Kam nodded. “The idea was that if they could impregnate a chimera, its children might be born with similar traits without needing to be engineered in a lab, which has a very low success rate and is time-consuming and expensive. When I was born, I looked fully human. I was deemed a failure, but allowed to live because my father used his own sperm to impregnate Kaiju. I was his son. The gills and”—Kam took hold of his shirt and lifted it, exposing his belly, which was covered in shiny fish scales—“this didn’t develop until I was a teenager, when my father had long since lost interest in me. He never knew.”
“How did you end up being so different from Bennett?” Hawkins asked. It wasn’t exactly important, but he didn’t understand how Kam had turned out to be merciful and Bennett a psychotic. Because when he thought about it, Bennett was the logical end result of being raised from birth in an environment that had no moral compass or respect for human life.
“His parents both worked for DARPA, but unlike many of the recruits, they were here voluntarily. They led the research together, along with my father. They believed in the work. Maybe even enjoyed the work. But they weren’t like Bennett. They were clinical. Cold, even. But they weren’t sick. Like my father, they took pride in what they saw as progress for their country—blinded to their crimes by patriotism. They were … kind to me, but in the way a master is kind to a pet. Things were different for Bennett.
“He lived in the labs. Spent days and nights there. He’s brilliant, you know. Always has been. And his parents pushed him. So hard. He performed his first operation when he was ten. The subject died on the table. He wept afterward, but not for the patient. He was upset that he’d let his parents down. Over time, his skills increased, but so did his boredom. When my father died, Bennett was just fifteen, but felt he should take his place. Obviously, he was turned down because of his age and the fact that he wasn’t actually employed as a researcher. After that he kept to himself, working on projects few people knew about. While his parents focused on pure research, pushing the limits of what could be done, Bennett focused on controlling their creations. Including my mother.”
“He’s using sounds and smells,” Hawkins said. “Different tones in varying sequences act like commands. Three pulses might mean ‘attack.’ Two might mean ‘stop.’ And one horn blast means, what? ‘Kidnap’?”
Kam shook his head no. “My mother can understand limited instructions. He can tell her what to do. The horn just sends her into action. As will the nearly inaudible tones emitted by his handheld remote and small speakers attached to many of the island’s cameras. The horn is meant to intimidate those who hear it, but the tones allow him to act in secret, like when he took the crew who remained behind on the Magellan. When he wants someone taken, rather than killed, he marks them with a scent.”
“But why does she obey him?” Bray asked. “Why doesn’t she just crush his skull and be done with it. And what about you? Why not drag his ass beneath the water and let him drown?”
“While Bennett lived in the labs, I spent much of my time in the jungle. The chimeras don’t attack each other. They might fight over territory or mates, but they don’t eat each other. I was free to explore. To dream. It’s why I’m different than him. He wanted to control nature. I wanted to enjoy it. And during those years of exploration, my mother was my only real company. Five years ago, Bennett captured my mother, and me. He operated on both of us. Planted explosives in our chests.”
“Like the ones he used on the staff?” Bray asked.
“Similar. Someone skilled at defusing bombs could have removed those. The ones inside my mother and me would require a highly skilled surgeon and someone to defuse the bomb simultaneously.”
“So they can’t be removed?” Blok asked.
“It’s unlikely,” Kam said. “One is rigged to the other, and both to his body. If his pulse stops, we both die. If we don’t do as he asks, he will detonate the explosive in the other. The small remote he carries? The buttons on the outside trigger the tones, and horn. But it can be slid open. The two buttons inside trigger the explosives.”
“So why not just let him kill her?” Bray said.
Anger flashed in Kam’s eyes. “You see a monster when you look at her, but I see my mother.” He leaned back in the chair, exhausted from the effort. “I couldn’t let her be killed any more than you could your mother. I’m not like Bennett. I couldn’t kill my parents.”
“Is that what happened to Bennett’s parents?” Hawkins asked. “He killed them?”
“They were kind to me,” Kam said with regret. “They didn’t deserve it. None of them did.”
Hawkins’s eyes widened. “He sewed them in with the others?”
“They were at the core. He didn’t want to see them.” Tears gathered at the base of Kam’s eyes. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll all be dead soon anyway.”
Hawkins leaned in close. “What are you talking about?”