Chapter 16

Brian stepped out of his police car and walked into the County Medical Examiner’s office. He walked past the gift shop, one of the very few morgue gift shops in the country. There were black towels with outlines of bodies on them. Brian never understood that. He never understood what was supposed to be so clever about them. If anything, they underscored the public’s ignorance. Police don’t, and never have, drawn chalk-marked outlines around dead bodies. It doesn’t make sense. They take scores of photographs, they write notes, nowadays they make video recordings, use tape to pick up trace evidence and ever use special devices to capture and maintain odors from an area. But no chalk outlines. An office might draw a diagram and include a figure to show where a body was located. Such crude drawings must have been the confused origin of the myth.

Brian continued across the clean, shining linoleum and through the stainless steel doors that led to the morgue part of the morgue. He absent-mindedly batted away a fly. Several flies. Late summer at the morgue. Grown-up flies were annoying, baby ones could be horrifying. He’d seen maggots joyously jump a foot in the air off a dead body. He hoped it wasn’t going to see that again.

Coincidence. The pathologist was just finishing with Brian’s Jane Doe as he walked in. She’d already stitched up the Y-shaped incision in her chest. The black nylon thread stood out against the waxy blue-ish, yellow-ish white of her skin. Her face looked a little scrunched. He had made an incision along the back of her head, pulled the skin back and then opened the top of head so he could remove and weigh her brain. Her brain was in her chest cavity now. All standard procedure for an autopsy, and usually the most horrifying thing a human body is put through before it’s buried. But not in this case.

The pathologist smiled a hello at Brian and used her two hands to gently pull the body’s face up. The face arranged itself into something that seemed much more human. There was a trace, a vestige of the personality that once lived inside this body.

Brian didn’t need to glance at the pathologist’s gloves to remember not to offer a handshake. “Hi, Mary, how are you doing?”

“Things are great!” She beamed and made a motion with her hand almost as if to toss her hair back, but she stopped and it ended up just looking like a shy twitch. She didn’t know Brian was gay.

They chatted for a few minutes over the dead body, not really ignoring it.

“It’s nice to see you again,” Mary said without irony.

“I should come down here more often,” Brian said.

When Brian was finally able to extricate himself, he went out to the patrol car, started the engine and the air conditioner, and sat at the wheel reading the Medical Examiner’s report. Despite all the gross and severe damage to the body, the cause of death was a massive immune reaction caused by the a mismatched blood transfusion. The Jane Doe had been given a large transfusion of chimpanzee blood.

Chapter 15

Chapman was finished with the guard. He walked through the silent guard station. It was a large building, and old Quonset, like giant aluminum half buried lengthwise in the dusty desert. It was hot and bright outside, but cooler here, and dim. The grimy high windows let in shafts of light and the dust made the shafts look like milky bars in the air.

A fly buzzed past Chapman’s ear on its way to the guard’s body. Chapman had notice that before–how fast flies were. Practically as soon as one of Chapman’s victims stopped breathing a fly would appear out of no where. Even in a cold February when no one had seen a fly for months, a fly would appear, a greedy, dirty, black, mindless companion of death.

Chapman had killed before, of course, but never at the Lab. He idly wondered how long he could get away with this. He’d hid the other murders so well, no one had ever suspected. No one except this stupid guard who’d been foolish enough to confront Chapman with his suspicions. It didn’t matter. It was time now, time to leave the Lab and venture into the wide world. Chapman was a millionaire many times over now, and he had secreted away vast sums. Enough to buy him influence, buy him freedom in another country. Everything was set. He was planning first to go to Argentina. Good hunting there. Human prey, of course. But first he had unfinished business. He was going to pay back the people who had made him as a science project. He’d kill the surrogate mother and everything else who was involved in creating him, the Humanzee. And especially, above all, he would kill his human half brother who had shared a womb with him, and who had known freedom all his life.

Chapter 14

Chapman looked down at his hands curiously. He examined the flat little nails, the dimples over his knuckles, the generous layer of adipose tissue over the backs of the hands, the creamy, innocent luster of the skin. Perfectly normal hands for a seven-year-old boy.

“They look human. I am human!”

Then he pushed his fists into his eyes, half out of frustration, half to keep the tears from flowing. He looked up at the mirror that was bolted to his wall. He was a nice looking boy, brown hair, creamy skin, hazel eyes. He had a bowl hair cut. It was 1970 and that was the style. Geena, “Mom,” had cut his hair. He had never been to a hair salon. He had never been outside the compound. He thought everyone lived this way, and the carefully selected books and television programs he watched did not contradict that idea.

