by Jon McGoran
Three stops after that was Temple University, where Del and I were supposed to be planning to go to college. It was an express train, so we didn’t stop. The campus’s tall modern buildings with the bold red T logos rose quickly in front of us, and then shrank away to nothing.
Just before we plunged underground, Center City appeared ahead, a forest of tall glass towers. The majority of them were pharmaceutical and wet-tech companies. The largest by far was Wells Tower, the plain glass box that housed WellPlant’s global headquarters.
Three underground stops later, we reemerged into the daylight, the towers behind us as we headed south, away from the city.
As we approached Wayne, I noticed the zurbs were in much better shape than around Perkins Park. The towns seemed to be doing okay on their own with plenty of solar and wind, and the few homes out between them were huge, well maintained, and covered with solar collectors.
Wayne Station was right inside the town, which didn’t seem to have a fence or a gate. I studied a faded map posted on the platform to orient myself, then walked down the metal steps.
The medical center was half a mile up the road, past a quaint commercial district of small brick storefronts. It was a beautiful day. It was a cute little town. It was freaking me out. Nothing should be this perfect when things were otherwise so screwed up.
The hospital itself was a mash-up of colonial-looking brick buildings with modern glass and steel additions grafted onto them. When I saw it, I paused, my throat tight as I considered what I expected to find inside, what I hoped and what I feared.
But I kept walking, through the entrance and toward the front desk. The woman behind it was in her early sixties, looking friendly but decidedly no-nonsense. I realized nonsense had been the extent of my plan—telling her some story about my mother parking the car and me not wanting to wait. When she looked up at me, I knew immediately she was not going to fall for anything I was ready to pull.
Above the desk was a sign with arrows pointing in a handful of directions: medical imaging this way, medical offices that way, emergency downstairs, gift shop to the right, next to the elevators. Patient rooms were upstairs.
I angled away from the front desk, toward the elevators. I could sense the receptionist watching me, about to call out. I made for the gift shop instead. When I glanced back, I saw her turn away to help an elderly couple just walking in.
The elevator doors opened and a couple in their forties stepped off, crying and leaning against each other. For a moment I was so struck by the rawness of their suffering, I just stood there. But as the doors began to close, I slipped onto the elevator and darted to the side, out of the receptionist’s line of sight.
I pressed the button for the second floor and the doors closed.
When they opened again, I was across from a wide circular desk bustling with nurses and other attendants. A sign overhead said NEUROLOGY and CARDIOLOGY, with arrows pointing in either direction. A screen on the wall listed room numbers—A01 to A20—names and abbreviated diagnoses. None of them said JOHN DOE or UNIDENTIFIED or anything like that.
As I scanned the board, two of the nurses looked at me with tentative smiles. The doors started to close behind me, and I said “Sorry,” stepping back through them.
On the third floor the doors opened onto an identical setup, but the sign said OBSTETRICS AND GYNECOLOGY. I quickly tapped DOOR CLOSE. On the fourth floor the sign over the desk said TRAUMA and GENERAL CARE. My eyes swept the patient board until they hit room C17, JOHN DOE, diagnosis code ACMS. Acute chimeric maladjustment syndrome.
Del.
For a moment I couldn’t move. Then the guy behind the desk glanced over at me and I looked away and started walking, like I’d been there before and I totally belonged.
Room C17 was just a few doors down. A small whiteboard on the door said JOHN DOE in black marker.
Lying on the bed, under a mass of tubes and wires, was a bloated pink lump with a horribly misshapen nose. Before I could stop myself, I gasped, and the poor thing turned its balding head to look at me. His eyes were gummy and vacant.
I stepped back.
“You’re not the one who called, are you?”
The voice startled me. I leaned forward and saw a woman in green scrubs standing in the corner of the room. Her name tag said G. FORRESTER, NP. She had a kind face, but there was something blank in her eyes. Unaffected. Like she’d seen this too many times.
