by Jon McGoran
“Did you see his bracelet?” I asked. “It said he was a patient somewhere.”
Doc tweaked a knob on the unit before nodding. “That bracelet is from an OmniCare hospital. I recognize the code.”
OmniCare sounded vaguely familiar, a chain of for-profit hospitals. Except a hospital of any kind didn’t make sense. “I thought hospitals wouldn’t treat chimeras,” I said.
“OmniCare’s one of the rare ones,” Doc said. “They just started to a couple of months ago. You may have seen their medical director making a big deal about it on the news.”
“Wait,” Rex said. “Charleston or something?”
“Charlesford is his name,” Doc said. “He’s pretty slick. A bit late to the party, as far as treating chimeras with any respect, but better late than never, I guess.”
“Well, maybe we can take Cornelius there,” I said hopefully.
Doc shook his head. “There are just a few OmniCare facilities that take chimeras. The only one in Pennsylvania is out near Gellersville.”
“That’s, like, two hours away,” I said.
“Yes. And the state he’s in, I doubt the kid would make it halfway.” Doc looked at the hyperbaric bed and glanced at his watch.
“What about the cord-blood thing you’ve been working on?” Rex said. “Any chance that could work?”
Doc shook his head. “That’s not close to ready for prime time. Besides, we don’t even have this kid’s birth name, much less his cord blood. Plus, I don’t know if whatever is ailing him has anything to do with his splice. And even if we had the cord blood and were able to fix his splice, there’s no way he’s strong enough to sweat out a change.”
“Then what are we going to do?” I asked.
Doc hooked a thumb at the blood analysis machine. “We’re going to wait and see what the blood tells us, and then we’ll go from there.” For a moment the only sound was the hiss of the hyperbaric bed and the quiet whir of the blood analyzer.
Then something occurred to me. “Doc,” I said. “Is OmniCare one of the places Wells gave all that money to after Pitman?”
Just mentioning Pitman made my skin crawl. That was where Del had died.
Doc nodded.
Rex screwed up his face. “You mean Howard Wells?”
Doc nodded again. “Pitman was such a public-relations disaster for Wellplant and H4H, Wells tried to buy his way out of it by giving OmniCare money to help care for chimeras.”
I’d seen that on the news: Howard Wells saying he and H4H were horrified at what happened in Pitman, and making a big show of funding medical care for chimeras, as if he wasn’t personally responsible for putting them in danger in the first place.
Rex shook his head with a bitter snort. “Imagine that. You push through a law that dehumanizes people, and then you claim to be surprised that those people are suddenly treated as less than human. I hate that guy.”
I was mildly stunned to hear that. There were plenty of good reasons to hate Howard Wells, but while Rex was big and bad in his way, he wasn’t about hate. The word didn’t sound right coming from him.
“I hear you,” said Doc. “If it makes you feel any better, Howard Wells is getting thumped on a number of fronts.”
“What do you mean?”
“As much as he condemns what happened in Pitman, a lot of people don’t believe he had nothing to do with it.”
“Yeah,” said Rex. “I’m one of them. What else?”
“His company might be in trouble, too.”
I laughed. “Are you kidding? Wellplant’s one of the biggest companies in the world. Did you see their holo-ad right before Christmas? And everyone’s talking about how powerful the new upgrade is. The company’s got to be growing like crazy right now.”
“Maybe too fast,” Doc said. “Some people think they’re overextended, that they’ve taken on too much debt and can’t fill their orders.”
Rex laughed. “Good.”
The blood analyzer dinged and Doc went over and pressed a button to print out the results. His frown returned and he shook his head. “This thing must not be working,” he mumbled.
I wasn’t surprised. It looked at least thirty years old.
Doc shut off the hyperbaric bed and undid the latches on the plastic bubble. Rex and I gathered behind him as he opened the lid. I didn’t need confirmation from Doc to know what I was seeing.
Cornelius was dead.
Doc let out a soft whimper of sorrow and frustration. Rex put his arm around me. We stood there for a moment, quietly looking down at Cornelius’s body.
