Chimera

CHAPTER 3

The Draganov Research Center, Cascade Mountains, Washington

The Cascade Mountain Range is a magnificent swath of hills, valleys and snow-capped mountains running north to south through the center of the state of Washington. Making up almost a third of the state, the Range has been formed and reformed over the ages by tectonic collisions and volcanic spewing; the violence of which invariably destroys all signs of life in the immediate vicinity.

The plates and volcanoes are mostly quiet now. But even so, great stretches of the Cascade Range remain thinly populated; or, in the case of the twenty-five National Forests, Parks and Wilderness areas located within the central Washington Range — which specifically includes the Wenatchee National Forest — hardly populated at all.

It is as if the residents of the surrounding communities possess a subliminal sense of yet another cycle of violence and upheaval to come.

Accordingly, the Cascade Mountain Range was a perfect location for a dangerously innovative research center whose director — a loner by nature — was intent on cutting every legal and scientific corner possible to insure that he was the first to accomplish his world-altering goal.

But now, deep into the Cascades, completely isolated, with a winter snowstorm raging outside, the power and phone lines down, the access road closed, and the wind-chill factor rising, Dr. Sergei Arturovich Draganov wished that he had chosen to locate the clinic a little closer to an airport, or at least a main road. The thankfully infrequent trips by Sno-Cat to pick up special FedEx and UPS packages and other supplies were grueling at best, and with the visibility now only a few feet beyond the front edge of the utility vehicle’s tracks, increasingly dangerous. With luck, he wouldn’t have to make another run until the Spring thaw.

Still covered with snow, and looking as haggard and exhausted as he felt, Draganov stopped in the enclosed entryway to stomp the icy slush off his boots and hang up his heavy coat. As he entered his clinic’s genetics lab, he looked around and — to his dismay — saw only the old Russian woman who functioned as the laboratory’s sole administrative aide, secretary and receptionist sitting at a cheap computer desk in the adjoining room.

“Where is Aleksei?”

“Asleep, I think.”

“In the middle of his work shift?”

The old woman shrugged indifferently.

“What has he been doing, drinking with Borya again?”

The old woman glared at Draganov defiantly. “He is unhappy and you push him too hard. What do you expect?”

“We have much to do, and so little time. Why is he unhappy now?”

The old woman made an exasperated gesture with her hand. “He is worried about Sasha. He says she gets worse every day.”

“Sasha is lonely and misses her siblings. That was expected.”

“She wouldn’t be lonely if you hadn’t sold all of her playmates to that — that evil man!” the old woman said accusingly.

“You manage our accounts. You know there was no other way. We would have lost everything if I hadn’t — ”

“Hadn’t what? Made a pact with the devil?”

“Marcus is not the devil! He is our new benefactor! We need him!”

“He is a dangerous man, Sergei Arturovich. Mark my words. He is just like your brother, god rest his soul.” The old woman crossed herself quickly. “A very dangerous man!”

“We don’t know for sure that Gregor is — ” Draganov started to argue, then shook his head as he turned and walked through the door of a small containment vestibule labeled ACCESS TO CAGE ROOM. After waiting for the door behind him to shut and the air pressure in the vestibule to build up — one of the mechanisms he used to keep tiny airborne fragments of DNA from contaminating his experiments — he entered the darkened room, turned on a low light, and then knelt down in from of a large deep cage.

A threatening came from the far back of the cage that would remain in almost complete darkness until Draganov’s eyes adjusted to the dim light.

“It’s okay, little one. No need to be upset. I am here with you now.”

Another growl, but this time less threatening.

“There, that’s better. Don’t be angry with me, Sasha. You don’t think I made the devil’s pact, do you?”

A third growl, this one sounding plaintive.

“I know you are lonely, but soon you will have new brothers and sisters and everything will be fine again.”

No response this time.

Using the cage as a brace, Draganov pushed himself to a standing position with a tired grunt, walked over to the door, turned off the low light, and then stepped back into the isolating vestibule.

As he did so, the cat’s eyes snapped open in the blackness of the cage, the pupils of her two narrowed eyes glowing a bright emerald green.