by Jon McGoran
As soon as it was gone, the back door opened and Del poked his head out, rolling his eyes as he spotted me.
“I told you not to wait for me,” he said.
“What are you up to?”
He laughed, shambling down the steps. He had on a long-sleeved flannel shirt, covering the bandage. He wasn’t carrying his schoolbag.
“Traveling light, huh?” I said.
“I don’t need my stuff today.”
I nodded, not buying it and hoping my expression said as much.
He came up next to me and said, “Let’s go,” then kept walking past me.
As I turned to walk alongside him, he put his arm around my shoulders. “Thanks for taking care of me last night.”
I looked at him, trying to read his face and not getting anything. “Of course.”
At the end of the block, he turned left.
I paused. “Bridge is out, remember?” I said.
“I know. McAllister Street’s still quicker.” He turned around, walking backward away from me, watching to see what I would do.
I let out a sigh and followed him.
We crossed North Avenue, out of the city, walking in silence. Del seemed strangely excited, happy even. I wondered if he was in shock from the trauma of what his dad had done to him. But as we approached the chimera house, his demeanor turned serious and his pace slowed. He paused, looking around.
I was starting to suspect he had intentionally missed the bus so he could come this way and see the chimeras again. But before I could say anything about it, a police car came skidding around the corner. It roared toward us with its old-fashioned lights flashing on top, like something from an old movie. Then it screeched to a halt right next to us.
NINE
I had assumed it was Stan, coming for Del, but I didn’t recognize the cop that got out. His badge said OFFICER CANTRELL. He had a scar across the side of his nose, and a quarter-inch black glass disk over his right eyebrow, a WellPlant. I did a double take at that—it was strange to see a cop with an expensive computer implant like that, especially a cop working out in the zurbs.
He scowled as he rushed past us toward the front door of the chimera house. He had a stun gun in one hand and a shock baton in the other. “Officer Cantrell, Montgomery County Police!” he barked, pounding on the door with the butt of the stun gun. “Open up!”
Instead of waiting for a response, he ran alongside the porch and jumped over the railing, disappearing around the side of the house. I wondered what those chimeras had done.
Del turned to look at me, his face churning with a mix of emotions I couldn’t identify. Then he grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me full on the lips.
It was deep and intense, and everything around me fell away as I kissed him back. Then it ended and I stood there, light-headed and tingling, wondering if this was where we’d been headed all along, knowing in that instant our entire relationship, a friendship that was older than I could remember, would never be the same.
By the time I came to my senses, Del was thirty yards away, running along the sidewalk to get a better angle so he could see what was happening.
“Del!” I called in a loud whisper. “Get back here!”
He ignored me and I started to run after him, but I was distracted when the side door flew open just as Cantrell ran up to it.
One of the bird chimeras burst through. Cantrell took two steps after her, then reached out with the shock baton. There was a faint crackling sound, and the chimera crumpled into a ball.
I gasped at the sudden violence. Cantrell prodded her again and again, making her convulse on the ground.
The other bird chimera ran through the door, followed by the fox, Sly. They tried to slip past on either side of him, but Cantrell reached out with his baton and tripped the other bird chimera.
Before she could get up, he was on her, pressing the baton into her midsection and holding it there as she squirmed and shuddered and made strange warbling noises.
“Stop it!” I yelled. “You’ll kill her!”
He finally pulled the baton away, but only when he spotted Sly running toward a shallow stream that fed into a storm drain and charged after him.
The first bird was up on her hands and knees, but the second one wasn’t moving. I ran over to her and saw her mouth frothing. The way she was lying on the slope, her head was lower than her body. I was afraid she was going to choke. I grabbed her arms and dragged her around so that her head was elevated. She was surprisingly light. I was wondering what to do next when she coughed and opened her eyes, deep black orbs that seemed wide and innocent.
She looked up at me and smiled.
We were both startled as Cantrell yelled, “Freeze!”
Sly was zigzagging through the trees toward the stream. Cantrell was standing with his legs braced wide and his stun gun out in front of him.
Del was running toward him. I didn’t know what he planned to do, but before I could call out, the cat chimera appeared from behind another tree, twenty feet away. His arm was cocked, a rock the size of a baseball in his hand. Then he whipped it forward.
The rock flew like a bullet, a straight line with almost no arc. It hit Cantrell square in the back of the head, and he collapsed, sprawling across the top of the retaining wall that ran along the creek.
For a moment, the only sound was the rustle of feet shuffling through the grass and fallen leaves. Sly stopped and turned, then started creeping back. The cat stepped forward, tentatively, his nose twitching.
Sly looked over at him and smiled. “Hell of a throw, Ryan.”
Del walked over to the cop, then crouched down for a closer look. My stomach lurched when I saw the look on Del’s face—the same, still expression I’d seen after Stan shredded his arm.
“Del,” I called out, but he ignored me. Then I realized he was holding the cop’s shock baton. “Del!” I called again, louder, starting toward him.
He turned his head halfway toward me and said, “Run.” Then he jammed the baton against Cantrell’s neck, holding it there while the cop’s body trembled and shook.