Then the silence was shattered by a sharp bang at the front door. A voice barked out, “Open up! Police!”
All three of us froze as a second bang shook the entire building. Then the door exploded into a thousand shards of glass.
CHAPTER 4
Two cops entered, guns drawn. I didn’t recognize either of them, and I was struck by the absurdity that my life had taken such a weird turn over the past few months that I might expect to know them at all.
“Freeze! Right there!” said the first officer, holding his gun in front of him with two hands. His name tag said RETZLAFF. He was the younger of the two, and judging from the deepening flush on his ruddy cheeks and the look in his wild blue eyes, the more excitable.
His partner was older, heavier, and calmer, his eyes half closed. The faint wrinkles on his olive skin made him seem almost grandfatherly—but not quite. His tag said TERASOVIC and his gun was pointed at the floor. He put out a hand and gently pushed Retzlaff’s weapon down as well. The younger cop looked annoyed, but he went along with it.
Terasovic looked at Doc. “Is this your place? You’re Guzman?”
Retzlaff kept his eyes on Rex. His entire body seemed tense.
Doc took off his glasses and polished them with his shirt. “Yes, that’s right.”
Terasovic turned toward the front door. “All right,” he called. “Come on in here.”
We heard footsteps on the broken glass, then Kurtz walked in, looking as messed-up, scared, and defiant as ever.
Terasovic pointed at Doc. “This is the guy you said, right?”
Kurtz glanced around the room, then down at his feet. “That’s him, yeah.”
“Mr. Guzman, Mr. Kurtz here says that you kidnaped his fiancée, a Ms. Bembry. Is that right, Mr. Kurtz?”
This time Kurtz didn’t even look up. “Yes.”
Terasovic looked around the lab, then looked at Doc. “Is it okay with you if we search the place?”
Before Doc could answer, Kurtz said, “She’s not here.”
“What’s that?” Terasovic sounded vaguely perplexed. “I thought you told my partner here that this man abducted your fiancée.” He glanced at Retzlaff with a hint of a scowl on his face. Retzlaff looked confused. His hands squirmed around the grip of his gun, like they were sweaty.
“Well, yeah, that’s basically what happened,” said Kurtz. “She disappeared without a trace, and this guy,” he said, pointing, “so-called Doctor Guzman over here, was the last person to see her.”
Terasovic took a deep breath. “And when was this?”
“Well, I just found out about that part,” Kurtz said.
“When did she disappear?”
“October 15.”
Terasovic rolled his eyes, then paused, thinking. “The day of the GHA riots?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“And this girlfriend of yours—”
“Fiancée.”
“This fiancée of yours, did she belong to Humans for Humanity or any related groups?”
“No way,” Kurtz snapped. “She was a mixie.”
Rex stiffened at the slur and Retzlaff tightened his grip on his gun. Terasovic turned to Rex and said, “Sorry about that.” Then he turned back to Kurtz. “Watch your tone, son. So you’re saying your girlfriend was a chimera, and she went missing the day of the riots, and you think her disappearance has something to do with Mr. Guzman here?”
“Well, yeah, she just got spliced the night before and she went to see him to get it fixed, because it was stupid. I never saw her again, and he won’t tell me what happened to her.”
Terasovic’s face was darkening. “Well, that’s not exactly what you told my partner right before we came in here breaking down doors.” He turned to Doc with a forced smile. “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding, Mr. Guzman. I just have to ask, do you have any information on the whereabouts of Ms. Claudia Bembry?”
Doc squinted and tilted his head, like he was trying to remember.
I don’t know if it was an act or not, but I sure remembered her. I felt myself staring daggers at Kurtz. I had met Claudia that day in October when we were both looking for Doc Guzman. The reason she was trying to get her splice fixed was that her boyfriend—Kurtz, I now realized—had been supposed to get spliced alongside her, but once hers was underway, he backed out and ran away, leaving her alone to deal with the huge life change they’d been supposed to go through together, and right as all hell was breaking loose.
