“You are now entering Lab C. Everything beyond this point is highly classified. If any of it is revealed, and, trust me, we will know, you will be promptly arrested. The penalty is death.”
***
She stood staring, awed and utterly horrified at the same time. They had told her to prepare herself for what she was about to see, though this was something that no normal person could. Before her, behind ten layers of glass, an electric fence, and titanium bars crouched a hissing, snarling, roaring monster. Part human, part animal. She felt like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole, but this was no Wonderland.

***

The opening at Aimerch Industries had been the talk of the science community for weeks, the gossip on every tongue, the rumor in every whisper. Few people in the public domain knew anything about the company that created the cures for Influenza, Alzheimer’s, Down’s, cancer, and almost every other disorder known to man. They were the hot shots of the medical world and the leader in the genetics. At least once they had been featured on the cover of every magazine. At least eight times they sponsored world peace (an active member of the UN). At least four hundred times they collected various—and prestigious—awards. And at least sixty of their staff won Nobel Prizes.
Everyone wanted to be in with them. If you were, you’d be set for the rest of your life. And Cynthia Leto just happened to be the one lucky enough to fit the job perfectly. Not that anyone really knew what the job was.  

Cynthia considered herself an ordinary person, just flowing through life like everyone else. Standing at five feet and seven inches, she had a pale complexion with a spattering of cinnamon freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Every morning she shuffle-jogged around the park two blocks south of her cozy apartment building, then walked back to take a cold shower. She was a fan of blue jeans, modern rock with a dash of techno, and mint-flavored floss but preferred to chew a piece of spearmint gum instead of brushing her teeth. The mask she put on was that of a normal individual because, after fourteen years of hiding all the pain and sorrow, she didn’t know how to take it off. All she could do was cross her fingers and hope for the best.
After dozens upon dozens of background checks, blood tests, and lie-detector interviews, her cherry cell phone buzzed with an unavailable number from a secure line. With a crisp congratulation, a cool voice told her to be at Aimerch Industries Head Quarters on Monday morning.
At five AM in the gray morning mist, she pulled open the colossal glass double doors of the looming glass tower, resembling a medieval fortress. A man with a glossy ID tag in a gray lab coat and thick black-rimmed glasses stood patiently waiting for her, a security guard at his side. They welcomed her, strode across the white speckled granite floor that mirrored all the billions of stars in distant space. She clenched her teeth, struggling to not open her mouth with wonder at the “cradle of the future.” A steel elevator took them down…down…down.  

Adorned with her own ID and lab coat, her small heels clicked against a smooth charcoal floor. Her beloved sterling silver ring hid at the bottom of her deep pocket, leaving a thin white tan line on her left pointer finger. The man stalked a few steps ahead of her, his eyes bored, his eyebrows flat lines on the broad plane of his forehead. “We heard about your achievements in stem cell research.” A blush hued her cheeks. “We were very pleased. So, you will be working here, in AIM.” Her normally lucid mind swirled with all the new information as they passed through the twenty-third, or was it the twenty-seventh, steel door that required ID, fingerprint, and retinal scans.
The following rooms were beyond belief. Spotless, clean and white, the latest lab instruments (and even some old ones) everywhere, walls blanketed in plastic cages containing specimens. They were no ordinary lab rats riddled with disease from noxious hair products either. There was something vaguely familiar, something eerie about them. As they progressed through the rooms, the feeling strengthened, made her stomach twist. It wasn’t until they weaved through the fifth room that she realized what it was.
They were human. Well, not really human, but they each had human aspects. Chimeras. Rats listened to her footsteps with human ears. Cats glared at her bewilderment with human eyes. Chimps reached for her help with human hands. There were too many others to note. Too many to comprehend. A bitter taste like bile seared the back of her tongue.
“You are now entering Lab C. Everything beyond this point in highly classified. If any of it is revealed, and, trust me, we will know, you will be promptly arrested. The penalty is death.”
Her raspberry lips fell apart. She gaped at the man. What sort of job was this? Didn’t she read a summary of it online? Wouldn’t someone have warned her about these experiments, these atrocities? Her fingers anxiously tore at the cuticle of her thumb.
“Lab C is our top priority here in AIM. Our chief scientists only come every Tuesday and Thursday to run tests. You will run the basic labs listed on the board above the counter every day besides Tuesdays and Thursdays and report your findings each evening, along with any and all objective observations. These procedures are simple enough that you should be more than capable of performing them by yourself.” He glanced over his shoulder at her as they came to a sudden halt in front of the largest and thickest of all the doors combined. Without a moments pause, he snatched her ID in his thin, pointed fingers, scanned it, then scanned both her palms. Both her honey eyes were scanned as well. Keeping a manacle grip around her wrist, he placed her index fingertip on a black circle on the hand scanner. It pricked her skin with a miniscule razor-sharp bite. She gasped, and her hand flew back at the abrupt pain. A dew drop of blood pooled on her finger as he suddenly yanked out a strand of her shoulder length, feathered caramel hair. He dropped it in a thin tube next to the retinal scanner. She tried to catch her breath.
A green light flicked on above the door. There was a click and sigh of air as the door relaxed, the locks retreating. “Prepare yourself.” The door slowly opened, layers peeling away like an onion. The man’s hand pushed her forward. She stumbled into the lab. “I will be back at six PM to escort you out.” The doors whooshed closed, and the world she knew was gone.

