Spliced

by Jon McGoran

  Sure enough, there was Del’s dad, bringing up the rear. He was holding one end of a banner with the H4H logo and the words THERE’S NO PLACE IN HEAVEN FOR ABOMINATIONS.

  My mom tutted and sighed. “If he spent less time on this H4H stuff and more time worrying about his son . . .”

  I was afraid she was going to pull over and try to talk to him, maybe tell him about what had happened that morning, but mercifully, she didn’t.

  As Stan marched past, Kevin laughed. “What a bonehead.”

  Finally, the road cleared, and as soon as the cops waved us on, my mom drove through the intersection and sped off.

  We seemed to be taking a strange route home, but between the rally and everything else that had happened that morning, I was too distracted to pay much attention. I didn’t realize until we pulled up in front of it that we’d actually been heading to school.

  As she opened her door, Mom clearly sensed my surprise. “Surely you didn’t think a stunt like this was going to get you a day off, did you?”

  I didn’t say anything. I just got out and walked past her toward the building. Behind me, I could hear Kevin saying, “Can I stay here?”

  When we got inside, we had to wait behind some freshman being signed in by his mom. Standing there with my own mom, I felt mortified, like I was a little kid, too.

  The woman in front of us took forever signing in her son, and when she was finally done, she closed the book instead of leaving it open.

  My mom stepped up and flicked through the pages. She found today’s page, but something seemed to catch her eye, and she flicked back to yesterday’s. She turned to me with a glare. “You were late yesterday, too?” She closed her eyes, like she was summoning strength.

  “I—”

  “Go to class,” she said, cutting me off.

  The secretary behind the counter looked on sympathetically, and it annoyed me that it was sympathy for my mom, not me.

  “But—”

  “I said, go to class,” she snapped. “We’ll discuss this when you get home.”

  TWELVE

  It was twelve thirty by the time I got to class, but the day still seemed to drag on forever. At lunch I sat at a table alone, going over the events of the morning in my head. I didn’t really have any close friends apart from Del, but there were people I was friendly with and ate with sometimes. None of them came to sit with me. Maybe I was putting out a vibe. That was fine with me.

  Del never showed up.

  I was pretty sure he’d gotten away—it definitely seemed like all the cops had been focused on me—but I didn’t know where he’d gone.

  The rest of the day was a blur. Predictably, everyone was talking about the rally and whether GHA was really going to become a law. Every teacher made at least some mention of it, even in math class. In US History, it took up the whole period.

  “How many of you can tell me what the Genetic Heritage Act means?” Mr. Martinez asked once everyone was seated.

  Most of the hands in the class went up. I kept mine down. I felt like I’d been answering enough questions, and I was preoccupied with Del’s empty desk.

  “Well, you’re all ahead of the game,” he said, “because I don’t even think the people who wrote it could actually tell you what it means.”

  “It means mixies aren’t people,” said Greg Borden, bonehead in training.

  Martinez nodded slowly. “Not crazy about that term, but you’re right in a way. What does that mean, though?”

  Greg just looked back at him.

  “If chimeras aren’t people, can they vote?” Martinez asked.

  “No.” Greg sat back with his arms folded.

  “Can they work?”

  Greg thought for a moment. “No.”

  Someone else called out, “Who’d hire them, anyway?” Half the class laughed, but Mr. Martinez ignored the remark.

  “Can they be sued? Do they have to pay taxes? Can they owe you money? Do they have to obey the laws of the land? Can they be arrested?”

  Greg furrowed his brow, looking even dumber than usual. Martinez raised an eyebrow, waiting, letting him know he was going to have to answer.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said.

  “Don’t feel bad,” Martinez said. “Neither do the folks who wrote the law, or the politicians supporting it. There is an absolute lack of clarity on some of the most basic elements of what the law asserts, not to mention subtleties like what happens to chimeras from other states when they come to Pennsylvania.”

  He paused and looked at the class, studying our faces. “Ladies and gentlemen, there is a technical term for this kind of law.” He turned and wrote on the Holoboard: HALF-ASSED.

  I really did like Mr. Martinez.

  About half the kids in the room laughed, but the others, the ones who’d been laughing about not hiring chimeras, squirmed in their seats. I suddenly realized they were probably H4Hers.

  Half the class. That blew me away.

  A lot of the kids were still talking about the march on the bus after school. That was no surprise—it was a big deal. What did surprise me was how many of them seemed to be in favor of GHA. I may not have had a ton of friends, but these were people I knew. Or people I thought I knew.

  When I got home, my heart sank at the sight of my mom’s car parked on the charging pad in the driveway. A tiny, unreasonable part of me had hoped she’d be gone, letting me off with a warning.

  When I got inside she was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the phone.

  The house was silent. It felt even quieter than when I was alone.

  “Where’s Kevin?” I asked.

  “At Malik’s.”

  Malik was his best friend, also on the basketball team. I nodded, waiting for it. I didn’t have to wait long.

  “So what the hell, Jimi?” she asked, pinching the bridge of her nose. “What are you doing?”

  “Mom, I’m not doing anything. Del had another fight with his dad, and we were late—”

  “Del and his dad have nothing to do with you being on time for school.”