“Maybe she just doesn’t like you anymore,” I said. “Maybe she came to her senses and realized what an asshole you are.”
“That’s not true!” Kurtz yelled. “She loves me! We were supposed to get married!”
I rolled my eyes. “What are you, like, fifteen?”
Terasovic turned to me and said, “Miss, please. Unless you have information to share, please don’t escalate the situation.” He turned to Doc. “Mr. Guzman, does the name ring a bell? Do you have any information about Ms. Bembry’s whereabouts?”
“No. I met her. I tried to help her but couldn’t. As far as I know, she’s with her parents.”
“Okay, that’s all I needed to know. Thanks for your cooperation. And I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
“That’s it?” Kurtz practically shrieked. “That’s all you’re going to do?”
“Mr. Kurtz,” Terasovic snapped, “have you even spoken to Ms. Bembry’s parents?”
Kurtz tried to scowl, but it looked more like a pout. “They don’t return my calls.”
“Because you’re an asshole,” I muttered.
Kurtz and Terasovic both glared at me. Terasovic took out a business card and approached Doc. “Like I said, Mr. Guzman, we’re sorry for the inconvenience.” He looked around the clinic, then handed over his card. “You can file a claim with the county to get that door fixed. Just call the number right here, and make sure you have your deed and your property tax ID number.”
He gave Doc a fake smile. It was obvious to all of us that no one was paying taxes on the place. Doc took the card anyway and slipped it into his shirt pocket. “Thank you.”
Terasovic turned toward the door, motioning for Retzlaff and Kurtz to precede him, but as he did he stopped.
There was an odd expression on his face. He glanced back at Doc, and it took me a second to realize he was actually looking past him. At the hyperbaric bed. The condensation on the bubble had cleared enough that Cornelius’s foot was visible.
“What’s that?” Terasovic asked.
Doc didn’t answer. Terasovic stepped around him, peered into the bubble, then let out a loud sigh, part sad, part victorious, part weary.
“Hands,” he said to Doc, pulling out his cuffs.
“Wait, what’s going on?” I said, but I knew what was going on. Cornelius was dead, and Doc was about to be blamed.
“Were these two involved?” Terasovic asked Doc as he put the cuffs on him.
“You can’t arrest him,” Rex said, moving toward them. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”
Retzlaff pointed his gun in Rex’s direction, his hands shaking. Kurtz smiled—a smug, infuriating little smile.
“No, they weren’t,” Doc said. He looked up at Rex and shook his head, telling him not to interfere.
“Sorry, folks,” Terasovic said. “I know you fixers think you’re doing the right thing, and maybe sometimes you are. But performing unlicensed medical procedures is unlawful. I generally don’t give a crap about that, but if someone dies because of it…” He put one hand on Doc’s shoulder, the other on his cuffed hands. “Mr. Guzman, you are under arrest. For murder.”
“This is crazy,” I said.
Terasovic pointed at Kurtz. “You. Leave. If Ms. Bembry’s parents want to file a report, they know where to find us.” Kurtz vanished as Terasovic turned to Retzlaff and pointed at us. “Names and addresses, then get them out of here and tape the front and back doors. I’ll take care of the suspect and call the crime-scene unit.”
Rex said, “Doc?”
“It’s okay,” Doc replied. “Just tell Jerry to get me a lawyer.”
As Retzlaff took down our info, Terasovic gave Doc a gentle shove and started marching him toward the front door, reading him his rights along the way.
CHAPTER 5
Retzlaff took our info, then he said, “Now get the hell out of here,” and pushed us toward the door.
We reached the parking lot just as Terasovic was stuffing Doc into the back of the patrol car, his hand clamped over Doc’s head.
Rex sighed and scanned our surroundings. I knew he was searching for Kurtz, but I also knew that kid was long gone.
“Come on,” I said, tugging gently at Rex’s sleeve. “We need to go.”
“This is bullshit,” he said, resisting me, his muscles taut, his voice strained.
“I know,” I said. “That’s why we need to get going. We need to tell Jerry what happened so we can get Doc a lawyer and straighten this out.”
