Doc awoke on the cold lab floor, a useless mug of coffee spilled beside her. She hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep. She called for Farrow, Zhang, Carraway, and a dozen other names.

No one answered. The lab was empty. Even Magenta’s tentacle had vanished from the hallway, her interest in ABP’s skyscraper lost. She must have cleared out every floor.

Responsibility fell to Doc alone.

Her clothes felt musty, her hair and skin grody. She wanted to go home and shower, and then she wanted to pretend Magenta wasn’t happening. They had come a long way from lying in bed together. Doc wondered if Magenta’s

adaptation had been part of those few sweet evenings, her body morphing to best pleasure Doc. She hated to think of her love and sex life as one more process in Magenta’s metamorphosis, every moment divisible into biological compounds.

Occam’s Razor cut through Doc’s thoughts. The simplest solution was likely the right one.

And she hated it.

She found her phone among the coffee cups and snack bar wrappers and called the penthouse. Ringing carried for an eternity before someone picked up.

Breath came ragged into the speaker.

“Still up there?” Doc asked.

“Under lockdown, yes,” the Board said.

Doc didn’t think that mattered. If Magenta had spared them, either she didn’t know they were there or she’d chosen to ignore them for her own reasons.

Doc could no longer tell one voice from another. The phone had restored the Board to their proper position as a three-headed dragon. They were nothing to the dragon of Kentucky or the new creature of Newark, but for once in their long and miserable careers, they could be helpful.

“The lab tried to synthesize a solution, but it’s fallen apart,” Doc said. “I think we already have exactly what we need.” She paused, but they wouldn’t ask for information. At their lowest moment, they still wanted it handed to them, fetched from Doc to master. “Give me access to INZ9-00.”

The phone was quiet a moment, weight sinking through the Board. “We can’t,” they said. “Not after the lawsuits.”

“Lawsuits?” Doc asked. “The city is dead because of ABP intellectual property.”

The phone went quiet. She wondered if they could see the windows from wherever they hid upstairs. An airy hiss told her she’d been put on speakerphone.

She had their ears. “It’s exactly what we need. We know that it irreversibly affects living human cells, however, the exact effect is unknown until observed and distinct per unique genetic code. Right now, Mag—the specimen has absorbed multiple strains. Her rapid adaptation can’t keep up with the compound’s unpredictable effects. Yolanda Betancourt was born with it, but only experienced it through her mother by proxy, never directly. It took time to lose potency through the population. She won’t have that time.”

“If it breaks loose, we could begin a whole new chimera generation,” the Board said.

“Which chimeras are you most afraid of?”