Spliced

by Jon McGoran

The connecting train was due in ten minutes. The first five passed, quiet and uneventful. We were the only ones there. Then we heard footsteps, a single set coming up the metal stairs. Pell and Sly were oblivious, but Rex met my gaze. His face was impassive, but there was no reassuring smile, just blank acknowledgment that someone was coming.

  The kid who joined us on the platform was about my age, maybe a little older. He wasn’t bad looking, with pale skin and pink cheeks, but his eyes looked almost as lifeless as the WellPlant just above them. He had on an expensive Nanoma jacket, its colors slowly shifting and swirling, probably controlled by the WellPlant. He looked surprised to see us, but then an ugly smirk spread over his face. He snickered and shook his head.

  He had an H4H pin on his jacket.

  A few minutes later, another set of footsteps came up the stairs. Another jackass, dressed almost the same, down to the WellPlant and the H4H pin. They looked like they could have been brothers. The second one gave us the same smirk, then caught the first one’s eye and they shared an eye roll.

  “What’s up, Petey?” said the second one.

  “Hey, Theo,” the first one replied. “How’s it hanging?”

  Theo looked over at us. “When did the circus come to town?” He said it loud, obviously for our benefit.

  Petey laughed. “I don’t know, just got here and there it was.”

  “Kinda ballsy, don’t you think? Coming out here the day after GHA gets passed?”

  “Ballsy or stupid.”

  They both thought that was hilarious.

  The train was due in three minutes, but I was anxious. I wasn’t exactly afraid. We outnumbered them. Hell, Rex outnumbered them. But they were obviously trouble.

  We heard a third set of footsteps, but this time lighter and faster. A young woman appeared at the top of the stairway. She wore heavy boots, torn jeans, and a variety of piercings. She wasn’t spliced, but she seemed like a different species from the jackass twins.

  She smiled slightly when she saw us, nodding her head in approval. She walked straight up to us.

  “Hey,” she said.

  Rex looked on warily.

  Sly stepped forward. “Hey,” he replied.

  “Chimeras,” she said. “That’s awesome.”

  Sly nodded.

  “Sorry about all that Genetic Heritage crap.” She jerked her head at the two boys. “These H4H idiots. It’s messed up.”

  “So, with the new law, can we just do whatever we want with them?” Theo said loudly.

  Petey nodded thoughtfully. “You mean like, can we put them on leashes, like dogs?” He looked straight at Rex. “Or cages, like birds?” He looked at Pell.

  Sly stepped forward and Rex stood straighter, showing his full height.

  Petey and Theo laughed hard, slapping each other on the back.

  The girl with the piercings rolled her eyes and mouthed the words, “Such A-holes.”

  Suddenly, Theo turned toward us and said, “Dudes!”

  It took me a moment to realize he was addressing someone behind us, and I turned to see four more idiots walking up the platform, including one kid about twelve years old.

  The six of them huddled up, talking quietly and snickering, then they all laughed as the twelve-year-old turned and ran down the stairs.

  “So, guys,” Theo started up again, his voice loud. “Obviously, chimeras aren’t people now—we all get that—but are they animals? I mean, sure they’re gross, but some of them are kind of cute, too.”

  Petey laughed hysterically. “Dude, you’re a pervert!”

  “No, I’m serious,” Theo said. “Can we just tap some chimera whenever we want? Just grab it off the street? Hell, can I take it home and keep it in my basement?”

  Rex was clenching his fists. “Careful,” I whispered. “They’re just trying to get a rise out of you.”

  He stepped toward them and Theo glared at him. “Bad dog!” he snapped. “Down, boy!”

  They all shrieked with laughter. Theo’s cheeks and ears turned red from the exertion.

  The twelve-year-old returned up the steps, followed by a weary-looking guy in a Levline uniform.

  “Oh good,” said Theo. “Martin’s here.”

  The twelve-year-old rejoined the group.

  The Levline guy, Martin, looked at them and hung his head, like he had dealt with these guys before. “What is it now?” he asked.

