Spliced

by Jon McGoran

“Is this okay?” he said, looking out at the sunrise, the landscape below.

  “Of course,” I said. “But you should be sleeping.”

  “I’d rather be here.”

  I looked at him, and he smiled again. “Any sign of our friends from Pitman?”

  I smiled back. “Nothing.”

  He nodded. “Good.” Then his expression turned serious. “They could still be out there, though. We need to stay alert.” He looked over at me. “You cold?”

  “A little.”

  He moved a couple of inches closer, and leaned back on his hands, his arm behind me but not around me. Almost touching me, but not quite. I eased back, just enough so that I was barely leaning against his upper arm. It would have felt like a tree trunk if not for the warmth coming off it.

  We sat there for several minutes, silently enjoying the view and each other’s presence. The sun grew into a fiery red ball, still muted by the haze on the horizon.

  “I was worried about you,” he said without looking at me. “Down there last night.”

  “I was okay,” I said softly.

  “I know. You took care of yourself. That’s good.”

  “I heard you were watching me through the binoculars.”

  He grunted. “I was worried and scared.”

  A few more minutes passed. The sun had burned through enough of the mist that it now illuminated the rest, a golden glow that filled the space between the pink-and-orange sky above and the blues, greens, and purples of the hills below.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I said. I could feel him stiffen.

  “Okay.”

  “Why did you do it? Why did you decide to become a chimera?”

  He laughed and looked away, maybe slightly embarrassed. “It’s not the easiest thing to explain. For me, it was more about becoming a part of something, instead of apart from something, you know? I never meant to leave humanity, and I don’t think I did—never mind what Wells and the H4Hers say. To me, being a chimera is about more fully joining the rest of the world, not about being any less of a human. And it’s about being able to choose who and what you want to be.”

  He shifted slightly and I settled in closer. “I do think that humankind has lost some of its best self, though,” he said. “Some of its humanity, in the way it’s become so separate from the natural world or the animal world, so destructive of it. For a lot of us, this is partly a movement to reclaim that, to embrace the natural world by becoming part of it.”

  “Why did you choose a dog?”

  “That’s a long story. That involves a different lifetime.” He looked at me intently. “Some other time, okay?”

  I nodded, but I wasn’t done. “Do you ever regret it?”

  “Hardly ever.” He took a breath, and I could feel him holding it in. “Do you think I’m . . . repulsive?” he asked.

  I whipped my head around to face him, but his eyes were straight ahead, not looking at me. I was going to say of course not or don’t be ridiculous, just to be polite, to be nice. But it was not a ridiculous question. When I’d first met him, I’d definitely been struck by how different he looked. Now I barely noticed it. His frame was unusually large, true. But it was lithe and strong. His face was still striking, for sure—not entirely human. But it was also noble. Dignified. Handsome, even. And when I really thought about it, the most arresting thing about him was his kindness. His intelligence. His humanity.

  “No,” I said, my voice suddenly hoarse. “Not at all.”

  Now he turned to look at me. “I like you,” he said.

  “I like you, too,” I said.

  His lips parted slightly and I pictured myself kissing them. I might have been moving closer to do just that when a crashing sound nearby made us both jump.

  Sly emerged from the bushes, rubbing his eyes with one hand and scratching his crotch with the other. He stumbled past us, behind another bush, and let out a groan as he relieved himself.

  I moved away from Rex, just a couple inches, and he shook his head and laughed.

  When Sly appeared again, he was slightly more awake. “Oh, you’re up,” he said, yawning as he approached. “What are you guys looking at?”

  I looked out at the pastel pink clouds in the orange sky, the soft blue-green of the mist-shrouded hills, and the flecks of gold the sun cast over everything. It was beautiful.

  But before I could point that out, Rex said, “Now that the sun’s up, I’m looking at that creek.”

  Below us in the morning light was a meandering creek, much like the one we’d crossed the night before. But this one doubled back on itself in a distinct horseshoe curve, before winding toward a red covered bridge a couple miles away. Rex took out Ryan’s map and held it up. The curve of the creek below clearly matched the horseshoe curve next to the star on the map.

