. Trusting Bennett had been a big decision on Teresa’s part, and she’d done it because of need and because of Kinsey’s recommendation.