by Jon McGoran
But I put that out of my mind for the moment.
A pair of workers in hardhats and coveralls started climbing the tower, but Del called out, “Get back, or the whole town goes up. I swear to God, I’ll do it.”
“Del!” I called out. One of the spotlights swung around to illuminate me.
Del looked down, squinting into the searchlights. “Jimi?”
The quadcopters that had been dots on the horizon a few moments earlier were now loud and close. Some were news copters, hovering in the sky with spotlights and cameras. Others were landing in nearby open spaces. I did a double take when I saw Jerry from the coffee shop and a dozen other people climbing out of one of the larger copters with an “Earth for Everyone” banner.
“Don’t do this, Del!” I said. “Please! Just come down from there, and we’ll figure this all out.”
“You already figured it out, Jimi. You were right. They tricked us. They made a fool out of me. These evil bastards were going to hunt us down and kill us all. I can’t let them get away with that.”
Behind me, the engineer said to the mayor, “You’ve got four minutes before the whole town is at risk.”
“You can’t kill innocent people!” I screamed. “Then you’re as bad as they are!”
He let out a crazed bark of a laugh. “There’s no innocent people down there, Jimi. Only you.” Even at that distance, and in the harsh glare from the searchlights, I could see his face looking at me with sad fondness. “You need to get out of here, Jimi. You need to go home.”
Before I could say anything else, a familiar voice boomed right next to me, making me jump.
“I see some things about you haven’t changed a bit, have they? You’re still a pathetic little freak!”
Stan Grainger had appeared next to me, holding a bullhorn to his face.
Del shielded his eyes from the light. “Dad?” He laughed that crazed laugh again. “What are you doing here?”
“I was supposed to go hunting. But looks like you messed up my plans as bad as you messed up your own self. I can’t even figure out what it is you’re supposed to be, other than a blasphemy against God.”
“You never could. But you never cared, either. Not about me, not about Mom.”
“You leave your mother out of this,” Stan said, any trace of teasing or sarcasm replaced by a murderous cold. “I’m just glad she’s not here to see what you’ve done to yourself.”
The engineer was frantic. “We’re almost out of time,” he hissed, his hand clenching a fistful of the mayor’s shirt. “You need to get him down from there and open that valve, or you need to start evacuating this town and getting these tourists out of here.”
Del was laughing at his father’s words, but even at a distance, I could see tears running down his cheeks. “Yeah? Then I guess it’s a good thing you drove her to kill herself, you miserable—”
“Del!” I called out. I shoved Stan out of the way, hard. He smelled of stale beer and cigarettes. “Look at me, Del!” I called out, and he did. “You kissed me, Del, before you got spliced, before any of this. Remember that? What did that even mean?”
“Jimi,” he said, softly, sadly. “. . . It meant goodbye.”
As he said it, I was startled by a loud crack right next to my ear.
The whole crowd turned to see Stan holding his hunting rifle up to his eye. Then we looked at Del, a red spot in the middle of his chest glowing bright in the glare of the searchlights, spreading as we watched. His eyes were wide with surprise and shock. Blood bubbled at his mouth.
“Del!” I screamed.
Then Stan’s rifle cracked again.
The bullet sparked off the valve by Del’s hand, shattering it and sending chunks of metal spinning off into the air. Del looked right at me, as if for confirmation that this was really happening. Then, with a deep, throaty whumpf, the top of the tower erupted in a massive fireball.
I screamed again.
The fireball churned in place for a long moment before fading into a cloud of black smoke that rolled up into the sky. Leaving Del behind, fully engulfed in flame. He teetered for a moment, then pitched backward off the tower, trailing fire as he fell through the darkness until he disappeared with a splash and a sizzle into the depthless black of the waste pit below.
“Del!” I screamed, running toward him.
Behind me, I could hear voices yelling, “Get back! Get back!” and “It’s going to blow!”
The ground rumbled beneath my feet.
Something solid slammed into me, wrapped around me.
Then the world erupted into flame.
EIGHTY-FIVE
I didn’t lose consciousness. Not entirely. I remember the blast and the heat. I remember being carried away from it, held safe in strong arms even as flaming debris rained down from the sky.
At some point, I was lying on a stretcher, an oxygen mask over my face. I remember struggling to get up, telling the paramedic holding me down that I was fine. Maybe he believed me, or maybe he was just too busy helping other people, but soon after that I was up, running through the area surrounding the coal well. The town had been spared, but the coal well was half gone. Sirens and flashing lights shredded the night. People were running in every direction. My ears were still ringing from the blast, my senses still dull. But my mind was clearing.
The place was crawling with agents wearing windbreakers from a handful of state and federal agencies, grouped by the letters on their backs—FBI, EPA, ICE, LAND MANAGEMENT—arguing with each other and with the Pitman police. Stan Grainger was in the middle of a group with Mayor Randolph, who was praising him as a hero for having saved the town. The engineer was saying he had destroyed public property. And someone with the federal government was saying he was a murderer.
A state police car arrived, squeezing between the official vehicles already parked there and the fire hoses crisscrossing the ground. The two plainclothes cops who got out were immediately swallowed up by all the commotion.
