“Kerg,” he says with a smile.
“Pu’nah,” I say. I hear the stamping of mammoth feet begin in the distance. “So we have a deal. Only the mammoths. And only a few of them.”
Rain falls, hissing as it strikes the fire.
“Of course Kerg, a deal’s a deal.”
Through the wet smoke I smell another, and my lips pull back from my teeth. Pu’nah’s grin widens at my realization. Felos steps forward. A group of lionesses follows him.
“Felos!” I shout, hoping the other bears will hear me.
He ignores me and says to Pu’nah in a bored voice, “Are there more?”
“I think maybe one or two down the path.”
“Let’s make this quick, shall we? I’m starving.” Felos motions with his head, and the lionesses trot off. To me he explains, “An alliance. We don’t kill men, they don’t kill us.” He grins, showing more teeth than I have ever seen in one place. “Our victory feast is tonight.”
Felos’s belly bulges. The men have fed him. King of the plain, indeed. He rocks back slightly on his rear legs, preparing to spring. Men raise spears.
“You’re next,” I say. “The men will betray you.”
Just as I betrayed the mammoths.
Roars and snarls rise up from the slope as the lionesses find there are more bears than one or two. Felos shifts his eyes slightly and gives Pu’nah a look of concern. The sky groans with thunder.
Survival on the plain is mostly running and biting and screaming at storms. But there are a few things one needs to know. First among these is that you never take your eyes off your opponent.
I leap at Felos. He has a more powerful bite, but I am larger. I drive him over, managing to get my snout beneath his jaw, keeping his teeth away from my throat. I bite into his neck and give a sharp shake, and it is over. The men are smiling, spears down, not moving to help their ally. Perhaps it was their plan that we would kill each other.
I no longer hear the roars of lionesses and bears. They could be all dead. The men direct their smiles at me, some with raised spears. The puddle of blood I see before me comes as a surprise. It’s mine. Felos got a claw into my chest. Now I’m happy I killed him.
The ground shakes — not from the heavy thunder but from the footfalls of the mammoths. They are almost to the river. Men line up on the edge of the cliff and raise their spears. One man hurls his, and I hear the death whinny of a young mammoth who has gotten out ahead.
“Pu’nah wait!” I cry. “Let them go. Feast on the dead bears and lions tonight.” I hold out my paws. “Have these, the paws of the Dominant, to wear around your neck.”
He looks at me with mock pity. Loathing clenches my throat.
“I will have your claws, thank you.” He sweeps his arm in the direction of the charge. “We will have it all.”
I leap at Pu’nah, but men are not as stupid as lions. A spear pierces my leg and I fall. I hear the screams of bears and mammoths. Men with spears rush up to me for the easy kill.
Lightning streaks everywhere. My fur burns. Thunder pulverizes my ears, and I can’t tell if I am lying down or tumbling through the air. When the world settles, I am flat on the ground with charred and smoldering men scattered about me.
A fissure that had not been there before now snakes across the ground, and what had been a flat ledge now slopes gently downward. Smoke rises from the very rocks. I strain to all fours, but my injured leg gives way. Three men with spears come toward me. I struggle up and lurch. But not toward them.
I dive into the fissure, and push with my good hind leg against one side and my shoulders against the other. Nothing happens. Men laugh at me. I push harder, my ribs popping, realizing I will probably die looking a fool. A few pebbles fall onto my belly. The crevice widens, and the ground lurches downward. A man on the rim of the ledge falls screaming into the river.
The men rush up the now steepening slope. Flashes of lightning illuminate the fear on their faces, and they lose interest in killing me. They stumble into the trench I hold. Some I push back. Some I kill. A few make it past me. Rocks roll toward the river. So do men.
Pu’nah strains to get over the fissure. Two arms and a leg make it across, but I bite into his lagging leg. As we struggle, other men use my back as a bridge.
“Let me go,” Pu’nah yells. “You stupid beast! We can both live!”
