Kazuko ran until her lungs burned. She understood how rabbits felt, when they were chased by the hounds – knowing something was on your tail, knowing death would come if you let your guard down.

But Kazuko was no rabbit, and the soldiers weren't hounds. They might like to think they were. They certainly had teeth. But next to her they were all bark and no bite; if they tried to run this little rabbit to ground, they'd find out that she had teeth, too. And unlike them she liked to bite.

She'd fled Fort McNair with no clear idea of where she was going, or what she wanted to do. If that stupid doctor had asked her now how she felt, she would have grabbed his throat and crushed it. They thought they could contain her, control her. They hadn't realised just how wrong they were.

Her brain throbbed as it processed the new neural networks that were being laid down. They were connections, consciousness, understanding; an awareness of the animals around her.

And with that awareness came knowledge. The animals were afraid of her. While fleeing the base she'd run into a lion – a huge male with a ruff so thick she'd never have been able to stretch her arms around it – and the creature had let out a roar like a cough and galloped away from her. Was it like this for Jackson Oz? When they'd caught him, he'd been running with a pack of wolves. Not from them – or they from him – but with them.

They'd accepted him as one of their own. Their alpha. Her, they feared.

The muscles in her legs were on fire, but she didn't stop running. She had her second wind now. So far she and Jackson were the only two special people, the only two evolved. Every now and again she caught a whiff of him on the breeze, and a hint of something exotic and medicinal – Sage's treatment, if she guessed right. She didn't know what he planned to do with it.

But as she ran through the deserted city streets, the noise of pursuit still following, she finally decided what she wanted to do.

She was special… but only if no one else evolved. Only if Jackson was out of the picture. And the treatment with him.

It was getting dark; Jackson needed rest. His stomach growled with hunger. He could live without food – for a while – and there was plenty of water where he planned to go. But the physical changes his body and brain had undergone, coupled with strenuous activity, had left him exhausted. He was almost running on empty. He needed to find somewhere to go to ground.

Shielding his eyes from the dying sun, he peered into the distance. There was a big, sprawling complex on the horizon. Lots of buildings. Narrow chimneys and pipes climbed high into the sky. He could smell it, even from this distance. The reek of oil made his nose sting and blunted his sense of smell.

If he went to ground there, he'd be taking a risk. It would make him nose-blind, maybe even hinder his hearing. But he'd be able to tuck himself away in a warm, dark corner somewhere. He'd feel protected, and know that if anyone did come at him unexpectedly, he could lose them in a maze of pipes and alleys. Then no one would catch him.

When he finally reached the site, he found plenty of doors, but they were all padlocked. There was, however, a window several stories up that had been broken, either by the weather or a deliberate act of vandalism.

Knowing he didn't have much energy left he planned the climb in detail before he made the ascent. He found toe and hand holds in the crumbling brickwork, utilising drooping sheets of corrugated iron, exhaust fans and pipes to get where he needed to go. Wrapping his fist in his dirty T-shirt he smashed the window further, creating a hole big enough to climb through, and leapt inside.

"I'm not sure it was a good idea to come here without military backup," Abe said as he and Chloe climbed out of a Jeep.

"It was an excellent idea." Chloe's face burned with determination. "Even with only the four of us, Jackson will be able to hear us coming. I have no doubt he will smell us, too. If it is only us, there is a chance he will stop. There is a chance he will talk."

"If there's soldiers, there's no chance." Behind them, Jamie nodded. "Makes sense, I guess. In as much as any of this crazy stuff makes sense."

"You looked at me when you said that, Jamie." Mitch gave her a sarcastic smile.

"Oh, did I?" The smile she returned was sweet and just as sarcastic. "My bad…"

After Jackson had fled, the main, co-ordinated attack on Fort Kincaid ended. But they'd still had to deal with sporadic, uncoordinated pockets of resistance from groups that only broke up and dissipated when the odds turned against them.

Even though the scientists had lost both their test subjects, they were excited. They had preliminary test data. More than that – they were beginning to get a scope of what the treatment could do. Jackson – with his background in animal protection, his evolution sparked using his own stem cells – seemed to have a natural, empathetic connection to the animals. The soldier Kazuko, whose treatment had not been tailored specifically to her, tried to dominate the animals. Her mental distress, her lack of equilibrium, had bled back into the wildlife, leading to these unregulated attacks. They broke apart and fell away the further Kazuko fled from Fort McNair.

