Going Wild #3 Read online

  “It’s not your fault,” said Dr. Gray, beginning to sound a bit impatient. “I made a mistake in judgment yesterday. I should have had you start with this, clearly the easier job. But I was overeager for the shark DNA. I’ve wanted to experiment with it for so long, but hadn’t been able to obtain a sample until you came along—the Mark Four’s abilities are perfect for that kind of predator.” He frowned. “I let my eagerness overrule my hesitations.”

  “Besides,” Miko added, “nobody thought that you’d actually need to go into the pool, you know.”

  Dr. Gray grimaced and shook his head, like the whole thing had been a cluster of mishaps and mistakes. “Just forget about it. We’ll try again at another aquarium when you’re ready, Kelly. For now, with what you’ve accomplished, Miko will soon be able to get her condor wings. And … ,” he said, pressing his lips into a small smirk, “her pink bald head.”

  “Ugh, no!” said Miko, hopping along, but it was clear she enjoyed seeing Dr. Gray lighten up a bit for once. “Now you’re just being mean, teasing me like that.” She stayed close to Kelly, still careful to keep her face hidden, then said abruptly, “What time is it? Do you want me to tell Cyke we’re finished here, and we’ll be on our way shortly to pick them up? Are they just going to meet us in the SeaWorld parking lot since Kelly is banned for life?”

  Kelly rolled her eyes and elbowed the chimp woman, half-annoyed and half-embarrassed that Miko brought up that part again. But then she chuckled reluctantly. “Kelly Parker. Banned from SeaWorld. It’s kind of funny, isn’t it?”

  “Kind of inconvenient is more like it,” said Dr. Gray matter-of-factly. “But it won’t be too hard to find shark DNA elsewhere, and with you being a child … well, you’re much less suspicious-looking.”

  Miko patted Kelly’s shoulder reassuringly. “It would have gone flawlessly if you hadn’t hit the trainer ladder. That’s what made you lose your concentration, wasn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” muttered Kelly.

  Dr. Gray gave a rude snort of laughter as they walked, as if he were remembering the scene. Reluctantly Kelly had to admit that the part where the aquarium workers hauled her out of the shark pool must have been quite a sight to witness.

  The doctor soon became preoccupied and thoughtful again. “I imagine Dr. Sharma chose to use the cuttlefish for the Mark Four because of its amazing camouflage ability. You were clever to realize how to take full advantage of that power by replicating the animal’s hypnotic pulsating ability. That kind of ingenuity is valuable to me. How did you know you could do it? Did Dr. Sharma tell you?”

  Kelly beamed from the rare compliment. “I don’t know what Dr. Sharma meant to do with the cuttlefish ability. She never said anything to me. When I originally read about it in the Project Chimera papers and tried it out the first time, I thought all I could do was camouflage. Even when I went to L.A. to be on LIVE, TONIGHT, I didn’t know the ability could expand to hypnosis or I would have used it then to get that creepy host to let go of me.” She frowned a moment, remembering, then shook her head slightly. “It wasn’t until I was on the bus ride back to Arizona that I started studying more about cuttlefish. That’s when I found out they can use that camouflage technique not only to hide, but also to mesmerize their prey. I figured I should at least give it a shot, so I practiced when the lady next to me fell asleep—I used the camera on my phone to see if I could get the pulsating-stripe thing going. Once the lady woke up, I tried it on her and it sort of worked. She was really confused at least. Enough for me to know there was something to it.”

  “I’ll bet she was freaked out,” said Miko with a chimpy laugh. The walkway they were on rejoined the main road that would take them to the exit.

  “Anyway,” Kelly continued, “after I joined your team, I knew I had to do something to keep my parents from worrying about me, and everyone at school from looking for me. So I kept practicing while you guys were searching for a place to go next. I managed to hypnotize Mega in the backseat of the van.” Kelly snorted. “But don’t say anything; I never told her. I was really nervous to use it on my teachers, but when it worked on Mr. Anderson, who knows me better than practically anyone, I knew it could actually work on my parents, too. And it did. They …” Her expression flickered. “They pretty much forgot all about me.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Deep Thoughts

  After Kelly had visited the school the first time with her hypnotic plans, she’d realized that convincing Mr. Anderson she didn’t exist would only cause a stir with the students—there was no way she could have hypnotized everyone in her school and life to think that. So she’d gone back and rehypnotized him and the rest of the faculty to believe she’d moved away instead. But her parents—she’d had to make them forget. There was no other way to do it.