From his image in the mirror, he could see it was obvious he was crying. In a moment, someone might - might - come in and ask what was wrong. The mirror wasn’t a mirror, it was a window. Somehow, people could look through it and see what he was doing. He’d figured that out six months ago. However, he wasn’t watched all the time, he’d learned that too.

Chapman grabbed his knee and pretended he had hurt himself as he sat down at his desk. He needed an explanation for his tears if anyone came inside, and the real reason wouldn’t do at all. The looked in the mirror again, and his face was very red. The shame overwhelmed him again. He wasn’t like other boys. Now he knew why people looked at him funny. Now he knew why his life was so different from the lives described in the books Mr. Graber had given him. Now he knew why Geena was so angry when she found those books. Real kids went to a place called school where they played with other kids and one teacher taught twenty or more of them at one time. They didn’t live inside all the time, with no other children at all, and a series of tutors teaching them one-on-one.

And now he knew the truth about himself, the truth they had hidden. He decided he would never let anyone know that he knew. His face burned with shame again. He turned away from the mirror, went to the bookshelf opposite it and grabbed two dolls. He swung them in the air, pretending to play with them joyfully, and backed toward the mirror, always keeping his face away from it. Then he sunk down and with his back to the wall, directly underneath the mirror. No observer would be able to see him from that angle.

He took the clothes off the Barbie doll. “She’s going to have ’sex,’” he said, “just like in that book.” He was refering to the Where Did I Come From book Geena had just read him. He used his foot to drag his toy medicine bag toward him, careful that no one watching could see what he was doing. He pretended to give Barbie a shot. Then he lay her down motionless bounced the gorilla doll up and down on top of her.

“There, just like Becky and Uncle in his office.” Uncle didn’t know Chapman had gotten curious about the dropped ceiling in his bathroom one day. He didn’t know Chapman had been able to climb up into the plenum and look at other rooms. Uncle might have noticed a crack in the dropped ceiling of his office, but he never knew that Chapman had watched him so many times. And today, while Uncle was out, Chapman had dropped into the room and read a paper about himself, and learned who he was.

Chapman bounced the gorilla doll faster and faster, and then he stopped. He stood the gorilla doll up and moved it’s arm so that it slapped the motionless Barbie on her thigh. “‘Dumb bitch, you just never figure this out,’” he had the gorilla say.

Chapman started thinking about the paper he read again, the journal in Uncle’s office. He pulled knees up and leaned his forhead against them, crying. Suddenly he kicked the dolls away; he coudn’t stand to see them anymore. “That’s how babies are made. The lady and the monkey had a baby. And the baby was me.”

Chapter 13

Becky and Faber drove up to the laboratory compound’s subtle, nearly hidden entrance, out in the dessert.

“Where’s Graber?” Faber asked.

Becky had long ago ceased being surprised by Faber’s extraordinary memory. The last time Faber saw the security guard, Graber, was five years previous. Graber had mentioned that he enjoyed working weekends and evenings since it left him free to day trade stocks during market hours. Faber not only remembered the guard, but remembered his preferences and made an educated guess that he would be on duty this day. Or perhaps it was more than an educated guess.

“We don’t man the guard station out here anymore. We have an automatic entrance now.” She pulled the secure remote control out of her purse, activated it, and they drove into the sally port, a fenced rectangle with locked gates in front of them and behind them. Once the gates closed behind them she entered another code into the remote control device and the front gates opened.

Faber drove through the gates, got out of the car, and started walking toward the guard station.

“Sweetie, why are you looking for Graber? I don’t even know if he’s working today. I didn’t see him earlier.”

“He’s here,” he said, walking slowly toward the guard post building. He kept his eyes on the door, but she could tell that every sense he had was on the alert, his eyes half focused on the door, but his peripheral vision fully activated.

He took her hand and they kept walking. “I don’t think you’re going to like this.” She slowed down a little, but he gently led her on. “I’d have you wait in the car, Mom, but I you’ll be safer if we stay together.”

“How do you know Graber is here.”

He paused for a moment, and looked around, unconsciously, out of habit, making sure no one could overhear them, the way he always did before saying one of the things he’d been taught from childhood never to say.

