The board’s reaction is the most telling thing I will ever experience. Some are beaming with real relief. A few are just shocked. A couple look pissed.
“I was found this morning,” I say, walking up the aisle. “Which is good news, because I prefer being alive to the alternative.” I walk up and cover the microphone she was using to address her captive audience with one hand. “And my research will remain mine. Not yours. Understand?”
She nods swiftly. “Of course, Dr, Seek.”
“I’m sorry I gave you all such a fright,” I say, turning to the crowd. “Hiking can be lethal if you leave the trail, and I’m sorry to say I made just that mistake. I was fortunate to be able to eventually find my way back.”
Applause follows, and I don’t know what I say after that. It’s all just necessary blather to smooth things over. People are happy, I am happy. It’s all very nice.
I can feel Veronica’s fury, though. No matter how much she forces the smile, I can tell she is not pleased to have me back. Her innards are like ice.
I don’t think I’ve come back entirely human. There are senses and elements in me that weren’t there before. Maybe my outer skin shifted back to human, but I don’t think the animal inside did. That part of me still feels rather feral. If I am not much mistaken, I can smell Veronica’s hostility as well as feel it. It’sa coppery, bloody scent with an edge to it. She’s a viper, this woman. She thought she was well rid of me and now she has to deal with me again.
The memorial service is disbanded and everyone goes back to work. Veronica asks to speak with me. I grant the request. She doesn’t seem to notice Lydia trailing after me. Lydia is doing a good job of maintaining a very low profile right now. Stealthy little thing. I am sure Veronica knows she is here; she’s just treating her like she doesn’t matter, like she’s furniture.
“I’d like to know if your disappearance was linked to your research?” Veronica says.
“If it was, is it any of your business?”
“I think you forget that I am your boss,” she says.
“I think you forget that I own a controlling share in this company and have an immutable seat on the board.”
The two of us will never truly resolve this power struggle. We are locked in it. Unless, of course, Veronica quits and takes up candle making, which would make this much simpler for the pair of us.
“We are looking at breeding human chimeras,” she reminds me. “I’ve allowed this plan to go unchecked because your brilliance has given me confidence in the safety margins. But I think you’re getting reckless.”
“And I think you’re getting greedy,” I reply. “You were thrilled I was dead. You were going to have chimera tech in every lab in this company. You were going to shoehorn it into everything from cereal to surveillance.”
“And what if I was? Do you think this genie is going to stay in the bottle? We are already testing potential transmission via genetics in a live female host. Does the girl know she’s part of your experiment?”
“Of course not. Only you and I know that, Veronica.”
“Well then. Perhaps it would be best for the both of us to realize how mutually precarious our situations are here,” she says. “I would not be pleased if you were to gate-keep the research we have funded, and I think you would be very unhappy if the woman who looks at you with doe eyes and for some reason thinks people don’t notice the two of you screwing like rabbits were to find out what she was hired for.”
The plan was to see if we could get a pretty young thing pregnant, then run tests on the child, if there was one, as it grew, to tell if there were any effects or evidence of transmission of abilities. It made sense when she first pitched it because I didn’t know anybody involved at that point. Lydia wasn’t real to me then. She was just a means to an end.
Veronica is shrewd enough to sense that things have changed. The woman has a nose for power, if nothing else.
“What do you want from me, exactly?”
“I want to have a line of pets for children. Hamsters that turn into mice, and back again.”
“You do realize that a lot of people can’t tell the difference between hamsters and mice in the first place,” I say. “It’s a less than ideal use for our tech.”
“Fine. I might be misspeaking slightly. When I say line of pets for children, I mean military grade tech for the government. Andwhen I say hamsters that turn into mice, I mean we want to be able to turn soldiers into animals and back again for surveillance and tactical purposes. Imagine someone being able to infiltrate a foreign base while masquerading as a snake, or a dog.”
“They’ll just start killing anything that moves,” I say. “I don’t like it, and I’m not going to approve it.”
“You’ll scratch my back,” Veronica says. “Because I have spent a very long time scratching yours. That is how these arrangements work.”
I did not develop this technology because I wanted it to be used for war. I developed this technology the way the best scientists develop everything, by mistake, and because it is cool as hell.
* * *
Lydia
They’ve forgotten I’m here. And by here, I mean close enough to hear what they’re saying because obviously I picked up a glass from the drinks tray and held it to the door so I could listen in.