Project Chimera

by Lisa McMann

  “Kelly!” Charlie said, her voice thick and gravelly with tears. “Please.”

  “You want to be more powerful than me,” Kelly said. She began shaking. “You turned on me—even you, Maria. And now you all want me to go back to normal while you stay special?”

  Maria and Mac exchanged a horrified glance. “Kelly,” began Maria. She stepped toward the girl but didn’t get too close. Kelly’s spurs were still activated, and no one dared get too near her—they didn’t know if she’d go primal again.

  Kelly backed away. She reached to cradle the device on her wrist, then looked at Miko again, who was moving toward Prowl and the door.

  Miko caught her glance. “We can protect you, too, you know,” said Miko softly. “We don’t hate you, Kelly.” She paused, then added, “We’re your fans. All of us watched you on LIVE, TONIGHT. You were amazing. That’s why Dr. Gray sent the soldiers out to find you. He wants you for our team.”

  Kelly glanced at her. “Really? But . . . what about Prowl? He’s not going to like me much now.”

  “Prowl will be fine. He knows you didn’t intend to hurt anybody.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” Maria warned. “We don’t hate you. Charlie didn’t mean it.”

  Charlie flashed a burning look at Maria, but she was wise enough to stay quiet. She looked miserably at her limp, silent brother as her mother worked on him, and the rage at Kelly churned inside her again. “Just . . . do something!” Charlie cried. “Go, if you’re going to go. I don’t care! We have to get help for Andy.”

  “But we want you to stay,” said Maria firmly. She put her hand on Charlie’s shoulder.

  Kelly faltered, and a pained expression came over her face. “No you don’t,” she said quietly. “I know pretty well by now when I’m not wanted.”

  “Let’s go,” said Miko softly. She moved toward the door. Without taking her eyes off the others, she carefully picked up one of Prowl’s arms and dragged him over the tile. “Help me with Prowl, will you? Then maybe we can see about creating a slick bodysuit that’ll work with your camo. One of the other soldiers has one already. It’s very cool.”

  Kelly looked at her.

  “Kelly,” said Maria, her voice filled with worry. “Come on. They’re the bad guys! They could hurt you!”

  Kelly looked at Maria, then at Charlie, then Andy. She winced and turned away. “Maybe I’m not good either,” she said. “And I’m already hurt—you just can’t see it. So. I’ve got nothing to lose. But at least I don’t have to sit here and watch Charlie glare at me like that for who knows how long.” She hesitated in the silence, then bent and grabbed Prowl’s other arm. Together she and Miko pulled the leopard man out into the hallway.

  Maria ran after them to the door, but Mac stopped her. “No, Maria. We’re done. Enough for now.”

  Mrs. Wilde got up quickly, lifting Andy in her arms. “Charlie, do you still have the key I gave you? Get this door open and grab me a blanket! He’s in shock and he’s not breathing well. I think . . .” She gulped down a sob. “I’m worried we’re going to lose him.”

  CHAPTER 41

  From Generation to Regeneration

  Charlie found her key and unlocked the door. She ran for blankets as Mrs. Wilde carried Andy inside. Mac and Maria followed and hurried to free the scientists, finding Ms. Sabbith tied up with the others. They filled in the kids on what had happened while they set them free.

  While Maria fielded questions, Mac went for his iPad. He started typing madly.

  Mr. Wilde limped over to see Andy and assist his wife. “Should I call an ambulance?” he asked.

  Mrs. Wilde looked flustered in her professional role for the first time. “There’s not enough time. If I can get him stabilized . . .” She turned and shouted, “Mac! Look up antidotes for platypus venom!”

  “Already on it!” said Mac, typing frantically. After a moment he looked up. “There’s no known antidote!” he shouted back.

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” She shook her head and blew out a breath. “He’s just so small for such powerful poison. We sat there wasting time. . . .”

  Charlie paced nearby. She looked at her bracelet. If only she could give Andy her healing power! But even if she could, it wouldn’t work on him. . . . She froze, mid-thought. Then she turned to her father. “Dad, what’s the ID Number for the Mark Five? To deactivate Defense Mode? It’s stuck on my arm.”