From the backseat, Doc looked out at us and flicked his head, indicating that we should get going. Then the car pulled into the road, crunching ice under its tires as it picked up speed. It stopped at the end of the block, just as a white van with MONTGOMERY COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER on the side appeared from the opposite direction. The two vehicles flicked their headlights in greeting. Then they passed each other and Doc was gone.
“Come on,” I said quietly.
Rex nodded. We walked quickly past a dozen empty storefronts and an old gas station that looked like it hadn’t even been repurposed before it was abandoned. Doc’s clinic was about two miles from the nearest Levline stop. It was cold and getting late, and we had to cover some distance.
We were both runners, and without a word, we broke into a jog.
“I’ve been thinking about running with you, ever since the last time,” Rex said, with a wistful smile. “I’d pictured better circumstances.”
“Me too,” I said. “Still nice, though.”
He glanced down at me “Yeah. Sure is.”
We were cutting through what had once been an expensive neighborhood, with big houses only three or four to a block. We passed one that had been kept up, a stone mansion with an iron fence, landscape lighting, even a fountain. It looked like an old French estate, except for an acre of solar collectors next door and a pair of quadcopters parked in the courtyard.
Another house, a couple of blocks farther, was almost as big. It had been turned into what looked like a pretty nice squat. The yard was filled with a cluster of mismatched solar collectors and a greenhouse made of plastic sheets. A woman was standing on the side porch, scraping table scraps onto a compost pile as we jogged by.
The other houses we passed were a little less grand and had been left to fall apart completely. The road was in bad shape, too, and with the ice and snow, we had to be extra careful where we stepped in the darkness, so neither of us twisted an ankle.
We ran in silence for a mile or so. I was thinking a lot about what had just happened to Cornelius and to Doc, and I knew Rex was, too.
“Poor Cornelius,” I said aloud.
“Yeah,” Rex said.
“And Doc, too.”
“Yeah.”
We were quiet again. Rex’s one-word answers got me wondering what was going on in his head.
I had never thought of him as the mysterious type—which was good, because I really wasn’t into the mysterious type. B
ut right now, he was being mysterious. And I was finding it annoying.
I glanced at him as he ran, his eyes looking straight ahead, and I wondered again about our relationship. We hadn’t been together long, but we had gone through a lot when we connected back in the fall.
It was right when GHA passed statewide and the anti-chimera movement was getting really ugly. Some of our friends with splices had been lured to a remote compound in the mountains called Haven with the promise that they’d ultimately be relocated to Chimerica, a supposed permanent refuge. Rex and I had been pretty sure Chimerica was BS. But Haven was real—and it turned out to be a deadly trap for chimeras, set up by some very sick people.
Uncovering all that and then losing Del—it had been awful.
But it had also led to Rex and me reconnecting, discovering a shared past as well as some pretty intense feelings for each other.
And then Rex had disappeared. When he resurfaced in my driveway a few weeks later, he told me Chimerica existed, but he wouldn’t tell me any more about it right then.
It was almost Thanksgiving before I saw him again. I’d gone for a run after school, and Rex appeared next to me, silently, matching my stride.
Then, suddenly, we weren’t running. He was holding me and kissing me and I didn’t want to let go of him. Because I knew he’d be leaving again. I could feel it.
“I can’t stay long,” he’d said, when our lips regained circulation.
“How long?”
I half expected him to say a few minutes, like last time, so I was actually relieved when he said, “Just tonight.”
“Where have you been?” I asked. “Where are you going? What’s the deal with Chimerica?”
I saw pain in his eyes, pain you couldn’t fake.
“Are you in trouble?” I asked.
“No, it’s just…I can’t get into it.”
In the moment, I let it go. I was just so happy to see him. That night we went out to dinner; I assumed we’d go to New Ground, but Rex said he didn’t want to see anyone else. Just me.
We took the Levline into the city and back out to the Chestnut Hill historic district. The Night Kitchen was a restaurant that had been around forever, and it was magical. The food was amazing, and the people were super nice. No one judged us or messed with us.
