Chapter 9 Part 3
What puzzled Uzine was that Brezine hardly ever left the house. She was so dedicated to the work of cleaning it, that she usually did not feel the need to leave it as that would have been wasted time.
Uzine kept his eye on the clock. He only had about an hour left. He figured he should take a glance outside the housing unit to check out the surrounding grounds. A chimera was expected to be aware of their surroundings although most of the maintenance was take care of by the companies that employed them. Indeed, other chimeras that were trained for the kind of work needed were dispatched when an issue was reported.
The housing units that chimeras stayed in were what are best termed "barely adequate.". They consisted of an upright structure that was mobile as they were meant for re-use. the downstairs consisted of a small kitchen area and what amounted to a living room which is where Uzine had been lounging as he kept his eye on the clock. The surrounding outside was petite, but big enough for a small garden. Uzine went upstairs to get his boots so he could go outside and make a visual inspection. As he climbed the stairs and rounded the corner to enter the bedroom, it was then that he caught sight of Brezine--except something was unusual about her. She was flickering.
"Hi, Hi, Uzineee Uzineee Uzineeee," her speech stammered. "Are work well, floors."
The image of her flickered as her body assumed different poses that Uzine had known all too well. None of these states were connected but were disconcertingly disjointed. Whatever was happening here was something that was categorically not his wife. It sounded like her. The images looked like photos of her, but the visual states mashed together indicated something else--this was a glitchy representation of her. This, despite whatever else might be the case, was not Brezine. Who or what would want to make a glitchy representation of his wife?
Uzine didn't know it, but Brezine Braten as a chimera had never existed. Chimeras were not allowed to breed unless it was arranged previously. Brezine was simply a holonospheric construction designed to, in the words of chimera programmers, "Allow a natural channel for the needs of companionship and mating that we cannot successfully eliminate."