“My mother’s parking the car,” I said.
She frowned and shrugged, like she wasn’t surprised the rules were being flouted. “Well, like I told your mother on the phone, our John Doe is male, adolescent, dark hair, suffering from acute chimeric maladjustment syndrome.”
“That’s not Del,” I said. I wanted to turn and run.
“Are you sure?” she said. “These changes can be quite dramatic.”
The face was horrific, the eyes tragic, but I stepped closer, trying to see if there was anything of Del in there. I shook my head and closed my eyes, overwhelmed—with despair that Del was still out there, maybe dead, maybe dying—but relief as well, that at least he wasn’t this. I also felt the tragedy of this, of whoever it was, lying there on that bed.
“I’m sure,” I said, trying to keep it together. “Thanks.” I ducked out into the hallway and ran back to the elevator, jabbing the buttons frantically.
Forrester came up behind me. “We suspect someone intentionally spiked this kid’s splice, added some faulty pig DNA, maybe as revenge for something. But we’re just not sure.”
I stared at her in horror.
“The liability department won’t let us do much for these kids, even when we know who they are and what they were spliced with,” she said. “Cases like this, though . . .” She shook her head. “There’s nothing we could do for him, even if our hands weren’t tied. Other than try to make him comfortable.”
The elevator doors opened and I got on and hit the button for the lobby. Forrester got on with me and kept talking as the elevator started down.
“People talk about the risk of disease from chimeras, that they could act as a bridge for viruses to jump from birds or monkeys to humans. It’s theoretically possible, I guess, but there’s no indication it’s ever happened—not like those intensive farming operations, packed with the cows or pigs or chickens. They’ve proven to be much more dangerous in that regard. Anyway, this stuff with the splices that go wrong . . .” She let out a long sigh. “If people are going to insist on getting spliced, I just wish it could be aboveboard and regulated, so these kinds of things wouldn’t happen.”
Between the buzzing in my ears and the effort of trying not to cry, I could barely hear what she was saying.
When the door finally opened, she said, “Anyway, good luck finding your cousin.”
“Thanks,” I said. Then I ran through the lobby and onto the street, and finally let the tears come.
As glad as I was that it hadn’t been Del in that hospital bed, I knew this was the end of the line for me.
I needed to leave word for Rex at the coffee shop, like I promised. After that I needed to move on—try to salvage things with Trudy and Mom, start repairing some of the damage.
And figure out what my life was going to be like without Del in it.
THIRTY-SIX
New Ground Coffee Shop was a couple blocks from the Silver Garden Levline station, a crappy storefront with plywood paneling instead of a front window.
A hand-painted sign over the door said NEW GROUND with a picture of a small seedling breaking through bare soil. The plywood was covered with posters, including one for a chimera punk fusion band called Katz and Dogs and one for something called “Earth for Everyone,” its E4E logo clearly riffing off H4H.
It didn’t look any better inside than out, but it smelled incredible—coffee, spiced tea, and baked goods—making it warm and welcoming. The place was half full and seemed to be evenly divided between chimeras and not.
There was one table of girls arou
nd my age, chatting and laughing. Their nice clothes and hair and manicures made me feel grubby and self-conscious. I wondered what they were doing at a place like New Ground—as if I had any more right to be there than they did. Then I noticed that one of the girls sitting with her back to me had her hair pulled up into a messy bun, showing off a sprinkle of leopard spots on the back of her neck. Well, that explained it.
A table in the corner was covered with Earth for Everyone posters. A girl with orange tabby stripes and a little button nose was sitting there with another girl who seemed unspliced, a clipboard and a stack of brochures in front of them. Both wore Earth for Everyone T-shirts.
Pell was behind the counter, loudly making some kind of coffee drink. Her face was ashy and drawn.
The chimera girl at the E4E table held up her clipboard at me. “Can you sign our petition to protect chimeras?”
“We’re asking the governor not to sign the Genetic Heritage Act,” said her friend.