  It hadn’t been hard to convince them to forget about her either, which bothered Kelly a little. She thought she’d have to work on them a few times … but no. She scowled and tried to rid her thoughts of home and her former life. Sure, it was a bummer that she missed being in the school musical—hopefully whoever had gotten the lead hadn’t messed it up too badly. But she didn’t miss the drama of her parents fighting. She didn’t miss that whenever they weren’t yelling at her they mostly ignored her. Skipping out on their messy divorce process was actually kind of convenient. It was a relief to leave that stress behind.

  This life using her animal abilities was more the style Kelly craved—where she could take the spotlight. Be important and do things nobody else could do. And have people appreciate her, like Dr. Gray did. Obviously, Kelly knew he wasn’t perfect—far from it. After all, he’d done some pretty bad things to Mac Barnes, but Dr. Gray had told her that was all because of a big misunderstanding with Charlie’s bracelet. And sure, he’d kept Charlie’s dad and the other scientists in his lab when they didn’t want to be there. But Dr. Gray had explained that he’d really needed their help to proceed with his amazing work—which was top secret kind of stuff for the government, he’d told her. And those other scientists had been the ones trying to stop him, so didn’t that make them the bad guys? Kelly didn’t really know much about them, other than the fact that none of this weird stuff started happening until Charlie’s family moved in. And Dr. Sharma and Ms. Sabbith had tried to take Kelly’s device away. So they did seem suspicious.

  Anyway, now that Dr. Gray had fixed the machine they’d all built together, he’d turned his full attention to his work and was back to being super focused on finding the right combination of animals to make the ultimate chimera.

  Besides, this science experiment was exciting. Better and more important than the kinds of things Kelly had done in school. She liked being a part of it. And unlike the other scientists, Dr. Gray didn’t want to take her bracelet—he wanted her to use it! His trust in her made her feel important and necessary in ways she’d never felt before. Hypnotizing zoo and aquarium workers so she could grab DNA from the animals? Okay, so that part felt a little bit wrong, but Kelly wasn’t trying to harm anyone. And it was for a good cause. It seemed like such a small sacrifice for these people to make, especially since they wouldn’t remember it anyway. Kelly was sure they’d be happy they’d helped to advance science if they ever found out what Dr. Gray was doing. And for Kelly personally, acting in this powerful role was like being the star of a new show every day. It was thrilling and a little dangerous. While the soldiers had been skeptical of her at first because she was just a kid, Kelly had been respectful, and they’d come to accept her. And Dr. Gray was on her side. She could control people and animals to her heart’s content without anyone judging or looking down on her.

  She frowned. Control most animals, anyway. That shark at SeaWorld hadn’t fallen under her spell, and the whole experience had been a nightmare. And if she was being honest, while Kelly loved having abilities in general, she didn’t totally love her bracelet’s specific abilities. If it had been up to her, she would have picked different ones. Even though the Mark Four had been
designed using water animals, that didn’t mean Kelly liked the water any more now than she had before. Not to mention sharks were just plain scary, no matter how fast Kelly could swim now.

  As the three of them continued toward the zoo exit, Kelly thought about how things had gone down the previous day. The plan had been for her to sneak into the shark enclosure and lean over the edge of the pool to try to hypnotize a swimming shark so it would stay close by and give Kelly an opportunity to swipe its skin with a special tool. No big deal … if you forget about the teeth. And it had started off all right, but then everything had gone wrong. Some workers had seen her and rushed in, and Kelly couldn’t hypnotize them fast enough—not while trying to get the sample, too. They’d lunged at her, and Kelly had panicked. She’d wanted that shark DNA and wasn’t about to leave without it. So she’d yanked herself away from the workers and had fallen into the pool.

