The Dragon Keeper (13 page)

“There’s only three?” She was at the incubator window before realizing she’d even crossed the room.

“One collapsed right after the transfer, and you made omelets out of the other two so, yeah, we’re down to three.” His pen scratched the paper in shrill little shreds. “Nice work, by the way. They teach you that in keeper school?”

He must have been waiting to throw that in her face for two weeks because he was practically dancing with the satisfaction of it. She vaguely registered the silence over the scratching pen, the anticipation in the air as she was supposed to lob back an insult of her own. It was her turn, but there were only empty places in her vision, the dead air among the three remaining eggs where two more should have been sitting. Her fault. She was getting so good at killing things.

“So in the interest of actually keeping the eggs viable, I had to tighten up security around here. You understand, right, Yancy?”

“Piss off.” She grabbed the clipboard out of his hand and turned away. He was noting temperatures and moisture levels for the tank but only weekly, and it looked as if he was weighing each of the eggs periodically. Why did he need weights? She flipped through a few pages underneath—all blank. No other instructions, no person assigned at the top of the chart. He hadn’t even created electronic logs. The paper could just be crushed into a ball and chucked in the garbage as easily as the next egg collapsed.

He shuffled around behind her, moving instruments and checking on other animals. She finished reading and handed back the chart.

“Chuck said you knew they were parth. They even invited a news crew out.”

Antonio smiled, closemouthed. It was the first time she’d ever given Antonio the opportunity to brag, but he kept his smug mouth shut, and she knew exactly why. The bastard was waiting for her to ask.

“It doesn’t say anything about parth on the chart. Aren’t you the champion note taker around here?”

“It took a little more than observation and note taking.” He broke his silence out of self-defense, and they circled around each other in the center of the room, neither backing down.

“But it’s not true if it’s not written down, right? If it’s not on a log or a SAM or in a trade journal? We just have to assume you’re a showboating vet hopped up on gator tranqs.” That did it. She could always beat him with vanity.

“It is true,” he admitted, making her heart race. “Winifred collected a sample of the amniotic fluid from Jata’s exhibit when we picked up the eggs. The cracked ones came in pretty handy. I ran some experimental tests last week—protein and enzyme analysis, some elemental DNA sequencing.” He leaned against a counter by the door, too full of his own brilliance to stand up straight. “And I guess we have you to thank for providing the specimen because now we know the eggs are parth.”

Everything dropped away when she heard it confirmed, but she kept her face expressionless. “You’re sure?”

“As positive as I can be about tests I completely made up in the lab. Of course, if it turns out I’m right, I’ll patent the procedure. No royalties for you.”

She walked back to the incubator window. “So the eggs I destroyed were viable. They could have become dragons.”

Her voice was a small, dead weight amid the heaters and humidifiers humming around the edges of the room.

“Hard to say. Odds are that they had the wrong DNA match anyway.”

“Are you going to put them through more tests? More homegrown experiments?”

“I have to personally oversee the health of every animal in this zoo. When do you think I’m going to have time for three unplanned eggs? In fact … ”

Suddenly, she was yanked backward by her hip. Antonio had grabbed the chain for her ID badge and was walking across the room as though her pants weren’t attached to the thing.

“Hey! What the hell?”

He keyed in a combination on the number pad next to the door and swiped her ID across the scanner, pausing to snicker at the picture on the front. It was a crack-house mug shot, no question, but she grabbed it back and shoved it into her pocket before he commented.

“Now, you’ll need to come at the same time every week to check the environment, and I promised the AZA we’d chart weight throughout the incubation for some study they’re doing. Think you can handle that without getting in my way or terrorizing my interns?”

She crossed her arms and sneered. “Don’t do me any favors, Rodríguez.”

“I’m not. Believe me, you’d actually be doing—” He cut himself off, screwing his mouth shut, and walked back to the incubator to put away the chart.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you asking me for a favor? You need my help with these eggs?” The smile ate up her face, seeping up her cheeks and warming her whole body. He paced around to some of the other incubators, peered inside, fiddled with knobs—anything to avoid looking at her.

“I’ve only got the two interns right now, and the dolphin trainers are up my ass about some cyst they found on a flipper. Purchasing wants me to fly out to some veterinary supply vendor in Korea who could save us a whole forty bucks a year on syringes.” Antonio worked his way around the room to where she was standing, finally looking up when she didn’t move out of his way. “And … fine. You know what? Forget it.” Digging into her pants pocket, he grabbed the ID badge and pulled her back to the security scanner.

“No, wait.” She yanked on the chain, but Antonio was a lot stronger, so she only succeeded in stumbling into him as he leaned over to punch in the code. Darting in to grab his wrist, she clamped down on the ID card in his other hand.

“I want to take care of the eggs, Antonio. You know I do.”

He stopped, considering. “You want to help me?”

“I want to help Jata. I’m her keeper, and that means keeping every part of her safe and happy, including those parts.” She gestured over her shoulder, and he glanced at the eggs before grinning.

“Say you want to help me.”

“I want to help you choke.” A laugh bubbled up, but she turned it into a huff and looked down to see she was still holding onto him. Dropping her hands, she stepped back. “And there’s this other thing.”

“How monotonous your life is when I’m not around?”

“Channel 12 news, smart-ass.” She glared. “They’re going to be here later today for a puff piece on the dragons. They’ll probably want to see the eggs.”

“Chuck’s letting you handle the interview?” Antonio opened the nursery door and gestured for her to go ahead. “He doesn’t look much like a masochist.”

“Pure sadist.”

They walked to the double doors where her zoo started and his zoo ended. As she swiped her ID on the reader, he gave her a condescending pat on the shoulder. “Try to remember to think before you speak, Yancy. I know it’s foreign for you, but it’s a good rule of thumb with reporters.”