  “Just need to clarify something,” Theo said. “That sign over there, at the top of the steps. What’s the third item on it?”

  Martin took a deep breath and squinted. “No dogs or other pets allowed, except for service animals.”

  Theo nodded while the others snickered. “That’s what I thought.”

  Martin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why?”

  In the distance I could hear the whoosh of the approaching Lev train.

  “I just wanted a ruling,” Theo said. “As of yesterday, those chimeras over there are not people, not that they really were before. My train’s going to be here any minute, and I don’t want any animals getting on it.” He looked past Martin, right at me. “Excuse me, miss. That’s quite a zoo you have there. Is that your service dog? Are you, like, blind or something?”

  As the train approached, Martin turned and looked at us. There was no sympathy, no apology, no feeling one way or another.

  I smiled at Theo. “No, I’m not blind. If I was, I wouldn’t be able to see what a pathetic little creep you are, and I wouldn’t be able to see those ridiculous ears of yours turning red when you get embarrassed, which I’d imagine happens a lot.” They lit up, right on cue. “Yup, there they go. If you’re so proud that your DNA is human, you might want to try acting like one. And no, he’s not a service animal, he’s my friend. And he’s more of a man than you’ll ever be.”

  The train slid up to the platform and the doors opened.

  The redness had taken over Theo’s entire head. His eyes had narrowed to a malevolent squint, but the rest of the group was laughing at him.

  Martin stepped forward, between us and the doors. “Sorry,” he said, holding his arms out from his sides, barring our way.

  “Theo, you’re an ass,” said the girl with the piercings. “Sorry,” she said to us, then she turned and got on the train through the next set of doors.

  Theo and his friends stared at us and laughed as they filed onto the train. Then the doors closed and it pulled away. In seconds, it was gone, snaking across the countryside.

  Martin turned and headed back down the steps.

  “Excuse me,” I called out.

  His shoulders slumped and he stopped. “Yes?”

  “What time is the next train to Carston?”

  He thought for a moment. “The express doesn’t stop here, so the next train would be in three hours.”

  “And will we be allowed on it?”

  He shrugged. “If no one complains, I guess. Otherwise, I guess not.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  We stood in stunned silence for a moment. Then Rex mumbled, “Let’s go.” We followed him down the stairs. Sly and Pell were visibly upset. I’m sure I was, too, but I was mostly concerned about Rex. His jaw was clenched so tight I thought his head was going to crack.

  I knew it was different for them. I wasn’t one of them. I saw injustice and hatred and evil, but they experienced it directly, felt it aimed at them. And I could see how each insult or injury or legal travesty would make them want to distance themselves that much more from the “people” responsible.

  At the bottom of the steps, there was a vast parking lot. Beyond that was a road, a broken mess to our right, where it headed east, but nicely paved to the west as far as the eye could see. On the far side of the road was a sign that said ALDER ENERGY PARK in front of a tall chain-link fence surrounding a massive expanse of solar panels, miles and miles of them. Beyond them a cluster of wind turbines turned lazily in the distance.

  On the near side of the road, a similar fence surrounded the town itself.
A pair of guards eyed us warily from a gatehouse. They were absolutely not chimeras, but they still reminded me of the guys Malcolm had guarding the house where Del got spliced.

  A sign on the road by the gate said NOW ENTERING ALDER.

  Rex took out the compass, then pointed down the nicely paved road that ran between the town and the energy park. “This way should take us in the right direction. Even walking the rest of the way, we should still get there before the next train.”

  “Through the town?” Sly said, his voice dubious.

  “Between the town and the energy park, not through it,” Rex said. “Otherwise we have to go around the town or the energy park. Either one adds hours to the trip.”

  The guards in the guardhouse watched us closely as we left the parking lot and started down the road. As we passed the NOW ENTERING ALDER sign, I looked behind us. On the back it said NOW LEAVING ALDER. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. UNSAFE ROAD CONDITIONS.

