Chimera

by David Wellington

  And then the snowmachine hit the earth again, hard enough to rattle every bone in Chapel’s body.

  They had only fallen about ten feet. On the other side of the cliff was a gentle slope headed downward into a narrow canyon.

  Taggart hit the seat hard and nearly spun off. It was all Chapel could do to hold him on to the snowmachine. Julia had lowered her head under the dubious protection of the windshield, and now she raised it again and gunned the throttle.

  The snowmachine underneath her gave a whining, coughing sputter. It lurched forward a few dozen feet and then stopped. The engine died. The fall must have damaged something.

  The machine was dead.

  Chapel craned his neck around to look behind them. Up there, on top of the cliff, the pursuing snowmachine had come to a stop just before the precipice. Its driver stared down at them through his goggles as if he couldn’t believe what they’d just done.

  “I was kind of hoping he would follow us over and break his neck,” Julia said, softly.

  “What about our necks?” Taggart asked.

  “It was the best idea I had at the time. Anybody have a better one, now?” she asked.

  Chapel watched the black snowmachine spray ice from its tracks as the driver turned his vehicle and headed away from the cliff edge, presumably so he could find a safer way down and continue the chase.

  “How about now we run?” Chapel suggested.

  DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, ALASKA: APRIL 15, T+84:59

  The canyon was only a few hundred yards wide, surrounded on every side by high jagged cliffs that Chapel knew he would never climb with only one arm. It stretched out ahead of them, curving gently to the north. There were no trees in the canyon, nowhere to hide except for a few big rocks. A broad but shallow stream ran down its exact middle, glittering in the wan sunlight, rippling over a bed of smooth, moss-covered stones. Away from the stream the snow lay three feet deep over the entire canyon floor.

  They had no choice. They ran.

  The stream took them around the bend of the canyon quickly enough, even though to Chapel it felt like they were just strolling along, taking their time. He could occasionally hear the whine of a snowmachine up on the cliffs as the assassin searched for a good way down into the canyon.

  They came around the final bend and Chapel nearly screamed in frustration.

  The canyon dead-ended in a little tarn, a glacial lake surrounded on three sides by cliff. There was no way forward.

  They stopped running. There was nowhere to go.

  Chapel ejected the magazine of his weapon, wanting to see how many rounds he had left. He got a bad shock when he saw the clip was empty. There was one round in the chamber, still, but—

  The sound of the snowmachine grew louder and louder . . . and then stopped abruptly. They could hear the engine wind down and then ping as it cooled in the frigid air. There was no other sound.

  “He could be right around that boulder,” Chapel whispered, pointing at a giant rock that shielded the bend of the canyon from view. “Find some cover.”

  There were plenty of smaller rocks to hide behind, scattered around the edge of the waterfall. The three of them each found a good sheltering spot and hunkered down.

  And waited.

  “Where is he?” Taggart whispered.

  “Shh,” Chapel said. His eyes scanned the big rock and the ground around it. It was half buried in the side of a massive cliff. A few scrubby pine trees had found anchorage near its top, where scree from the cliff had gathered to form a kind of rudimentary soil.

  Along the edge of the boulder a shadow moved. He glanced across at Julia and saw her still peering over the edge of her rock, trying to spot the assassin. He gestured for her to get her head down.

  Chapel heard the sound of a foot crunching on snow. The barrel of a revolver peeked around the edge of the boulder. Sunlight glimmered on its silvery metal.

  Julia reared up and fired a shot that knocked chips off the boulder. The revolver barrel drew back, out of sight.

  The echoes of the gunshot faded away slowly. Only to be replaced by another sound. A kind of dry, wheezing laughter.

  “No,” Julia said, louder than she’d probably meant to.

  “Ha ha heh,” Laughing Boy chuckled. “Hoo! Ha ha.”

  He had followed them all this way. He’d come personally to make sure they were dead. Banks must have wanted to be certain.

  Chapel remembered something that gave him a tiny flicker of hope. “You really think you can hit us firing left-handed?” he shouted.

