“Keeping a watchful eye over what?”
“For the last six months, the Fusion Project has been tracking and monitoring the breeding patterns of the Type 1 and Type 2 Chimera.” He stops to gauge their reactions before continuing. “Their numbers have tripled over the last six months alone. The Type 1 Chimera are breeding younger and more frequently than before.”
“But the mortality rate is high,” Alex throws in. “Starvation, mostly.”
“They’re becoming more resilient, and we’re on the verge of such a drastic increase in numbers that it could completely throw off our whole ecosystem. They’re living closer to the city now, and like any other animal, they’re vectors for disease.”
Both of Silver’s knees crack when she stands back up. “What’s the Fusion Project’s solution?”
“A mass culling … among other things.” He hesitates. “They’ve just been given the go ahead to bring the Type 1 Chimera in for a new round of testing.”
“Testing? Why?” Jax scowls. “Why fuck with something that already destroyed the world once?”
“There’s evidence that a mutated strain of the original virus is still active, and on the brink of a resurgence.” He makes eye contact with each one of them in turn. “We’re talking an epidemic here.”
Silver shakes her head, openly rejecting his assessment of the threat. “If that were true, the Third Reclamation would’ve been halted immediately. At the very first sign that the virus was active again, the Hunter Division would be pulled out of the Out District and we’d all be on lock down.”
“In what reality? We can’t fight this war from within our walls, and the Hunter General knows that. Besides which, the city relies on the meat that the Hunter Division provides. Without it, we’d all be facing starvation.” Another bead of sweat trickles down his brow. “You and I both understand the reasons why this war must continue, and the importance of keeping the public blissfully unaware of the risk.”
“And the Hunters?”
“Told only what they need to know.”
“Which is?”
“Destroy. Reclaim. Rebuild. Control,” he repeats the Omega mantra in monotone. “Kill, or be killed.”
Silver is disgusted by his blatant disregard for the rights of the Hunters to be forewarned of the risks they’re placing upon their lives in service to their government.
“The virus …” Alex draws Ethan’s attention to him. “In your estimations, what percentage of the Chimeran population are vectors for it?”
“So far, less than ten percent of the Type 1 samples collected have tested positive for the Chimera virus. Those aren’t bad odds, and Omega wants the threat neutralized before the risk to public safety escalates.”
Something rings a bell in Silver’s brain.
Type 1 Chimera.
Type 2 Chimera.
What the fuck?
“Type 1?” She zeros in on the gap in her knowledge. “What’s the difference between a Type 1 and Type 2 Chimera? I’ve never heard of such a designation.”
Ethan shakes his head, shaking another bead of sweat loose. “And nor should you have. They appeared on Omega’s radar not long after the First Reclamation, but their numbers were low and so the threat remained negligible.”
“What changed?”
“An unprecedented population explosion. That’s what alerted us to the possible resurgence of the virus.”
“So they represent what? The next stage in Chimeran evolution?” Red guesses.
“To tell you the truth, we don’t really know.” Ethan dabs at his forehead with the handkerchief. “The tests have been … somewhat inconclusive in that regard. But it’s clear that the Type 2 Chimera—or the Fusions, as they’ve become known—pose a distinct threat to Amaranthian security.”
Silver shakes her head. “I don’t understand. Omega’s been waging war against the Chimera for over a century. Virus or not, what threat are they against the brute force of the fully deployed Hunter Division?”
“You’re right. In a battle of force and weapons between a Hunter unit and a clan of Type 1 Chimera, there’s only one winner.” He wipes again at his forehead with the handkerchief, catching a dribble of sweat en route down his cheek. “They’re primal animals, controlled by their own basic instincts, and they make clumsy predators.”
“I still don’t get it.” Silver pinches her nose between her thumb and forefinger, trying to fathom it. “A monster is a monster. Get a gun and kill it. What is it about the Type 2 Chimera—the Fusions—that makes them such a threat?”
