Kelly Meding: Chimera

And lately the pair hasn’t been looking so hot—in either face. Noah is in control more often than not, and when Dahlia comes out she always looks exhausted. Or like she’s getting over a serious bout of food poisoning. Changelings weren’t meant to carry more than one host at a single time, and the former Changeling called Ace (who took permanent residence in Noah Scott back in June) had been hosting two for the last three months. He couldn’t absorb Dahlia permanently, and because her physical body died when she was absorbed, he also couldn’t kick her back out. They were stuck with each other, and it wasn’t doing either of them any favors—except when they combined their two Meta powers. Dahlia absorbed fire; Ace the Changeling was telekinetic.

Then they were pretty damned amazing to see in action.

At the moment, Dahlia was in control. Here on the island, Noah and Aaron were free to wander around in their own faces if they wished, but outside our little world, they were still wanted criminals. Noah hid behind Dahlia on the rare occasions when they went out, while Aaron had created an entire persona named Scott Torres, who was quite well known among the Manhattan prisoners.

“Sorry,” I said, even though I was the one whose coffee nearly ended up on her clothes.

“My fault,” Dahlia said. “You okay?”

“Fine, why?”

“I don’t know, you had this odd look on your face a second ago.”

“This is what I look like on four hours of sleep. I know it’s not pretty, but there it is.”

She scowled. “Never mind. See you later.”

A tiny flash of guilt cooled my stomach as she brushed past me. That had been happening more often lately—not so much me snapping at Dahlia, but feeling guilty about it afterward. Being stuck to Noah like that couldn’t be fun for her (God knows it blew for the rest of us), but I never used to care what she thought of me. Or anyone else, for that matter, except for Teresa, Gage, Marco, and Ethan.

Something occurred to me and I turned around. “Hey, Dahlia? Are you going to the debriefing?”

She paused while reaching for a bagel, and when she looked over her shoulder, her face was stormy. “No.”

“Okay.”

Halfway to the War Room, the significance of her exclusion hit me. Dahlia had been with us since January, and she’d been part of most of our biggest operations, up to and including the move to the East Coast. But she hadn’t been part of last night’s stakeouts, and she wasn’t invited to the meeting today. Why?

Who cares?

I made it to the War Room with a few minutes to spare. Both a conference room and a communications center, the War Room has a long, U-shaped conference table lined with chairs, two large monitors set up on the wall opposite the windows, and a workstation below them. A shoulder-high wall splits the conference room from the communications side, where the majority of Marco’s computer magic happens.

Marco Mendoza was at the conference terminal when I entered. He glanced up and nodded, then returned to his work. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Marco smile. Or willingly join in a casual conversation. More and more, he reminded me of the nearly feral kid who spent more time as a panther than as a human, just so he didn’t have to make friends. Ever since he was absorbed by another hybrid-Changeling for a day, and then pulled apart by our ally Simon Hewitt, a powerful telepath . . . Marco had changed.

I grabbed a seat and ate my bagel while the others filed inside. Teresa and Gage McAllister, together for a change, but with a noticeable distance between them. Alexia and Ethan came in together, in the middle of a chat about Alexia’s daughter Muriel. His left wrist was wrapped tightly in a bandage, the fingers less swollen than when I last saw him. The only face I wasn’t used to seeing in these meetings was Sebastian Rojas, another pardoned Bane. He could spit acid and was super-strong, and he had actual pre-War military training that Teresa seemed to find useful, so she kept inviting him to these things and asking his opinion.

The sour look Gage gave Sebastian did not go unnoticed by me.

Except for Marco and Sebastian, no members of the other stakeout teams were here. Alexia, Ethan, and I took turns narrating what had happened last night, focusing on how Jack and Jill (which, to my surprise and delight, everyone started using in lieu of Target One and Target Two) used their powers.

“It probably sounds odd,” Ethan said, “but Jill? She really reminded me of Mayhem, you know? The way her powers worked and how she looked when she fought.”

“Crazy?” I asked.

“Pissed and scared.”

I hadn’t seen the scared in either of those kids earlier this morning. They worked like seasoned thieves, never panicking or taking an extra, unnecessary step.

“It sounds as if they’ve had training,” Teresa said. “The big question is, from who?”

“I doubt they picked up those skills at community college,” I said.

“No, but someone must have been training them for this since before our powers returned. Learning how to be a competent thief is one thing, but doing it with the added stress of adapting to new Meta powers?”

“It’s not impossible.”

“No, but it’s unlikely.”

“So was someone training future Metas on purpose,” Sebastian said, “or is this a coincidence?”

“I don’t like coincidences.”

“They do happen.”

“I’d buy one of them being Meta as a coincidence,” Gage said with a little snap in his voice, “but not both.”

“Agreed,” Teresa said.

Marco muttered something in Spanish. “I think I have something,” he said more clearly.

He tapped his keyboard. One of the monitors came to life with the photo Ethan had taken on his phone. Jack’s face was pretty clear, angled mostly at the camera, while Jill gave us only profile. Their features were easy to make out, though, and a collage of lines and dots appeared. “I used facial recognition software to pinpoint certain features and find possible matches in the government’s identification database.”

Marco code for: I broke into the federal licensing system and we’re matching them up like yearbook photos.

“And you have a match?” Teresa asked.

“It is not perfect, and it makes no sense.”

“What do you mean?”

Another image appeared next to the first. This was an official prison identification photo taken the day all of the depowered Banes were rounded up, weeks before the prison walls and defenses were finished and the inhabitants set free to roam. He was fifteen years younger, but I recognized the face.

“No way,” Ethan said.

“Derek Thatcher?” Teresa said.

Thatcher was one of the loudest protesters when it came to our government and its policies regarding Metas. He firmly believed that one day the government would declare all Metas dangerous and criminal, lock all of us up in Manhattan, and make us subject to the whims of the regular humans who feared and hated us. It was the only time I’d ever actually agreed with a Bane.

“There are a lot of reasons why that’s not possible,” Ethan said, “starting with the fact that Derek is twenty years older than the kid we fought this morning.”

“Not to mention he’s in jail,” I said softly.

Ethan shot me a glare, and I shrugged. It was true.

“I have to admit, there’s a strong resemblance,” Teresa said. “And we’ve fought clones before.”

“Of Rangers, not Banes. Thatcher was never a Ranger.”

“Does Thatcher have any children?” Gage asked.

All eyeballs in the room bounced between Ethan, Sebastian, and Alexia—the three people who’d spent the most time with the man. Ethan and Alexia looked as perplexed as I felt. “None that he ever mentioned to me,” Alexia said.