  “I . . . I don’t remember off the top of my head—it’s been years. I’d need my computer, but Dr. Gray has it.”

  “Mom, where’s that Talos Global envelope?”

  “I dropped it in the reception area.”

  Charlie ran out and gathered up the papers. She returned with the mess, spreading it out on a table. “Everyone! Help!”

  “What are we looking for?” asked Maria, running to her side.

  “The ID Number to take this thing off so I can put it on Andy. I know it was in here—I saw it before Kelly took everything.”

  “That’s brilliant, Charlie,” said Mr. Wilde. “Andy has my DNA too.”

  Mac joined them and Drs. Goldstein and Sharma and Ms. Sabbith came over to help. They picked up several pages at a time, everybody looking quickly and carefully through them. They were all out of order and many had wrinkles and stains.

  They searched frantically for several minutes until finally Maria stopped and lifted a page. She stared intently at it. “I’ve got it!” she cried.

  Charlie dropped her papers and started clicking rapidly on her bracelet’s buttons, fingers fumbling and going to the wrong screen. “Mac, my fingers won’t work,” she said, desperate. She held out her arm in front of him.

  Mac leaned over it. After all his time trying to figure out the Mark Five’s ID Number, he knew Charlie’s device almost better than she did.

  “Okay, go,” said Mac. He held his fingers poised.

  Maria read off the eight-digit code. Mac entered it.

  “Hang on, Mom!” shouted Charlie. “I’m coming!”

  After Mac entered the last digit he pushed the OK button. They all stared, waiting to see what would happen. DEFENSE MODE DEACTIVATED flashed three times before going to the home screen.

  “Yes!” The clasp came apart easily. Charlie ran over to her parents and squeezed in between them. Then she put the device on Andy’s wrist, fastened it, and slid it up his arm until it was tight against his skin. “Please work. Please work,” she breathed. The device went through a series of screens, as if recognizing a new wearer, then an attempt to match DNA.

  “Hurry,” Charlie begged.

  After a moment the screen read: MATCH SUCCESSFUL. DEVICE RESET. POWERS READY TO ACTIVATE. It went back to the animal screen, and Charlie saw that the starfish was lit up, animated, and turning pink, pulsing with life.

  “It’s working!” said Charlie.

  “It’s working,” echoed Mr. Wilde, as if he couldn’t believe after all these years that he’d see his invention save his own child.

  Charlie hugged his shoulders, then lifted her shirtsleeves and showed him where Prowl had dug into her earlier that day. Only a few lines remained—traces of scars. “See how fast it works? Plus, I got bit by that snake soldier today, too. I’m almost totally fine now.” She looked at her mother. “How is he? Any better yet?”

  “His blood pressure is coming back up,” Mrs. Wilde said. “His breathing is good.” She broke down, covered her face with her hand, and sobbed for a moment, then tried to pull it together.

  Within minutes Andy’s eyelids fluttered. He grimaced and groaned. “My leg hurts so bad.”

  “I know, honey,” said Mrs. Wilde. “It’ll feel better soon. Charlie gave you her bracelet so you can heal superfast.”

  “She did?” Andy blinked a couple times, then lifted his arm weakly to look at it. “Cool,” he said with a smile. Then he closed his eyes and slept.

  CHAPTER 42

  Cleaning Up

  “Hey,” said Charlie, coming over to the surveillance area wher
e Ms. Sabbith and Mac sat looking over the footage. “Prowl didn’t steal the laptop? That’s surprising.”

  “They left the equipment alone because they were using our cameras to keep track of all of you,” said Ms. Sabbith. “When they noticed you coming back faster than they expected—”

  “Because we busted out of a freaking bank vault,” Mac said proudly.

  “Right,” said Ms. Sabbith with a sly grin. “Anyway, they panicked and grabbed Andy as a hostage so they could make it out of here. I think our hearts all stopped beating at that point. Certainly your dad’s did. He was a mess.”

  Charlie imagined it and nodded gravely. “But what about Dr. Gray?”

  “He’s gone. Took his equipment and got away in the van. He didn’t even wait for Miko and Prowl to come back with Kelly. Looks like Cyke returned for them later.”