But I don’t need to let him go to live. I will live in stories. I will live in Kip’s memory. And I will live as a part of this land. I crush Pu’nah’s head in my jaws. The ground cleaves, and we fall.
~~~
I float. I am a spirit now. Perhaps I will see my father. Who else might I see? I keep my eyes closed, not wanting to know the answer, not wanting to think of those whom I’ve betrayed. Something lands on my nose. Ach! The spirit of a fly? I swipe it away and open my eyes.
I lie on a lumbering mammoth. Bears and mammoths trudge forward. The plain before me is just as never-ending as the one behind. The sky is blue and stretches into the same infinity. I crane my neck backward, but it feels like it’s full of cactus prickles, and I let my head fall again onto the mammoth.
“Old Mother?”
From a few paces away I hear, “Over here, you fool. I’m far too old to be carrying bears around.”
I smile and it hurts. Everything hurts. My lower body is little more than an assortment of bone fragments.
“Believe it or not, Kerg, you’re in much better shape than the man we found lying underneath you. Not enough left for a buzzard there. Oh that reminds me.” She reaches her trunk behind her ear. “That cub of yours will make quite a hunter some day. This poor bird’s feet had barely touched the ground before he was hanging from Kip’s mouth. Though for the life of me I don’t know how you eat this stuff.” She tosses me something.
It’s the leg of a condor.
~~~
ADAM DUNSBY has published speculative fiction in venues such as Story Quest Magazine and The Nautilus Engine. He has also published nonfiction in the field of investing. He lives in Connecticut.
What if the legends of angels arose from an extinct human branch? Lucia doesn’t believe in angels — but she might believe in a little boy cloned from a forgotten race.
THE ANGEL GENOME
by Chrystalla Thoma
Lucia smoothed her black dress over her legs, wondering what her ex-husband wanted now. She patted her hair, twirled a dark curl around a finger, pulled it behind her ear. Grabbing her lipstick, she applied brick red to her lips — her armor against a bad day — and snapped on the phone’s loudspeaker.
“Hey, Fred.”Deep breath. “They tell me you’ve called ten times this morning already. What’s so important?”
“Lucy?” His bright voice grated on her sorrow. The accident had happened barely six months ago. How could he sound so happy? “You’ve been avoiding me. Listen, I won’t take much of your time. Do you remember the Angel Genome Project?”
God, not again. She opened a financial report on her computer and stared at the numbers without really seeing them. “Yes. What about it? They were going to sequence the genome of whatever it was they found in Iran. Angels, they said. We’ve got the mammoth parks and the Neanderthal town. Let’s clone angels, have ourselves a park with cherubs, a wish-fulfillment fantasy with merry-go-rounds and everything.”
“Such a cynic, girl. You used to believe in science. You even signed that donor card after we had Sammy, remember?”
Stiffening, she closed her eyes. She had, hadn’t she? There had been a time she was hopeful and happy and believed in so many things. “Don’t call me girl, Fred, it’s patronizing. I’m not your girl or anybody’s. And hurry this up.”
“All right.” His voice darkened. “Listen, I’m going to break some big news to you. Ready?” When she didn’t answer, he sighed. “Right. You know I’ve been financing part of the project.” He paused. “It’s done, Lucy. We cloned one. We’ve got an angel.”
She froze, blinking, fingers poised above th
e keyboard. “What did you say?”
“It’s a boy. He’s six now. I want you to meet him.”
“There’re no angels, Fred. Wake up. And I don’t want to meet anybody.”
“I got you a private session.”
“For what?”
“To meet the angel, of course. In person. Go to the Angelus Project Foundation and ask to talk to Marcia. She’ll let you in. You cannot imagine —”
“Fred.” Cold gripped her spine. “Stop calling him an angel. He isn’t one.” She didn’t believe in angels, not anymore, not since Sam had died in that accident. Not after she’d struggled so hard to have Sam, the whole ordeal of the in vitro fertilization, the failed attempts, the spontaneous abortions. All the blood and pain and despair, all the joy at giving birth to Sam, only for death to take him so soon. She didn’t believe in a god that had let Sam die, nor in his fluttering army of angels.