  Back at the laboratory complex he’d ruined Laughing Boy’s shooting hand.

  “Hoo ha hee heh,” Laughing Boy spluttered. It might have sounded like a laugh, but it had plenty of anger in it.

  “No toes,” Chapel said. “No fingers. Pretty soon you’ll look like me.”

  “I’m no fucking—ha ha—cripple!” Laughing Boy shouted, and he leaned out from behind the boulder to fire three rounds at them, one after another. Chapel shouted for Julia not to take the bait—he could visualize Laughing Boy dropping into a roll, lowering his visual profile, making himself almost impossible to hit—but it was too late.

  She fired wildly, squeezing her trigger until her hammer clicked on an empty chamber. Wasting all her bullets. She screamed in frustration and stared down at her weapon, then dropped behind her rock just as Laughing Boy started firing again. Chapel dropped into cover as well, throwing his arm over his head to protect it.

  The shooting stopped. Chapel risked a glance over the top of his rock. Laughing Boy was gone. He’d exhausted the six rounds in his revolver. Chapel was certain, absolutely certain he had more, and had just gone back into cover to reload.

  “Jul . . . ia,” Taggart said.

  Chapel looked over and saw the scientist slumped behind his own rock. Blood slicked Taggart’s neck. He’d caught a round.

  “Dad,” Julia gasped, and ran to him before Chapel could tell her to stay in cover. Maybe she could do something for him.

  Maybe Chapel could do something for both of them. He jumped up from behind his rock and ran toward the boulder as fast as his legs could carry him.

  “Hee heh ha,” he heard as he ran.

  DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, ALASKA: APRIL 15, T+85:06

  Ian saw it all. He saw blood explode from Dr. Taggart’s neck. He rose halfway to his feet in terror. If Dr. Taggart died—how would he ever learn the final answer? How would he ever know what his life was to become? No one else could tell him.

  He had followed the snowmachines, crept after them, keeping himself out of sight. Knowing if he showed himself one human or another would kill him. He had followed and stayed close on the off chance there would be one more opportunity, however unlikely, to talk to Dr. Taggart. To ask the final question.

  Even if he was beginning to think he knew the answer. Even if he was terrified of what it would be.

  Indecision was not a trait common to the chimeras. Their rages led them on, made everything simple. But Ian had mastered his rages. Mostly.

  He crept closer, careful not to show himself, and watched.

  DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, ALASKA: APRIL 15, T+85:07

  Chapel kept his head down as he ran, knowing that at any second Laughing Boy could start shooting again. The boulder loomed overhead. Its irregular shape made a hundred deep shadows, a dozen good hiding places. Smaller rocks lay tumbled against it, creating natural cover. Laughing Boy could be anywhere in there.

  Up ahead he heard rocks patter and fall. He raised his pistol. Kept his trigger finger loose. He couldn’t afford to snap off a hasty shot. He had one bullet left. He had to make it count.

  He ducked low under an overhanging ledge of rock. Padded across bare stone and came upon a patch of snow that glared in the sun. The sky was clearing, and light was streaming down in thick
golden beams that lit up every patch of lichen on the rocks, made every crevice a vein of impenetrable shadow.

  Click. Click. He heard the sound and knew what it was. He’d heard it before. Laughing Boy was loading shells into the cylinder of his revolver. It was taking him a while.

  “I don’t know—ha heh—how you do this one-handed,” Laughing Boy said, not shouting now. At a conversational level. He knew Chapel was close enough to hear him.

  “You learn to do all kinds of things. You want the chance to learn them? You can put that weapon down and come out with your hands up,” Chapel said, because there was no point in stealth now. Laughing Boy was right around the side of the boulder. He couldn’t be more than ten feet away. “I’ll let you live.”

  “Oh—ha—will you? Wonderful! Except, heh heh, that’s a terrible, heh, deal for you. You kill me, you—ha ha ho—let me live, doesn’t matter. They’ll send—ha—more like me.”

  “There’s no one else like you,” Chapel said.

  Laughing Boy seemed to find that amazingly funny. He laughed and chuckled and guffawed. “Guess you’ll—heh—find out!”