“Del! No!” I screamed.
He finally pulled the baton away, but then pressed his foot against Cantrell’s midsection and rolled him off the wall and into the stream.
The cop landed with a splash and a thud, hitting both the shallow water and the rocks below.
The chimeras scattered, terrified, running in every direction. At the same moment, I heard sirens, seemingly coming from everywhere.
Del turned and looked at me, his face laughing and crying and somehow strangely blank, all at the same time. He mouthed the word run, and then that’s what he did.
I looked back at the cop, Cantrell, lying facedown in the water, a thin ribbon of red curling away from his head. I wanted to run, too, but I couldn’t let the man die. I couldn’t let Del become a murderer.
I thought I could get over there, flip him over, and still get away before things went horribly wrong.
I scrambled into the water, heaved Cantrell onto his back, and started to run away. Even then I might have had time to escape, but he coughed and his head flopped to the side, half-submerged, his mouth blowing bloody bubbles in the water.
I paused, defeated, and went back, crouching in the water and pulling him out on the other side of the creek. He let out a soft groan and a gurgle. Then he coughed, spewing water across my shoes.
He was alive.
I dug in my toes to run again, but it was already too late.
Three cops were closing in on me. If I thought for a second maybe I could still get away, that ended when I saw their faces and their guns. I glanced down at the bloody figure at my feet, and I knew there was nothing they wanted more than an excuse to shoot me.
“Freeze,” the closest one said. His face was red, his eyes flickering back and forth between me and his fallen comrade. He said it so softly, I wondered if he was hoping I wouldn’t do as he said.
I thought about Del’s d
ad, about what he would do if he were one of these cops.
As the other cops shouted out a barrage of contradictory commands, I put up my hands and knelt down on the ground. And I prepared for my life to turn to crap.
TEN
The walls were cracked, the ceiling was water-stained, and the corners of the old-fashioned fluorescent lights were piled deep with dead bugs. I wondered if the police interview rooms in the city were any nicer.
I’d been sitting there in Montgomery County’s eastern police division for two hours. It had been an hour since anybody had spoken to me, which gave me plenty of time to think about everything that had happened—the police, the chimeras, the interrogation. All of it was scary as hell. And in between every other thought, I wondered about Del and that kiss.
It had been electrifying, for sure, but I didn’t know what it meant, and I didn’t know how I felt about it.
Frankly, I was surprised to still be alive and contemplating anything. When those cops had surrounded me, pointing their guns and yelling different instructions—hands behind your head, hands in the air, hands where I can see them—all red-faced and screaming, fingers on their triggers, I thought I was a goner. They were pretty rough about cuffing me and yanking me to my feet as they read me my rights.
When I said I hadn’t done anything, one of them pointed his gun right in my face and told me to shut up.
I shut up.
The cop I’d pulled out of the creek had groaned again as they led me away. I turned to look back at him, but they shoved me and told me to keep walking.
When we got to the station—a big, run-down brick building—they put me in this room and grilled me: Who was I, why had I been at that house, how did I know those chimeras? After the first half hour, they calmed down and their questions changed focus. They wanted to know about Del.
Instead I told them my name. I repeated that I hadn’t done anything and added that I hadn’t seen anything. And I told them I wanted a lawyer so many times, they finally left me alone.
After an hour of nothing, the door opened again and a different cop walked in. He had two cups of water and he put one down in front of me.
“I want a lawyer,” I told him.
“I’m not here to listen,” he said, sitting in the chair across from me. “I’m here to talk.”
I stared back at him blankly, waiting for the lecture.
“I saw the video from the patrol car. I know you fished Officer Cantrell out of the creek.” He raised his cup. “Thanks.”
I nodded and held up my hands, jangling the chain connecting them. “Do you think you could find the guy who put these on me, and get him to take them off?”
He looked amused and said, “We all have the same key.” He pulled a key ring out of his pocket, reached over, and unlocked the cuffs.
My wrists had little red lines on them. I rubbed one, then the other.
“It doesn’t look like you actually did anything wrong,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not in trouble. Those chimera friends of yours are bad news. They’ve done some bad things.”
“Like what?”
“Theft, vandalism. They break into houses and start fires for heat, but when those fires get out of control, they can burn down whole neighborhoods.” He leaned closer. “You city kids think the zurbs are some kind of wasteland, but people do live out here.”
“That’s why those chimeras were being arrested?”
“Just look at them,” he said, sitting back. “They’ve got bad decisions written all over them.”
On that, we absolutely agreed. But he hadn’t answered my question. I stayed quiet.
“And your friend Del Grainger. He’s bad news waiting to happen as well.” He paused. “You’re sure you didn’t see anything?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I saw the officer in the water and I helped him.”
“So, you didn’t call Del by name, and he didn’t tell you to run?”
I went quiet again.
“That’s okay. I saw enough on the video.” He lowered his voice. “I know Del’s father, and I know he’s bad news, too. Since he’s police, there’s a good chance this will all be handled internally, lucky for Del. But he’s not always going to be so lucky. So you need to be a little bit smarter about who you’re hanging out with, okay?” Then he stood up. “You can go now.”