“As you like. Still, can you do this for me?”
“I don’t want to meet the child. You know it would remind me of Sam.” Her eyes stung, but she refused to let her voice break. “Why don’t you go? It’s your project, not mine.”
“The boy is closed up, not talking. Two days ago he stopped eating. You’ve got that mother filter, you can—”
“I’ve got work.” The icy fingers curled around her middle, squeezing. “Did you need anything else?”
“The whole project could fail if the boy dies. Too much money was invested in him, and everyone is just waiting for the chance to bring us down. Think, Lucy. He will be the news of the millennium. Imagine the headlines, if this angel boy lives to be studied and his cells harvested—”
“You have no clue, do you, of what you’re asking me to do.” She gripped the edge of the desk.
“Please.”
That was a word she hadn’t heard from Fred’s mouth in a long time.
“Jesus, Fred. You brought to life some … creature,” she bit her lip, “with mutant DNA, when the constitution says that our son —”
Fred said in a harsh voice, “I don’t make the laws.”
“— is not allowed to be cloned.” Her chest ached. Sam…
“What do you want me to say? They won’t clone people, ‘cause then everyone would do it all the time, and nobody would stay dead. You know this.”
“There’s a reason we got divorced Freddy. You never —”
“Sammy’s death, that was the reason, and it wasn’t my fault.”
“— never think of other people’s feelings.”
A silence. “That’s unfair, Lucy.”
Maybe it was. Many things were.
“Just go meet with this kid. Please. It’s the last favor I’m asking you.”
Christ. She shook her head. “What is he, really, Fred? What have you cloned?”
“We’ve called his race ‘angels’ for thousands of years.” He sounded guarded. “Talk to Dr. Andrews, he’ll explain.”
Intriguing. “Why should I do this for you?”
“Legally you own part of all my projects. It was in the divorce agreement, or did you forget?” His voice had gone cold and clipped. “Marcia wants you to sign some media releases, so we can go public with the results. Nobody can force you to meet the child. I just thought that you might want to help him.”
“You thought wrong.” As usual. She bowed her head, fury tingeing the world red. “I’ll sign the goddamn papers, but that’s it.” She checked her calendar. “I have a break at 5 this afternoon.”
“Great. I’ll tell Marcia to wait for you.”
And he hung up, leaving her to glare at her computer screen.
An angel.
She stabbed at the enter key, sudden panic constricting her breathing. I don’t have to meet this child. She straightened her shoulders. I don’t have to believe in angels or Fred’s projects. I’ll just sign the papers and go home.
~~~
The Angel Genome Project was housed in GenLife, one of the major private genetics institutes, in a cubic grey building out of the city. It towered among manicured lawns.
So, it was here they cloned these so-called angels, when they wouldn’t clone her son. Angels indeed.
With a knot in her throat and her heartbeat too loud in her ears, she stopped her car at the entrance. The guard sent her nervous glances.
“I’m here to see Marcia, I was told she’s waiting for me.”
He spoke into a headset, then turned back to her. “Boss says first floor, room 187.”
Let’s do this. She parked, grabbed her purse and hurried through the automatic doors into the quiet lobby. Green carpets gave the impression of meadows, and slender flowers were painted on the white walls. A glass wall faced onto a small grove of cedars that swayed gently in a breeze. The strong smell of antiseptic permeated the air, rendering the whole illusion fake — the flowers too perfect, the cedars beyond reach. The smell reminded her of the morgue, where she’d gone to identify—
“May I help you?”
She jumped at the female voice behind her. A nurse in white smiled, her cheeks dimpling.
Oh Christ. She was in the land of happy people. “I’m here to talk to Marcia. About some media releases I’m supposed to sign.”
The nurse’s smile faltered and slipped. “You’re here to meet Zeph.”
Oh? “Zeph?”
“From Zephon, the name of a fallen angel.”