  “That’s where we’re headed,” he said, pointing at the hill rising up on the other side of the creek. “That’s where we’ll find Haven.”

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  We woke Pell, and after a quick breakfast of bread, we packed up what little stuff we had. Pell looked rough, but so did the rest of us. Her leg was sore, and she had a noticeable limp, but there was no sign of fever or infection.

  Before we set off down the hill, Rex pointed to the boulder where we’d been sitting. “This outcrop has a good view of the surroundings, and it’s big enough that it should be visible and easy to find, even from a distance. Those searchers could still be looking for us. If anything bad happens or we get separated, meet back here, okay?”

  As we descended into the valley, still filled with shadows and mist, I imagined all sorts of dangers lurking in it. But as the sun rose over the next hill, its rays inched down to meet us, and by the time we reached the bottom, the fog had burned away.

  I tried to let the sunlight cheer me. Still, with each step closer to Haven, I felt increasingly anxious about finding Del. Even though Ryan said he was okay, part of me was prepared for the worst. And even if Del was at a safe place beyond the next hill, the absolute best-case scenario was that he was happily adjusting to the “new him.” The Del I knew was gone.

  As I stepped over rocks and roots, I thought about what had happened over the last few days. The last few months. Maybe even the last year. I considered the possibility that the Del I knew had been gone for some time. The Del I used to know wouldn’t have been so eager to skip school. He wouldn’t have assaulted that cop. He wouldn’t have gone off and gotten a tattoo without telling me, much less gotten spliced. He had changed already.

  Things between us had changed, too, even before we kissed. Maybe we’d been drifting farther apart, and I just hadn’t realized it. I guess I was probably different, too.

  Lost in thought, I’d been lagging behind the others. I rushed to catch up.

  “Yeah, it’s a stupid law,” Sly was saying. “But what do you expect? The idiots who wrote it didn’t think any of it through. But the sleazebag politicians who latched on and supported it because it was popular, now they’ve thought it through.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Voting,” he said. “And how chimeras don’t do it, even the ones who are old enough. That’s why the politicians don’t care about them. The sad fact is that most of the A-holes supporting the Genetic Heritage Act know it’s riddled with gaps and contradictions, and they probably don’t care about chimeras one way or another. But the H4Hers, they all vote. And Wells tells them who to vote for. That’s why the politicians are lining up to make him happy. If chimeras voted, they’d care what we thought, too, but we don’t vote, so they don’t care.”

  As he kicked a rock off into the woods, he noticed me staring at him. “What?” he said defensively. “I read the news.”

  “Well, the chimeras will vote now for sure, right?” Pell said. “I mean, all the ones I know are mad as hell.”

  Sly tilted his head at her, then looked away and laughed, shaking his head.

  “What?” she demanded defensively.
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  “It’s a little late for that,” he said bitterly. “The law says we’re legally not ‘persons.’ Only people can vote.”

  We walked in silence for a few minutes, each of us reflecting on how messed up it all was.

  “So what about Chimerica?” Pell asked after a minute. “What do you think of that?”

  Sly scratched his chin, thinking. “A year ago I’d have said it was BS. But now I believe.”

  “Why?” Rex asked, like he didn’t believe in it but he wanted to, badly.

  “You mean apart from the fact that Ryan said they were going there?” Sly shrugged. “Things are getting bad for chimeras around here. And not just the punks like us. It’s dicey for the chimeras out there who are doing okay for themselves. They’re smart—I’m sure some of them saw this coming and made sure there was a safe place somewhere for them and their money. And their friends.” He shrugged. “Seems like the closer the H4Hers got to passing that damn law, the more chimeras started disappearing. I know there’s poachers—Ryan said that’s who got them, right? But someone rescued them, too, and they’re taking them to Chimerica.”

  “Where do you think it is?” Pell asked.

  “North,” Sly said, with great certainty. “South and west are even more H4H than around here. Maybe somewhere like New York State, where there’s lots of empty land, and not so many H4Hers.”