This suited Mitch just fine. He'd refused to leave his daughter until the base was secure again. Then they'd followed Jackson's implanted tracker to an industrial estate, and right now Chloe's handheld tracking unit was telling them he'd gone into an old petroleum processing plant that was in the middle of being decommissioned.

"You sure he went in there?" Jamie asked as they approached the entrance. The failing light made it hard to see where she was putting her feet. "This place gives me the creeps."

"I thought nothing could frighten you." Chloe was amused. "You survived a plane crash and multiple animal attacks. You rescued your man from the big bad wolf."

"I think we're being teased," Mitch said. "Cute."

"It's nothing really," Jamie explained. "Well, mostly nothing. It's just all these pipes."

"You have a phobia?" Chloe's expression softened.

"Not… exactly. Well, alright, that's a lie. I hate them."

"What happened to give you this phobia?"

"Nothing. It was nothing."

"Come on, Jamie." Mitch joshed her lightly on the arm. "No more secrets, right?"

She shot him a look. "I hate you."

He smirked.

"Alright," Jamie said. "When I was a kid – I don't know, maybe eight or nine – I used to hang with my cousins all the time. We had bikes and by God, we used them – felt like we cycled over the whole tri-state area." Her expression gradually tightened. "Anyway, we were exploring an old abandoned warehouse. I never knew what had been there before, but they'd left all these pipes behind. Like… drainage pipes or something. We started playing inside them."

They reached an entrance as Jamie talked. Abe rattled the padlocked chain that held it closed, then removed a bolt-cutter from his bag.

"There was this whole bunch arranged in a pile, like thirty feet high," Jamie continued. "My cousins were chicken and only climbed up about ten feet. Me, I was the girl, I was small and light. I went right to the top."

Abe set the bolt cutters to the chain and snapped them closed. The chain broke apart, dropping the chain and padlock to the gravel below. He slid the door open. It moved smoothly.

"So I got to the top and it was really high, but I didn't care 'cause I'd got one over on the boys. I climbed inside the highest pipe and pretended it was my castle. I was having fun, right up to the point where the castle came tumbling down."

"Good God, Jamie!" Mitch exclaimed. "You could have been killed!"

"Almost was." She shrugged. "Broke a whole bunch of bones and knocked myself out. Scared the crap outta my cousins."

Chloe peered into the darkened interior. "Well, if you avoid climbing in any pipes, you should be fine. Follow me."

Kazuko finally slowed to a stop outside the plant, and waited while she caught her breath. She felt as if she could run all day. She'd left her pursuers behind, losing them in the city streets of D.C before hitting the 'burbs and beyond.

Jackson was here. She could smell him, despite the petroleum stink. His scent had changed – he'd come here to rest, to nest and catch some sleep in a dark hole before continuing his journey. He must be tired. How long since he'd eaten? How long since he'd slept?

The others were here, too. Abe, and Jackson's female. The annoying vet and his mouthy mate. They were here to find Jackson, too, but Kazuko knew she'd find him long before they did – even now she could hear them stumbling around, their weak human eyes straining in the darkness. She doubted they'd thought to bring flashlights, though maybe they'd have an app on their phones. She didn't need any of that.

As she entered the factory, another smell hit her nose – fear. One of them, the mouthy journalist, was afraid, deeply so. The scent unlocked something primal in her brain, something that her shifted biology had allowed to come to the fore.

The female was afraid. Therefore the female was prey.

And what did you do with prey?

You hunted it, of course.

"God, why would Jackson even come to a place like this?" Jamie asked. If she'd thought it was dark outside, it was black as hell in here. She wished they had a flashlight – just one would do – but they'd had no idea they'd be exploring in the darkness. They had two cell phone flashlights between them, Chloe's and Jamie's. Abe had lost his – he only had a cheap burner anyway – and Mitch had left his behind, though he 'couldn't recall where'. In other words, as Jamie had teased him, he'd lost it.

"I do not know why Jackson does anything anymore," Abe sighed. "I used to know him so well, as he knew me. Now? How much of the man I once knew is still there?"

"All of it," Chloe snapped. "He is still the man he was before. Whatever happens, we must never forget that."

