Chapter 278 - Choices

~ SASHA ~ 

"Your choices might be out of my control," Sasha snarled. "But you call Zev your son. You try to make out as if you care about you. But you also told him he couldn't form the bond at all, and that's clearly been a lie! He wasn't looking for me, Nick. We found each other. But he wasn't looking."

"No, when we told Zev that, we believed it was true. He was given to have sex with a handful of females when he reached sexual maturity, and he didn't bond with any of them. We thought we'd finally struck gold. But none of them got pregnant. So the next step was to see if he could reproduce with human females. But it started to become clear that he wasn't just sexually attracted to you, that he was bonding—even before you two slept together. We tried to hold him off, we were scrambling. Trying to decide whether to let that happen and bring you into this, or to stop the relationship altogether and see if he'd develop it with someone else in a different environment. But then you both surprised us. We had to remove him to figure out what we were going to do. We didn't intend, at that point, to keep him away from you for so long, but we needed time and space to figure out exactly what we were doing."

"But you said—"

"Sasha, our plans change constantly. Every new piece of information, every new event, the goalposts shift. We started on this road to make super-soldiers. Right now we're trying to improve the entire human race. Who knows where we'll be next year? But I can tell you where we won't be: If we don't figure out how to make more like Zev, we won't be anywhere. They'll scrap this entire project and start again because—"

"Stop, just stop! You're talking in circles! Stop trying to deflect!" Sasha snapped. Nick eyed her carefully, folding his arms, waiting while she clawed her hands into her hair. "I'm not going to let you turn this conversation away from my real questions, Nick," she said a moment later, slightly calmer, but her heart still pounding. "Tell me why the females have to be kept isolated."

Nick's lips thinned. "You haven't been around a fertile Chimeran female. And when I tell you this, you're going to think I don't see their humanity, and I do."

"Just answer the fucking question!"

Nick sighed. "Right now, you're feeling agitated, right? Your heart's pounding, your mind is running faster than usual, your adrenalin is pumping—"

"Nick! Answer the question!"

"I am!" he snapped. "But I have to put it into parameters you can understand. Am I right? Are you feeling like your body wants to… do something?"

"Yes!"

"That's because you're starting to feel threatened and when that happens your entire physiology changes. The part of your brain that drives you when youre under extreme stress is called the Amygdala—it's… it's ironically what is often referred to as your animal brain. Your instincts. Fight, flight, or freeze. It's your survival instinct, okay?"

"Whatever."

Nick rolled his eyes. "So for you, when you're afraid or stressed, your decisions and instincts are driven by that part of your brain. It will take over when it perceives that you're under threat, and it will do whatever it takes to get you back to safety. It's your biological safety valve." He tapped her temple and Sasha jerked away, but he didn't press forward. "The thing is, for the Chimera, that piece of their brain is different. They access it a lot more, and not only under stress. It gets kicked into gear by different things. Not just fear. Not just danger. But by any process of their natural existence that requires their instincts. Hunting. Protection of their young. Reproduction," he said, emphasizing the last word.

Sasha set her jaw, waiting. She wouldn't let him turn her head away from this again.

Nick held her gaze and his jaw tightened too. "When a Chimeran female enters the part of their cycle where they're fertile, it's instinct to mate," he said tightly. "And when you add that to an environment where they feel under stress, the instinct enters… hyperdrive."

Sasha had a feeling she was starting to see where this was going.

Nick took another deep breath and when he continued his tone was softer. "We observed early on that, especially in the younger females, they sought to breed. And if they didn't have a choice, their instinct became to… entice whatever male they had access to."

Sasha gritted her teeth. "If you're going to try and make me believe that Chimeran females are promiscuous and you're just saving them from themselves—"

"No! No. Hear me out," Nick said, raising his hands to soothe her. "What I'm saying it, it's instinct for them to seek a mate and reproduce. And something about being isolated from males gives some kind of boost to that instinct. So females who might have been taking the time to consider their options when they were on Thana, suddenly became… desperate to become mothers. I mean truly desperate, Sasha. Everything in their bodies drove them towards males. It was something they couldn't control any more than you could control the reflex to scream when you're startled, or duck when something flies towards your head. Do you understand me? Their brains and bodies drove them to find a mate. And that meant that if there weren't good choices around, they'd choose someone… insufficient."

The picture he painted was so sad… but Sasha shook her head. She had no clue whether to believe him or not. Normally she was good at picking liars, but with every word that came out of his mouth she became more confused about whether he was just a sick guy telling her the truth, or an even sicker guy making this shit up.

Her head spun. "Tell me," she demanded. "Tell me what this has to do with me."

Nick's expression suddenly turned compassionate. Sasha wanted to slap his face.

*** TRIGGER WARNING! ***

The chapter following this one, titled "Don't Lie to Me" depicts a pair of wolves entering a "natural" mating ritual, but Sasha's thoughts and narration on what is happening between them, and the human minds inside the wolves could be disturbing or triggering for some. If you've read Zev's account of the breeding arena and don't wish to see Sasha's, you can skip the following chapter without losing any important twists in the plot. Simply swipe right to bring up the chapter list and select the following chapter "Don't Lie to Me" manually and read forward from there! (This notice was added after publication so you aren't charged for the words.)