AN: Here we are, another chapter here. There's not that much more to go, so hopefully I'll wrap this one up before long!

I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

111

"I'm askin' you for fuckin' mercy!" Merle howled. Alice had to close her eyes to the sound of it. She wished she could close her ears to it, too. For a split second, she was jealous of Sadie's deafness. "Fuckin' mercy! Not for me! Do what the hell you want with me! Fuckin'—do what the hell you want with me, you motherfuckers!"

Even the string of profanity that issued forth as Merle begged didn't make him appear threatening. If he'd gone into the whole scenario with the thought that he might rattle his chains and put on a show for Milton's research, he'd ended up putting on a different kind of show entirely.

A man, with no pride left, begged piteously for the humane treatment of the woman that he'd been forced to love and, having accepted his fate as her assigned mate, had completely and unquestionably mated with her for life and with every fiber of himself—just as anyone could expect of an animal that was so wired.

He had been fine. He'd walked with pride out to the vehicle where they planned to move him and Sadie both, individually, to the hospital in cars with armed guards. He'd accepted his shackles—modified chains for his hands and the standard ones for his feet—and he'd let them place the heavy metal collar around his neck that further limited his movement. He'd accepted that he was allowed no goodbye to the woman that they took away wearing her own shackles as though being at a rather advanced stage of labor wouldn't already keep her from being much of a threat.

Merle had been docile as they'd escorted him to the observation room at the hospital where he could see Sadie, but she couldn't see him. He'd accepted the way they wished to do things.

He hadn't been fine, though, when he'd seen her and realized that, in an attempt to make sure she was as subdued as she could be—at least that's what they said, to cover their absolute fear they had of one of what they believed to be the wildest animals to walk the planet—they left her bound and had blindfolded her to go with the mask they'd put on the lower part of her face—a precaution since she was a recorded biter.

"Animals," one idiotic doctor was loudly insisting now that Alice had called him in and confronted him, "often respond better if they can't see what's happening."

"She's deaf," Alice said, trying to talk over Merle's pathetic pleading that something be done. "She can't hear. She's shackled. She can barely move at all with those neck chains on. She can probably barely breathe with that mask on. Someone needs to be monitoring her heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen levels carefully. Now she can't see—it's even worse! Surely some damn body that works at this fucking hospital has to understand why you can't do this to her! She's not an animal, but even if she was, I wouldn't ever let a dog be treated this way! Get me a fucking veterinarian to deliver her child if nothing else!"

Alice got louder as Merle, actually, got quieter. Alice went with the doctor and explained her stance two more times to the other physicians who might understand what she was saying. Finally, she felt she got through to one.

"If you wouldn't let someone do this to your…to your pet…how can you let them do this to a pregnant woman? Even if you believe she has some mutation of the virus that makes her wild, doesn't that just make her a sick human? Isn't it your fucking job to treat sick humans? If a patient were to bite you, out of fear and pain, would that automatically give you the right to torture them?"

They must have heard her—at least a little.

The blindfold was taken off, though they allowed the woman no other mercy. Still, overwhelmed with the work she had to do—something that wouldn't be put off—and obviously thankful for the return of her sense of sight, Alice had to admit that Sadie offered them nothing less than absolute cooperation as they worked to get her child delivered.

Alice was, in actuality, less worried about her, as time went on, than she was about Merle. On his knees, barely able to peer over the bottom of the observation window, a broken man watched his child come into the world.

Alice, not afraid of the wildest and most intelligent of the apex predators on Earth, rested a hand on Merle's shoulder. He didn't flinch.

"She's going to be alright," Alice assured him, not caring that their interaction was being closely watched by a number of hospital employees that were taking notes. Some were there to help Milton, some were there for their studies, and some had crammed into the overly tight space out of morbid curiosity.

"She will," Merle agreed. "She's strong like that."