"Here's a thought," Mitch said as they crept between the massive, hulking corpses of decommissioned equipment. He held Jamie's phone high, sweeping the beam over the concrete floor in front of them. "The mother cell sped up the natural evolution process in animals, right?"

"That is what we believe," Chloe agreed.

"And it sped it up for Jackson. And Kazuko too, I guess, though I'm not sure she's come through the change with everything intact." He tapped the side of his skull. "Right now, Jackson is what the human race is supposed to be."

"That's a scary thought," Jamie said. "He's gone pretty much full Tarzan. Isn't the human race meant to be above all of that? You know, higher thinking and all that crap?"

"This way." Chloe, glancing at the tracker's monitor, tugged Jamie's sleeve to lead her in a new direction. The others followed.

"Who says animals can't have higher thought processes?" Mitch said. "Chimps and other great apes can use simple tools. Corvids, octopuses, hell, even dogs have been shown to use tools and solve problems."

"But what about culture, what about art?"

"Elephants have been taught to paint. And as for culture, how do we know animals don't have their own culture? We know they're able to communicate with each other. Body language, pheromones – that's still a language. Who knows, they might have their own version of oral traditions, handed down from mother to cub or – egg – or – you know what I mean."

"You have an answer for every damned thing, don't you?"

"Frankly? Yes. It's why you love me, right?"

"Love you, yeah…" Jamie blew a strand of hair out of her face.

When Jackson came awake, it was completely and fully, with none of the yawning and stretching normal humans indulged in. His eyes snapped open in the darkness, his senses – his enhanced fight-or-flight response – already primed by the scents wafting to his nose.

Chloe. Chloe was here. He had no idea how she'd found him; she couldn't track worth a damn, and besides, part of his journey had been through the concrete jungle. He hadn't left any footprints to follow. Another tracker in his clothes, maybe? But no – when he pawed through the material, he found nothing unusual.

That left only one option. He had a tracker inside him.

He'd acquired plenty of scrapes and cuts since being captured. The docs could have implanted a tracker into any one of those, and he wouldn't know. He needed to search himself thoroughly and get rid of it – but now was not the time. Now was the time for slinking out, quite as a mouse, before he was discovered.

He uncoiled from his sleeping position, grabbed the sealed flask of treatment and rose in one smooth, fluid movement. Chloe and – yes, the others, he could smell them now too – were close, but not so close they'd get in his way. There were multiple exits from his bolthole. He picked one at random and left.

"Mitch, I don't like this."
Jamie had her cell phone in one hand, and held Mitch's arm in a death-grip with the other. Chloe and Abe had pulled ahead of them, Chloe's need to catch up with Jackson driving her on. Though Jackson was her friend, she still wasn't sure they should be going after him when he was so determined to get away. Plus, it was darker than the inside of her closet in here. She wasn't afraid, but…

The hell I'm not. I'm freaking terrified.

"Well," Mitch said, "it's not like some ravening beast is gonna jump out and… no wait, that's probably gonna happen."

"Need to work on that sense of humour. Hey, where did Chloe and Abe go?"

While they'd been talking, the other two had drawn so far ahead Chloe's small circle of light had vanished.

"Chloe?" Mitch called, voice echoing among the towering metal landscape. "Abe? Hey, man, you there?"

Silence. "Great. They left us behind. Guess that makes us the 'B' team."

"You made the vaccine! And I… offered moral support," Jamie added. "That totally makes us the 'A' team –"

Something cannoned into Jamie, ripping her away from Mitch. She went down hard.

Chloe realised she'd left Mitch and Jamie behind, and she knew she should feel bad about that, but the hand-held tracker told her she was close to Jackson.

"You're not leaving me behind," Abe rumbled, catching her arm. "Slow down. You know this is probably a wild goose chase, don't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Jackson has done nothing but run since he changed. That boy does not do anything without a purpose. So why is he running?"

"Because he wants to get away from the scientists, from the tests!"

"That is part of the reason, but not all. He has the treatment, Chloe. We should be asking ourselves what he intends to do with it."

"For all we know he plans to destroy it."

"What would be the point? Sage and her team would just make more. No, he has a plan… I just wish I knew what it was!"

"He is moving!" Chloe jabbed an excited finger at the tracker's screen. "He is…" She muttered something dark in French. "He is leaving!"

