"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Chimera" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

sleeping puppy. "You saw him trip me. That was deliberate. You had expressed
an interest, and I was taking you away. He got angry and he wanted to hurt
me."

"He's a cat," Gen said.

"No, he's not," Anna said. "He's a chimera, and you can't forget that. The
researchers changed all of these animals, sometimes in ways none of us
understand. I believed that Cedric is psycho—quite literally. I think he likes
to hurt others for the pleasure of it, and I think he knows what he's doing."

"Then why do you keep him with the other animals?"

"He's only there in the daytime, and only when I'm with him. I'm a bit worried
that he's alone with them right now. At night, I have a special cage for
him."

Gen's palms were wet. "You believe he's psycho. But you don't know."

"They messed with his mind," Anna said. "They used him to test drugs that were
supposed to help with Parkinson's. That means that they enhanced his mind
first to simulate a human brain, and then they tested drugs on him. No human
would survive that."

"They altered his brain so that he can think?" Gen asked.

"We don't know," Anna said. "That's where this becomes tricky. We don't know a
lot of the effects."

"What if I want him anyway? What if I say he's the only one I'll take?"

"I'd have to call Dr. Prichard."

Gen crossed her arms. "Do that."

Anna looked at her with surprise. "All right," she said. "But I hope to God
she says no."

Gen didn't know what she had expected. Gratitude, perhaps. Not the screaming,
hissing, spitting creature in the carrier wedged at an angle into the
backseat. Cedric wrapped his paws around the wire door and slammed it back and
forth as if he could open it through sheer force. Once, she turned around and
watched as he lay on his back, placing one paw over the lever, and another
under it. If he used the right amount of pressure the door would open. But he
couldn't seem to get it; one paw kept slipping off.

She let the car drive itself home, and turned most of her attention to Cedric.
But he batted at her and tried to bite her every time she reached for him.
Finally, she decided that protecting her fingers was the better part of valor,
and she merely talked to him the rest of the way home.