Hybrid Zone Revelation, page 27
“We will get Adam back,” he said, reiterating the end of our exchange.
I smiled and nodded at him. Smiled because I felt secure, supported. For once, Olivia had chosen not to argue with me and instead had my back. Just like family. You could argue and fight, but when it counted, when it mattered the most, it was all hands on deck.
“We’re going to get him back,” Cedars continued, “because you cannot expect me to handle all of you crazy women on my own.”
“You forgot about Juarez,” I reminded him.
“Please,” he said, letting go of us and starting down the hallway. “He can barely handle Olivia.”
Olivia made a face at Cedars’ retreating form, but she didn’t argue. How could she? What Cedars said was true. She was a minefield.
Miranda leaned against the wall next to me and watched Cedars go. It was still strange, seeing her so devoted to one guy. But there was no mistaking the look on her face.
“So, what’s next on the list?” she asked when he disappeared from view.
“I wish I knew. Half the stuff on it appears to be written in invisible ink by someone other than me.” I took a deep breath and exhaled it loudly. “Do you have any idea what she meant by all the hope for the future talk?” I asked Olivia.
She shook her head. “It sounded like she was insinuating that, whatever it was, it was inside you.”
“Something other than the smart genes.”
“That’s the way I understood it,” Olivia nodded. “I haven’t finished sweeping Julia’s office yet. There might be something there.”
“I could help with that,” Miranda offered.
“I could use it,” Olivia agreed. “We could also turn Juarez loose on her computer files.”
“In his spare time?” I asked skeptically.
She chuckled dryly. “I don’t think so. I got the feeling that what she was talking about was big.”
“Shouldn’t that be smelled like it was big,” Miranda joked.
Olivia and I stared blank faced at Miranda, who rolled her eyes at our lack of amusement.
“Anyway, we could start an analysis of my DNA. See what we can find,” I suggested.
“That would take even longer,” Olivia sighed. “But I’ll start on it in my spare time.”
“And the riddle?” I asked them.
“I wrote it down,” Miranda said sheepishly.
Olivia shook her head. “The only thing flowing with no end in sight is my frustration at this whole mess.”
I heard that. “This didn’t go the way I was expecting. I thought she’d tell us who she was working with. Lay it all out for us.”
“Yeah,” Olivia nodded. “I did not expect her to tell us that she wasn’t Millsap’s contact.” Frowning, she shook her head in visible frustration. “We didn’t ask the right questions.”
“Hard to do when you’re missing information,” I said ruefully.
“Maybe Langston was Millsap’s source,” Miranda suggested.
“Maybe,” I agreed. “But she definitely knows what’s happening to Adam.”
“Which means she’s working with whoever has him,” Olivia concluded.
“She didn’t know Biogen,” Miranda said. “That doesn’t necessarily disqualify Mallet. If he’s associated like we think, he could be keeping it from her.”
Reaching up, I pushed my hair behind my ears and tried to picture Mallet working with Lindsey. I didn’t think it was a likely scenario. He wasn’t interested in playing around with the shift. He wanted hybrids dead and gone.
“I don’t think it’s Julia,” Olivia said thoughtfully. “Lindsey expected her to be history.”
“But she labeled Julia a traitor,” I objected. “And, I know that Julia knows where Adam is. Julia is involved somehow.”
“Cedars told me that you said Julia was trying to help,” Olivia argued.
That’s what Julia had said. I hadn’t verified if it was true or not yet. Pushing off the wall, I started down the hallway, headed back to the suite.
“So who was Lindsey reporting to?” Miranda called after me.
“I don’t know yet,” I answered without turning around. “But I’m going to,” I muttered to myself.
Chapter 16
Miranda caught up and walked with me back to Adam’s quarters. After everything that had transpired today, I felt like a wet noodle. The way we were splayed on the couch sort of confirmed it. Miranda wasn’t even fully on the couch, sort of half on and half off with her butt suspended in the space between the couch and ottoman.
“Is that comfortable?” I asked doubtfully.
“You’ll be amazed at the positions you find comfortable when you’re pregnant.”
“Doesn’t look comfortable,” I muttered.
She pulled herself onto the couch, propping her legs up on one end. “Better?”
“Much,” I nodded.
“It seems like rescuing Adam is going to be the easiest part of all of this,” she sighed.
“Yep. As long as they can nullify the stasis field.”
“They’ll do it,” she said confidently.
“And, if I can repeat the performance.”
“You’ll do that too,” she yawned.
Quiet descended for the next few minutes. So much so, that I thought Miranda had fallen asleep. Her question caught me totally by surprise.
“Macy, you believe in God, right?”
I popped an eye open and squinted at her. “Right,” I said hesitantly.
“Well, I’ve been thinking a lot lately. About things you’ve said in the past, and my life in the past…and now.”
We were seated directly opposite each other on the large sectional. I could clearly see her face as she struggled with the words. “Miranda, we’ve known each other for ten years. We’re officially sisters. You can tell me anything.”
“Do you believe in angels?”
