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Chapter Five
Tyler
As I head toward my dorm, I wonder how that could have gone any worse. Other than actually taking a bite out of her, I can’t imagine a more humiliating scenario.
I slip my earbuds back into my ears, but my happy playlist isn’t up to the task of improving my mood. How do I recover fromthat? I’d hoped to one day be free to leave this protected environment. I dreamed of walking among humans as if I belonged. Olivia couldn’t manage to be in the same room with me for fifteen minutes, and she’s being paid handsomely to do so.
I veer off the wooden sidewalk, slip between the bakery and what they’re remodeling to be the bookstore, and head into the nearby woods. There’s a lake back here. Usually, just looking at the tranquil surface of the water calms my soul, but not today. I take off running.
During the three years after our rescue, when they kept us deep underground in Area 51, I watched plenty of vids. I know humans jog at times like this. Me? I run.
As someone who spent most of his life in a cell barely large enough to lie down in, running like this feels like heaven. Tearing through the underbrush, I push my muscles to their limits. It doesn’t matter that stray tree limbs whack my face, or thorny bushes tear at my khakis. I run until I reach the razor-wire-topped fence surrounding the property.
Frankly, I don’t know why they went to the trouble and expense to erect this fifteen-foot-tall fence. Other than Eli, who has a lot of elephant DNA, and perhaps Nyx the Naga, we can all climb it if we want to leave. I shrug and turn back toward the dorm.
It’s almost dusk when I jog back to the facility.
I take a shower, grab a nutrition bar from the stash in the males’ rec area so I don’t need to offend any females in the dining hall with my terrifying presence, and plop onto a couch to watch TV.
By the time the other males pile in after dinner, I’m surrounded by friends, and my spirit is calm.
“Wait!” I say when Brock flips past an intriguing program. He clicks back, and despite the grumbling from half the males in the room, one low growl from me keeps the channel where I want it.
“What is this?” I sit up straighter and lean forward to get a better look. I’ve never seen anything like it.
“Bollywood. It’s from India, like you,” Noble says. Evidently, the male with a lot of lion DNA hasn’t found a way to sneak out to meet Jenna yet. She’s his mentor, and rumor has it they’ve kissed. Some day when I catch him alone, I’m going to ask him what it’s like.
“I’m not from India. I’m from a forsaken lab somewhere in the Rockies.”
“You’re a Bengal tiger, Tyler. They’re from India.”
I was conceived in an artificial womb in a laboratory. To think I might have abackground, aculture, ahistory, intrigues me. Tomorrow, I’ll do a deep dive on the Internet about all things Indian. Tonight, I'll watch Bollywood.
After an hour, the music no longer sounds strange to my ears. We were endowed with superior intelligence, so I’ve already picked up a few bits and pieces of the Punjabi language.
Although I was tired and lounging when we started watching the videos, I’ve since sat straight, perked up, and have been taking mental notes. For the last fifteen minutes, I’ve barely been able to keep myself from rising out of my seat to dance.
Two hours later, when everyone else has wandered to their rooms, I’m alone in the males’ lounge. The music vids have been scrolling for hours. I’ve seen many of them twice and already chosen some favorites.
WhenLife is a Happy Danceplays for the third time, I get up and imitate the steps. After watching it one more time, I’ve got them all memorized. By the third iteration, I’m performing it with feeling.
Which feeling? Dancing makes me happy.
For the first time in my life, I realize I’m a person with my own volition. For the past three years, I’ve been consumed with learning the rules of human society, but I’m more than an automaton who follows what the military tells me to do. I’ve got my own mind, and if I learned anything from my time with Olivia today, I’m not human.
I’m not American or Indian or a Bengal tiger. I’m more than the sum of all my parts.
I’m me, Tyler, and I want to make my own choices from this moment forward. I’m not going to run a retail store. Ever. Nor do I want to work in a bookstore or a candle shop or a library on Main Street in what they call Splicer Town.
I may not know exactly who I am or what I’m going to wind up doing with my life, but I know what I’m going to do when I wake up tomorrow.
Chapter Six
Olivia
Shit. This isn’t good. I went back to my dorm room after Tyler left and had a long talk with myself. Somewhere between 4 p.m. and reveille this morning, I got my mind right.
Although I can’t control my autonomic nervous system, I’m going to be nice to that poor male who did not deserve any shit from me. He tried very hard to be nonthreatening. The problem was all on my end.
