“Is he smart, like elephants?”
“Oh, yes. He recognizes different people, and when he hears a car, he comes to see if there are visitors.”
“So he likes to see us?”
“Yes. Look at how he went over to watch your parents. And sometimes when a bird calls, he answers it. He pays a lot of attention to his surroundings.” He also sometimes hiked around the perimeter of his little world in restless circles, and if he came upon a bird or small animal, he tried to kill it.
“He’s never going to get to live a normal life,” the boy said.
Why does everyone have to keep reminding me? “We’re trying to do the best we can for him.”
“And this won’t really work for deextinction. There aren’t enough mammoths for genetic diversity. Or saber-toothed tigers, either. People should be really working harder to protect the wildlife we have. Hundreds of species go extinct every day.”
Well, yes. He’d done his homework, and now he was delivering his report to a captive audience.
“He’s not a real woolly mammoth anyway,” the boy said like a coup de grace and walked away to join his parents. She watched him leave, thankful he’d left just before she ran out of self-control. Definitely not the courier.
The family said hardly anything more to her, which was fine. Her phone chirped. The father sent the fees, at least.
“Thanks for the visit,” she said with all the fake cheer she could manage. Maybe more visitors wasn’t such a good idea if they only came to criticize. Nimkii watched them go, then paced around the perimeter of his pen, growling.
“Pedazo,” she called to him, and he stopped to listen, “people understand you. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, though. You didn’t ask to be what you are and where you are.” He couldn’t do anything about it, either. “I really need to get you a toy. How about an old tractor tire? You’d enjoy destroying that. One of them has to be easy to find, and free.”
A tiger-striped squirrel raced past, someone’s genetic tinkering that now threatened to outcompete the native gray squirrel. What was real or normal anymore?
She thumbed her screen for a distraction. The new resettlement proposal, it turned out, had looser limitations for people with a certain level of net worth, the ones who could afford private rescue services from disasters like hurricanes or sea rise. The poor were left to sink or swim in neglected refugee camps.
Maybe the lack of visitors was due to worries about food and colds, and maybe those worries were making visitors peevish. Maybe. Would she ever know what was really going on?
In the late afternoon, she took out her phone and checked on her friends. They said that even though no cases of the cold had been discovered, the Prez’s flag-waving ploy had created a backlash. People had interpreted it to mean that he knew the cold was coming soon, so stores and warehouses were being cleaned out as people stocked up on food and supplies. The official news, of course, remained upbeat. Patriotism would cure the cold. Sure. Everything about the day had been disappointing or bad.
Meanwhile, it was going to rain, and she had to make sure that Nimkii’s food was securely stored.
Avril had a new plan. The mutiny was going to hold a protest, she was positive about that. She’d find out about it and show up, and then the mutiny people, the ones besides Cal, were sure to welcome her. Protest dates and times were secret so antiprotesters couldn’t break them up, but she’d find out, somehow.
A friend from high school—no, not a friend, just an acquaintance, Avril didn’t want friends like that—who attended a university in California had confirmed the protest rumor. “People keep whispering about it. It’s going to be huge. I hope they all get trampled and die,” he’d said on their high school alumni forum. A couple of other ex-classmates said they’d heard rumors, too, and likewise hoped the protesters suffered. Something big and nationwide—and Avril would be part of it.
She thrilled with excitement and, she admitted to herself, fear. That dog. But she wouldn’t back down. She looked out of her dorm room window. She’d always loved being near Lake Michigan back home, and she tried to calm herself with the view of Lake Mendota. The dorm management had notified her that her roommate was about to arrive—the joy of having a room all to herself was ending—and she wanted to make a good first impression.
The door opened. A young woman walked in tugging a cart piled with suitcases and boxes. She was tall and tan with long black hair and big dark eyes, and she looked at Avril and around the room, judging everything she saw.
This moment would decide whether the school year would be heaven or hell. Avril decided to set the tone. She lowered her phone, smiled, and said, friendly but not too perky, “Hi, I’m Avril.”
“Shinta.” No reciprocal smile.
“I haven’t done much to the room. I was waiting for you.”
“Good.”
First impressions could be misleading, but Shinta didn’t seem friendly. “Can I help you with anything?”
“No, I’ll take care of it. Go back to what you were doing. By the way, I’m Indonesian, not Chinese. I grew up in Dallas.” She had hints of both Indonesian and Texas accents in her speech. “I just want everyone to know. In case they decide to round up the Chinese. Which they should.”
If Shinta believed that, she might also want protesters to be trampled to death. Still, they’d have to live together. Avril tried to think of something compatible to say. Shinta beat her to it.
“We should set some ground rules. I assume the right side of the closet is for me.”
“Yes.”
“Pffft. That’s all? This is ridiculous.”
Avril’s heart stopped. She’d scrupulously left half the space empty.
Shinta’s voice grew louder. “Who thinks that’s all the space we need?” She turned. “But we’ll split it,