I was about to ask if they were going to take me back to where they picked me up, or take me to school. But then he opened the door and I saw my mom standing there, and I realized my troubles were just beginning.
ELEVEN
Really, Jimi?” That was all my mom could say at first. She’d said it three times now. Maybe she was waiting for an answer, but I didn’t have one to give her.
“I didn’t do anything,” I finally said.
She whipped her head around to glare at me. “Of course you did something! We’re at the police station, for God’s sake. I don’t have time for nonsense like this, Jimi, and neither do you. You need to grow up. Lucky for you, Kevin and I were at University of Maryland and not halfway across the damned country.”
We were walking across the parking lot to the car. I could see Kevin sitting in the passenger seat, shaking his head. While my mom was turned facing me, he raised his middle finger. When she turned back around, I flipped it back at him. I let her get a few paces in front of me. I figured the worst that could happen was she would drive off without me, which wouldn’t have been so bad.
Instead, she started up the car and sat waiting for me. I slid into the backseat, unable to tell which was clenched tighter: her jaw or her hands on the steering wheel. As we drove off, Kevin turned to look back at me, still shaking his head and trying not to laugh.
We drove in silence. Kevin turned on the radio, but my mom turned it off.
The police station was just a few miles west of the chimera house. We zigzagged through the zurbs to North Avenue. We were just turning onto Broad Street, back into the city, when my mom said, “Oh, what now?”
Up ahead, the street was blocked by a big crowd of people with signs and banners.
One of the signs had big block letters. Even from afar, it was easy to read: HUMANS FOR HUMANITY.
My mom growled. “Oh, great. Not these idiots.”
It was the march they’d been talking about on the news. I slid down in my seat and groaned. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck in that car any longer than I had to be, especially if it was because of those people.
As we got closer, Mom honked her horn, but the marchers just turned and looked at her with pious condescension, like they pitied us for not being out there marching with them. I was relieved to have her anger focused on them instead of me. It didn’t last long.
“See?” she said, turning in her seat. “This is part of the reason I don’t want you hanging out with chimeras.”
“I wasn’t hanging out with chimeras,” I snapped. As if I ever would. “And what, you agree with these people now?” I said, trying to turn it around. “You think chimeras shouldn’t have rights as people?”
The marchers were waving signs that said HUMANS ARE MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE and CHIMERAS AREN’T PEOPLE. A lot of them were carrying printed placards saying PRESERVE OUR GENETIC HERITAGE or SUPPORT THE GENETIC HERITAGE ACT! or GHA ALL THE WAY! Their faces all radiated the same zeal.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mom snapped back. “You know that’s not what I mean. I’m saying the whole chimera thing is terrible and stupid and tragic, and in addition to all the reasons we’ve talked about in the past, now these people are out there.” She waved her hand at the passing crowd. “People who hate chimeras. And as wrong as it is, they’re winning the political battles. Everyone says the governor will never sign GHA into law, but they said the legislature wouldn’t pass it, either.”
She pointed a finger in my face. “I’d ground you for life if I thought you were even thinking about getting spliced. It ruins lives and tears families apart. I don’t want you hanging out with chime
ras because I don’t want you around when these marching morons start to act on their hatred.”
“I don’t know what the chimeras’ problem is anyway,” Kevin said loudly. “If a bunch of idiots want to get spliced so they’re not completely human, I say let ’em. But how can they whine about a law that says, ‘Yeah, you’re not completely human?’ How can they even get upset about that?”
I let out an exasperated sigh, irritated that Kevin’s stupidity was forcing me to defend the chimeras. “It’s not about being human, or whether they are or aren’t or how much. It’s about taking away their rights as people. They’re two totally separate things.”
He screwed up his face and let out a sarcastic snort. “Oh, yeah, humans and people, totally different. Always have been.” I could tell from the gleam in his eye that he knew he was being an ass. He was doing it to wind me up, and he was getting a huge kick out of how well it was working.
“Don’t be such a tool,” I said.
“The two of you, stop it!” Mom said, rubbing her temples.
The marchers kept coming, and my mom put the car in reverse. But when she looked in the rearview mirror, she swore. I turned to see at least half a dozen cars behind us.
We were stuck. And the crowd in front of us was growing instead of shrinking. There must have been a few thousand people that had passed by already.
“Hey, look! That’s Howard Wells!” Kevin said. “My poli-sci teacher thinks he could be the next president.”
Wells was surrounded by big bodyguards in suits and dark shades, and the whole entourage was being mobbed by video news crews, but he still stood out. In person he was as movie-star handsome as he looked on the Holovid. Early sixties, with a deep tan, white teeth, and a suit that reeked of expensive. As he waved to the marchers and onlookers, the sun glinted off the black glass of the WellPlant above his eyebrow.
My mom made a strangled noise in her throat and shook her head. “That man is a twit.”
I was pretty sure Howard Wells was not a twit, but I knew what she meant.
After Wells passed, the crowd of marchers thinned out. That’s when Kevin sat bolt upright in his seat, pointing. “Holy crap,” he said. “Is that Stan Grainger?”