When Roland got online to talk to Clara, he didn't just talk about Melbourne coming along with them to the Amazon. There was something he had noticed about the list of specimens they were going to pick up that had been making him curious for a while.
"Mayor Clara, I've noticed that one of the animals we're supposed to pick up is an anaconda," said Roland.
"It's not a fish, I know," said Clara, "But we do try to include some local flavor of other species. That's also why you're getting the red-eyed tree frog."
"It's not that," said Roland, "We've already got anacondas back in Animalia. I've seen them on that reptile trolley. And Susan just happened to be a particularly friendly dolphin who was within the area despite other uplifted dolphins already being back in Lyre. So is there something particular about the anaconda we're getting?"
Clara sighed before double-checking that the live chat was on a secure channel and asking, "Can I trust you to keep a secret? It's not that your untrustworthy, but you're the newest member of your friends' group."
"As long as I don't have to keep it from the others," said Roland.
"No, but no one else," said Clara, "This is a particularly delicate thing and it'd be wiser to not have everyone know about it."
"It's only an anaconda, right?" asked Roland.
"Not an ordinary anaconda," said Clara. She posted a picture of an anaconda for Roland to see. At first, he thought it was an ordinary, if large, snake. But then he noticed that the front end forked into two heads. "This is Calypso and Calliope," said Clara, "Two-headed snakes are rather rare and don't last very long in the wild. Fortunately, they were found and kept at a zoo which allowed them to reach maturity. But two-headed animals don't always have the best of health so they're being handed over to us so we can uplift them."
"Ok, a two-headed anaconda," said Roland, "That's pretty impressive, but doesn't seem like it'd be a really delicate subject."
"No, that would what the scientist of Horizon intend for them," said Clara, "Calypso and Calliope are not going to be a part of Animalia Aquatica. They are the first candidate for Project Chimera."
"I haven't heard of that," said Roland.
"That's because we've been keeping it secret," said Clara, "Do you recall Teela, the uplifted moray eel?"
"Yeah, the one who was part sea snake?" asked Roland. When the scientist were getting to uplift her, they were worried that Teela would not develop legs to move on land. So they extracted DNA from Kirana that would give Teela the ability to slither on land. It worked, but it had the unexpected effect of also giving Teela black stripes on her back and unwebbed hands like Kirana.
"Yes and because of her partial hybridization, the scientists were wondering how far the hybridization could be pushed," said Clara, "It's mostly for testing the capacities of the virus and to satisfy their curiosity. And Calypso and Calliope would be ideal for the first test."
"And what are you planning on mixing them with?" asked Roland.
"They plan on basing the hybridization after the project's namesake," said Clara.
Roland knew as much about Greek mythology as most people and he knew enough about the monsters in those myths. The chimera was a particularly brutal monster, part-lion/part-goat/part-snake with the ability to breathe fire from its multiple heads. "Uh, she won't be able to breathe fire, will she?" asked Roland.
"Of course not," said Clara, "There's no animal that can do that. The closest to that is that bombardier beetle and the virus doesn't work on arthropods. But Calypso will be getting a shot of lion-based virus sample while Calliope will get a goat-based sample. The worst failure that could happen would be that they'd simply become a normal, albeit two-headed, snake Animalian and if it succeeds... Well, I doubt they'd resembled a classical depiction of a chimera, but it would be enough to satisfy the theory."
"Doesn't that go against the interspecies breeding edict?" asked Roland.
"Technically, no since there is no actual mating involved," said Clara, "Still, you can understand why we don't want everyone to know about it before we can prove it works. People would immediately be clamoring to become lizards with bat wings and horses with bird wings and all sorts of other hybrids which we might not even be able to produce. So please keep the full details of this only within your group. Mr. O'Riley can come with you and know you're picking up a two-headed anaconda, but don't tell him about Project Chimera." With that, she signed off.
Roland was a tiny bit unsure about the implications of this. There were certainly ethical quandaries that might be involved, but then the idea of seeing a real chimera sounded awesome. Hopefully, the old story that a chimera was an omen of trouble was not true.