“It’s okay, Faber, something is going on. Maybe it’s time to put aside all the inhibitions I’ve taught you. Say what you need to say.”

Flies were buzzing in the hot desert air. One alighted on Faber’s forehead. He forgot to flinch and brush it away as he’d been taught.

“Mom, Graber is in there, and he’s dead. I can smell him.”

Chapter 12

Geena and Becky sat down in the little room next to Chapman’s playroom. They drank coffee and watched him through the one-way glass. It had become a ritual over the last year, every afternoon at 3 p.m. they would take a break and discuss his progress. He was nine now, busily playing with Legos, creating an elaborate structure.

“He’s constantly surprising me with his intelligence,” Geena said. “Jeffries was right, a hybrid is more intelligent than either parent species.”

Becky nodded. She had to agree, although she’d grown tired of having her son compared to a mule. Jeffries was almost fascinated with the creatures. A mule has a horse mother and a donkey father and is smarter than either animal.

“Chapman’s about as stubborn as a mule,” Becky said fondly.

“Or as stubborn as a nine-year-old boy,” Geena said. Although they were scientists and Chapman was a research subject, the circumstances of the boy’s birth softened the women’s attitude toward him. Geena had been the egg doner and surrogate mother for Fiona, Chapman’s mother. Fiona was a half-human/half-chimpanzee. Becky was the surrogate mother of Chapman. Fiona’s egg had been fertilized with a human sperm and then Becky had carried the fetus to term. It was necessary to have a human rather than a chimpanzee carry the fetus because the size of the offspring is regulated by the size of the mother. That is why mules (horse mother/donkey father)
are larger than hinnies (donkey mother/horse father).

“I’m glad Chapman isn’t constantly playing with his toys as if they were guns,” Geena said with grandmotherly pride. Vestiges of the hippy girl who’d entered this experiment to prove that humans can live in peace (just like chimpanzees) still shone through at odd moments.

Becky thought of Geena as a friend, and, in a strange was, as a mother figure. She didn’t reply to what Geena said. Chapman had tired of playing with toy guns made out of Legoes. He’d been surprising attentive during his history lesson today; now Becky understood why and was glad Geena wasn’t playing close attention to Chapman’s playing. Geena was just happy she didn’t see a toy gun.

Becky and Geena drank their coffee and Chapman happily played with his action figures and his Legos, lost in a world of innocent childish fantasy, pretending to kill with the toy guillotine he’d built.

Chapter 11

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July, 1976

Lido missed the boat that day he left the shack
But that was all he missed and he ain’t comin’ back
A tombstone bar in a jukejoint car, he made a stop
Just long enough to grab a handle off the top

-Boz Scaggs, “Lido Shuffle

Jeffries had already had “one for the road” before he even left the house to pick up wife from shopping. A nice, bright red sportscar. He was mildly surprised that Geena hadn’t demanded her own car. They were one of the only couples they knew who only had one car, although with both of them working at the same laboratory, they hardly needed two. Actually, Jeffries understood exactly why geena didn’t want her own car, even though she herself didn’t know. The reason was that she wanted to keep tabs on him, and make herself dependant on him in one more way, in order to feel close to him. She had a strange need to feel connected with him. That was one thing he did not understand.

Now they were enjoy a couple Pina Coladas at an outside café, not far from the dress shop where Geena had just bought some sort of Disco outfit. Jeffries nodded absently as Geena told him about her day off from work, her shopping with her new assistant, Becky. Jeffries was trying to predict the exact moment Geena would ask him if they could go out dancing tonight. He’d already decided that he would say yes.

They sat in the sun and admired the new car. The lab’s new management was making their research much more rewarding for them. Financially rewarding.

Annoying. Jeffries noticed a tiny dent and a smudge on the right bumper. He’d have to care of that.

He gulped down his drink and stood up.

“Come on, baby, let’s go dancing tonight so you can wear your new outfit.”

She put down her drink and hopped in the car as Jeffries held the door open. “Let’s get you home and into those new clothes and then we’ll go.”

Geena was really pleased and chatty. Jeffries had had a few, but he was driving very carefully. He didn’t want to miss on particular sight. He wanted to see Geena’s reaction. He was curious if she’d still want to go dancing.

He interrupted her chatter. “It’s interesting to see what sort of personality Chapman will have.”

Geena looked over, startled by the prosaic comment.