  Chapel dashed around the side of the rock, his arm held out straight, the pistol an extension of his arm, his eyes focused on where his shot would go, his—

  Laughing Boy was crouched among some rocks, looking right at Chapel. Revolver shells lay scattered on the ground around him. The cylinder was full, with the brass casings of six new shells loaded into its chambers. All Laughing Boy had to do was snap the cylinder shut and he’d be ready to fire.

  Chapel took his shot.

  The noise of it was enormous. It blasted around the rocks, came caroming back from the cliffs to deafen him. The stink of the gunsmoke filled his nostrils and he had to blink as it stung his eyes. He forced his eyelids open, forced himself to see if he’d fired true.

  He’d aimed for Laughing Boy’s center of mass, just like he’d been trained to do. The heart lay just to the left of the sternum, but it was a thick mass of muscle and it was not unknown for a bullet to just graze it, to be turned by its knotty texture, and leave the target alive. You shot for the aorta, the swollen blood vessel just above the heart. Pierce that and death was almost instantaneous.

  A red dot appeared on Laughing Boy’s parka, just left of center. Blood welled from the wound. But it didn’t spurt.

  Laughing Boy screamed and gurgled and choked on his pain.

  But he didn’t die.

  His eyes stared into Chapel’s, as if he couldn’t believe it either. But the light didn’t go out of those eyes.

  “Must have—heh—missed it by . . . by a—he heh—hair.”

  “Guess so,” Chapel said.

  Laughing Boy flicked his wrist, and the cylinder of his revolver snapped shut. He cocked the hammer and was ready to fire again.

  Before he could, though, Ian dropped from the rocks above them, to land in a catlike crouch.

  His eyes were black from side to side.

  DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, ALASKA: APRIL 15, T+85:10

  Chapel could only stare in utter surprise as Ian rose slowly to his feet.

  He didn’t think he had the capacity for any more shock, but then it happened and he was left reeling.

  “Good,” Laughing Boy said, “you’re—heh—here. Kill this fucker for me.”

  Ian turned to face Chapel. His nictitating membranes were still down, and his eyes were unreadable. “You didn’t know, did you? You didn’t know who the Voice was.”

  “He—you mean—” Chapel had no idea what to say.

  “He freed me from Camp Putnam. He showed me how to get here.” Ian turned to look at Laughing Boy. “He told me what to do.”

  “Yeah. Heh ha hee. Yeah,” Laughing Boy said. His face was turning pale, and sweat was forming beads on his forehead. He was hurt, and badly, by Chapel’s shot. But he wasn’t bleeding out. He would live through this, Chapel knew. Laughing Boy was going to survive. And Ian—Ian would—

  “I was supposed to be the father of a generation,” Ian said, softly. “Instead they made me a weapon. I was supposed to live on after the greatest war, and instead, I am a foot soldier in this petty little squabble.”

  “Ian, just—let’s talk about this,” Chapel began.

  The chimera lashed out with one hand and knocked Chapel away, sent him flying. The empty pistol leaped from Chapel’s hand as he threw his arm back to arrest his fall.

  “Good, yeah, heh,” Laughing Boy said. “Good. Looks better—ha ah ha—this way, if you do him. Heh.”

  “You used me,” Ian told the CIA assassin. “But I used you, too. I used you to get my freedom. I thought I could be something more, but no. You humans. You can’t understand us. You’re too limited to understand. All you see in us is death. Well, so be it.”

  Laughing Boy frowned. “Wait. Heh. What?”

  Ian took a step toward Laughing Boy. Another step.

  Laughing Boy was no fool. He brought his revolver up. Pointed it at Ian’s chest.

  “Dr. Taggart made me promise I wouldn’t hurt anyone anymore,” Ian said, stopping in place. “But he broke so very many promises he made to me. Humans break promises all the time. We can, too.”

  Laughing Boy fired as fast as he could pull the trigger, pouring lead into Ian’s chest and face. He got off five bullets of his six before Ian snapped his arm like a piece of dry wood.