I pushed myself to an upright position, mostly to stall for time. “You’ve seen an angel?” I asked carefully.
“No,” she said quickly. “I’ve just been thinking about cosmic realities.” She brought her hand up to gently caress her stomach.
Cosmic realities was it? Because dealing with the weird reality we now found ourselves in wasn’t complicated enough.
“Now with the baby...Macy, I don’t know what it will be like, what it will look like.” She pressed her lips together, ashamed that she’d given voice to the thought.
Heaving a sigh of relief at the true nature of her concern, I leaned back into the couch. I mean, sure I believed in angels, good and bad, but I didn’t know if I was qualified to advise her on the subject. Motherhood? Still not qualified, but at least it didn’t involve the supernatural.
“Miranda, it will be your baby. It will be a combination of you and Cedars. You’re going to love him or her no matter what.”
“And nanobots and animal DNA,” she added, bringing her other hand protectively to her stomach. “What if it’s some kind of freakish looking thing?” she whispered.
“I don’t think so,” I disagreed. “The nanobots are already biochemically adapted to the baby via you and Cedars. The second generation Colony hybrids were okay. I had nanobots while just a zygote. So did you. I don’t think the nanobots interfere with development so much as read the cellular programming and act as an aid.”
“You really think so?” she asked all teary eyed.
“I haven’t actually studied the nanobot technology, but from what Juarez said and my powers of observation, I do think so, yes. And anyway, every baby is a hybrid of mom and dad. If it does arrive as some kind of little beast, we’ll say it takes after Cedars.” I had mere seconds to protect myself from the pillow she hurled at me. “I’ve heard of throw blankets—”
“Watch it,” she growled in warning.
I wasn’t trying to be insensitive, but I chuckled despite myself.
She let out a long sigh. “I guess you’re right. Even Jesus was a hybrid, albeit a supernatural one.”
Pulling the pillow below my chin, I stared at her in confusion, but she wasn’t looking at me.
“Or maybe he was a vampire with the drink my blood thing.” She even had the nerve to say it using the Dracula voice. “You know that a recent study has shown that injecting old mice with the blood of younger mice actually stopped the aging process. Drinking the blood of an immortal being has to do better than that.”
Startled by the turn in the conversation, a confused, “What?” came out of my mouth.
“You know, communion. This is my blood, drink my blood, eat my body. Oh, wait. I guess the eat my body part would mean sort of an animal type of thing. Werewolf, like me maybe?” She waggled her eyebrows at me.
I tossed the pillow aside. “Miranda—”
“Ooh,” she said, snapping her fingers. “I guess coming back from the dead technically makes him a zombie. And a vampire. A double vampire,” she said excitedly.
“Miranda!” I yelled. “Jesus is not a vampire!” Picking up the pillow again, I clutched it to my stomach. “Or a werewolf. Or a zombie,” I said more calmly.
She let her hand drop to her lap and very dramatically rolled her eyes to me. “Well, he is a supernatural hybrid.” Seeing the look on my face, she challenged, “Was his father an otherworldly being or not?”
I pressed my lips together as I considered the question. Assuming that God was from the planet Heaven would certainly make him otherworldly. Human mother…
Losing patience with me, she blurted out, “You can’t play stupid with me. A human mother plus a supernatural entity father equals supernatural human hybrid, and you know it.”
“You’ve seen too many episodes of Ancient Aliens,” I grumbled.
She smiled smugly as she crossed her arms over her chest. “And he did rise from the dead, like a vampire. And, also a zombie. If you believe the Bible?”
I stared at her face, the raised eyebrow and slight tilt of her head. Did I still believe in the Bible? Of course, I did. Didn’t I? Hybridizing the human genome didn’t take away the spirit and soul. I still had them. Did that mean animals had souls, too? I grimaced as I tried to recall the story of creation in Genesis, which I hadn’t read in a very long while. Great. Another thing to add to the list of what I felt guilty about.
“I’m not even factoring in the whole Holy Ghost thing, either,” she said, adding air quotes around Holy Ghost.
Vampires, werewolves and now ghosts? Oh. My. “And I suppose that his second coming will be definitive proof of extraterrestrial life?” I asked while frowning at her.
“Absolutely,” she grinned.
Collapsing back on the couch, I propped my feet on the ottoman. “When did you become such an expert on the Bible anyway?” I complained.
“You’ve been away a lot,” she snickered. “You know what happens when I’m left to my own devices.”
That usually meant some ill-conceived paint color or being subjected to the latest diet trend. One time, I arrived back home to find kiwi all over the kitchen. Apparently, she had watched an infomercial on how good kiwi was for you. We had kiwi jelly, which she had made and was disgustingly sweet, kiwi smoothies, kiwi butter. Who the heck eats kiwi butter? But, I tolerated it until I had my first bite of salsa. She had thrown away the stuff that was supposed to be in the jar and replaced it with her own kiwi inspired concoction. It had barely touched my tongue when I spit it out, well before she had a chance to move out of the splash zone. Let’s just say I drew the line there, and she has never crossed it since. You just didn’t mess with a person’s salsa.