  Rex walked right next to me. “Thanks,” he said quietly. “For back there. For stopping me. Especially now, if I had done anything, that could have been big trouble.”

  I nodded. “Well, it’s not like they wouldn’t have deserved it.”

  “And thanks for what you said.”

  “I meant it.”

  As we walked, Pell and Sly lagged back a few steps, giving Rex and me a chance to talk.

  “What do you think happened to Ryan?” I said.

  He let out a sigh that sounded like it came from an old man. “I don’t know what Ryan was up to. I mean, I guess he went out to Pitman or Carston or whatever, did whatever he did, saw whatever he saw, maybe he decided to come back to tell us, and he ran into some of these H4Hers.” He shook his head. “He wouldn’t be the first chimera shot by those maniacs. I’m sure he won’t be the last. Especially now that GHA has actually passed.”

  “Hard to believe it really did.”

  “Yup.” He shook his head. “I honestly didn’t think it would.”

  “Me neither. I’m still not sure what it means. How they’re going to enforce it.”

  He laughed. “No one knows.”

  Pell and Sly quickened their pace, listening in.

  “Earth for Everyone had lawyers analyzing it,” Rex continued. “They said it’s a mess. It’s evil and discriminatory and whatever else, but they said it’s also terribly written. That’s part of the reason no one thought it would pass. I mean, if chimeras aren’t people, what are we? Are we animals? Things? Nothing at all? It doesn’t say. And it doesn’t say how you determine who is a chimera and who isn’t.”

  “Wait, I thought that part was clear,” Pell said. “Anyone whose DNA isn’t one hundred percent human isn’t a person.”

  Sly snickered. “You know there’s a lot of rich kids’ parents talking to lawyers right now, saying, ‘It’s just a few little cat whiskers or whatever. Surely that doesn’t count.’ ”

  I thought about Nina. I could totally picture her dad pulling strings, but then again, he didn’t know.

  “No.” Pell shook her head. “Chimeras are chimeras, right? You really think they’d try to say, ‘I’m a chimera, but just a little bit’?”

  “I’m sure some of them would,” Rex said. “Besides, who gets to decide what the standard human genome is, anyway? And how can you tell who’s a chimera and who isn’t?”

  “If it looks like a mixie, it’s a mixie,” Sly said, doing an old-man voice.

  Pell laughed.

  Rex shook his head. “For a lot of us it’s obvious, but what about the rich kids hiding splices under their hair or their clothes?”

  “A blood test would be definitive,” I said.

  “Right,” he said. “So anytime someone is buying something, working, driving, getting arrested, or a hundred other things we haven’t thought of yet, they need a blood test to prove they’re human?” He laughed. “It’s insane.”

  “All these rich kids getting their little fashion splices is probably what caused the GHA in the first place,” said Sly. “It’s one thing if a bunch of loser kids are getting spliced, but when the one-percent kids start doing it, Mumsy and Dadsy have to put a stop to it.”

  Sly did a hilarious snobby voice for the last bit. Pell cracked up and Rex let out a snort.

  I considered telling them about Nina’s mom, but I was pretty sure a mumsy with a splice was an exception to the rule.

  Overall, what Sly was saying made a certain amount of sense. In the end, though, I had my doubts. Maybe cracking down on genies wouldn’t work, because that’s not where the rich kids were getting spliced. And making splices illegal would make the rich chimeras criminals along with the rest of them. But robbing them of their legal personhood didn’t address any of that. It didn’t protect them or prevent them from getting spliced; it just threw them all into the same legal limbo. Maybe it was really just about religion after all.

  I kept my thoughts about it to myself, though. I didn’t know how well my nonchimera opinions would go over.

  Everyone else stayed quiet, too, deep in thought.

  After a few minutes, Rex let out another laugh, quiet and bitter. “I’ll tell you one thing I do know for sure. Judging from the evil that humans do when they stop thinking of each other as people, it’s going to get pretty damned ugly now they’ve got the law telling them they’re right.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. I felt guilt by association as a nonchimera.

  Rex angled closer and put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be silly. You have nothing to be sorry about.”