He tensed, but didn't make any effort to move as the baby was born. A doctor, passing it to a nurse who rushed it out of the room without allowing Sadie so much as a second to see it, and without speaking to her directly, announced it was a girl. Sadie howled at them. She rattled her chains for the benefit of the project, but Alice knew it was acting. She had been prepared for this, and it was a good thing that she had been. She'd suffered enough, and she deserved to at least be spared the true anguish of believing she'd just lost another child.

"They'll both be fine," Alice said, to soothe herself as much as Merle. She patted his shoulder again. "And—I know it doesn't feel like it right now, Merle, but you will, too."

"No," Merle said. "I'm no good for her. For either of 'em. I can't do shit for either one of 'em."

"I don't think Sadie would agree," Alice said. "You're the whole reason that…that she just brought a big, beautiful baby girl into the world, Merle. And she's going to be counting on you, when you leave here, to be the best daddy in the world."

"Do I get to see my daughter?" Merle asked, his voice indicating that he somehow doubted it.

Alice hummed at him. They were opening the door, already, without much need to drag things out too long at this point.

"You do," she said. "Right now."

111

Alice stood in the observation room with those that were recording the happenings they saw and their feelings surrounding the incident. In the room into which they could peek, one nurse that they had dubbed "brave" enough to do the job, removed Sadie's mask to allow her to kiss her baby, if she wished. In shackled arms, she'd placed the infant, and she'd allowed a mother the first sight of her newborn that she'd had.

Sadie hadn't heard Merle enter the room, and she was unaware of his presence at first. The guards who brought him down closed the door behind him. The brave nurse, as they would call her when they wrote about her in the paper or reported on her on television, Alice was sure, could decide what she felt was safe and acceptable to her. Having seen everything before, in the observation room, before volunteering for the job she currently had, she chose to withdraw a key from her pocket. Merle, who had to be specially bound because of his hand, was suddenly freed from the shackles that held his arms immobile.

The nurse, young though she was, smiled at the man who didn't threaten her in the least, as she took the baby that Sadie showed him, obviously beaming with pride, and placed her gently in her father's arms.

And her father—the wildest and most terrifying apex predator alive—wept over the seven-pound infant in his arms.

The nurse, seemingly unafraid to be in the presence of such ferocious creatures, lowered the bar to which Sadie was shackled so that Merle could sit on the side of the bed with her, and so that she could touch him, and her daughter, since such a courtesy had been forbidden for her during the delivery of their child.

Alice realized, as she looked around, that a few of the people watching were damp-eyed, even if they might have denied it. Few of them were writing with the fevered need to record this most fascinating scientific moment that they'd shown when the delivery had begun. A few, even, looked a little green with something that was, perhaps, akin to regret.

"They're animals," Alice said softly, but loudly enough that everyone in the little room could hear her. "They got that part right. But—in the end? We all are."

111

(Short Time Jump)

"I can't say I'm happy to see your ass, Milton," Alice said. "But as long as you're here—beer?"

"I expected that you would be gone," Milton said, allowing Alice to invite him into her office. "I contacted Melodye, but she surprised me by saying that you were closer to me in proximity than you were to her, and if I wanted to talk to you, then maybe I should just come down here."

Alice laughed, and Milton smiled in response.

"She's on the rag," Alice said. "Her period. She's grouchy as hell today. You know all about that kind of thing now, don't you? Women and hormones."

"I know admittedly more than I'd ever really wanted to know," Milton said. "However, I can say that the knowledge I've acquired has given me an even deeper understanding of Wild A and her experiences."

"I assume we're talking about the original and not Andrea," Alice said. She got two beers out of the mini-fridge in her office. She kept them, along with a stash of liquor that was out of view, for her own after-work uses and for some medicinal purposes. There were situations where, as a physician working in a truly veritable shit-show, she decided that taking the edge off, for her patients, with a drink was just good medical practice. Milton tried to wave the beverage away, but finally took it with some nudging. He didn't care for the taste of beer, but he liked its effects, and he was more apt to drink it than something stronger.

"You should know that the Governor is beginning to ask about the timeline, and when we can expect the next round of births for those that have already delivered once," Milton said.