  “—so we had to walk. The bridge on Devon Street is out, so we had to go around it, to the bridge over on McAllister—”

  “Out in the zurbs?”

  “We were passing by these chimeras’ house—”

  “A squat. They were squatting. That’s not their house.”

  “—then this cop car drives up. He bangs on the door and starts shocking all the chimeras as they run out.” I told her the rest of the story, without names, to protect the innocent. But I told her about pulling the cop out of the creek, and then getting arrested.

  She let out a sad sigh, then leaned forward and cupped my chin. “You are so much like your father.” Then she sat back. “I trust that you mean well, Jimi. But that was a situation you shouldn’t have been in. One I shouldn’t have let you be in.” She let out another sigh. “Kevin and I will be done visiting colleges in a couple weeks. Until then, you’ll be staying with Aunt Trudy.”

  “No!”

  “It’s just for a little while. And it’s not a punishment. It’s a consequence. There are always consequences. And frankly, this is a consequence for me, too. This is what we should have been doing the whole time you’ve been on your own.”

  “Mom!”

  “Trust me. It’ll be better. You’ll actually have more freedom. You won’t have to be home for when I call every day, and Trudy can drive you places. Maybe she can even give you some more driving lessons.”

  “I don’t even know her. She’s out in the zurbs! You can’t—”

  “It’s a done deal, Jimi. I called her this afternoon. We’re going over there after school tomorrow to get you settled, and then Kevin and I will head out again. North Carolina, this time.”

  “Mom—”

  “I really am sorry, sweetie. But we’ll be back before you know it.”

  I wanted to throw something, to break something, but instead I left the room and went outside.
I half thought she’d come after me, afraid I was running away. But she didn’t. She knew I wasn’t.

  I ran to the Graingers’ and banged on the back door, something I hadn’t done in a while.

  I was angry at Del for getting me into this mess, but mostly I wanted to cry on his shoulder and tell him how unfair it was that I had to go stay with Aunt Trudy. I was going to miss him while I was there, and my eyes surprised me by welling up. Then I thought about that kiss, and I banged on the door again, harder.

  When Stan opened the door, I pulled myself together. “Hi, Mr. Grainger.”

  He looked down at me, his eyes narrow, his face looking withered.

  “Del’s not here,” he said. In the living room behind him, I could see a full ashtray with a cigarette burning and a couple of beer cans on the coffee table. He had newspapers spread out across the floor with his hunting rifles laid across them. A chill went through me, until I saw they were disassembled.

  The smell of gun oil brought me back to when Del and I were little, watching Stan clean his guns before his hunting trips, and listening to his crazy stories about how one day he was going to Africa to hunt wild, exotic animals. Even then there was hardly anything wild left to hunt. Now there was virtually nothing—a thought that brought my eyes back to the rifles, and brought the chill back with a vengeance.

  “Do you know when he’ll be home?” I asked.

  “No. Do you? From what I hear you were with him this morning when he disappeared.”

  “He’s not back?”

  I didn’t think it was possible for Stan’s face to harden any more, but it turned to granite. “He stole a thousand dollars out of my dresser. If he’s smart, he won’t be back. That money was going to the Church of the Eternal Truth. He stole from God.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, ‘oh.’ You see him, you tell him enough’s enough. This time, there’s going to be consequences.” Parents apparently loved that word, but coming from Del’s dad, it sounded sinister.

  He gave me a long look, then stepped back inside the house and closed the door.

  I hurried back to my house, turning the facts over in my head. Del was missing. And he had stolen money from his dad. So he was up to something. Maybe he was thinking about taking off, getting out of there. But a thousand dollars wasn’t going to get him very far. And really, it wasn’t like he had anyplace to go. I needed to find him.

  Back inside, I went upstairs, threw on some running tights, and put on my running shoes. My mom was at the bottom of the steps when I came down, looking like she wanted to talk.

  “I’m going out,” I said, slipping past her and out the back door.

  I loved to run. I tried the track team once, just to make my mom happy, but it was like taking something pure and ruining it with a bunch of unnecessary complications. Normally, I ran to clear my head, but today, I ran to find Del. I pictured the look on his face as he was about to shock that cop, as he heaved him into the stream and left him for dead. I had to find him, to make sure that he was okay and wasn’t about to screw up even worse.

  Genaro’s Deli was six blocks from my house, so I was barely warmed up by the time I got there. Two kids from school were in the parking lot, failing to do simple skateboard tricks and applauding each time they got close.

  “Hey,” I said as I walked up.

  They looked at me and nodded.

  “Jimi, right?” one of them said.

  I nodded, looking around to see if anyone else was nearby. “What are you guys up to?”

  They both shrugged. I was thinking maybe this was a stupid idea. Before I could ask if they’d seen Del, the door opened and I heard raised voices. Two chimeras were backing out, and I recognized them from that morning—Sly, the fox chimera that Del knew, and the cat chimera, Ryan.

  “Yeah, ‘no animals,’ ” Sly said with a sharp laugh. He slapped his own butt. “Well, you can kiss this animal’s behind.”