A contingent from Humans for Humanity was holding up banners, chanting and singing. Jerry and the Earth for Everyone protestors chanted right back, outnumbered but not outmatched. A couple of them wore T-shirts with the same design as the button Ruth had given me, with the stylized chimera icon. A few others had the E4E logo. Jerry caught my eye and nodded without pausing his chants.
A fire crew and a bunch of workers in hardhats and overalls were busily working on the coal-well rig.
Half a dozen news broadcasters already had lights and cameras set up, each trying to find a camera angle that contained as much action and destruction as possible without showing their competitors’ cameras or logos.
Running past them, I could hear snatches of what they were saying: “. . . not apparent if any laws were broken” . . . “violating at least sixteen environmental and health and safety statutes” . . . “a long history of animal cruelty allegations” . . . “from hunting without a license to animal cruelty to murder . . .”
I desperately wanted to listen to what they were saying—to understand. But there was something I wanted even more. I kept running until I got to the edge of the waste pit. Rescue workers were probing the depths with long hooked poles, sloshing the oily black liquid as they searched for Del.
One of the rescue workers, a woman, came up and said, “Don’t worry, we’ll find him.” She put a hand on my shoulder to comfort me.
I nodded, but turned away. I realized I didn’t want to be there when they recovered what was left of him. I didn’t want that sight to be my last memory of him.
“Hey,” I heard the rescue worker call gently. But I started walking. There was nothing she could say to comfort me. There was only one person who could. And I knew he was there, somewhere. I turned and looked around, then plunged back into the pandemonium, searching until I spotted him in the shadows.
I ran back through the knots of arguing humans. One of the reporters called Stan Grainger a hero for saving the town. Jerry interrupted her, pointing at me,
saying, “That’s the hero. You want to know who saved this town? That young lady, there. She not only thwarted this town’s sick plan, but she saved these people from the vengeance they had coming to them.”
Some of the cameras and lights turned away and started following me, the reporters taking turns shoving microphones in my face, peppering me with questions: What do I think of Humans for Humanity or the Genetic Heritage Act? Why did my friend try to blow up the town? And again and again, was I a chimera, too?
I ignored them, making my way toward the shadows.
I knew Rex didn’t want to be part of the spotlight, ever. And I knew it made sense for him to stay hidden. But I needed to see him, and I had a feeling he knew that. I had a feeling he needed to see me, too.
The glare from the television lights preceded me, lighting him up in the shadows like it was daylight. A buzz ran through the crowd behind me, people saying, “He’s one of them, a chimera.”
Rex stood up straighter, glancing nervously over my shoulder at the crowd behind me. Then he looked at me and he smiled.
I hadn’t seen him smile like that before. There was no reserve, nothing held back. It thrilled me to know that smile was for me.
I walked right up to him and pressed my body against his. Then I grabbed his head, running my fingers through his hair, and I pushed my lips against his.
His arms wrapped me up tight, holding me upright even as his kiss made me weak. I could hear cameras snapping pictures, video cameras whirring. Some people cheered and others groaned in disgust.
But none of that mattered. Nothing else mattered.
I felt a closeness with Rex that I’d never felt with anyone, not even Del. It was like I had known him all my life, and I knew this was supposed to be.
We were still kissing when the crowd went silent.
Our lips finally parted, and Rex put me gently down onto the ground.
I noticed two men standing next to us, rigid and upright. I recognized them as the detectives who had come to Trudy’s house, Washington and Salvatore.
Salvatore was standing farther back with his hand resting on his holster.
Washington, the handsome one, stepped closer, holding up a piece of paper.
He cleared his throat, looked at Rex, and said, “Leo Byron, you are under arrest.”
EIGHTY-SIX
I stood there, immobilized by the detectives’ words as they reverberated in my skull. “Leo Byron?” I said breathlessly, when I was able to speak. But by then they were leading him away in handcuffs.
“Leo?!” I called out as I ran after them. A dozen thoughts and reactions tried to elbow past each other to be first out of my mouth. When I caught up with them, running alongside as the police marched him toward the squad car, the best I could come up with was, “Are you kidding me?”
Rex closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he walked. “Sorry,” he said. “I was going to tell you.” He looked at me, his dark eyes anguished. “I wasn’t trying to hide it from you.”
It was still sinking in that this massive chimera I had fallen in love with was little Leo Byron.
“Of course you were,” I said, still too shocked to be angry.
“I changed my name,” he said with a shrug. “We all do.”
I walked a couple of steps, my head spinning. When it stopped, I said the first coherent thing that came to mind. “How did you get to be so big?”
He laughed and shook his head. “My parents and doctors had me on all these growth treatments when I was a kid. They didn’t work then, but somehow they all kicked in when I got spliced. Apparently, I had some sort of genetic disorder that the splice fixed.” He gave me a crooked smile. “Someday I’ll tell you about my sweating out.”
It was too much to comprehend, too much to reconcile. I needed to focus on more immediate issues. I turned to the cops marching him along and said, “Wait a second, with all the crazy stuff going on here, he’s the one you’re arresting? What’s he being arrested for?”