"I knew you didn't come with good news," Alice said. She sighed. "I guess we can get started before too long. Andrea's pretty much healed, physically. A handful of others. Carol is too, from a textbook perspective."

"He'll want her to produce twins again," Milton said.

"And people in hell want ice water, Milton," Alice said. "I can start her on hormones again, but there's no guarantee that she'll have another successful twin pregnancy. That's a lot of strain on a body, and I can't just conjure up fucking twins no matter how much the Governor wants them."

"I am relaying a message," Milton said.

"I'm sorry," Alice said. "I'm not shooting the messenger."

"There's more," Milton said.

"There always fucking is," Alice said. "Lay it on me."

"He's ready to start moving ahead with the next phase of Kreegan's experiment," Milton said.

"As someone who is less of a scholar of Kreegan than some others, would you care to enlighten me?"

"In addition to his scientific reports, all of Kreegan's personal notes and findings were published after his death," Milton said. Alice hummed and nodded. "Do you remember the earliest attempts to find a vaccine based on Kreegan's findings and hypotheses?"

Alice shrugged her shoulders.

"They were as barbaric as anything else," Alice said. "Pits filled with bodies to be burned."

"Those bodies were always the offspring of two Wilds," Milton said. "Either the vaccine would cure them or there was nothing really lost."

Alice shuddered.

"He's not pushing for a resurrection of the vaccine trials, is he?" Alice asked, fearing the answer and simultaneously feeling that she knew what to expect. "They halted that because all it did was kill the children that were test subjects."

"And those who survived the vaccine were euthanized to test whether or not the vaccine had any effect on the virus that causes resurrection and reanimation," Milton confirmed.

"He told them they'd get to keep their children," Alice said. "He told—he told us that—that they get to keep the children. They get to live. They're all released when they're proven to be not Wild."

"It would appear that the new way of presenting things is to say that the vaccine, though it will treat the strand that everyone has of the virus, will be specially geared to cure the particular strand that Kreegan suggested all Wilds had."

"That was never proven," Alice said. "I have run labs on everyone. A few dozen times, Milton. I'll run them again. I'll prove to him that their blood is the same as everyone else's…"

"He's been presented with the evidence," Milton said. "But—it seems that he feels that a vaccination would greatly relieve the concern of the public, as well as remove the worries that non-Wilds have over the virus. There is at least forty percent of the population that is in favor of working to develop a vaccine."

"By testing it on humans," Alice said.

"By testing it, as they see it, on animals—a practice that has been allowed for a long time," Milton said.

"Forty percent means there's at least sixty percent that might be on our side. That might be undecided," Alice said.

"There may be," Milton agreed, half-heartedly.

"Will even those forty percent look at these so-called animals?" Alice asked, feeling herself choking up. "Will the fucked-up media with its fucked-up views come? Will the cameras come and show them that—these animals are newborns, Milton. Babies—what? Nursing at their mother's breasts while they're injected with something that will kill them? Will they broadcast the information that, if the baby survives the vaccine, they'll be murdered to see if they come back to life as one of the monsters? Jesus, Milton! Fucking hell!"

Alice wasn't certain she'd ever seen Milton cry before. The tears didn't actively flow down his face, but he couldn't hide his damp and red eyes—nor did he try to do so. He simply went, retrieved the brown liquor from the place Alice normally kept it hid, and brought it over. He took a long swallow from the bottle—one that was, probably, far too large for someone as unaccustomed to the drink as Milton—before handing it to Alice.

"I'm afraid I don't know what to do, Alice," Milton said.

"I think you know what the hell we have to do," Alice said.

Milton nodded. Alice handed him the bottle back. He might as well drink it. They all might as well drink as much as they damn well pleased. He drank it and contemplated the liquid a moment before handing it back to Alice.

"You'll tell Melodye?" He asked.

"Yeah," Alice said. "I'll tell Sami, too, for you."

"I fear how this will end," Milton said. "We always talked of the possibility, but it feels different as it moves from the hypothetical to the factual."

"It does," Alice agreed. "But one way or a fucking other…it's got to end."