The woman in the bathroom mirror looked exhausted and older than she should have, a blue vein splitting her pale forehead in two. Doc emerged from the bathroom carrying her bag and hazard suit. Greenwich held two phones in his hands, one his, the other likely Yaya’s. They would have had better luck tracking her had she taken it along, but then, their best luck would have kept them from losing her in the first place.

“I’m telling the lab to ready analysis on your sample,” Greenwich said. “If she jabs anyone else, we can monitor local healthcare, establish a grid. Asset loss needs asset recovery.” His cheery voice said he would make a proud mindless member of the Board someday.

Aziz still clutched the hand towel to his neck. His free fingers played with Yaya’s fridge magnets, all Looney Tunes characters. “Either of you up for Thai?” he asked, setting Marvin the Martian beside Duck Dodgers, their greens having faded to sickly yellow.

“Lord, yes,” Greenwich said. In the dim apartment, the phones cast a blue glow across his gas mask’s glass eyes.

“Royal Thai does dine in,” Aziz said, turning from the fridge. “Not too far from here, and traffic should be dying down afterward.”

Doc couldn’t stomach thoughts of food or co-workers another minute. “I’m packing it in,” she said. “You two enjoy yourselves.”

Downstairs, she tucked her hazard suit into the trunk of her car, wished Aziz and Greenwich a good night, and pulled onto the street. Casual Ishtar sang their new hit single “Queens of Heaven and Earth” as the radio popped to life.

Doc’s eyes fell on a graffiti mural of twin girls, staring with a haunted amber gaze. The letters beneath them spelled Gemini, Doc’s zodiac sign, and though she didn’t believe in horoscopes and astrology, the mural helped her take a deep breath. This, too, would pass.

Southbound traffic was garbage. The delay gave frustrated thoughts time to marinate. Yaya seemed twitchy, her feelings internalized. She probably believed this inspection was personal, vengeance for leaving on Saturday morning. Doc hadn’t been surprised when Yaya took off, some women were like that. Her attempted call was a pleasant surprise, maybe a second chance. But then, second chances had an expiration date, and this one had died the moment it turned out Yaya was the target.

She was unique. This growth wasn’t benign tissue, like in today’s other chimeras. Hers was muscular, prehensile, the development of new anatomy. The Board took finding a genetic outlier as silver lining to the entire Sibs situation. If it could happen once, nine years ago in Kentucky, it could happen again here.

They would upend the Earth to find Yaya.

She was in trouble, and being hunted and threatened turned a person into an entirely different beast. Yaya was trying hard to stay human right now. For how long could she manage?

Doc’s car eventually broke through rush hour traffic. She reached Green Street and crossed the Leeds intersection, beyond which her apartment building stood between others, brick facing brick across narrow alleys. Skeletal trees dotted the sidewalk. Somewhere nearby, their sister trees clustered in Avery Park, just as skeletal but perhaps less lonely.