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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.”