A guilty tremor slid through Yaya’s guts. “No. I mean, I’m sexually active, yes.”

“No one likes these conversations, I promise.” Ruby scribbled again.

“When were you last sexually active?”

“Last night. But she didn’t—I’m not pregnant.” Yaya hoped.

Ruby rattled off a checklist of past menstruation and sexual partner questions and then left. A nurse with salt and pepper hair appeared, passed Yaya a paper-thin gown, and shut the door on her way out. Yaya struggled into it a few seconds before the door opened again for both Ruby and the anonymous nurse.

“Why help me?” Yaya asked. The gown fit worse than her Jumpies uniform, bunching at her hips and hugging her gut.

“I’ve only examined a few people born from the INZ9-00 outbreak, all in their late teens,” Ruby said, shutting the door herself. “You’re the oldest, furthest past puberty. I want to see what’s new. Tit for tat.”

“Lab rats don’t pay the bills.” Yaya was certain AlphaBeta Pharmaceutical saw their relationship that way during mandatory checkups.

She knew the teeth could be acute zygote manifestation syndrome, AKA Sibs, the AlphaBeta Pharmaceutical-branded demon that lived in every chimera’s genes. This wasn’t uncommon. Other chimeras suffered much worse, bodies splitting at the seams or stuffed up with tumors. That Yaya should produce a growth wasn’t surprising. Less expected that it had taken until now and manifested this way, in this part of her body.

“Are you staying?” Yaya asked, chinning at the nurse.

“Of course,” the nurse said, and she offered a warm smile. “This can’t be your first visit to the gynecologist.”

“Chimeras get Sibs checkups.”

“But besides that. When you were younger, right?”

Yaya didn’t answer. Her mother hadn’t exactly pushed the point on medical care, and Yaya only knew what she knew. She sighed and let Nurse Nameless help seat her and put her ankles into stirrups. Fresh squirming rippled up her spine, its heat sharp, and she gripped the seat’s sides to keep still.

Ruby slid stretchy white gloves over her fingers. “So now the million-dollar question, my dear. What brings you here? An ordinary check-up would land with ABP medical, right?”

“Could you just check without me telling you?” Yaya asked. “It’d be cool if I’m imagining things.”

Ruby’s face flashed concern. “I don’t know what they tell you at the stations, but in my experience, women don’t subject themselves to this by imagining things. Even if whatever you think is happening to you was your imagination, there’s a cause, and I want to know.” She raised a speculum at Yaya’s front. “I’m going to inspect the outer tissue, and then we’ll work our way in. Are you okay with this?”

No one at the Sibs stations had ever asked that. Yaya felt tears, but she

didn’t know why. “Ready, captain,” she coughed out.

Pressure struck the folds of skin between her thighs. She tried to remind herself how many women she’d welcomed to touch her. This wasn’t so different, right?

Except it was, a touch both neutral and overwhelming. A nervous gut-level tick told her she should be upset, that this examination was scarier than it felt.