"Call the others," Abe demanded, "tell them to meet us by the Jeep."

Chloe fumbled with her phone, the narrow beam of illumination from the flashlight app wavering back and forth. She hit the speed dial and held the phone to her ear.

"There is no answer," she said. She stopped, clearly torn – chase the man she loved, or find her friends?

"Go after him," Abe said, taking the decision away from her. "Go! I will find the others."

"But the dark…"

"They will be blundering about like tourists through the savannah," he said. "I will hear them. Now go!"

Chloe nodded and ran.

Jamie felt as if she'd been run over by a Mack truck. Her cell went flying; it cracked against the ground, but didn't break. The world shifted sideways. Before it could right itself she felt a hand in her hair. She was yanked roughly to her feet.

"Get up, little rabbit."

Oh God, it was Kazuko. How had she found them?

"I'm not a – goddamned – rabbit," she gasped.

Mitch, face twisted with rage, threw a wild punch. Kazuko swayed out of the way, dragging Jamie with her. In the weak light thrown by the cell phone, his expression was hellish.

"You're pathetic," Kazuko spat. "Weak, both of you. Nature's all about survival of the fittest, right?"

Jamie rammed her elbow into Kazuko's stomach. The woman grunted with pain but didn't let her go; Jamie, who'd rough-housed with plenty of boys when she'd been a kid, followed it up with a harder elbow-jab and a stamp on the foot. Then she sank her nails into Kazuko's wrists.

Mitch, fear twisting his features into a hard mask, took another swing at the soldier. This time it hit. Kazuko's head rocked back, his blow opening a gash on her lip. He yelped and shook his fist, wincing.

"Cute!" Kazuko said. "Guy's got balls!"

"So have I," Jamie said, setting her feet flat against the floor and pushing back with all her strength. The woman hadn't been expecting the move and overbalanced; they toppled over, landing hard on the concrete. The fall broke Kazuko's grip. Jamie rolled away and scrabbled upright, darting over to Mitch.

"Why are you doing this?" she demanded. "You're supposed to be one of the good guys!"

"There are no good guys in nature." Kazuko was calm as she stalked around them, arms held loosely at her sides. Each movement was fluid. "The only constant is the struggle for survival. The hunter and her prey."

"Don't give me that crap," Mitch spat. He'd snatched up the phone and now held it in front of him as if the narrow beam of light was a shield. "You're a human being, just like the rest of us."
"Wrong! I'm evolved, just like the animals! Just like Jackson!"

"Jackson's the real deal, he's what we're supposed to be," Mitch spat. "You? You're just a freak –"

Kazuko let out a feral shriek of rage and rushed him, arms pumping as she closed the distance between them. The only expression left on her face was murder.

Chloe sped after Jackson, following the tracker through the sprawling complex. He was definitely leaving. She cursed and took a detour, knowing she'd have to get back to the Jeep in order to keep up with him. She had another moment's guilt – she was leaving the others behind – but this was more important. She had to know where Jackson was going. She had to know what he was doing.

"What the…?" She tapped the tracker's screen. He was heading in the opposite direction, going back the way they'd come. Back toward D.C. Why the hell would he do that?

Keeping one hand on the wheel, she dropped her cell phone into a slot on the dash and tapped at the screen, calling up Google Maps. She dragged her finger over the map, projecting Jackson's future path. If he maintained his current direction, he would end up in…

Oh God. No. Everything suddenly fell into place in her head. She understood what Jackson was thinking, what his plan was, what he intended to do.

If he kept going on his current course he'd hit McMillan Reservoir, a big body of water that fed D.C and the surrounding areas.

He was going to dump Sage's treatment and change a whole city.

Mitch shoved Jamie behind him in an instinctive reaction to danger. He was bigger than Kazuko, sure, maybe stronger, but she was a soldier, dammit, trained to kill. He might last a whole five seconds –

Abe exploded out of the darkness and grabbed Kazuko around the waist. With a yell of effort he hauled her high into the air.

"Run!" he grunted. "Back to the Jeep!"

Mitch didn't need telling twice. He seized Jamie's hand and ran, dragging her away from the fight.

"We can't just leave him!" Jamie shouted, trying to run and look over her shoulder at the same time. She tripped over her own feet; Mitch yanked her upright.