“Sure,” I said, adding my name.
“Would you care to make a donation?” she asked with a big smile. “The owner here says he’ll match whatever we raise.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Not right now.”
The smile dimmed, and when I was done signing she pulled the clipboard back and looked away.
I went up to the counter. “Hey, Pell.”
“Jimi!” she said, surprised. The smile she gave me was tired, but genuine. “What are you doing here?” She leaned forward over the counter. “Rex told me what happened with your friend Del. Any word?”
I shook my head. “No. I checked all the hospitals but there’s no sign of him. I came here to let Rex know.”
She grimaced and shook her head. “I’m sorry. Rex has been asking around, though, I know that. He may turn something up yet. You know—”
“Anything from Ruth or Ryan?” I interrupted quietly.
She slowly closed her eyes and shook her head again. Her eyes were wet when she opened them.
A gravelly voice grunted behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder into the kitchen at a guy in his forties wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and an apron. He had a bolt through his nose and tiny pointed studs across one eyebrow. His arms, neck, and scalp were covered in tattoos of leafy vines and small animals. From the scowl he was giving her, I figured he was her boss.
“Can I get you a drink? Maybe a pastry?” She arched her eyebrows in his direction.
“Sure,” I said, looking at the menu board. “You know what? I’ll have an orange juice. And a toasted poppy seed bagel with butter.”
Pell popped a bagel in the toaster, and the guy in the back disappeared. Then she rang me up with an awkward smile. “I never thanked you for saving Ruth, from that cop and all.” She seemed shy all of a sudden. “So . . . thanks.”
“Of course,” I said. “And thanks for helping take care of Del.”
“Sure.” She handed me my change, then my orange juice. “I think Ruth and Ryan are both okay. I do.” She nodded, like she was trying to convince herself. It must have been a hard sell, after having been so sure the mysterious “poachers” had abducted them. Then she added softly, “I know there’s a lot of crazy stuff going on these days, the H4H loonies and their protests, the Genetic Heritage stuff and whatever else they’re doing. Maybe that’s why, but Ruth and Ryan, they’d been talking about Chimerica. I think they found it, Jimi. I think that’s where they are.”
“Chimerica?” I said, trying hard not to sound dubious.
“Yes,” she said, leaning forward like she was letting me in on a secret, and as if the more she told me about it, the more she would believe it herself. “It’s a place where chimeras can go and be safe, but it’s all hush-hush.”
“Um, cool. . . . And where exactly is it?”
“No one knows. It has to be a secret, so the H4Hers can’t find it.”
I didn’t say anything.
“It wouldn’t have been easy for Ruth to go without me,” she said with a shrug. “But she probably got a lead and had to go fast. She’ll get word to me soon, though. I’m sure of that.”
I nodded, pretending to agree.
“Del’s okay too, Jimi. He probably got up and walked out of Guzman’s clinic on his own power. Between the shot and that oxygen tank or whatever it was Rex said, that stuff probably gave him the strength to bust out of there.” She laughed. “He probably took out a few more of those cops on the way out too.”
She leaned back, looking like she was waiting for me to congratulate her on how smart she was. I didn’t have the heart to tell her we were watching the entire time and that was not how it happened.
“So, when did you talk to Rex?” I asked.
“First thing this morning.”
“Does he live around here?”
“Not far.” She squinted at me, then smiled. “You like him, don’t you?”
“What? No, I don’t.”
She laughed. “No need to be shy about it. Rex is awesome.”
“I’m sure he is, but no. Really. No.”
“If you say so.” She turned and got my bagel from the toaster, smeared it with butter, put it on a plate, and handed it over.
“Thanks.”
“Of course. Enjoy. I should stop talking, though, or else Jerry’ll be on my back. He’s a good guy, but he can still be a pain in the ass.”
“Okay,” I said. “When you see Rex, can you tell him what I said? About not finding Del in any of the hospitals?”