“You see, human beings are domesticated animals; Chapman might be the first human adult.”

Geena giggled. She was still excited about going out, and she thought Jeffries was a little drunk.

“Domestication really is a process never letting an animal grow up. Dogs, for example, their behavior is much like that of adolescent wolves. Their playfulness, neediness, need for affection, their idiotic barking, those are all things wolves outgrow, but dogs never do.”

“But that’s what makes dogs lovable.”

“Of course, they appeal to the same human instinct that makes us love babies so much.” Jeffries loooked over at Geena. She must be in a good mood, or she wasn’t listening. She didn’t even look over when he used the word us. “Their big eyes, their need for affection, these are all neotenic – baby like- qualities and humans naturally are drawn to them and want to shelter them.”

“So how are humans domesticated?”

“Domesticated simply means the way a species is changed and tamed by its association with hums. Humans are the ultimated domesticated animal. I want to see what a real adult human is like, a person with no neotenic qualities.”

“How do you humans are domestic, or neotenic? We don’t stay adolescents forever.”

“No, of course humans don’t stay human adolescents, but do we ever grow up really? It’s hard to have any perspective on it, being a human myself.” He slowed down a little. “You’re a trained psychologist, maybe between the two of us, we can figure this out. Think about it.”

The windows were down. She put her elbow of the sill and looked out the window, just as Jeffries knew she would, and saw the dead dog in the road. A fairly large animal, a large breed dog, maybe part Labrador, but still a puppy despite its size.

They didn’t go dancing that night. Jeffries hated dancing. Geena went to bed early, and Jeffries washed his car and examined the dent in his bumper.

Prologue

Just teach me to despise.
Will time make men more wise?
Here within my lonely frame,
My eyes just hurt …..
“Shape of Things”
The Yardbirds, 1966

A laboratory in the Southern California Desert
United States Air Force Base
Undisclosed Location
1966
“No woman will ever agree to it.” Dr. White was almost shouting. He didn’t know why.

Dr. Jeffries sighed and ground out his cigarette. “We’ve been talking about this for months. I hope we don’t have any blue-collar middle-class moral scrupples popping up at this late date.”

“I’ve been a scientist a lot longer than you have.” Oh great, he thought, why did I say that? He was sixty-years-old. Jack Jeffries had been his graduate assistant, just as Geena Ganard was Jack’s assistant now. Funny thing, these young women going to college, even going to graduate school, and studying genetics, of all things. Geena was top-notch, but she’d inevitably find a nice husband and settle down and raise a family. It would be a shame to lose her. But White was distracted now. The point was, he had no reason to be arguing with that little snotnose Jack Jeffries as if they were third-graders. Maybe it was simply the newness of the experiment, the uniqueness. Maybe that’s why he felt upset. The genius of it. Of course it was uncomfortable to change the world, uncomfortable to be brilliant. They were going to change the world with this program. Change it for the better. He calmed down.

“Middle-class morals.” He snorted. “We are scientists. It’s just that no-“ He almost said ‘no decent woman,’ but he stopped himself. He really needed a drink. “I simply find it unlikely that an intelligent, healthy young woman –the kind of genetic stock we need–would agree to it.”

Geena cleared her throat and the two doctors grew silent for a moment, vaguely embarrassed that they’d been arguing as if she weren’t there.

“I’ll do it,” Geena said.

A smug expression started on Dr. Jeffries’ face while Dr. White suddenly realized he wasn’t quite as sophisticated as he thought.

“You’ll do it? You’ll host it?” He almost wanted to shake the girl.

“Host it? As if it’s an ‘it.’ As if it’s a parasite? No. I’ll be it’s mother.” She paused for a moment. “I’ll be the child’s mother.”

White looked down at Becky. She was old enough to be his daughter. His granddaughter. She was so lovely; her soft brown eyes, her delicate, young features. So intelligent. And so idealistic. If only he could take her aside, talk with her. Together they’d realize that they didn’t need to be so selective about the mother. They could find someone else.

The AM radio made a tinny sound. The Yardbirds were singing. When time and tide have been. Fall into your passing hands. Jack and Geena were staring at him. The silence had become uncomfortable. Please don’t destroy….

If he wanted a mother of good genetic stock, there was none better. All his arguments had been met. There was nothing else to do.

“Alright. I’ll make arrangements for the artificial insemination.”

They were still staring at him.

“You will be doing this by artificial insemination, won’t you?”

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