"The man's a walking mountain," he panted. "And you told me he used to be a soldier. If anyone can take her down it's him!"

Kazuko's fingers found the tender parts of his hands, digging into the tendons with enough pressure to make Abe's hold loosen. It wasn't much – but it was enough. She wriggled free and bounded back toward him like a crazed ferret.

They were in darkness know, the light gone with Mitch and Jamie. Abe couldn't see Kazuko come at him, but years spent with the rebel army, and more years spent living close to nature, had honed his senses. He felt the rush of air as she rushed forward.

He held his hand out, palm outwards. Kazuko stopped a hair's breadth away from it, all her senses on overdrive. She barrelled into him and they went down.

She scrambled on top of him and started punching him in the face, a rain of blows that were all fury and no co-ordination. Abe grabbed her wrists, holding her easily away from him.

"You've lost your edge," he rumbled, still holding her away from him. "Rage has made you foolhardy."

"I'm going to claw your throat out and feast on your blood!" she screamed.

Abe rolled to his feet, dragging her with him. She tangled her boots in his legs and tried to trip him, but he was expecting the move and stayed upright.

"It gives me no pleasure to do this," he said, folding her into a bear-hug. "I thought that you and I had something, a connection, but you were just using me for my reputation."

His arms tightened. Kazuko, her hands trapped against her sides, let out a terrible noise – part squeal, part scream – as she tried to draw air into her lungs.

"A lesser man might kill you," Abe continued. "I am not a lesser man."

He squeezed harder, using carefully controlled force to constrict her breathing. Too little and she would wriggle away again; too much, and he might kill her.

He heard something crack – her ribs. She screamed and slumped, passing out in his arms.

"That does not mean I will not hurt you, though."

He manoeuvred Kazuko until he carried her in his arms, careful not to jostle her. He didn't want to hurt her any more than he already had. Then he began the long process of retracing his steps back toward the Jeep.

Chloe was in a vehicle, and Jackson was on foot; she had to get to McMillan Reservoir before him. Right? He might have hotwired a car, but she had to hold on to the belief that, because he was thinking more like an animal than a human, he would stick to his own two feet.

She dialled Jamie's cell as she drove.

"Chloe, where are you?" the journalist demanded when the call connected. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine, I'm on the road," she said. "I'm sorry I took the Jeep, but I could not risk losing Jackson –"

"Don't worry it," Jamie replied. "I called McNair, we're being picked up soon. We have Kazuko."

Chloe still had some compassion for the woman – she'd liked her, had thought she'd made Abe happy. It irked her that she hadn't seen Kazuko's real face; part of Chloe's job had been to analyse people, and she'd missed something key about her personality.

And it hadn't been the first time. She'd missed it with Jean-Michel. Missed it with Natalie…

But now wasn't the time for self-recriminations and doubts.

"Is she OK?" she asked.

"'OK' is open to interpretation right now. She, uh, Abe kinda… squashed her."
"He what?"

"Got her in a bear hug and squeezed."

Chloe let out a surprised huff. "Remind me not to get on his bad side! Look, Jackson is headed to McMillan Reservoir. Can you call Sage and tell her I'm on my way?"

"Sure. Look, Chloe, be careful."

"I will."

Chloe drove into a parking lot. As expected she'd got there before Jackson, which gave her time to try to work out which way he'd go when he got here. The reservoir was huge, with buildings dotted on either side. A barely-full moon illuminated the bulk of the filtration plant in the distance.

Thinking about what she knew of Jackson, his behaviour both before and after the change, she decided he would try for the most direct route to the water. He'd been on the run for hours; he would be tired, probably hungry and thirsty, maybe scared. He would dump the treatment, find food and drink, and go to ground.

Using her cell as a flashlight again, she left the Jeep behind and headed off toward the water, looking for a place where she could wait in concealment. She kept an eye on the tracker. He was close, and getting closer by the minute.

Jackson could smell the reservoir now. It made his mouth water; he was thirsty as hell, had been for hours, and knew he couldn't go on much longer.

The reservoir would be a good place to rest. Water aplenty, lots of small game, and shelter.

