by Eve Langlais
Oliver funded new hospitals for the severely injured, investing in state-of-the-art prosthetic labs and the most skilled technicians.
He hired the best doctors he could find, including an unknown relative called Adrian Chimera, who found a treatment for cancer that was better than chemo. He was written up in a few medical journals but declined any awards or spotlight, claiming he owed a debt to humanity.
And the world ate up his modesty, much to Jett’s amusement.
In the end, a lot of good came of the Chimera Secrets, and no more monsters. Not intentionally created ones at any rate. While Oliver had come around to agreeing that Chimera had done some good, he couldn’t condone the continuation.
Which was why it was good Adrian realized, on his own, “I don’t have the right to change people without permission.”
As for those that were already and forever different?
Those that survived ended up banding together. Given Oliver now had a horn, much like Emma’s, he stayed out of the limelight as much as possible. The times he did have to leave meant shearing the nub and wearing a low-brow hat. He learned to live with bangs, but hated them.
He didn’t leave home often. The estate he bought in Wyoming helped with that privacy. By the time he was done shopping for property, he practically owned an entire town and the land around it. Over one hundred thousand acres and he kept it protected.
Cameras were dotted all over the place, and the few roads leading into the area watched everyone who entered. What the eyes in the sky could see was controlled by Marcus and his state-of-the-art computer room—which Jayda more than teased made him hornier than her Trekkie uniform.
The town itself had a high-tech police force—overseen by Jayda, who laughed when Adrian presented her with a uniform.
“Me, a fucking cop?” she’d joked. But she took the job. It gave her the authority she needed to keep an eye on outsiders and make sure everyone toed the line, because, lo and behold, a few of the missing Chimera Secrets somehow found their way.
Jett and Luke provided personal security for their more vulnerable inhabitants. Not that the children needed much protection. Part of their education was about teaching them how to blend in and defend themselves. Because out of sight of the world, and flourishing in the compound, all of Chimera’s secrets gathered, along with a few that wandered into town, different and afraid, also strange because they didn’t come out of any science lab. But theirs was a story for another day.
Left alone, those who started out as Chimera Secrets multiplied, many choosing to pair with a human who accepted their secret, their children usually inheriting a special trait. They grew faster than their human counterparts, which meant they’d enter the world as adults within a decade at the most. Mingling with the population. Seeding their evolution subtly. They’d need those numbers. Would need to be strong, because, one day soon, a war would be coming.
The devil, formerly known as Dr. Cerberus, had reappeared only once after his escape from the lab. And on a video uploaded to YouTube of all things.
His yellow-eyed gaze had stared into the camera, and he’d smiled—a terrible thing with seeping smoke—as he said, “Soon the age of man will come to an end, giving rise to the era of monsters. My monsters. My legions.”
And when it happened, the next generation, born in secret, would be there to fight them.
* * *
The End.
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