  “They’ve got enough. They might be passing the same law.”

  “Maybe Canada, then.”

  Rex laughed. “Canada practically is Chimerica—no H4H or stupid laws. They treat chimeras okay up there.”

  “They treat Canadian chimeras okay up there,” Sly corrected him. “Lots of countries treat chimeras okay, but they don’t allow new ones in.”

  “We could sneak in,” Rex replied.

  “Yeah, but where would we stay?” Sly replied.

  “Chimerica?” Pell said.

  “Exactly.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “I hope it’s not in Canada—so cold up there.”

  Sly smiled sagely. “Not as cold as it used to be.”

  We were just coming over a slight rise when we saw a fence cutting through the woods ahead of us. It was eight feet tall, chain-link with razor wire coiled on top and barbs embedded everywhere else. From top to bottom, every four inches, a jagged twist of metal jutted out. It looked serious and brutal, and it filled me with apprehension.

  “Jesus,” Pell said, touching one of the barbs, then snatching her hand away.

  “Not very welcoming,” Rex said quietly.

  The fence stretched off in either direction, as far as the eye could see. We all looked back the way we had come, feeling suddenly trapped between the searchers, if they were still coming, and this fence, which could be our destination or an obstacle to it. Maybe it was part of Haven and there to protect the chimeras. Or, maybe it was what it looked like: something very, very bad.

  Rex looked left and right. “Which way?”

  Pell and Sly shrugged.

  I pointed south, to our right, farther away from Pitman. “All things equal, might as well move away from the angry mob.”

  We pushed through the brush and after ten minutes came to a spot where the fence was closely flanked by two trees, a tall evergreen on our side, and a maple on the far side. Each trunk was barely six feet from the fence, their thick branches intertwined in the air just a few feet above the razor wire.

  Just beyond them, twenty yards inside the fence, we saw a girl, a chimera, with striking markings, like a panda. We stopped without a word and tried to duck behind the evergreen tree. Rex was too big to hide, so I whispered in his ear, “Say hi,” and I pushed him back out.

  The girl seemed oblivious until Rex said, “Hello?”

  She froze and then turned to stare at him.

  “Sorry,” he said, trying to be heard without being loud. “I’m looking for some friends of mine. Chimeras. One is named Ruth, and the other is Del.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then she turned and disappeared into the woods.

  Sly stepped out and slapped Rex on the back. “Well, that went well.”

  Rex frowned. “I guess they’ll be expecting us.”

  “She was a chimera,” Pell said hopefully. “She seemed more scared of what’s out here than anything in there.”

  She had a point, and it made us less apprehensive as we resumed walking.

  The fence curved away from us, and as we followed it, the monotony lulled us into a bored complacency.

  It was quite a shock when a voice on the other side of the fence called out, “Jimi?”

  It was even more of a shock when I turned and saw that the voice belonged to Del.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Del!” I screamed, running to the fence, and stopping just short of impaling myself on a hundred little spikes. “Oh, my God! Del! You’re alive!”

  “Of course I’m alive!” he said, smiling wide as he came up to the other side.

  He was more than alive. He was bursting with vitality.

  When he spotted the others, his smile became a grin. “Sly! Pell! And Rex. This is so great!”

  The others hurried up behind me.

  “Is Ruth here?” Pell asked, coming as close to the fence as she dared.

  Del nodded. “Absolutely.”

  “And she’s okay?”

  “She’s great.”

  Pell almost collapsed with relief, tears rolling down her cheeks. Sly put an arm around her, supporting her. “Damn, Del,” he said. “Somebody fixed you up good.”

  Sly was right. I’d been so shocked, so happy to see him, I hadn’t taken it all in at first, but he looked better than he ever had. He was taller, and even through his shirt, I could see that his chest and his arms were broad and sculpted. His face had changed as well. The deep brow and the green tinge from the salamander splice were still there, but his other features had now grown, matured. There was a feline quality to them. He had a sheen of fur, and his cheeks, throat, and forehead were streaked with tiger stripes.