  “Maybe he’ll leave us alone for a while, then,” said Maria, joining them. She looked at Ms. Sabbith. “I don’t suppose you have the stuff . . . ,” she began, and trailed off with a cringe.

  Ms. Sabbith smiled. “I’ve got everything we need. And now we have the scientists to start working on it.”

  Maria looked up. “Do you really think they can fix me?”

  “Positive. We’ll get you back to normal if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Maria cracked a smile. “Thanks. That means a lot.” She looked at Mac and Charlie, and then a look of alarm came over her face as if she remembered something important. “Did you tell everyone what Dr. Gray said in the vault?”

  “What did he say?” asked Ms. Sabbith. She glanced at Dr. Sharma, who looked up from her desk nearby.

  With all the excitement of breaking out of the vault and fighting the soldiers over Kelly and Andy’s near-death experience, Charlie had forgotten Dr. Gray’s chilling plan. Her stomach twisted. “He told us he has everything he needs to take the next step in his plan,” she said. “Once he figures out the perfect chimera combination for his soldiers he’s going to turn everyone into chimeras.”

  Dr. Sharma stood up, alarmed. “Everyone?”

  “That’s what he said. The whole world.”

  The biologist stared at Charlie, shaking her head slightly as though she couldn’t believe it. “This is extremely alarming. Jack, Charles, are you hearing this?”

  They came over. Dr. Sharma filled them in.

  “He said something about mass production, too,” added Maria.

  “This is devastating,” said Mr. Wilde, sinking into a chair.

  “We can’t let him succeed,” said Dr. Goldstein gravely. “It’ll be the end of humanity.”

  “We have to stop him,” said Dr. Sharma. “Civilization depends on it.”

  Charlie felt the weight of the matter like a brick in the pit of her stomach. The scientists weren’t joking around—they were truly scared about what Dr. Gray was capable of. She looked at her friends. Did this mean what she thought it meant? That this nightmare wasn’t over?

  “Are we going to be okay?” asked Mac, his face awash in fear.

  Dr. Sharma looked at him, and her face softened. “Of course we are,” she assured him. “He has a lot of work ahead of him before he can succeed with this, and we’re going to stop him before anything happens. I don’t want you kids to be afraid.” As the three scientists talked about their options, Charlie and her friends sat quietly, listening. When there was a lull, Charlie touched her dad’s sleeve. “Where do you think Dr. Gray went?”

  “I don’t know, but we’re going to find him.”

  “I gave Ms. Sabbith the license plate number of the van the other day,” said Charlie. “Do you think that will help?”

  “I’m already working on that,” Ms. Sabbith called out, not looking up.

  Dr. Wilde looked surprised. “Great job getting it, Charlie. That was smart.” He paused, deep in thought, then went on. “You really shocked Gray and the soldiers with how powerful you are. But now they’re going to regroup and grow stronger with the information they have and the new technology we created for them. And I’m sure he expects us to try to stop him.”

  “He has Kelly now, too,” Dr. Goldstein pointed out. “She knows things about all of you. I imagine Victor will try to pull information from her to see if he can figure out your vulnerabilities. He’s gone mad, but he’s not stupid.”

  “Kelly knows plenty about us,” Charlie said.

  “And she has the Mark Four,” Mac reminded them all. “So Dr. Gray has access to that bracelet if he needs it for the technology or to test her abilities to help decide on the perfect chimera combination.”

  He turned to Dr. Sharma. “That device has three abilities, right, Dr. Sharma?”

  Dr. Sharma pulled away from her notes. “Correct.”

  “Which animals?” asked Mac, sitting up straighter.

  “Dolphin—swimming, not echolocation like Charlie has with the bat.”

  “Well, I had,” said Charlie, looking at her empty wrist, but the others didn’t notice.

  Mac nodded. “We knew that one. What else?”

  “Platypus.”

  “Yup,” said Mac. “We got that one right. What’s the third one? It’s not a chameleon, I’m sure of it.”

  Despite the severity of the situation Dr. Sharma’s tired eyes smiled at Mac’s enthusiasm for animals. “It’s another water creature.”

  “Ooh,” said Maria. “You used all water creatures? That’s cool.”

  Mac was typing furiously, trying to figure out which water creatures had camouflage abilities. He landed on a page, studied it, and looked up. “Cuttlefish?” he said.

