Page 28

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 sized each 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. They are close 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.

“Accidents for 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.”

“Then why bring back two top predators?”

Martina sighed.

“I did suggest trying other things. Animals that are far less distantly extinct. However, Kelvin had two trains of thought and they were both going down the same tunnel.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean Kelvin is not easily swayed when he gets an idea into his head,”

Martina replied, half smiling to herself.

“He wanted to prove that if we could live with something such as a cave bear or lion, then, in people’s minds, living with existing wildlife would be more acceptable. I know it’s already normal for some, but for those in more urban areas he thought it would sway them more. He makes a habit of reading the behavioural patterns of others. It has helped him become rich in some ways, so who am I to argue?”

Steph inhaled and exhaled through her nose in one long action.

“And his other intent?”

“Other intent?”

“You said he had two trains of thought.”

Martina shrugged.

“Well, I think, to see if he could. He wanted to be the first.”

“The first?”

“To bring one back. You know how men like to swing their dicks about and compare sizes. He wants to break it to the rest of the world once he has them living in harmony with their surroundings. It is all part of the dick-swinging performance.”

“So he didn’t get you to beef the animals up a bit?”

“No!”

Martina replied.

“However, we found low levels of myostatin in the genetic makeup. I might have repressed it a bit more to make up for the state of the frozen specimens: I did not have complete faith in their condition despite appearances and Daniel’s excitement.”

Steph looked blankly at Martina who snorted and rolled her eyes.

“Myostatin inhibits muscle growth; it gives the body the signal of when to stop. Without it muscle growth can run a little wild.”

Martina punctuated her reply with her palms facing upward and a shrug. Then she fell silent, looking Steph in the eye. Steph looked away. She kept her thoughts to herself as she stared at more polished concrete.

“Now, if you’re done with your questions that make you feel important I have work to do!”

Martina got up and left the office. Steph stayed where she was. She looked at the desk. It was tidy. Just an expanse of polished wood and an open computer. Should she look? No. She wouldn’t even know what she was looking for. Besides, Martina had been surprisingly honest. She had even satisfied her interest regarding the size of the prehistoric animals. The question was: what could she do with the information? Was it even of any use or interest?

Davey was not where Steph had left him. She supposed that was to be expected as Kelvin would likely have work for him. Did he have work for her? Or had Martina been right about her job?

Steph sat down where Davey had been lying. She tapped her fingers together. She stood up. So Martina had proved interesting and useless to her at the same time. But what had she really expected? Steph paced the room.

The hunch had been well-placed; the animals were meant to be on the stronger side. But so what? That didn’t tell her how the boy had died, it didn’t help her regarding how to tackle the cave lion – if she even still needed to concern herself with helping – and it didn’t help her understand the balance of the ecosystem any better. In fact, with events as they were, she was not even sure what her role was within Kelvin’s plans.

She stopped to look out of the window. She was aware she was standing exactly where Kelvin had been the night before. She mirrored his pose from last night. What would he be thinking? What kind of person was he below the surface?

Control. He’d be wanting control. Even if he didn’t have it he would be shaping things to give the illusion of it. However, would it be as a show to others or more to fool himself? Himself. Steph was pretty sure it would be for him. A man did not spend so much time away from the public eye and simultaneously feel the need to show power to them.

The trees were moving in the wind outside which was pushing at the branches with increasing force. Steph sighed. She felt suddenly caged. She needed to be outside. Predators or no predators she needed to be outside. No. Restraint. She needed some modicum of restraint.

She shut her eyes for a moment, gathered herself and went outside anyway.

It surprised Steph to find Kelvin standing outside staring at the fencing and the gateway to the rest of his experiment. On hearing Steph he turned his head but kept his body facing forward and his hands firmly in the pockets of his black jacket.

“I would have liked you to have been able to experience things under… better circumstances.”

Then he turned back to look at the fencing and what lay beyond it.

Although feeling a little unbalanced by the way Kelvin dived midway into a conversation that he seemed to have been having without her being present for the beginning half, Steph decided to seize on the opportunity.

“Could things be much worse? Even just Fergus dying would count as better circumstances, so what does that say?”

Kelvin snorted but continued to look forward as Steph walked to stand next to him and turned her eyes in the same direction as his.

“I suppose so,”

he said.

“Although I would never discount things getting worse. You know how people say to expect the worst but hope for the best? I am not sure they know what the worst is.”

Steph turned to look at him. This time he did turn and give her a look too. It was almost pitying and yet simultaneously pitiful in itself.

“Speaking from experience?”

“More than you’d like to know. More than I would like to know, for that matter.”

The only noise for a minute was from the wind. Steph wondered whether to ask Kelvin exactly what he meant. She suspected there would be little point; he was unlikely to give anything up.

“What exactly are you trying to achieve here?”

she asked before clarifying with a general wave of her arm at what lay beyond.

“With all this?”

“The future,”

he replied, quite gently.

“The future?”

“The future. The world is changing at a pace unseen in human history. Socially, politically, environmentally – well, that is perhaps not moving at an unseen pace but certainly one long gone from our consciousness – even in terms of our own evolution. I just intend to try to be near the forefront of it. One can never hope to be at the very front.”

“That’s quite the statement,”

Steph said, walking closer to the fencing and noting again how wild boar had been here too.

“Perhaps. However, I am reasonably certain that is the case. I would not be the first person to suggest it. I am no revolutionary thinker. It is just that the majority like to hide from it or not truly appreciate it even when they know it to be true.”

“And you think what you’re doing here is the answer to it all?”

Steph asked, turning around.

Kelvin shrugged. Steph turned back around. The exchange was cryptic enough but at least she had got something. However, just like with Martina, what was she meant to do with it?

In the mud, something caught her eye. A paw print. That of a big cat. Steph had no idea how old it was. Not from where she stood, but it proved that her theory from last night might have some legs to it.

“Where’s Davey?”

she asked.

“Trying to locate Daniel’s remains. Unlike Fergus, he deserved better; the least we can do is try and bury some of him.”

Steph frowned. She was sure Kelvin’s eyes flicked her way, but when she checked they just stared stoically forward. She was about to push the subject when a noise in the distance made them both turn their heads slightly.

“Ah, good,”

Kelvin said, not smiling.