Ethan locks eyes with her. “The same thing that makes us a threat to the animals we prey upon: independent thought.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Butchery
Side by side in the office, Dylan and Alice sit in front of a computer screen, their shoulders gently touching.
A tinny, eighties-sounding rhythm blares out of the crackly speakers, and Dylan tries teaching her how to play Tetris.
“This game is an Old World classic,” he declares. “This week, Tetris. Next week, Mario Cart.”
Alice clears three lines at once, grinning at him.
“See, you’re a natural,” he compliments.
Without warning, they’re interrupted by the arrival of Silver and the rest of the group. Dylan jumps almost out of his seat at the slamming of the door, and shuts down the game in a split second. Settling himself back again, he slides his chair a subtle few inches away from Alice.
Alice holds back her first instinct to greet Silver, and quietly watches her unload an arsenal of weapons onto the table. “Any luck?” she ventures.
Silver takes a seat at the table, avoiding direct eye contact. “That depends entirely on the level of your expectation.”
Dylan wheels his chair closer. “What did you learn about the Fusion Project?”
Returning from a brief jaunt into the kitchen, Alex slides down into the seat next to Silver and offers her a beer—not one of the piss bottles.
“Nothing that brings us any closer to nailing down a suspect.” He sighs.
Silver cracks open the beer and nurses it between her hands. “They’re using Chimera as lab rats, we learned that.”
Alice, isolated from the rest of the group, tucks her knees up to her chin and wraps her arms around them. “Experiments for what purpose?” She sounds uneasy.
“Knowing Omega, quite possibly the whole range of exploitation.” Silver begins to tick items off on her fingers. “Cosmetics, drugs, genetic modification, disease pathology, toxicology, biological warfare—all under the guise of public protection, no doubt.”
“Could be this is just the work of some jumped up animal rights campaigners,” Alex suggests.
“You really think people care that much about Chimeran protection?” Silver shakes her head. “Not a chance. But if someone found out about a possible viral epidemic and knew that Omega was covering it up? I’d be more than happy to call that a motive.”
“A virus?” Alice suppresses a shiver. “What virus?”
Silver looks down at the nick on her finger, given to her courtesy of the young Chimera she captured at her last bounty. It’s healing now.
Not infected.
Still human.
Lucky.
She answers Alice without even looking up from the table. “A mutation of the Chimera virus. It’s spreading through the Out District.”
Alex misreads the concern in her voice and reaches out to squeeze her shoulder. He believes her thoughts are still with the Hunters who’re stuck unwittingly risking their lives against now two potential killers. Instead, her imagination is running away with her. Could a virus have caused Alice’s condition?
Jax joins them at the table, whiskey in hand. “So how do we catch a ghost anyway? Your motive, if that’s what it is, doesn’t bring us any closer to suspects.”
“You’re right.” Silver takes a sip of her beer. “It’s impossible for the killers to be from the Sentinel District because their fing
erprints aren’t in the system. But it’s also impossible for them to be from the Fringe District, because there’s no way for a Fringer to cross the bridge.” She shrugs. “I don’t get it.”
More beer.
Jax begins scratching her name into the tabletop with a pocket knife. “Great. Square one. I love square one,” she mumbles.
Dylan holds up his hand. “I think I can get us to square two.” He spins around in his chair and retrieves a printed e-mail from a pile of papers behind him. “While you were gone, I took the liberty of sifting through ECCO’s e-mail server.
“Ingoing and outgoing mail.” He holds up the sheet of paper. “Amongst requests for coffee dates and meeting schedules, and a rather lewd picture that’s bound to spark a sexual harassment case, Alice and I found this.”
He pushes it onto the table toward Silver.
“An internal memo.” She speed reads it. “A fight night invitation. A Platinum Party, no less. We should go check it out.” Silver hands the memo to Alex. “At the very least, we might get a chance to familiarize ourselves with other members of the Fusion Project. Maybe even figure out who the next target could be.”
