“I thought Bennett considered you a brother,” Hawkins said. “Why did he do this?”
As Hawkins asked the question, he glanced around the room and got his answer. There were ten LCD displays and each showed four different live-video feeds. A little more than half of the feeds were from inside the building, focusing on labs, holding rooms, and a few hallways. There were several sweeping views from high points on the island. He could see the farm, the field, the garden, and orchard, a view of the goats from the abandoned laboratory, and an alternate view that showed the old lab itself. There were even a few images of the paths leading through the jungle and of the Magellan in the lagoon. Two of the feeds were blacked out. Probably from the interior of Bennett’s now melted gallery, Hawkins thought.
“I’m sorry,” Kam said. “I’m not the person you think I am.”
“He’s not a person at all,” Bray said, pointing to Kam’s lower neck.
At first Hawkins thought Kam’s neck had been sliced open, too, but there was no blood. He leaned in close, careful not to bump the knife buried in Kam’s belly. Hawkins realized that this part of Kam’s neck would have always been covered by the tightly buttoned, high-collared polo shirts he wore. The shirt was unbuttoned now and part of the neck exposed. He took hold of the collar and peeled it back, exposing the slit in Kam’s neck, along with two more.
“What the h—” The slits flexed and opened. Hawkins let go of the shirt and stepped back.
“Gills,” Kam said. “And yes, they work.”
“That’s how you survived the storm outside,” Bray said, his voice full of accusation. “And Cahill didn’t.”
“He saw me go outside. Tried to pull me back in, but a wave took us over the side. I tried to save him,” Kam said.
“Not that saving him would have been a mercy,” Bray said. “If you’d saved him, he’d be stuck on this hellish island, too. Or maybe have his guts split open with spider things climbing out. Or maybe have his hands replaced with knives and his eyes plucked out. At least he was dead when you guys strung him up by his insides.”
Kam cringed under the verbal attack. “I didn’t do those things. I wouldn’t.”
“But you allowed them to happen,” Blok said. “Sometimes there isn’t much difference.”
Kam’s eyes fell to the floor. He looked weakened, both emotionally and from actual blood loss.
“Enough, guys,” Hawkins said. Had Kam been healthy, there would be hell to pay, but the man was clearly on his way to the next world and right now, he had questions, the first of which was, “What does Bennett want?”
“Entertainment,” Kam said. “He’s bored.”
“He’s a little more than bored,” Bray said.
Hawkins saw Kam’s gills open and close, as though taking a breath. “Is she really your mother?”
Kam winced in pain for a moment and then nodded.
“Wait. What?” Bray said. “Who is his mother?”
“The chimera,” Hawkins said. “The big one.”
Bray rubbed his arm across his forehead, which did little to remove the sheen of sweat reflecting the glow of the security displays. “Holy shit.”
“You mean the thing that took us?” Blok asked. “The one that comes with the horn? That’s your mother?”
“Her name is Kaiju. It means ‘strange beast.’ She started as a human embryo. And some of her mind is still human, though it functions at a more primal level than modern man. She was grown inside a woman with one arm—my grandmother, I suppose—who died giving birth. That’s what my father told me, anyway. Who knows if it’s true.”
“What species was she merged with?” Hawkins asked.
“Some are obvious,” Kam replied with a cough. “Her face alone contains bat, goat, tiger, crocodile, and human features. Her tail is chameleon. Her torso and arms are gorilla, as is her heart and much of her inner musculature. One hand is polar bear. The other hand is an oversize aye-aye. The protective carapace on her chest is turtle shell and the spines on her back are porcupine, though they’re also coated with a neurotoxin. But much of her is still human.”
“Including her reproductive systems,” Hawkins said.
“My father, the head of the Unit Seven thirty-one division stationed on this island and chief scientist until his death, tried for years to artificially impregnate Kaiju. But it only worked once.”
“You,” Hawkins said.