Chapter 25

Millie walked the two blocks to Ling Wu’s acupuncture clinic after feeding Roku his breakfast and signing to him that he needed to remain quiet until she returned. The day was overcast, and a cold wind blew off the Pacific Ocean and into her face, reminding her she needed to purchase a sweater. When she was offered the position at the Primate Research Facility in Nevada, she packed up her meager belongings in her efficiency apartment and took them with her to the Cinder Mountain facility. Most of her clothes and a few household items, along with her cooking utensils, were still back in Nevada, and there they would have to remain.

The acupuncture clinic was a small, cluttered affair fronting a side street in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Traffic was light, and only a few children were out, hurrying along the cracked sidewalk to the school, one block over. The smells of Chinese cooking wafted down the neighborhood as she made her way to the clinic.

She opened the door and was greeted by Mr. Wu, who approached her, smiling.

“Good morning, Millie,” he said, in his Asian accent. “You have breakfast?”

“Yes, Mr. Wu, I already ate, thank you. You need me to sterilize the needles from yesterday?”

“No, Millie. I already put them in the sterilizer. But I do need you to prepare Mrs. Ong for her treatment. She is in the exam room.”

“I will, Mr. Wu.”

Millie strolled past her boss, entered the examination room, and began her day. As she worked, the hours melted away, for her thoughts were back in the small apartment with Roku. The creature was getting much too large for her to manage alone. When he wanted to be obstinate, she had to physically encourage him to do what she wanted, and, occasionally, Roku would growl at her in protest. It was those times that she realized that soon something would have to be done with him, but she didn’t know what. She was toying with the idea of going back to Cal Pacific and returning him, on the condition that they use him for study and not exterminate him. She knew she was most likely in trouble and might be arrested at any moment if her whereabouts were discovered, so she needed to find a safe place for Roku. But where?

In retrospect, she harbored deep feelings of guilt over what she had done. She knew that, in creating Roku, she had crossed an invisible moral and ethical line, but she would do it over again, given the opportunity. Which now would be never. The important thing to her was that she had created Roku, used her expertise in genetics and created him, and now science needed to study him, not destroy him. It didn’t matter what happened to her, as long as Roku lived.

The patients came and went with Millie assisting Wu with his acupuncture treatments. In acupuncture, very thin needles, slightly thicker than a human hair, were inserted into acupuncture points. The objective of acupuncture as explained by Mr. Wu was to regulate and normalize the flow of the Chi, so that the Yin and the Yang returned to a state of dynamic equilibrium. Acupuncture aimed to relieve symptoms by curing the disease. The choice of acupuncture points to be used was the most crucial part of the treatment. The acupuncturist must know the function of each acupuncture point and its interaction with other acupuncture points. Mr. Wu then planned the treatment to eliminate obstructions in the flow of Chi and to balance the Yin and Yang. After Mr. Wu had examined the patient and reached a diagnosis, he decided how the patient should be treated.

Millie learned that an experienced acupuncturist used as few needles as possible to balance the energy flows. In contrast, a novice might use many needles and still be unable to balance the energy flows. Most patients needed ten to fifteen acupuncture needles for each treatment, but sometimes only a single needle might be enough. While treating a frozen shoulder, Mr. Wu inserted a single needle into the leg and then twirled it in his fingers. In a few minutes, a shoulder that had been immobile for up to three months moved freely and without pain.

Her day ended, and, after saying goodbye to Mr. Wu, she returned home and fixed her and Roku’s dinner. Afterward, she worked with him on his language and signing skills. He was now a large creature with a large head and penetrating eyes. Short, brown-yellow fur covered his body and, while he walked upright, he had a decided willingness to move about using his arms. Above everything, Millie was amazed at Roku’s intelligence. The chimera had an unusual ability to learn things quickly, a faculty that led her to teach Roku simple math using toothpicks. He was able to solve almost any puzzle that Millie brought home.

As she undressed for bed, she wondered what the future held for them. Would Roku live to make history? Or would he be destroyed, his life ended in infamy? And what about her? Would she be destined to spend the rest of her life in a dead-end meaningless job working for peanuts?

She glanced at Roku lying on the floor and signed, You’re a good boy. I love you.

And Roku signed back. I love Mommy. Mommy is very pretty.

Millie lay in the dark until a fitful dreamless sleep overtook her.

***

Harry took the offered cup of coffee and settled into a luxurious chair around a walnut table as Dixie followed suit.

Trench settled into a chair opposite the couple, put his elbows on the table, and sighed. His gray eyes flashed.

“What do you want to know?” he said.

Harry noticed a line of tiny beads of sweat on the man’s brow. He swallowed some coffee.

“Mr. Trench, I am Harry Olson, and I was Millie Harbaum’s departmental chairman at Cal Pacific University. This is my wife, Dixie.” Trench nodded without saying a word. “As I mentioned earlier,” Harry continued, “we were both Millie’s professors and responsible for her graduate work at the university.”

Trench smiled weakly.

“You say, were, as in the past tense. Why is that?” Trench took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his forehead.

“Dixie,” Harry began, “and I are no longer employed with the university. I was terminated after Millie disappeared and Dixie resigned.”

“Disappeared?” Trench said, eyebrows raised.

Harry hesitated, not wanting to divulge the chimera’s existence. Not knowing Trench, Harry wasn’t sure if the man could be trusted to not divulge a confidence. In fact, lately Harry’s trust in the people he knew had been severely strained, if not down right betrayed, so he wasn’t eager to tell this stranger everything he knew. From the board of trustees down to Siscom at the research facility, the people he thought he could count on had let him down. He heard Dixie saying something and her voice brought him back to reality.

