~ SASHA ~

Driving back towards the complex, Nick seemed to be going slower than when they'd been on their way out. His brows kept pinching in, as if he was arguing something with himself. Sasha didn't push. She was still struggling to read Nick, to figure out if or when he could be trusted. And the truth was, talking to him about this whole picture was very different to speaking about it with Nathan and the other board members.

How was she ever going to convince them to give her what she wanted?

There was no point angsting about it, she realized. Either they would listen and do as she asked, or they wouldn't. Wetting her pants about it wasn't going to change anything in the long run.

Sasha stared out the window, watching the grass and distant trees pass the Jeep. It was a beautiful place out here. Remote. Though the cleared land felt a little too perfect to be natural, it was still real.

"Why do they call this the sanctuary?

" she said, suddenly needing to have something else to focus on.

Nick huffed.

"The idea was to have a place where the Chimera would be able to self-manage, like you just saw. We can easily pass them things that are needed. We can test and treat for medical needs. But other than that, they're left mostly to themselves. They hunt to subsidize the food we give them. We don't interfere with them more than is necessary for breeding and to avoid the issues I mentioned around that. It's loosely based on the idea of the wildlife sanctuaries all over the world—places they can live their lives, but where they're also accessible.

"

This place didn't feel like a sanctuary to Sasha. It felt more like a really big cage.

"But… they aren't even dressed in the way that's natural for them,

" she said.

"Do you really think you've replicated their Thana lives out there? Because you haven't. They need a lot more space. They need an entire society—with males, and older Chimera, and… they just need so much more. This isn't a real life, Nick. It's a big cage.

"

"Well, it's what they have, and what they've survived in for the past three years—more, if you count the ones we made, or those that came earlier.

"

"So, there's more, right. The females I just saw, those aren't all of them.

"

"No, but the others serve specific purposes. They're being studied for specific traits or experiments. They can't be free, because they have to be monitored all the time.

"

Sasha stomach turned over again, remembering the made females that were in that apartment, and that hushed plea from their leader.

"You're killing them, too, you know.

"

"Don't get too full of yourself, Sasha. You don't know anything about any of this. Stay in your lane.

"

"I'm not—

"

"Those females know nothing except what we tell and show them. They've only barely even interacted with the other females.

"

"Then how do they know about Zev and the traditions—sharing scents, and stuff.

"

"Because we tell them,

" Nick said.

"We aren't trying to mess them up, Sasha. We're trying to give them a purpose and help them understand who and what they are—and how they're helping us. The females love movie nights, did you know that? Does that strike you as a Thana Chimeran trait? No. But they love it. It's currency to them. When we want to motivate them, or get them to push through something, we offer them that. They're like children, in many ways. Very simple in their needs and in their drivers.

"

"Because they've never had a chance to be anything else!

" Sasha cried, certain he was so wrong, but needing him to believe she believed him.

"If you let them go to Thana—

"

"If we let those females, who've spent their entire lives in climate controlled, human environments into Thana, they would be less than useless. Even more at a loss than you were Sasha.

"

"I… how did you know?

"

Nick chuckled.

"I didn't need to know. We've followed you for years. You're a city girl, Sasha. This isn't the environment in which you thrive.

"

"Zev is the environment in which I thrive,

" she muttered.

Nick chuckled again.

"Don't be mad, I'm just saying, you know how it is to walk into a place and be completely out of your comfort zone. That's how it would be for those women, except even less. Their entire existences have been in our labs, and this complex. They don't know anything else.

"

"They want to. They know about Zev and Thana. I bet if you offered them the chance—

"

"Yeah, and if you told a ten year old about the rain forest and all the creatures there, they'd want to go. But they'd have no idea how hard it was, physically or mentally. That's the thing, Sasha. You're right they've never had a chance to be anything else, but also, we don't know if they can be. They were all created for specific gene traits. Every month we discover new differences, new flaws, new strengths… we could study these people for the rest of my life and we still won't reach the edge of understanding their purposes and limits.

"That whole arena of learning isn't going to stop just to make you more comfortable. So you need to lower your sights if you're thinking you're going to include those females in your request to Nathan. It just won't happen. And if they start to think you're just creating obstacles, they'll stop listening. Be very careful, Sasha. You can't save all of them.

"

She wanted to argue. To make him see that the females could probably thrive in Thana—the humans could learn new things about them that way—but before she could think about how to frame that in a way that got the females into Thana without commitments to have the humans there, too, Nick's device started alarming.

He stopped the Jeep to pull it out of his inside pocket and tapped the screens a couple times, then stared at it for a long minute.

When he looked up at Sasha, his eyes were unreadable.

"What is it?

" she asked, suddenly nervous.

Nick looked back down at the screen.

"Looks like you're going to get your chance to talk to the Board. Your test results are in, and Nathan and Horace are on their way to meet us.

"

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