  Her dolphin ability had kicked in, and so had her freak-out mode: was she about to get eaten? But Kelly wasn’t going to go down without a fight. She’d decided that chasing the shark was a better idea than being chased by it, so she’d done just that. Following a shark around and trying to scrape its skin while not getting attacked or caught by the aquarium workers had been ridiculous. When the shark noticed her, it turned sharply and came after her. She’d tried to get away and bonked into the ladder, and in the end, she’d failed. But she hadn’t gotten eaten, so there was that.

  Dr. Gray wasn’t mad at her, but Kelly had unfortunately made such a big scene in the shark pool that she’d been kicked out of the park. For life.

  Ugh. She still hated the water. “You know,” she blurted out as she, Dr. Gray, and Miko neared the Safari Park exit, “I’d easily trade the dolphin ability for something else someday.” Doing anything underwater would probably never be something Kelly would outright enjoy. If she hung around Dr. Gray long enough, maybe he would give her some new powers. If he was going to give each of the soldiers new abilities, why not her?

  “You might like it more once you get some practice,” said Miko.

  “Maybe,” said Kelly with a sigh.

  “Now that the lab’s set up,” said Miko, “and Dr. Gray has a couple samples to start working on, we could have some downtime. I’ll take you swimming. You know? So you can practice using multiple abilities at once before you try going for the shark DNA again. We should have thought of that before. If Zed were still here, she would have.”

  Dr. Gray frowned. Talking about Zed, the panther hybrid, had been a tender subject with him. She’d been a fellow biologist from all the way back in his Talos Global days—an original member of Project Chimera. She’d made the Mark Two, and had been his most faithful ally and the very first test subject with his Mark One. And now she’d left without a word. It had shaken up the team a bit. Dr. Gray had even stayed hidden in the Phoenix area for a few extra days hoping she’d come back, or at least make contact through the communication system that was built into her suit. All the soldiers had tried talking to her since then, but not even Miko—who Kelly learned was the nicest of the pack—could get Zed to respond. Still, every now and then Miko made another attempt. “You never know,” she would always say. “Zed might change her mind and come back. I’m not giving up on her.”

  They exited the zoo and entered the parking lot unhindered, and when she was sure they were out of earshot of anyone else, Kelly turned to Dr. Gray and tried again. “So now that we have the condor DNA for Miko, could we search for something to add to my device?”

  Dr. Gray’s expression clouded. He didn’t answer at first. Then he muttered, “We’ll see about something for you eventually.” He hesitated, then added, “But even after I’ve had the chance to create Miko’s formula, the others are still patiently waiting for their second abilities. And you already have four. Trust me, I have a method here that I’m trying to follow.”

  “You have Braun’s porcupine DNA already.”

  “True,” said Dr. Gray, wincing a little as he remembered how he’d gotten it. “But I’ve barely just finished fixing the machine. And there’s a lot more DNA we still need to gather. I have a great deal of work ahead of me.” He paused, then reminded them that Zed had thrown a wrench into his plans. “Twice as much work as I’d expected to have to do.”

  “Oh. Right.” Kelly stared at the ground as they walked. She sighed deeply.

  Dr. Gray glanced at her. “I really value the gifts you bring to the team,” he said carefully. “So please don’t be upset—you will definitely be rewarded … in the end. I’m just not quite there yet in the process. I—I want you to have … something special.”

  Miko’s expression flickered.

  Kelly frowned. Was he talking about the formula for his perfect chimera? How long would that take? After a minute she said, “I don’t see why we can’t try out one of these new animals on me while you’re testing them on the others anyway. It wouldn’t take much extra time to inject the formula into my bracelet, would it?”

  “That’s not how it works.” Dr. Gray sighed loudly, as if annoyed. “And let’s not forget you have plenty to work on with your current abilities first.”

  Kelly’s face burned. She dropped the subject and got into the van, brooding about things. It was moments like these that made her unsure about her decision to join this team. But her uncertainty flickered and mostly went away. Kelly settled into the backseat and mused about how she’d gotten to this place where acting and looking like animals was normal. There was no turning back now.

