Page 53
Story: The Rewilding
Davey raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Steph wondered whether she had spoken the truth.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The morning wore on and there was still no word of success from Michael. Davey considered heading out himself but sat down and fell asleep instead. Steph watched him go from nodding slightly to collapsing sideways into a snore whilst they were sitting together in the lounge area. She had intended to jot her thoughts down in her notebook. She hoped that if she began to put things down on paper she could formulate a plan. She chewed the end of her pen and stared at the page. It was blank. She closed her notebook and got up, with Davey now snoring loudly.
There was something on Steph’s mind that was stopping her from thinking clearly. She was uncertain whether she would get an answer, but it was worth a shot.
Just like a few days before, Steph found herself walking around the small varnished concrete warren underneath the house. She stopped at a door and knocked. It opened. Martina’s confused face blinked at her.
“Yes?”
“Do you mind if I come in?”
“A little; I’m in the middle of something. What do you want?”
“I just have a few questions about the lion and the bear,” she replied.
Martina looked at her watch. And bit her lip.
“Fine! I can give you five minutes, but I am very busy!”
She swept inside. Steph followed her.
“I thought you were with Kelvin monitoring the screens?” Steph said.
“It doesn’t take two of us.”
Martina guided Steph towards her office and sat down without offering a seat to Steph. Steph sat down anyway. The pair sizedeach other up.
“Well?” hissed Martina. “What is it you want to know? Or are you going to ask whether I have used superhuman brain cells to make the lion so intelligent that it is running a background check on us all so it knows where we might be at different points of the day based on our television preferences?”
Steph ignored the poorly-constructed barb.
“I do want to ask about the lion, just to help me better understand things for my job here.”
“Your job here? I think you know as well as I do that your job is on hiatus for the time being. Besides, how can I give you any information that can help you do your job? As I understand it, all you do is walk around the place and see whether things fit in with what you’d expect to see. You just sort of observe other people’s work and then pass yourself off as a scientist.”
Steph cracked her knuckles under the table but kept her voice level. “I just noticed that both the lion and the bear looked… large.”
“No shit.”
“Is that what you and Daniel expected to see?”
Martina leaned back a little in her chair and folded her arms. “What are you getting at?”
“Well, the animals out there are not true representations of their ancestors. They are genetic hybrids. I know they are meant to resemble their extinct counterparts, but they can never be perfect.”
“They can be close to perfect. Theyareclose to perfect. I’d know.”
“Yes, but not exactly perfect. I just wondered, given that situation, whether you decided to add anything else to spice things up. Whether Kelvin wanted anything extra adding?”
Martina raised the left of her top lip. “Extra?”
“Something… muscular?”
Martina smiled. It was not a friendly smile. Nor was it a dangerous smile. It was almost a pitying smile. Steph found it unnerving.
“Look. We are not running some sort of amusement park here. That is not what Kelvin is about. If that was his aim, he would open a zoo. He would not have risked,” here she paused to think of the right word, “Accidentsfor the sake of a petting zoo. He genuinely believes in finding a way to integrate people and animals. He wants a better understanding between the two.”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53 (Reading here)
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102