  We were quiet after that, walking down the center of the road. There was no surface traffic, just lots of copters and drones. We’d gone a quarter mile when Rex looked up and said, “Uh-oh.”

  A police drone zipped past overhead, then came back slowly, hovered above us, and zipped off again.

  Minutes later a twinkling red-and-blue light appeared ahead of us in the distance, growing quickly. Fifty yards away, it slowed to a crawl, then stopped. A police van.

  As we got closer, the driver’s-side window slid down. The cop was young and jacked. He looked at us and laughed, shaking his head, then beckoned us with his fingers to come over to the car.

  As we did, he looked me up and down. “Sweetheart, what are you doing, hanging out with this mixie trash?”

  “These are my friends,” I said evenly.

  “Friends? Don’t you know they’re not even people?” He laughed again. “So, what, are you taking them for a walk?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “We’re going for a walk.”

  “Yeah? Well, not in Alder, you’re not.” He flicked a switch on the dashboard and the doors at the back of the van slowly swung open. “Get in the back.”

  Rex said, “We’re not doing anything wrong.”

  “I’m not talking to you, dogface,” he snapped, then turned back to me. “For your information, miss, this is a motorway. No pedestrians allowed. So, for your safety, I cannot let you continue to walk on this road.”

  We hadn’t seen a single car other than his. But I figured it would be best to keep that to myself.

  He fingered the shock baton next to him, like he wanted to use it. “I’m going to say it one more time, and then I’m going to consider you to be resisting an official directive. Get. In.”

  I looked at the others. I didn’t see that we had a choice.

  We walked around to the back and climbed in. Rex had to fold himself in half to fit through the door. Inside, there was a bench on either side with handcuffs bolted every couple of feet. Could be worse, I thought.

  Rex and I sat on one side, Pell and Sly on the other. Pell was trembling, and Sly put his arm around her. We had barely sat down when the van took off fast, sliding us all to the back. It stopped abruptly and we fell forward; then it took off again, swerving violently, tires screeching as it fishtailed and straightened out.

  The guy was shaking us around on purpose, roughing us up without laying a hand on us. I didn’t know where we were headed, but Rex
was seething and I was worried about what was going to happen when we got out.

  We drove that way for no more than five minutes; then the van braked hard and we all slammed against the front. After a hard, nine-point turn, we took off in reverse before coming to a sudden stop that slammed us against the back. A moment later the doors opened.

  We tumbled out onto the road in front of another sign that said NOW LEAVING ALDER. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. UNSAFE ROAD CONDITIONS.

  We were on the other side of town.

  The doors closed and the van backed up next to us. The cop smiled down at us, still in a heap on the ground.

  “This isn’t a taxi service,” he said. “Next time I pick you up, I’m not taking you where you’re headed. Understand?”

  Rex tensed and I put my hand on his arm and whispered, “We need to keep moving.” Then I turned to the cop. “We understand.”

  He sped off, his flashing lights shrinking to a twinkling point before they disappeared altogether.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Half a mile outside town, a pickup truck roared past us, hurling obscenities, insults, and a large soft drink that splashed at our feet.

  Sly gave them the finger with both hands, doing a little dance in the middle of the road as he did.

  “Morons,” Pell called out. She was trying not to let it bother her, but I could see she was upset.

  Rex was seething. I didn’t know how much more of it he could take without responding. Or how much I could take without responding, either.

  “We need to get off the road,” I said.

  Sly shook his head. “Bullshit. We have every right to be here.”

  Rex scowled at the idea, but Pell nodded.

  I turned to Rex. “Can I see the map, the real one?”

  He handed it over and I studied it for a moment. “There’s a trail up ahead, over these hills instead of around them. It’s a more direct route, right past Pitman to where Haven is supposed to be. We can get off the road and still get there quicker, probably be there by nightfall.”

  Rex looked dubious and Sly picked up on it, copying him.

  “Look,” I said, “we need to get where we’re going. We need to find Del and Ruth, right?”