  Del threw back his head and laughed, a strange, hearty laugh, revealing an impressive set of sharp teeth. “Yeah,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “They fixed me up good, all right. Come on. The gate’s up here,” he said, walking along the fence in the direction we had been headed. He looked back over his shoulder, his eyes scanning the woods. “So, I guess Ryan told you where to find us. How’s he doing?” No one said anything and Del just kept talking. “Did he talk to his mom? Did he say when he was coming back?” Del shook his head. “I told him, he might not get another chance back in here, especially if he left once, but he insisted on going.” Finally, he noticed our silence and looked over at us. “What is it? Is he okay?”

  “Ryan was shot,” I said softly.

  “What? What happened?”

  We continued on as I told him what we knew. As I spoke, Del’s face darkened and he clenched his fists.

  “I bet it was those savages from Pitman,” he said, with a sudden rage that made me almost glad there was a fence between us. “I’d like to kill them all!”

  Rex and I exchanged a look. Del picked up on it. “What?” he demanded.

  He was already so angry I didn’t want to add to it. “Nothing,” I said, hoping Rex wouldn’t mention what had happened there.

  “Poor Ryan,” Del said. “I hope he’s okay.”

  “Also, the governor signed the Genetic Heritage Act,” Sly told him. “I don’t know if you heard.”

  Del nodded. “Yeah, I heard. Idiots. Looks like this place will be getting a lot busier.”

  “What is this place, anyway?” Rex asked. “It’s got a hell of a fence.”

  Del laughed again, not quite as loud, but still with a decidedly strange, un-Del-like quality to it. “This is Haven,” he said. “It’s a refuge for chimeras like us. This fence helps protect us from evil, like those H4H crazies.”

  I was trying to listen to his words, but waves of emotion were washing over m
e, obscuring them, obscuring everything else. For days I had been trying to prepare myself for Del being dead or damaged, had barely allowed myself to hope that he’d be alive and well.

  But this? He was better than well, brimming with vigor and energy, a happiness I’d never seen in him before. I wasn’t ready for that. Despite my efforts, my eyes filled with tears.

  “Del, what happened to you?” I said, my voice cracking. “I thought you were dead.”

  He turned and tried to come closer to me, his fingers hooking through the fence despite the barbs. “I’m okay, Jimi,” he said softly. “Everything’s okay.”

  I closed my fingers over his, holding his hands through the fence. There were claws under his fingernails. I could feel them retracting under my hands.

  No, everything was definitely not okay. “You’ve been gone four days,” I said, as anger crowded out my other emotions. “I’ve been looking for you for four days.”

  “And I’m okay,” he repeated with a smile that made me even angrier. He pulled his hands away.

  “Yeah, well I’m not!” I said, my voice rising. I could feel the fence’s barbs cutting into my hands as I clenched my fingers. “I’ve been through riots, I’ve been threatened, I’ve trudged for miles through the woods, the whole time getting myself into deeper and deeper trouble, all to find you. I’ve been scared out of my mind, Del! Scared for myself, but mostly for you! Why didn’t you tell me you were okay? Why didn’t you just let me know?”

  The others hung back a step, listening but giving us space.

  “I couldn’t,” he said softly.

  “Why not?”

  “Come on. The gate’s not much farther. We can talk inside.”

  “No, tell me now,” I said. “I need to know what happened now.”

  He nodded and resumed walking. “I don’t remember a lot of it,” he said, absentmindedly running one of his claws between the rows of barbs on the fence. It made a harsh click, click, click, click.

  I let go of the fence and followed him, the others falling in behind me.

  “I vaguely remember the house where I got the splice, and you and Rex taking me to the fixer. Thanks for that.” He looked over his shoulder at Rex. “Both of you. I know it didn’t work out how you planned, but you saved my life. Anyway, I remember being in this coffin thing, then I woke up in the back of a big-box truck. I was still in bad shape.” He laughed. “The others said they thought I was dead.”