“Robbery,” said Washington. “He held up Genaro’s Deli in the city last week. We have security video, plain as day.”
I remembered sitting in that Volkswagen around the corner from Genaro’s while Rex ran in. Right before he mysteriously came up with the money to pay Guzman to help Del.
“There’s got to be some sort of mistake,” I said, because that’s what you say, even when you know there isn’t.
Detective Salvatore smiled at me sadly.
I leaned my head close to Rex’s and whispered, “Is this why they raided Guzman’s?”
He shook his head. “Doc said they didn’t even ask him about it.”
The reporters and camera crews trailed behind us, shouting questions at me and at Rex and at the state police. Now they were focused on crime among chimeras. Did I know Rex was a criminal? Could Rex be arrested if he wasn’t legally a person?
I lagged behind for a moment as we approached the police vehicle, parked right up next to one of the fire trucks. For a moment, I was grateful to be outside the focus of attention, so I could think about what to do next. I thrust my hands into my pockets and felt something in there. I looked up as Salvatore opened the back door to the squad car and squeezed Rex inside.
Rex looked at me, his eye twitching, and I gave him a smile. Then I covered my face with my hands and ran away. A few reporters called out, asking if I wanted to make a statement, but I ignored them. Other people watched me go, some murmuring sympathetically, some laughing spitefully. But no one came after me.
When I got past the fire trucks, I doubled around and came back behind the state police car. I could see the back of Rex’s head, looking out in the direction I had run off. The state police had been drawn into the arguments with the feds and the local cops.
When I opened the back door to the police car, Rex jerked his head around in surprise.
“I can’t believe you never told me you were Leo,” I whispered, kneeling on the floor of the car.
“What are you doing?” he whispered back.
The cuffs they’d put on Rex looked identical to the ones I’d put on that guy back in Haven. I still had the key I’d taken from him, and I took it out of my pocket and pulled Rex’s hands toward me. Holding my breath, I slid the key into the slot in one of the cuffs and turned. It fell open. Without a moment to celebrate or thank the gods or anything else, I quickly unlocked the other one, as well.
Rex looked at his hands, suddenly unshackled. Then he looked at me, one eyebrow raised.
“I’ll tell you about it later,” I said, and put the key in his hand. “Here. In case you need it again. Wait a few minutes, then get out of here. And be careful out there.”
I leaned in farther and kissed him again.
As I backed out the door, he called out in a whisper, “Jimi!” When I looked up, he smiled and said, “Thanks.”
“You’re still in trouble, Leo,” I said. “But we’ll talk about that later, too.”
Then I slipped out, leaving the car door open behind me.
EIGHTY-SEVEN
The pandemonium was dying down, and at least one of the television crews had turned their lights off. The cops were still arguing jurisdiction as I walked into the middle of the throng and said loudly, “I have a statement I’d like to make.”
There were grumbles from the people who had obviously decided that whatever this story was, it had been adequately covered. But the television lights that had been turned off came back on, and that seemed to be a signal to the others to pay closer attention.
I stood away from the police car, so the cameras and everyone else were looking away from Rex.
Then I cleared my throat and realized I had no idea what I was going to say.
“I’m not a chimera,” I said. “But a lot of my friends are. They’re good people, some of the best I’ve ever known. Smart, kind, generous. There are those who think chimeras shouldn’t have rights as people, that they’re less than human. Across the country, there are efforts to stri
p chimeras of their rights. And in our own state, I’m ashamed to say, they’ve succeeded.” Some of the people from Pitman cheered, while Jerry and the E4E crowd booed. “But look what has happened. Look what they’ve accomplished. In less than a week since the passage of the Genetic Heritage Act, those same people have tried to use this law to justify mass murder. They tried to kill my friends in cold blood, for their own sick amusement. Well, I say no.”
The E4E crowd cheered loudly at this. Everyone was getting louder as I went on, and truth be told, I was getting caught up in the moment as well.
“This is wrong,” I thundered. “We have to make sure no more of these laws are passed anywhere else in this country and that this law doesn’t stand in our state. Howard Wells asks why chimeras have turned their backs on humanity. Well, they haven’t, and he knows that. But the more he and his organization poison our society with hatred and bigotry, the more some might be justified in saying, ‘If that’s what human is, then why would I want to be human, anyway?’ ”
The crowd was evenly divided between those cheering and those booing. As I looked out over their heads and their waving arms, I saw the dome light of the police car was off. The back door was closed. Rex was gone.
“But humanity isn’t about DNA,” I said. “It’s about kindness and decency and treating others with compassion. And the chimeras I know are some of the best humans I’ve ever met. It’s time to stop bickering about who is a person, who qualifies as human,” I said, “and remember what it means to be human at all.”
EIGHTY-EIGHT
The next few days were a blur. I was battered and bruised, exhausted and dehydrated. There were interviews with local, state, and federal authorities from various jurisdictions and agencies.
There were press inquiries as well. Video clips had gotten out: me trying to talk Del down; me kissing Rex (Someone made up