“Sure thing, yeah. Hey, it was good to see you, Jimi.”
“You too,” I said, wondering if I’d ever see her again.
THIRTY-SEVEN
I was sitting in the corner, finishing my bagel and wondering when the next train was to Perkins Park, when I noticed one of the girls from the chatty table standing in front of me, the one with the leopard spots.
She was so totally out of place, her makeup was different, and her hair was up. It took me a second to recognize her.
“Nina?” I said incredulously.
She smiled. “Hey, Jimi.”
Nina was a chimera.
I tried to cover my shock with the apology I owed her. “Nina, I’m so sorry about Friday,” I said. “I was such a jerk.”
She sat down next to me. “Don’t worry about it. I didn’t mean to be nosy. I just . . . It seems like you’ve really been going through it.”
I laughed. “I have been going through it.” I could have elaborated, but we barely knew each other anymore.
She smiled, and her teeth were dazzlingly white. “Well, you look great.”
I was wearing old jeans and a faded T-shirt. “You too,” I said. She, of course, actually did. Everything was perfect, right down to the way her tiny gold necklace and burgundy sweater offset the leopard spots on her neck.
“You also look like something’s weighing you down,” Nina said carefully.
What the hell. Maybe elaborating wouldn’t be so bad. “It’s Del.”
“Is he okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, God. It’s his dad, isn’t it?” She lowered her voice and leaned closer. “He always creeped me out.”
“Well, Stan’s part of it, I guess. But . . . Del got spliced.”
“Del’s a chimera?”
I nodded.
“Well, not the best timing with all this H4H stuff going on, but it’s no big deal. I got spliced too, a few months ago.” She turned around and ran her fingertips over the back of her neck.
“I saw. Your folks let you do that?”
“My mom did. We both got them when we were in Belize over the summer. My dad doesn’t know about it, but I only see him one weekend a month.”
I pictured her and her mom in white hotel robes with cucumber slices over their eyes, sipping elaborate fruit drinks with little umbrellas as they got their IVs hooked up. I had a feeling that with little cosmetic splices like Nina’s, the “sweating out” was probably more like a light perspiration than what Del went through
.
“Aren’t you worried about GHA?” I asked.
She wrinkled her nose. “My mom says it’ll never happen. So what’s the issue with Del? Second thoughts?”
“There was a problem,” I said. “He got a bad splice.”
“Ouch. If it’s new he can go to a fixer and get it reversed.” She lowered her voice. “Danielle Wrabley got a splice she didn’t like, so she went to this guy, Doctor Guzman, and he changed it back.”
Danielle Wrabley was one of the richest, most uptight people in the entire school.
“That’s who we took Del to see.” I shook my head. “I’m having a hard time picturing Danielle Wrabley going to Guzman’s scuzzy storefront.”
Nina waved that notion away. “She paid him, like, triple to do it in private, at his house.” She gave me a wry smile. “Although she said his house was even scuzzier than his clinic.”
If I wasn’t so depressed I would have gotten a kick out of the rich girl dishing about the super-rich girl. “The police raided the place while we were there,” I told her. “They arrested Guzman and took away everyone else. Del just kind of disappeared.”
“Oh my God, I heard about that raid. You were there?”
I nodded.
She sat back, looking confused. “It’s so weird that the cops did that. But, you know Guzman’s out, right? The police let him go.”
If I’d been drinking my OJ, I would have spit it out. “They did?”
“That’s what I heard. This morning.”
Guzman might know where Del was! I wondered if Rex knew about his release.
“Thanks, Nina.” I said. “Listen, I’m sorry to cut this short, but—”
“No worries,” Nina said, pushing back her chair.
Pell’s boss, Jerry, was standing close by, but I ran over to her anyway. “Pell, have you heard anything about the police letting Guzman go?”
Pell glanced back at Jerry, then looked at me with a shrug and a shake of her head.
“I just heard they released him this morning,” I told her.