But this…It was like some sort of Halloween countdown based on scripture. Never thought I’d view the Bible through that prism.
“And, anyway, I’m not an expert. More like an interested party. Especially now with Jamie and the baby. The baby is not going to be strictly human. We are not strictly human anymore. What kind of world are we constructing?”
I thought the better question was why were we constructing it at all? Who put us in charge? I was not qualified to lead this. Look at the mess we were in now.
“What if someone mixes vampire bat DNA or mosquito or another blood sucking specimen with human? What’s not to say that doesn’t trigger the creation of vampires? What if everything we’ve seen in the movies becomes reality?”
She had been doing some thinking. Thinking that I was way too tired to counter. But she might be on to something. The public, particularly young adult females, had an obsessive fascination with all creatures supernatural. Could we create the very thing that we, as a culture, had been imagining? It was a scary line of thought.
“I don’t know, Miranda,” I finally admitted. “But, I don’t think Jesus is a vampire, werewolf or zombie. Regardless of the technical definitions. Hybrid, I’ll give you.”
“I didn’t mean to rattle your faith,” she apologized.
“You didn’t rattle my faith. It’s just a lot more difficult. Not to believe in God, but the bigness of it all. With this leap we just made with the nanobots and the one we are about to make medically…this is change the world type of stuff. If we unleash nanobots on the world that essentially wipe out disease, repair what used to be life threatening injuries…what does that mean for humanity?”
“You mean as far as immortality goes?” she asked
“Yeah. I mean, you could still be killed, but it changes things.”
“That it does,” she sighed.
“I feel like we’ve been here before.”
“On the precipice of disaster?”
“The very edge.”
“This time, I guess I can’t say we’re too young to decide the fate of the world.”
“You think God felt this way when he was creating all this?” I asked.
“Nah. He obviously had some type of super computer that ran the necessary algorithms. He knew exactly what he was going to end up with.”
“Where do we get one of those?”
“They don’t exist on Earth.”
“Dang it.”
“Indeed.”
The door chime sounded, effectively ending our conversation.
“It’s Jamie,” Miranda said.
I got up and opened the door. Cedars stood there with Margaret behind him. Behind her was the beloved food cart.
“Get out of the way, I mean, come in,” I urged Cedars, stepping aside so he could pass. Greedily I rubbed my hands together in anticipation. “What you got for us?” I asked Margaret.
“Italian wedding soup, crusty bread and bread pudding.”
Crusty bread and bread pudding?
“You’re looking a little thin,” she said, eyeing me up and down as she pushed the cart in.
“I don’t think I’ve ever actually had Italian wedding soup,” I said as I trailed her.
“You haven’t?” she exclaimed. “Well, I hope you like it.” She collected a bowl from a lower shelf on the cart and ladled soup into it. Reaching for a spoon, she handed them both to me.
I brought the bowl to my nose and sniffed. Normally, I wasn’t much of a soup person, gumbo notwithstanding, but if it tasted as good as it smelled, liking it wasn’t going to be an issue.
“I’d like to go over the plan,” Cedars said as he handed Miranda a bowl of soup.
“Let’s hear it,” I agreed, reclaiming my former seat across from Miranda.
“We think we’ve figured out a way to nullify the stasis field.” He rounded the couch carrying a bowl in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other and sat down next to Miranda. “Juarez is constructing the device now, but you’ll have to be the one to engage it.”
“What does that entail?” I asked while reaching for one of the ice teas on the tray that Margaret had placed on the ottoman.
“From what I understand, pushing a few buttons.” He shoveled another spoonful into his mouth and followed with a hunk of bread. “Doable?” he asked around the mouthful.
I thought about it a minute. “I think I can do that. As long as there’s not a time table I have to stick to.”
“Not for starting the device. How long it will last?” He raised his shoulders as if to shrug, but held them there. “I don’t know if they have any security measures to counteract what we’re attempting. Or how Adam will respond.” His shoulders dropped, and he looked straight at me. “Best to work quickly once the device is enacted.”
“Work quick. Got it.”
“If you guys don’t need anything else, I’m needed elsewhere,” Margaret cut in before the conversation resumed.
“I think we’re good. I’m good,” I said, looking to Cedars and Miranda.
“All good here,” Miranda nodded.
“Refills are self-serve, as is dessert. I trust you know your way around a refill?” she asked, eyeing me in particular.
“What?” I said defensively.
“Don’t worry,” Miranda intervened. “We’re experts.”
“I thought so,” she chuckled. “But someone needs reminding.”
Oh, whatever. It wasn’t like I was trying not to eat.
“Getting back to Adam,” Cedars said when Margaret had cleared out. “Olivia thinks it would be better not to engage in any kind of attempt to switch forms until we have a better idea of what’s going on. That being said, bringing Adam back as a leopard without knowing his mental state is dangerous. We’ll need to bring him directly to a cell we’re preparing now.”
