Hybrid Zone Recognition Read Free Page A

he had night vision equipment or infrared or buddies helping him pinpoint my location. Crap. Where was that bright side?
    “How do you know it’s a him?” Miranda asked.
    “I don’t. But aren’t two crazy women in this movie enough?”
    Resigned to wait, I dropped to my bottom, immediately alleviating the burning in my thighs. One problem solved. Now all I had to do was hope that he was working alone, didn’t move positions, didn’t have infrared or night vision goggles and wait till dark, at which time, I was going to somehow escape from my attacker by maneuvering silently through the woods in the dark. How could it possibly fail?
    “I could place an anonymous call for a local police unit,” she offered.
    “Because that wouldn’t draw attention to us at all,” I muttered. She probably didn’t deserve my sour tone. It wasn’t a good idea, but not a terrible one either. I’d save it as a last resort kind of thing.
    “It wouldn’t draw any more attention than all those crazy protestors are,” she said defensively.
    We did have some crazy protestors, complete with unwashed looks and wacko signs. But they weren’t all crazy or wrong.
    “You do realize some of them are right, don’t you?” I asked her.
    “We’re going to hell like Satan because we’re playing God?”
    “No! Not those crazies, the ones that are accusing the government of continuing the hybrid program.”
    “Are you sure?” she asked bluntly.
    What was I supposed to say to that? In truth, no, I was not absolutely sure. Maybe being shot at was a sign, but then, me surviving could also be a sign. Either way it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like I lived my life by following supposed signs. But being in these kinds of situations, which seemed to be happening more frequently, did make one stop and think.
    I took a deep breath and rolled my shoulders. It wasn’t this difficult when I first started this project. It had been research pure and simple. Now, it had become something more. Enough to warrant a trip to hell? I didn’t know. But I hadn’t been consumed by fire from on high nor had the ground opened up and swallowed me. That had to mean something, right?
    Maybe the Big Guy didn’t care. After all, other species evolved without divine intervention. Except for those pesky major earth extinction events. But those had to be purely due to chance. I mean, what could the dinosaurs have done to tick him off that much?
    Besides, I couldn’t find it written down anywhere that we weren’t supposed to alter the genetic code. Evolution itself was a slow alteration of the genetic code, and He put that in motion. For that matter, all sorts of things, like epidemics and natural catastrophes, impacted the human genome. Heck, even a person’s choice of mate could potentially alter the genetic code.
    I didn’t understand why people were so upset about something that happened all the time. Maybe the creation of human animal hybrids was a little more conspicuous than what nature produced. But it was still just science, the manipulation of a formula.
    Most cutting edge medical research was heading in that direction, too. Why would it be okay for one and not the other?
    Anyway, I rather thought God and I had a lot in common. I was a scientist…He was a scientist. That was another thing I didn’t understand, all the hoopla about God and science. To me, science was just figuring out how He did what He did. He created the puzzles, we solved them. It was a good setup. Unlike my current dilemma.
    “Did you go to sleep on me?” Miranda asked.
    I smiled at her poke. She was not one for silence. “No, just thinking about the morality of the human evolution of humankind.”
    “It is a conundrum.”
    I nodded then remembered she couldn’t see that. “Right you are. I think I have to choose to believe that He and I are on the same team until I know otherwise.”
    “Otherwise being?” she prompted.
    “Giant meteors hurtling towards earth?”
    “Yep,”