Alex starts shaking his head before her thought is even complete. “It’s a waste of our time.”
“If you’ve got a better idea, I’ll hear it.”
He doesn’t.
He turns to Dylan. “What butcher shop?”
He asks, but he fears he already knows the answer.
Platinum Party organizers favor those butcher shops run by ex-Division Fringers. They put on the best fights, and they’ll get you a deal on drinks and drugs and whores if you agree to supply your own animals.
Alex knows this from experience. Not long enough ago, he and Silver were involved in their own pit fight ring, with the help of an ex-Division butcher shop owner in Mid Town. It lasted less than a year, and culminated in disaster.
Their relationship damn near ended because of it, and he doesn’t much care to revisit the old haunt in case it awakens any old stirrings.
Tough luck for him, though.
Dylan re-reads the memo. “It’s called The Dirty Dog. You’ve heard of it?”
Alex looks over at Silver, seeking some kind of reassurance that this isn’t going to open up a whole can of bloated, rotting, fetid worms.
Knowing his thoughts, she offers him a weak smile and swiftly deflects. “When is this thing happening?”
“Tonight.” Dylan double checks.
Jax breaks into a grin. “Sweet.” She grabs a bottle of liquor from behind the bar and urges Oz to follow her. “Come on, the truck needs a lick of paint. We can get high on the fumes.”
Oz doesn’t need to be asked twice.
Silver settle back in her chair and rolls her eyes. “Lovely.”
For once, her body language is open and unguarded. Alex takes a chance and reaches over to her, laying a hand on her leg and gently squeezing her thigh.
“We’ve got a few hours to kill. Why don’t you try and get some rest?”
Alice’s sharp, violet eyes dart down to his hand, then back up to Silver’s face. There’s no glimmer of a reaction.
Silver’s own tired eyes, their usual glint subdued by fatigue, look back at Alex with resignation. “There’s no time for that.”
She’s right.
While Oz and Jax spray paint a naked woman on the side of the truck, Silver spars with Alice in the gym room. Alex watches them from the sidelines, anxiously rolling a cigarette between his fingers. Each time Silver launches a series of kicks and punches at Alice, Alice evades them. Her reflexes are impossibly fast.
Suddenly, Alice switches from defensive to offensive and kicks Silver—full force—in the chest, knocking her to the floor. Alex almost takes a step forward to see if she’s okay, but Alice beats him to it. She drops down onto the floor, straddling Silver.
“Did I hurt you?”
Alex clenches his jaw, a sudden wave of jealousy sweeping through him. Alice jumps to her feet and holds out a hand to help Silver up off the floor, but Silver insists on getting up without the help.
“I’m a rock,” she asserts, trying to get her breath back.
In the doorway, Dylan pushes past Alex, dragging Red into the room behind him. “Teach me,” he demands.
“The instincts bred into a Hunter cannot be taught in one afternoon.” She sighs. “It takes a lifetime of study.”
“If I’m going to be hanging out with you guys, I want to learn how to defend myself.”
“Good luck with that.” Silver smirks.
“I can teach him,” Alice volunteers with a wide grin on her face.
“You don’t have to do that,” Silver corrects her. “He’s not your responsibility.”
“I don’t mind,” Alice insists. “It’ll be fun.”
Fun?
Alice is practically giddy with eagerness, and Silver can see it in her face: she’s crushing on him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Angry Dogs
Evening has fallen.
Dylan leans back in his chair in front of the computer, nursing a fresh black eye with an ice pack. A dot on the screen marked ‘Betty’ bobs along the Fringe District streets on a grid map of the city.
Across the room, Alice watches him with a fretful look, nervously biting at her lower lip. “I’m sorry about your face.”
Dylan tries to pretend that it’s no big deal. “Shamefully, this isn’t the first time I’ve been beaten up by a girl.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“No, it’s okay,” Dylan cuts her off. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have been standing in front of your fist.”