She paused, tilted her head, and looked deliberately thoughtful for a second.

“Piss off.”

He was laughing as she pushed through the doors and back to the rest of her shift.

~

Nicole Roberts looked hungry. It wasn’t just the hollowed-out skeleton holding up her boxy skirt suit, or the flashing whites of her eyes, which ate up entire rooms in seconds. When Meg and Chuck greeted the news crew outside the main gate, Nicole Roberts had been pacing up and down the side of the news van like the big cats just before feedings. She masked the hunger underneath the shiny poof of red hair and the thick skin of makeup that glowed under the camera lights, but Meg could tell it was there. Nicole did the entertainment beat for Channel 12, and, according to Ben, she was positioning herself for bigger and better things. On TV, the hunger looked like fitness-craze energy, like an infomercial but without the clarity of the special offer for the next one hundred customers. In person, it was just awkward. She either needed a giant candy bar or a good push into the howler monkey exhibit.

Meg and Chuck took the group straight to the nursery and showed them the eggs. The camera guys did some close-ups, but Nicole refused to shoot the interview in the room.

“Trust me. This particular shade of beige just doesn’t translate to TV.” Fanning her hand at the walls, she turned back to Meg. “This is the Zoo of America, right? Let’s find some true greens, maybe bamboo or some jungle foliage. We should showcase your gardeners as long as we’re here.”

“Of course, of course.” Chuck bent slightly at the waist, as if he’d thrown his back out in a curtsy. “We have some lovely vistas of the river valley or a one-of-a-kind mural of American animals.”

“How about Jata’s exhibit? You could see the mother Komodo and there are, you know”— Meg waved a hand for help—“plants.”

They agreed, so she led Nicole Roberts and her entourage up through the cafeteria—“Snack, anybody? Nicole? You’re sure?”—and through the exhibits to the Reptile Kingdom. They set up on the observation deck while Jata watched the camera and microphone pole with unblinking interest from her pool. Chuck stood off on the edge of the main trail, apparently supervising, while visitors jostled up behind him and whispered to one another, pointing at Nicole and craning their heads down into Jata’s exhibit to see what was so newsworthy. Meg turned away from them and waited for Nicole to get ready.

“You want a little touch-up before we start shooting?” Nicole tipped a round jar with a piece of fur on top of it in Meg’s direction. “You’ve got a bit of a sheen, as we say in the industry.”

“Uh, no.”

“You like the sheen?” Nicole smiled and checked her teeth in a mirror.

“Yeah, it’s a trademark.”

“Okay, then. Let’s talk baby dragons.” Grabbing a microphone, Nicole angled herself in front of the camera. A light came on, blinding Meg to the crowd behind the camera.

“We’re here at the Zoo of America, where an extraordinary event has taken place in the last few weeks. The Komodo dragon right behind me has laid eggs in a process called parthenogenesis. Meg Yancy, the zookeeper in charge of the Komodo, is here with me today. Meg?” She turned and injected some confusion into her smile. “What exactly is parthenogenesis?”

Looking somewhere between Nicole and the mini-sun seemed like the best possible middle ground. Breathing deeply, Meg launched into the explanation, making sure to dumb down the scientific terms as Chuck had instructed.
Layspeak
, he’d said. As if that was a word.

“It sounds like you’re talking about a virgin birth.” Nicole’s head bobbed up and down, and her heel tapped out a drum solo on the cement floor. Maybe it wasn’t just her ambitious energy; the camera lights were enough to make a rattlesnake squirm. Meg squinted up at Nicole.

“Technically, yes. Jata has never mated before, so if the eggs prove viable—if they, um, turn into dragons—then it will be a virgin birth.”

“So if they’re born around Christmastime, will you name one after Jesus?” Nicole’s smile turned sugary, coating Meg’s throat with something like bile.

The smile said
isn’t this cute?
and sent that cuteness out into the world, telling everyone who watched the news that
cute
was the end product of Jata’s stunning genetic effort to aid the survival of her species. There were fewer than four thousand dragons in the wild, fighting to live in a precarious habitat where humans took over their land and poached their prey. It was only a matter of time before zoos became their last refuge. Five years ago, the species had been hissing at the door to extinction, then quietly, in a handful of zoos around the world, female Komodos started having babies. Some secret genetic knowledge began taking over and changing everything anyone knew about Komodo dragons. Meg’s knuckles curled into fists against her sides. She felt Nicole’s smile cracking something deep inside of her. Jata had just become the fourth dragon in the entire known world that was reproducing without a mate, and it was
cute?

“This is a lot different than a Christmas story.” Meg’s voice sounded tight and foreign in the bright lights that eclipsed their bodies.

“Of course, I was only joking. After all, you don’t exactly have the Virgin Mary here, do you?”

“I wouldn’t say so, no. After all, we have no documentation on Mary’s sexual status, and Jata has done a lot more work to reproduce.”

“Excuse me?” The microphone bobbled, and Nicole glanced toward the camera, her expression changing into something bright and sharp.

“We don’t know anything—scientifically—about the Christmas story. There’s no proof that Mary was a virgin.” Vaguely, she heard Chuck scrambling around behind the camera and whispering, so she switched gears. “Anyway, Jata’s status is completely documented. She’s produced a genetic miracle all on her own, without the help of angels or prophets or—whatever. We’re witnessing a step up the evolutionary ladder here, and it’s not just a story in a book; it’s happening right here in front of us.”

Suddenly Chuck darted in front of the camera to cut her off, but it was too late. Elation bubbled underneath the makeup layer on Nicole’s face, as if someone had finally slipped her a giant, gooey candy bar.

“Well, you heard it here.” Nicole turned back to the camera. “The Zoo of America’s Komodo dragon is having a virgin birth, and they’re not taking kindly to comparisons.”