  He broke Laughing Boy’s other arm with a punch. Another punch took him in the throat and stopped his laughing. After that—

  After that it was largely superfluous. When Ian was done, there wasn’t much left of Laughing Boy.

  Then he turned to face Chapel.

  Chapel had no weapons left. He knew he couldn’t fight Ian hand to hand. Trying that had nearly gotten him killed when he faced Malcolm—only Julia had saved him then. He tried to scramble away, tried to fend Ian off with his arm, but it was impossible, there was nothing he could do. Ian grabbed Chapel by the throat and just picked him up off the ground and held him in the air. Chapel grabbed at Ian’s wrist with his hand, tried to force him to let go, but it was like trying to free himself from an iron manacle.

  Chapel couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t speak.

  “No,” Ian said, but he didn’t let go. “No, I don’t have to do this!” He was arguing with himself, trying to step back from the all-consuming rage that ruled him. “No, I will not. I will not!”

  He threw Chapel away from him like a piece of garbage.

  Chapel rolled through the snow, his whole body racked with pain. He thought he had broken some ribs. Maybe his shoulder, too. He could barely breathe, couldn’t think at all. He opened his mouth and tried to talk. Tried to reason with Ian. “Ian, it’s over—no one wants to kill you now, you—”

  “I had a question,” Ian said.

  He sounded perfectly calm.

  Chapel struggled to sit up. To get back on his feet. Ian was different from the others, maybe. But he was still a chimera. He could still kill them all without any real effort. And he was bleeding. Even if he didn’t kill them, if he got his blood on Taggart—on Julia—

  Chapel would die before he let that happen.

  He forced himself upward. Forced himself to stand. Walking was probably out of the question. But he dropped into a fighting crouch. Got his arm up. Made a fist.

  “I had one question left to answer,” Ian said.

  “What—is it?” Chapel asked. If he could keep Ian talking, maybe Julia could get away. Get her father back to the lab, to the snowmachines there.

  “It doesn’t matter. I found my answer. I found it while I watched you fight among yourselves.”

  “Try me,” Chapel said.

  Ian came closer. One big stride and he was almost close enough for Chapel to touch. It was hard to read his eyes, covered as they were, black from side to side. But the way I
an kept twisting his mouth around, the way he held his hands, spoke volumes.

  All his control, all that self-restraint that made Ian different from the others, was just a veneer. A surface. Underneath he was still a chimera, with all that meant.

  “I wanted to know what I’m supposed to do now,” Ian said. He closed his mouth with an audible click. His blood was draining away, cascading out of him to stain the snow. He didn’t seem to be weakening, though. He would never be weak enough that Chapel could take him in hand-to-hand combat. “What comes next for me?”

  “You can come south with us,” Chapel said. “You can tell the world what they did to you. You can make sure the people who did this to you pay.”

  Ian studied Chapel’s face with his black eyes. His nostrils were flaring. He was one wrong word away from turning into a machine with tearing hands and pummeling fists, a machine that could only kill. “That’s what you want from me?”

  “Isn’t it what you want? Revenge?” Chapel asked. “Killing us won’t do it, but you can—”

  The chimera grabbed Chapel again and threw him down on the ground. Raised one foot high in the air as if he would stomp Chapel to death, there and then. Chapel closed his eyes and threw his arm across his face, for all the good it would do.

  The foot didn’t come down.

  Slowly Chapel opened his eyes and looked up.

  “In another life, I would have been a great man,” Ian said. He glared down at Chapel with those black eyes. “I would have been a hero. A king. And you want to give me revenge. You want to make it all better by punishing the guilty. That’s not how it works.”

  The chimera looked down at himself. Blood covered the front of his parka. He tore it away with hands like claws, tore away the shirt beneath. Four massive wounds like red roses had blossomed on his chest. A fifth marred his cheek.

  “This world,” Ian said, “isn’t my world. My world was to be cinders and dust. My world was a place where I could build something new. In this world I have no place.” He bent down and sorted among the ruins of Laughing Boy’s body and picked up the assassin’s revolver.