Alice tries to subdue a smile but fails, and Dylan catches it.
“It’s not funny.”
Alice makes an ‘eensy-weensy’ gesture with her thumb and forefinger. “Little bit.”
Dylan releases a small smile. “Fine, but if anyone else asks, I got this doing something really manly. Like rescuing you from a terrifyingly enormous mouse.”
“Okay.” Alice laughs. “I promise.”
Happier, Alice begins doodling on a piece of paper, quietly humming a tune to herself. Dylan’s eyes bounce back and forth from the computer screen to Alice, and it’s not long before she catches on to the special attention.
“What?”
He jerks his head back to the screen. “Nothing. Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.”
“It’s okay, you’re not the first.” Self-conscious, she turns back to her doodles. “I have contacts, but they make my eyes burn.”
“No, it wasn’t that. Honestly.” He feels bad. “I wasn’t staring at you because of … I mean, because you’re … it wasn’t that.”
“If you say so.” Disbelieving.
“It’s just that … you and Silver. It seems strange to me, that’s all.”
“Huh?”
“Your … arrangement.”
“Arrangement?”
“Here … the two of you … together.” He struggles to find the words to express his meaning. “You just … and she just … I mean, I didn’t think …”
Alice becomes lost in his poor articulation. “I don’t follow.”
“Beans and tuna, you know?”
She doesn’t.
She has no idea.
“She keeps me safe.” Alice smiles. “And in return, I take care of her in as many ways as I can. Do you understand?”
“Not really.”
“A symbiosis.”
“You buy her loyalty, you mean?”
Alice is shocked by his reductive and damning conclusion. “I owe her my life.”
“I’d imagine that debt was paid in favors a long time ago.”
Affronted, Alice pushes him hard and knocks him clean off his chair.
“I’m not a whore!” she snaps. “You can’t possibly know what it’s like.”
Dylan picks himself back up and drops the subject. “I guess not.”
Silence.
Al
ice stews. She can’t let it go.
“The ability to form alliances with other animals is a basic survival instinct, just so you know. What Silver and I have is an effective partnership.”
“Really? Is that how she sees it?”
More silence.
The dot on the computer screen stops moving in front of the butcher shop’s address.
*************************
Signage on the front of the building includes a neon sign with the runic code for ‘danger—angry dog’ .
Butcher shops are dark and sleazy, and dangerous territory for anyone not heavily armed. Jax and Oz have come equipped with enough fire power to decimate a lightly populated city block, and they’re the first ones inside. Red follows behind them, using the fresh smell of paint fumes for guidance.
Alex holds Silver back. “Is there anything we need to talk about before we go in there?”
“Not that I can think of.” Defiant.
“Come on, El …”
Silver pulls herself free. “It’s been a long time, Alex. Let it go.”
He lets her walk away from him, knowing that he couldn’t stop her anyway. Inside, the clientele in the front room is a mixture of Fringer trash and off-duty Omega employees. A caged baby Chimera paws at a Jade’s cleavage by the bar, trying to get to her soft flesh.
The air is thick with cigarette smoke, and the whole place reeks of cannabis. This room’s for drinking, and there’s another for gambling. In the back, a special room lurks beyond a doorway draped with a heavy black curtain. The curtain bears the same angry dog symbol as on the front of the building, and it’s guarded by a stocky doorman.
He’s carrying a bazooka.
When Silver tries to pass him, he blocks her way.
“Sorry, it’s PP only tonight and the guest list’s restricted.”
Silver spots a portable tag reader in his hand and holds out her inner left wrist for him. “Check me out.”
Dubiously, he scans her wrist, and becomes even more suspicious when the result comes up favorable. He resets the machine and scans her again.
Same result.
Rather begrudgingly, he draws the angry dog symbol on the back of her hand in red marker and lets her pass.
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