  Ryan was laughing, too. He was holding a blue sports drink, and as the door closed slowly behind them, he twisted off the cap and flicked it back into the store.

  Sly was still shaking his head. He stopped when he saw me. “You’re Del’s friend, right?”

  “Have you seen him?”

  Ryan moved off to the side, watching me.

  Sly grinned. “That was a crazy morning back there, wasn’t it?”

  The two skateboarders sidestepped us and went into the store. I couldn’t tell if they were creeped out by the chimeras or by me. I fought the urge to follow them.

  Instead, I said, “Sure was. Have you seen Del? He’s gone missing.”

  Sly laughed. “He hasn’t gone missing. He’s just gone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He didn’t tell you? I thought you two were friends.”

  Ryan snorted at that.

  “Where is he?”

  Sly shrugged. “He had enough of that crazy-assed father of his.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Went to see a genie.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s getting spliced.”

  “What?”

  They both laughed. “Come on, it ain’t so bad,” Sly said. “Look at me.”

  “Where is he?” I grabbed Sly by the collar and gave him a shake. He thought that was hilarious, but he made sure I saw his sharp teeth as he laughed.

  Ryan put a small hand on my shoulder. “Easy there,” he said.

  “Yeah, calm down. Don’t damage the jacket. It’s not easy finding clothes that fit this good once you get spliced.”

  I let go but I was seething. Between my anger at Del and the way they were toying with me, I could feel my frustration about to explode. I took a deep breath and let it out. “Look,” I said, trying to sound as calm as I could. “I’m just trying to find my friend.”

  A look passed between them and Sly said, “Yeah, okay. Last I heard, he was over on Adelaide Street, at McAllister, across from the house we were at this morning.” He looked at the watch on his tiny little wrist. The strap had extra holes punched in it and a couple inches of extra leather were flapping around, but it was still loose on him. He shook his head. “You’re probably too late.”

  “Too late for . . .”

  He held out his arms and smiled, like, Too late for this. Then he looked at my face and started laughing again.

  The anger and frustration threatened to boil over. I wanted to lash out, to hit him in his stupid fox face.

  Instead, I turned and started running for the zurbs.

  THIRTEEN

  Sly had said I was too late, but until I knew for sure, I had to try and stop Del. I couldn’t believe he would actually get himself spliced . . . and yet, it was absolutely like him: stupid and self-destructive and immature and melodramatic. I was angry and afraid, and as I ran toward the edge of the city, I felt tears streaming down my face, down my neck, soaking into the front of my shirt.

  I couldn’t believe how badly things had fallen apart in twenty-four hours. I’d never felt so alone in my life.

  The neighborhood streets were empty. When I was little, they had seemed like they were always filled with kids, with friends of mine. Del next door. Nina Tanaka up the block. Tiny Leo Byron in the corner house. Looking back, our little group hadn’t lasted long. Leo, the youngest and the smallest, was my first close friend—and the first to leave. His parents moved across the city and we never saw him again. Nina only moved a few blocks, but she may as well have been on the moon, for all we talked now.

  It had sucked losing them both. But there had always been Del.

  Now he was leaving, too.

  The thought made me kick up my pace to a sprint. I was half a block from the Avenue when the crossing light up ahead turned green. If I missed it, I’d have to wait five minutes for the next one. I couldn’t bear the thought of that, so I found yet a little more speed.

  I was halfway across the intersection when the light turned red. The cars surged forward, then halted, their
horns bleating as their sensors stopped them from running me over. As soon as I stepped onto the sidewalk, the cars shot forward, swirling grit and debris behind me.

  It was getting late. With no streetlights, and with the trees closing out the sky overhead, the road in front of me was already dark. I looked back at the Avenue, at the blur of traffic separating me from the city. Then I turned and ran into the shadows.

  This was the third time I’d come this way in just a couple days. But alone and with night falling, it was scarier than before.

  By the end of the first block, my eyes had adjusted to the darkness. The trees opened up a bit, letting in the last bit of light from the fading sky.

  I turned up Adelaide Street and ran past the creek where the cop had almost drowned that morning. I couldn’t believe it was the same day.

  Up ahead, I saw a dim light in one of the houses. It was one of eight or ten small stone townhouses, raised above the street on concrete steps that were cracked and crooked from tree roots and storm water. I hurried toward it and ran up the steps to the front door.

  I paused for one deep breath and knocked lightly, then again, harder. The sound echoed through the deserted streets. I looked over my shoulder at the other houses behind me, with their dark and broken windows.

  Then I turned back to the door right in front of me. The light I’d seen from down the block somehow seemed even dimmer up close, a pale wash spilling into the front room from deeper within.

  I put my hand on the doorknob and gave it a twist. The door swung inward and I opened my mouth to call out hello but only managed a dry croak.

  The front room was littered with fast-food wrappers and other trash. I tried to step around it, but the paper rustled under my feet and the floorboards creaked loudly. My heart was almost as loud, pounding in my chest.

  I cleared my throat and tried again. “Hello?”

  I jumped as the trash rustled, on its own this time. Then I heard a loud squeak and realized it was a rat.

  Creeping into the living room, I could see that the light was coming from the kitchen.