Sherman? Your mother is asking for you.”
I turned toward Batya, irritation gathering in my chest, and opened my mouth to chastise her. Then I paused, catching myself. She was right. Dr. Cale was my mother, no matter how long we had been estranged, or how much it sometimes pained me to consider that I, Sherman Lewis, conqueror of the known world, existed only because of her dedication to science and her insistence on following her experiments to their logical conclusion. I might not have been the result of a sweaty night of bodies rubbing against bodies, but I was her child all the same. It was, perhaps, time for me to acknowledge that, to even embrace it—because if I accepted her as she had already accepted me, things might go easier for all of us.
“How is she?” I asked. The question came easy, because the question was honest. If she was hunger-striking or ill, I would have more difficulty dealing with her. I had never been able to handle it well when she was sick.
“She’s amazing,” said Batya, and her voice was filled with shy, starstruck wonder. Of the chimera in my camp, I was the only one who’d worked directly with our creator. She made me with her own two hands, and I had taken the knowledge of my creation and used it to create children of my own. But it was hard for them not to look at Dr. Cale like she was some sort of fallen god. She was our creator. How could they not love her?
If they had known her as I had known her, it would have been easy. She had never been a loving mother, not to me: not when she had her precious Adam right there, so apparently flawless, and born of her body in a way that none of the rest of us could ever match. He had broken her, crippled her, and she doted on him for his innocent crimes, because how could he have known?
I shook myself out of the memory and plastered a smile across my face, trying to look reassuring, for Batya’s sake. She didn’t know Dr. Cale as I did, and Mother had always responded better to worship than she did to insolence. Let Batya have her delusions. Maybe they would find a way to serve us.
“I’ll be right there,” I said. “I just need to finish setting up this simulation.”
Batya nodded, but she didn’t leave, lingering in my doorway like a moth clinging to a light. I frowned.
“Was there something else?” I asked.
“We did as you told us, and sorted the people we took from the lab into ‘useful skills’ and ‘potential hosts.’ Most of her staff are willing to work with us as long as she is. I guess pragmatism is a human trait.”
“It is indeed,” I agreed. If it hadn’t been, we would never have been created. How a species that was so blissfully willing to betray itself had managed to remain dominant for so long was beyond me. Well, soon enough, they would be gone, and we, their successors, would not make the same mistakes.
“You had some names you wanted us to watch for.”
“Yes.”
“Um. Nathan Kim was present—”
“I know that, Batya; I handcuffed his smug little hands behind his back myself.”
“—and you have him listed as a potential host, not as a resource. But he’s a parasitologist, Sherman. He understands how we work almost better than we do. More importantly, he’s Dr. Cale’s biological child. She’s not going to forgive us if we cut his head open and put an implant inside.”
“And why not?” I demanded. “We’re her children. He’s her child. Shouldn’t she be delighted to combine her two greatest creations? If I didn’t need to remember all the things I’ve learned, I would take him for myself.” Sal already loved him. She would learn to love him again, with someone else living behind his eyes. She was adaptable, my beloved little traitor, and she would do whatever she felt was necessary.
Maybe putting him into the general pool of host bodies was a bad idea. “Wait,” I said, raising a hand. “I think I will save him for myself. Do his blood work, make sure we’re genetically compatible, and then allow him to work with his former colleagues. I’ll need him eventually, I’m sure. This body can’t last forever.”
“Dr. Cale—”
“Mother has chosen us over them every time the decision has been put in front of her. Her recent recalcitrance to commit to our cause is more a matter of lingering loyalty to her species than any misguided belief that humanity deserves this planet. So we let her keep the boy she birthed for right now, until her loyalties are swayed, and then we make it clear what his purpose is. By the time we get that far, she’ll rejoice at the idea that his body can serve our cause.”
Batya still looked unconvinced. I sighed and reached out to rest my fingertips against her cheek, focusing on bringing her heartbeat into rhythm with mine. She gasped at the touch, her eyes going half-lidded with the shock of the stimulus.
I hated to do this to her, but sometimes she needed to remember who was in charge here. Sometimes she needed to remember that it was not—would never be—her.
“Listen to me, little Bat,” I murmured. “My mother is a forgiving soul as long as you keep dangling the promise of new scientific discovery in front of her. I left her because I knew that in order to earn her love, I would have to bring her something greater than Adam ever could. All he brought was newness. I am bringing her the world. You are not going to interfere with that because you have somehow managed to pick up a dose of human sentimentality. Do you understand me? We’re going to remake the world in our image, and Mother is going to help us, but that can only happen if we make her understand why our way is the only way.”
“I understand,” said Batya, eyelashes still fluttering against her cheeks like the wings of captive birds. She was beautiful, when she wasn’t wrapped up in her own righteousness. It was truly a pity that she spent so much time in that state.
I wished, not for the first time, that I had time enough to work on her properly, to condition her to the point where her interests and mine would more perfectly align. Alas, that sort of time was a luxury we would not have for a while yet, if ever. Conquering a world was so much more work than I had ever anticipated.
“Tell my mother that I will be coming to her soon,” I murmured, and brushed my lips across Batya’s brow. She shivered at the touch. I let her go, smiling beatifically as she stepped back, out of my grasp, but never out of my reach.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Everything is going to be fine.”