“You might as well tell him everything, honey,” she said. “He’s gonna hear it, sooner or later.”

At Dixie’s remark, Trench sat up straight and set his cup on the table. Harry thought he looked more interested than stressed.

“I guess,” Harry said. “Millie, as a faculty member, was doing research at our Primate Research Facility in Nevada, Mr. Trench. Dixie and I had brought back to the States a pair of primitive animals--human ancestors still living in the mountains of Mongolia. They were Yeti. We brought them back and placed them it the facility where they would be protected, and we could study them. Millie was involved in the research. She was an expert in paleogenetics.”

“Paleo- what?” Trench said.

“Paleogenetics. Using genetics to determine relationships among previous living animals.”

“It is the study of the past through the examination of preserved genetic material from the remains of ancient organisms,” Dixie said. “The physical chemist Linus Pauling introduced the term in 1963, in reference to the examination of possible applications in the reconstruction of past polypeptide sequences. The first sequence of an ancient DNA, isolated from a museum specimen of an extinct zebra, was published in 1984.”

“I see,” Trench said, half wincing at Dixie’s description. “So Millie was working for you on this project?”

“Yes,” Harry continued. “Unbeknownst to me or other university officials, Millie created a chimera. She created an organism whose genetic makeup was half from the Yeti and half her own.”

“A hybrid?”

“Sort of, but not exactly. Scientifically, we call it a chimera. Millie implanted the fertilized egg with the different DNA into a chimpanzee, and, several months later, the chimera was born.”

“Let me get this straight, Professor,” Trench said, after a big gulp of his coffee. “This creature, or whatever it is, is half this Yeti animal and half human. Correct?” Harry nodded. “If you don’t mind me asking, what does the damn thing look like?”

Harry chuckled.

“Like a short-haired chimp,” he said. “But getting bigger each day. Millie knew she had crossed a line, so she took the chimera and left the research facility. Disappeared. We’re looking for her.”

“And you thought I could help?” Trench said. He got up, removed his suit coat, and ambled over to his desk. On it was a picture of a woman and two small children.

“We understand you knew her,” Dixie said. “You did, didn’t you?”

A pregnant silence ensued, as if Trench was contemplating his options. Harry shot his wife a glance that said, “We’ve wasted our time.”

After some length, Trench returned to the table, sat, extended his hands, palms up. “I did, yes,” he said. His face bore a sorrowful expression. “It was a long time ago.”

“Mr. Trench,” Harry said, “we don’t wish to involve ourselves in your past affairs. All we desire is that if you are in possession of where Millie might be, we would appreciate the information. If not, we will leave you alone.”

The investment counselor shook his head.

“Millie and I were a thing a number of years ago. In love, you might say. But one night I was drunk and hit her a few times. She moved out the next day. It wasn’t my best moment, one I’m not proud of. I have a great wife and family now, and the remembrance of what I did is extremely painful and embarrassing. But, I’m sorry, I have no idea where she might be.”

“I figured it was a long shot,” Harry said. “I’m sorry we bothered you.”

“It’s hard to believe that the woman I lived with for a while is now doing research in paleo...paleo...”

“Paleogenetics,” Harry said. “And I might add that she has a brilliant mind. It’s too bad that she used it for something like this.”

“What will happen to her when you catch up with her?” Trench said.

“To Millie,” Dixie said, “we hope nothing. The chimera in all likelihood will be destroyed.”

“Oh wow,” Trench exclaimed.

Harry stood.

“Well, Mr. Trench, we appreciate your candor and thanks for your time.”

Trench stood. Harry and Dixed left his office. As they passed the redheaded secretary, she smiled and waved. Once in their car and headed back to the freeway, Dixie was exasperated.

“You think he was telling the truth, honey?” she said as Harry steered the car around slower moving traffic. “He looked rather sleazy to me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “He wasn’t going to give us any information, one way or the other. He did admit to knowing her. Stands to reason that after all these years, he wouldn’t have any knowledge of her whereabouts. Especially if he worked her over. What woman would stay in contact with a jerk like that?”

“I know I wouldn’t. He’d be lucky to be alive.”

Harry laughed, for he knew his wife was speaking the truth.

“So we are back where we started,” she said. “Now what?”

“I’d like to check in with Special Agent Jacoby and see if he has turned up anything. If not, then I need to start looking for a job.”

“I can call the folks at the facility and check with them,” Dixie said. “Who was it you said had expressed an interest in you?”

“The Institute for American Antiquities.”

“Oh, yes. They fund expeditions, don’t they? You could get back to doing what you really love, which is field work. I could travel with you.”

“It might be able to work.”

“I know I keep asking, Harry, but what will happen if they find Roku? Will he be destroyed?”

“Like you told Trench, it’s hard to say. It would depend on how much influence I still have with Pauling and Cal Pacific.”

“And how much public outcry there is?” Dixie gazed out her window at the passing countryside. The freeway traffic had lightened considerably.

“Exactly. Most people don’t know anything about genetics and bioengineering. What they don’t understand, they fear, regardless of any scientific merit. And if science should dare threaten the pillars of religion, then watch out ’cause it’s all-out war.”

“That doesn’t bode well for Roku’s survival, does it?”

“Not at all.”

They drove a ways in silence with Harry in deep thought. As the sun faded behind the western horizon and left them in a gray dusk, they sped down the peninsula toward San Mateo. He knew if Roku was found, and Harry couldn’t convince Pauling and the trustees to remand him to the research facility, the chimera would die. And it would break Dixie’s heart.

It was something he could not dare to contemplate.