The wind shifted. He stopped for a few minutes, analysing the smells, working out whether he was in danger. The smell of water was almost overpowering, but beneath that…

Chloe. Chloe was here! Part of him was furious she'd followed him yet again; a deeper part – buried beneath the buzz of sensory information his brain was learning how to process – was relieved. If she was here it meant she was safe, she wasn't injured… and he could see her again.

He followed his nose to the water's edge. As he approached, her scent grew stronger; just as he tried to work out where she was, she stepped out of a stand of bushes. Her stance was aggressive, controlled, and she held a tranq gun in both hands. Trained on his chest.

"Put the treatment down, Jackson."

"Go home, Chloe! You shouldn't be here!"

"This… this is my fault, I admit that!" He heard a sob in her voice. The clouds parted, allowing a shaft of silvered moonlight to fall on her. With his enhanced eyesight he saw moisture gather in her eyes. "If I had not made such a terrible mistake with Jean-Michel… if I had not driven you away…"

"Chloe, this isn't your fault." How strange it was to hold such a human conversation like this, when he was so in tune with the nightlife all around. He sensed a flock of deer in the distance, and birds roosting for the night. "I chose to do this, to take this step. You didn't drive me away. In a way, I guess you did me a favour."

"I – I do not understand…"

What was even stranger was how much it hurt to talk like this. A human ache, deep in his chest. His heart.

Animals love, he thought. Not all of them, but enough. Plenty of species choose their mate and stay with them for life. Just like humans.

The feeling that love was a distant, barely realised concept left him. He understood it again, understood it as he had understood it before. It reinforced his belief that fundamentally, all life was connected.

"I was gonna ask you to marry me back in Paris," he explained. "Before we visited your sister. The city of love, right? I thought… why not? But I never got the chance."

Chloe took one hand off the tranq gun to wipe at her eyes. Funny, his own eyes were starting to feel damp.

"Then all that crap with Jean-Michel got in the way," he continued. "And you wouldn't marry me. I think… I think it was better that way."
Chloe let out a choked sob. "You said you loved me! Was that a lie?"

"No. Never. Not then, not now. But Chloe, if we'd been married when this happened…" He shook the jar of treatment. Amber-gold liquid sloshed from side to side. "I'm still getting used to what's happening to me, and if I'd left you after we were married I think… I think it would have killed me."

"Come home, Jackson." Chloe's voice was raw, infused with emotion. "Please, come home with me. We can work things out…"

"Home? What's home? An Army base?" He shook his head, derisive. "If you're a goat, you don't raise your kids in the lion's den."

"Is that – is that how you see yourself?" She laughed, a weak, watery thing that surprised him as much as it appeared to surprise her. "A goat?"

"Me? Nope. When all's said and done, I'm just a guy."

"Just a guy who's about to get shot," she said. "I do not want to do this, but…"

"Bet I can move faster than you can shoot."

"I would not put money on that."

"Money doesn't mean anything to me anymo –"

Chloe squeezed the trigger. A dart flew out. Jackson was moving before her finger finished squeezing, and the dart flew wide. He turned and ran down to the water.

Jackson ran as if the hounds were after him. Another dart flew past him, inches away, and he veered in a different direction. The water was so close now, he could almost taste it –

Chloe leapt, her arms closing around him. They went down in a tangle of limbs, the tranquiliser gun spinning away into the darkness.

Jackson was already scrabbling upright when Chloe tripped him. He stumbled but kept his footing. Then he was off again. He heard her follow, but she was slow, so slow.

The water called to him and he sped toward it. He was almost there – just feet away – when a sharp prick made him slap a hand to his neck. Dammit! Chloe had not only found the tranq gun in the moonlight, she'd aimed at and shot a moving target.

As he dropped the dart he felt the drug coursing through his bloodstream, burning like fire. Terrible lethargy rampaged through his system.

Knowing he only had seconds before he dropped, he smashed the flask open on a nearby rock and sent it hurling overheard. The flask tumbled end over end, the dark golden liquid within glowing in the moonlight.

"No!" Chloe screamed.

But she was too late. The broken flask hit the water. The treatment oozed out, diffusing into the reservoir. Jackson toppled over.

"Let them try to filter that stuff out." Job done, he thought as his vision began to constrict.

"Jackson…" Chloe knelt beside him, smoothing his hair back from his sweaty forehead. "What happens next?"

"We're about to find out."

THE END