Dear lord, how cruel. As if being a genetic experiment didn’t guarantee enough trouble, the kid had to have a weird name as well. “I’m not here to meet him.” She clutched her purse like a shield. “I need to sign some media release papers Marcia has prepared for me, that’s all.”
The nurse nodded. “I’ll inform Dr. Andrews.”
She checked Lucia’s driver’s license, called someone on the phone and made agreeing noises. Then her eyes flicked uncertainly to the heavy metal doors on her right, and up at the ceiling. “Oh dear, not again,” she murmured. “On the wall? Really?”
That sounded ominous. And it was all taking too long. Lucia resisted the urge to tap her heels on the floor.
“This way please. Sorry you had to hear that.”
Resigned, Lucia followed. “What happened?”
The nurse glanced at her. “I’m not to talk about the project to outsiders, but Marcia said it was okay to talk to you.” She had a slight foreign accent Lucia couldn’t quite place. “Zeph was acting up again. He refused to eat, and threw his food on the wall.”
Trying to stifle a snort, Lucia coughed behind her hand. Fantastic. “Not very angelic behavior, is it?” If that wasn’t a clue, she didn’t know what was.
The nurse laughed lightly but said nothing. She waved a card over a blinking sensor, and the metal doors whirred open. Lucia followed her through a corridor all in grey, her steps muffled on the thick carpet.
The nurse led her through another set of heavy doors, swiping another card through a reader, typing something, then pressing her thumb on a glass sensor. Lots of security.
The heavy glass door opened. A tall, thin man with grey hair and a goatee gave Lucia a faint smile and opened the door wide. “Ms. Winter. I’m Dr. Andrews. Marcia notified me. Please, come in.”
He stepped inside and around a desk laden with papers and books. He walked to the other end of the long room and opened another glass door.
Hadn’t he understood her? “I was told to go to room 187—”
“That’s the code number for the project.” His voice floated back to her as they entered a dimly lit corridor.
“Those papers I need to sign—”
“They will be brought up shortly.” He walked on and she rushed to catch up. “Do you like children, Ms. Winter?”
Her chest tightened again. “Yes.” She would skin Freddy, then fry him in hot oil. Bastard. “Where are we going?”
He stopped before a glass pane. “Zeph isn’t exactly likable.”
Right. She should turn around and leave. But she hesitated. Maybe just one question, and t
hen she’d go. “Why do you call him an angel? Is he winged or something?” She’d been wondering about that, how different he would be, in what ways. It could be some genetic deviation, maybe due to interbreeding.
Dr. Andrews touched a spot on the panel, activating a window of transparent glass. He peered inside, and his hand hovered next to his face. “You are aware that humans and chimpanzees share 99 percent of their DNA.” He didn’t wait for her acknowledgment, which was annoying. “With this being, this angel, we share even more. He isn’t an abnormal human, if that’s what you’re thinking. He simply belongs to a different branch of the human family.”
A thrill went through her. “Another branch of modern humans? That would make huge headlines. Why say he’s an angel then? Why not tell the truth?”
“Ms. Winter, his DNA has certain … particularities.”
“Particularities. Like what?”
“I don’t know if you’d believe me.”
She shook her head, losing patience. “Listen, I wish you luck with your research, but I’ve got precious little time. Where are the papers? What are we doing here?”
He threw her a sidelong glance, a sheepish grin on his face. “Ms. Winter, Zeph is … difficult.”
“Many children are.” But she didn’t turn to go. She nodded at the window. “Is he in there?”
“Yes.”
Damn it. “I knew it.” Still, she didn’t move to leave.
He turned his attention back to the window. “Zeph isn’t like other children.”
“What’s his problem then?”
“He hasn’t become attached to any of his caretakers. Not even to me.” He sounded wistful. Interesting. It looked like he’d come to care for the boy. “He never speaks. He’s clever and learns fast, but—”
“Not deaf, I assume.”
“No.”
“Autistic?”
He shook his head.
“Atypical autism then? Some syndrome or other?” Sam had some of the symptoms. They’d thought…
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