The room was large by any means with the most bizarre and basic of laboratory tools. It was bordered in counters with deep sinks, microscopes, other instruments, charts, and cabinets. The most outlandish of the devices rested in a corner against the shale wall. An electric cattle prod. Though, by far, the most astonishing structure rested in the middle of the room.
It was a giant square enclosure. The walls were a foot thick of glass, which reached the ceiling. Along the corners were serpentine black wires, pulsing with electricity. Pressing against the glass every six inches were dense titanium columns. There was a door where all the black cords met and the bars crisscrossed over a massive lock with a similar scanning set up as outside the room. Inside this hideous cage was a creature straight out of mythology.
Air rushed between her lips in a quick gasp. Her feet fumbled back as her hands clutched onto the door for support. In her trembling chest, her heart quaked, her pulse sprinting. She could feel the blood drain from her face and rush to her tense muscles. Adrenaline scorched through her.  Her eyes fixated on the bright, smoldering azure pair leering at her. The eyes of the king of all predators.
Lines of black pigment traced around his furious feline eyes and dipped toward his long, sharp nose in an oval. Next to his flared nostrils sprouted wiry whiskers. White-blonde hair—no, not hair, fur—stuck up in all directions. It started at a slight widow’s peak near his hair line and trailed down his cheeks in the place of sideburns. Behind that first layer were two lion ears with beige tips. The dense fur cloaked his head, the back of his neck, and the entire trapezius muscle, ending in a long, tapering triangle at the small of his back. His fingernails were long and sharp on human hands that could easily wrap around her neck whereas below his knees, the tibia and tibula extended and shifted. All the bones below those were even more altered and warped. In exchange for human hands, genetics somehow dictated this creature would have lion feet complete with razor claws. A thick tail whipped against the floor and cage walls. Pale pink, normal lips curled over immense ivory canines. The rest of his body was human, lean and muscled like a superhero’s or assassin’s. Deep in his chest rumbled a growl as he hissed and snarled at Cynthia.
After a few minutes that felt like at least a couple centuries, his lips relaxed. The roaring ceased. He snorted, making his whiskers start, and proceeded to jump onto a thick platform near the top of the enclosure. Giving his mane a shake, he plopped down. His hands hung over the edge, his head resting on their backs. His tail twitched. His light blue eyes scrutinized her every move.
If her mind had been swirling before, it was in an eighty mile per hour spin now. No one, except apparently the “chief scientists,” had ever seen anything like this—this thing. It was something out of a movie or fable or twisted mind. It was a full blown chimera: an organism created by two separate and distinct species. An uncanny mixture of a man and a white lion.
Once her pulse regained a somewhat normal beat, she released the door and pulled her knees straight. Her dazed eyes glanced around the room for the board above the counter with the lab instructions. If the room wasn’t completely surrounded by counters, this simple task would have been much easier. With shaky steps, she meandered toward the right side of the space, toward the most prominent chart. There were hundreds of numbers and data points, and that was for just one day! Next to it was her instructions. This was going to take a while, and the eyes boring into the back of her skull didn’t help any.

Her fingers were throbbing by the time she was escorted out of head quarters. That was the most busy-work she’d done in years. The tips of her fingers glowed red from mashing them against a keyboard all day. Her eyelids drooped down over her vision as the elevator slowly ascended. It was dark outside when they finally reached the surface, and in the winter gloom, she could hardly discern the outline of the new, lustrous cherry Tesla Roadster, a gift from Aimerch Industries.

Fumbling with her keys, she carefully unlocked the door to her apartment. It was spacious for a single person, white carpet and blushing walls. She meandered toward the kitchen, but nothing appealed to her nonexistent appetite. After futilely searching the cabinets and fridge, she found herself in her bedroom. She planned on just going to bed or reading a little of her latest Popular Science, but when her mind finally registered her surroundings, she was examining herself in the mirror, half dressed with her pajamas ready and waiting on the dresser next to her. There were dark bags under her eyes. Her lips were dry and cracked. The edge of her cuticle was encased in dry blood. Her exhausted eyes glanced over the rest of her pale body. She wasn’t rail thin like the starving supermodels of today, she accepted that long ago, but now she felt inadequate. She felt like a monster for taking this job, for performing those experiments, for standing by and doing nothing. Bit by bit her knees gave out, and she sank to the floor. Her forehead fell against the looking glass with a soft thud. Her shoulders trembled as her body folded in on itself. Tears cascaded freely down her cheeks. Her sobs echoed around the vacant room.
When no more tears were left in her crumpled body, she finally fell asleep.