  Dr. Sharma nodded. “That’s right. You should see all the things the cuttlefish can do. It’s an intensely amazing animal.” She shook her head regretfully. “I wish I’d questioned Kelly a little more thoroughly when she said she’d thrown the Mark Four away. I might have it back now—and she might be safe at home. Things could have gone so differently.”

  Mac looked up. “I’m sorry Kelly did that. Your device sounds really great.”

  Dr. Sharma smiled. “Thanks.” She loaded what remained of her files into a box. “I had tons of notes on this animal in particular in that Project Chimera folder envelope. You can read them sometime if you’re interested.”

  After a while Charlie’s mom appeared. “Andy’s doing much better. Where do we go from here? Do we need to leave?”

  “This building? I doubt they’re coming back here. They have everything they need from us.”

  “I mean . . .” Mrs. Wilde’s eyes flitted to the kids, then back to her husband. “Do we need to go after them? Or hide from them? Do we need to leave . . . Arizona?”

  Everyone was silent. Charlie’s heart plummeted. The thought had never occurred to her. Surely they wouldn’t have to move away.

  Mr. Wilde looked at the other biologists. “I don’t know,” he admitted finally. “We might. It depends on what they do.”

  “Dad,” said Charlie, “you can’t be serious.” She looked at her friends, who stared back at her in shock. Charlie had grown closer to Mac and Maria than any other friends she’d ever had—even Amari. And that was saying a lot. Plus, they needed them—if Charlie had to move, Maria and Mac had to come too.

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Wilde repeated. “I think we’re safe here for now. Dr. Gray is preoccupied with other things at the moment. He’s going to have to regroup and reestablish himself somewhere too, and finish experimenting to find the perfect combination for his chimera. He won’t quit. And he knows we know a lot about him and his plans.”

  “There’s a lot we have to consider,” said Dr. Sharma. “Gray is much closer to his goal. Unfortunately we’ve done a good deal of the hard work for him. And like we talked about earlier, he has Kelly now, and she’s as unpredictable as they come. I have no idea what she’s capable of.”

  “Maybe Kelly won’t stay with them,” said Maria, troubled. “I bet she’ll come to her senses and just go home. I hope so, anyway.”

  There was a qui
et moment where everyone hoped the same.

  Dr. Goldstein, who’d been mostly silent, spoke. “Either way, Gray’s next move is bound to be huge. We have to prepare for that. And there’s one thing I do know. We can’t beat them without the kids. So Charlie, you’re going to have to get that device back from your brother when he’s done with it.”

  “Yes sir,” said Charlie with a small smile.

  “Actually,” said Mr. Wilde, “I don’t think I will give it back to you, Charlie.”

  Charlie’s face fell. “B-b-but Dad,” she sputtered. “Why? I mean . . . I know it’s your device and all, but it’s, like . . . my destiny! I want to fight Dr. Gray! I want to stop him! I was just getting started—and what about my friends? They need me. This isn’t fair!”

  Mr. Wilde’s mouth hinted at a smile. He fished into his pocket and pulled out a half-finished, shiny new device, even slimmer and more streamlined than the Mark Five, with a larger screen and more buttons. He held it out for Charlie and the others to see. “I’ve got some work to do on the guts of it,” he said, “but that shouldn’t take long. I give you the new and improved Mark Six.” He handed it to Charlie. “Otherwise known as . . . yours.”

  CHAPTER 43

  A Stronger Team

  “A Mark Six?” cried Charlie. “For me?” She high-fived Mac and then glanced guiltily at Maria, who was struggling to smile. Little loose beard hairs still stuck to her shirt. Her prognosis was good according to Ms. Sabbith, but Charlie would still feel uneasy until she heard a definite solution from the scientists. Charlie looked earnestly at her father. “Dr. Sharma said you all might be able to do something about Maria’s physical changes. Can you?”

  Mr. Wilde opened his mouth to answer, but then he closed it, narrowed his eyes, and pointed at the cardinal cam. A soldier was slipping across the street toward their building.

  “Miko?” asked Mrs. Wilde, her face worried.

  “No, it’s Zed,” said Charlie, detecting her smooth, catlike gait.