Second Nature

Chapter 35

35

Eberhard sat beside a steel desk in a bull-pen office space at the Tallahassee Police Department. Detective Captain Charles Rybeck was briefing him about the strange incident at the zoo, but the report was frustratingly sketchy. What made it so maddening was that Eberhard had a strong hunch the incident involved Gen.

“It’s the usual garbled shit you get from eyewitnesses,” Rybeck said. “You know, one guy says they tore out of the parking lot in an Isuzu Trooper, another says a camper-truck or maybe it was a—” he glanced down at his notepad—“a Land Rover.” He flicked the stubble under his chin with a cracked thumbnail. “Nobody got the license number. I got one witness who says the vehicle was green and brown; another guy says gray and brown, or—” he flipped a page—“gray and maroon, could be.”

“What about the man with the video?”

“Well, now there’s another thing. You can’t get an ID, because the woman was wearing some kind of mask. One of those expensive Halloween jobs—you know, latex rubber, molds to your face, they look almost real. So my conclusion is: These two were just local college assholes out on a prank. Obviously, they already had it planned out, or she wouldn’t have put on the mask.”

“But the written report said she was wearing the mask when she entered the zoo. The cashier or whatever didn’t think twice about that?”

Rybeck shrugged. “Cashier swears up and down it was no mask, that the woman was severely deformed. I seriously doubt it. You can see on the videotape she’s got a great body—wish my wife was ‘deformed’ like that, you damn betcha. But there you have it. Your guess is a good as mine.”

“Can I see the videotape now?”

“Sure.” Rybeck called across the room. “Hey, Bill.” An older man looked up from a burger and fries lying on a flattened, white paper bag on his desktop. Florescent lights glinted in his eyeglasses.

“Would you please take Col. Eberhard, here, to the conference room, and play him that videotape from the zoo?”

“Now?” Bill glanced down at his food.

“Now. This gentleman flew here all the way from…” He turned to Eberhard. “Where’d you say you came from, sir?”

“I didn’t. But I am in a hurry. The information could prove critical in an investigation I’m conducting that relates to national security.”

“No shit. Hear that, Bill? Show him the tape. You can warm up your chow in the microwave later.”

In a conference room that smelled like stale cologne and new carpeting, Eberhard watched the tape on a color TV. The video image was grainy. Pudgy kid in Disney World T-shirt standing in petting zoo, feeding goat. Scene cut to same kid standing on the lower rim of a metal fence, leaning forward against a railing, near a sign in the corner of the frame: DON’T TOUCH FENCE. DON’T LEAN ON RAILING.

Zoom in to the pair of snow leopards in the distance, the kid blurred into a blob in the foreground. Suddenly the camera angle jerked and refocused on a woman dropping into the leopard pen from a tree. Eberhard sat forward. He saw the woman only from behind, but her gracefulness convinced him it was Gen. The leopard lunged and bowled her over.

Eberhard saw the woman’s grotesque face. “For chrissake,” he said aloud, and his mouth went dry. That’s not Gen. No fucking way. The camera was jerking around and the action was difficult to follow, but it looked like the leopard tore out the woman’s throat. Then a man appeared in the frame, and the leopard lunged and clamped an arm. The man moved with strength and skill; he looked like he’d had martial arts training. The leopard attacked again and the man feinted and punched the animal in the back of its neck, knocking it out cold. A highly skilled move. Civilian martial arts, or military special forces?

The woman rose shakily to her feet. Blood darkened the front of her ripped T-shirt and painted her exposed breasts with slick crimson. But beneath the gore, she was obviously unhurt.

My God. What the hell happened to you, Gen? You’re a goddam monster.

Eberhard rewound the video and watched the segment a dozen more times. Gen’s bizarre deformity bewildered him, made him sick to his stomach.

She had been a young and beautiful teen-ager and then had morphed into a gorgeous woman. On his first viewing of the video, he had identified her body by its contours, the way she moved. He had recognized her breasts. It made him realize he had been sexually attracted to her for some time. Funny how it hadn’t dawned on him until today; it seemed so obvious now.

He missed having her with him at the lab. He missed making her stand naked before him while he fired his weapons. It angered and depressed him that she was now hideously ugly. His stomach gurgled with nausea.

Christ, and to think he had been planning to inject himself with her blood. The mitobots had obviously mutated again. She was not in control of the changes. Why would she turn herself into that?

“Goddam you, Gen.” He sighed, feeling despair, a heavy loss.

When the rabbits had died, he’d realized his prospect of becoming invincible for all time was hopeless. Now, he saw he couldn’t even risk becoming a part-time god. He needed to toss out such pipe-dreams and get adjusted again to the fact of mortality.

To his surprise, some part of him also grieved over Gen. It was stupid to be feeling this way, he knew. But she had been so desirable, and the weapons tests had been a genuine thrill. Now she was repulsive.

Furthermore, it now appeared that Gen might be dangerous to life, after all. The mitobots were still evolving—who knew where that might lead?

He just might be saving the world when he caught up to her and destroyed her.