UNMASKED: A De-extinct Zoo Mystery by Carol Potenza

Author:Carol Potenza [Potenza, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tiny Mammoth Press

Milly stepped out of the Zoo-ber—the BioPark’s zero-emission ridesharing service—at the end of the residential street. Any one of the people she’d questioned today could be a murderer. But Milly’s meetings with Dr. Appleton and Doyle Amon had been in public spaces. Even with Luther Nikolai, there’d been witnesses who’d seen them together as they’d walked to Maskwa’s cell. While she didn’t believe John Radebe had harmed Carin or would hurt Milly herself, she wasn’t stupid enough to take that chance. The ridesharing driver would be her witness. She asked him to pick her up at John’s one-bedroom bungalow in forty-five minutes.

Hands in her jacket pockets, she hurried down the tidy street. She’d been offered a home in Cambrian Village on admittance to her PhD program, which was odd since they were usually kept as loyalty rewards or given to support staff with families. But she was happy with her condo complex discreetly embedded near the heart of the zoo. She loved sitting out on her balcony in the morning and sipping coffee, listening to the waking de-extincts—the trumpeting rumbles of the Cuvieronius herd, the rolling coos of dodos, the dire wolves’ singing barks.

Set in the rise and fall of land at the edge of the Rio Grande Forest, Cambrian Village consisted of over three hundred minimal-impact energy-efficient homes built specifically for the Pleistocene BioPark. Everything a person needed was in meticulously planned micro neighborhoods—diverse restaurants; bookstore cafés and coffee shops; organic groceries and sundries stores; sports parks, gyms, and pools; walking trails; health-provider clinics; salons and barbers; saloons and bars; and small but colorful casinos. School-aged children attended well-equipped learning hubs. Community centers, houses of worship, and day cares were within walking distance from every home. Anything else needed or wanted could be ordered online.

Engineered animals and engineered lifestyles.

John’s front door opened wide as Milly approached, John yanking on a T-shirt. He looked tired, his expression pulled and dispirited, eyes red rimmed.

She smiled at him. “Remind me to kill the cameras tonight.”

“You are planning to finish Maskwa’s surgery without permission. Luther stopped by earlier and warned me what you could be up to.” He stepped to one side as he ushered her into his home.

Milly wrinkled her nose. “I might have given myself away when he took me to Maskwa after our meeting with the police. I became quite … animated.”

He smiled, white teeth in dark skin. “That’s not like you, Milly. Normally so calm and controlled. He was shaken by it.”

“I’ve never seen Luther Nikolai truly shaken about anything.” She stopped at the long counter that divided a sleek kitchen from the great room. “Will you tell him?”

John stood barefoot in slouchy black basketball shorts. With his arms crossed, the T-shirt stretched over the smooth bunched muscles of his wide shoulders and chest.

“I’ve already sworn not to help.” But his smile made the statement a lie.

Relief blanketed her. Only one more person to ask.

“I can supply prepared flash sticks and the sedation gun and get us into Maskwa’s

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