  Obviously, the whole chimera thing was awesome. And getting to work on a secret project that the government trusted Dr. Gray to do made Kelly feel pretty special. But sometimes … well, the experiment sounded a little weird. Especially when Kelly spent a lot of time thinking about it as she was now, stuck in the van in Southern California traffic with no cell phone to play with. And she still didn’t quite understand everything. Like, why did the government want Gray to do this? Just to see what would happen? Just to say they’d done something no other country had? Is that what scientists lived for? Or did they expect to have to actually use this ultimate chimera to fight off some other enemy?

  Kelly still wasn’t quite sure how she felt each time she learned something new about Dr. Gray’s progress—there were moments when it almost seemed like he was planning something bigger than what he was telling her and Miko and the other soldiers. But Miko seemed to be fine with everything. She, like the other soldiers, was obviously willing to be involved in this. And Kelly generally took her cues from her, the one she had grown to trust the most.

  Not to mention Dr. Gray had said he had a method he was trying to follow. Kelly understood methods—she used them for acting. She’d used them in soccer, too. They worked. She respected methods and found it strangely comforting to know Dr. Gray had a way of doing things. That he wasn’t haphazardly trying to create these chimeras. It made him seem disciplined. And less … insane.

  Not that he was insane, Kelly thought hastily. She was sure he wasn’t. Pretty sure, anyway. He just … seemed less so when he was talking sense. Talking about methods. Like … a teacher might.

  Kelly shifted in the backseat and stared out the window, not really seeing anything out there, but wrapped up in her thoughts. She had a method here, too, she realized. Collect DNA to prove her value. Wait for the reward. Find fame and make it stick this time. After that she could kiss Dr. Gray good-bye if she wanted to. But she was still on step one. For now, the more DNA Kelly could gather for the team, the more valuable she’d be. And the closer Dr. Gray would get to creating the perfect chimera formula for the government. Hopefully Kelly would get her promised reward too, somewhere along the way. And then she could be one of the strongest, most powerful people in the world. She’d break the freaking internet with her awesomeness.

  As Miko drove onto the interstate on-ramp heading back to Sea World and Dr. Gray studied some papers on his lap in the passenger seat, Kelly closed her eyes to meditate. She never noticed the SU
V zipping past them, loaded with suitcases and three twelve-year-olds chattering noisily in the backseat, heading for a week-long vacation.

  But someone in that vehicle did notice the familiar old white van.

  CHAPTER 3

  A Break from Reality

  “Was that … ?” said Charlie Wilde softly, twisting around in the backseat of the Barnes family SUV. “No. It couldn’t have been.” She peered over the suitcases. Her two companions turned to look. Charlie pointed at a white van behind them moving slowly in the more congested right-lane traffic. It was soon hidden behind a couple of buses and a semitrailer truck as Mac’s mom, Claudia, slipped into the commuter lane and zoomed ahead.

  “I don’t know,” said Maria Torres, one of Charlie’s best friends. “I didn’t get a good look.”

  “That was it, all right,” muttered Mac, who’d spent some time tied up in the back of it. “I’d recognize that van anywhere.”

  “So this is where they went?” asked Maria.

  Charlie held a finger to her lips and glanced at Mac’s parents in the front seat. Then she leaned in and whispered, “Ms. Sabbith tracked their license plate to the Arizona-California border, but then she lost the trail. She’s still trying to find them. I’ll text her that we spotted the van.” She kept her voice low. “Do you think Dr. Gray saw us? Is he following us?” Charlie was confused. And while she was always on the lookout for soldiers in black bodysuits, the white van, and the awful Dr. Gray, she never expected to catch sight of them in such a random place as this.

  The kids hadn’t seen any sign of soldiers or danger since Gray had packed up his lab and left Navarro Junction, taking Kelly with them. But the arrogant biologist had foolishly spilled some details to Mrs. Wilde and the kids when he thought he’d had them beat. He and his hybrid soldiers were secretly trying to change everyone in the world into chimeras. And Charlie’s dad and his fellow scientists were working just as hard and even more secretly to stop them.