Teck Infection

be. I can’t put my hands back in there. I’ll just become a host again. Shit. I can still water it and stuff, but what about my tomatoes? Will I be able to eat them? Will the worm infect them? Can a parasite have that complex of a lifecycle? Animals and plants as hosts. No. That can’t be right. I think I’ll be safe. We’ll see.’ Archie rationalized a solution that he wasn’t really confident in. He felt his identity slip more and more towards that of the worm.

  Archie thought about the infection the entire night. What little sleep he got was permeated by dreams about touching things. He was touching all manners of things. Dogs, kitchen counters, trees, people, the road, apples, all kinds of things were touched. In his dream, all Archie could focus on was the act of touching. Nothing else mattered.

  In the morning, Archie’s lingering thoughts on the worm had given him the impulse to go look at the garden. Rationally, he knew that the garden couldn’t have really changed since the day before. He had just put the transplants in the ground. But there was an almost giddy feeling that there would be some difference, that something must have happened that he would be able to observe.

  Walking outside, Archie stopped in place, with eyes wide and jaw dropped. The tomato plants had all grown to full maturity, with fruits bigger than anything he had previously grown in his garden. Furthermore, they all looked like different varieties of tomatoes, none of which he had ever seen before. The tomato seed packet clearly said “Red Zebra Tomatoes”. The tomatoes in the garden ranged greatly in size, shape, and color. They were far outside the range of phenotypes normally exhibited by red zebra tomatoes. Driven by curiosity, Archie walked over and picked a small yellow tomato that was shaped a bit like a zucchini. He bit into it.

  “Wow! This tomato is awesome!” The taste of the tomato washed away the lingering negative feeling that had been brought about by the worm and he actually smiled. ‘I don’t understand. Did the worms do this? They had to of. Tomato plants don’t just go from seedling to full maturity over night, randomly mutating their DNA as they grow. But what did the worms do to make the plants grow like this?’ Archie’s phone rang in mid-thought.

  “Hello?” Archie greeted, still excited about his tomatoes.

  “Archie? This is Dr. Sophist. Your results are in. Can you come by today?”

  “Already? I was just there yesterday. You said it would take a week.” Archie didn’t know what to make of the doctor’s call.

  “Yes, but luckily our resident lab tech was in yesterday. She was able to do some DNA work on the sample. Its more serious than what I thought.” The doctor seemed very urgent.

  “Oh... Ok. I can come in now.” Archie wasn’t as worried as he had been the night before, despite the doctor’s urgency.

  At the hospital, Archie checked in at the front desk, and sat to read an article about nematodes on his phone.

  “Archie?” The nurse looked up from her tablet at the people sitting in the waiting area.

  “Yes?”

  “The doctor will see you now.” She disappeared through the doors and Archie followed.

  “Just have a seat and the doctor will be with you momentarily.” The nurse led Archie into a small, cold room with a paper covered examining table and a chair. Moments after the nurse left, the doctor walked in looking down at his tablet.

  “Archie, may I see the finger I took a biopsy from?” The doctor was terse. Archie held his finger up to the doctor. He had already taken the bandage off as it was no longer needed. “Hmm... Just as I thought. I had the tech do a molecular analysis of the worm to identify it. It turns out that the DNA code of this worm has considerable genetic overlap with nematodes. However, we can’t quite pinpoint what it is beyond that. Several genes are completely novel. They are completely unknown to science.”

  “Huh... Then what is it? And how did your tech get the results so quickly? Shouldn’t it take at least a couple of days?” Archie was more curious than ever about what this thing was.

  “Well, see, that’s the point now isn’t it? Whatever this teck is, it has greatly improved the productivity around here.” The doctor seemed a bit excited about the results.

  ‘What does he mean by ‘teck’?’ Archie thought to himself.

  “Teck. Teck, its seems to be some sort of mutually beneficial symbiosis. The teck helps out its host and in return, the teck is allowed to replicate extremely rapidly.”

  “How did you know what I was thinking? And, is ‘teck’ a thing?” Archie was a bit confused.

  “Thinking? No. Teck is the thing in your body.” The doctor was different than the day before. He was much more pithy, simple even.

  “I don’t know if I still have it.” Archie didn’t believe his own response. The teck was the only thing on his mind. The doctor picked up a scalpel and plunged it into Archie’s forearm. Pulling the scalpel out, a cluster of small red worms swarmed the wound and quickly closed it up.

  ‘Don’t worry. This teck will make your life a whole lot easier, safer, and more productive.’ Archie was communicating with the doctor, but the doctor wasn’t moving his mouth. They had some sort of telepathic link between them, perhaps mediated by the worm.

  ‘I guess so.’ Archie thought back.

  Walking back to his car, Archie had the intention of unlocking his car. Then, he heard the car horn beep once like it had been unlocked. Getting into the car, he had the intention of igniting the engine. The car’s engine rumbled. Thinking that he had to go into the lab that day, the car drove Archie there by itself. Archie just sat back and contemplated all the things that this teck could do. Back at the lab, Archie ran into his lab mate, Veronica, who was trying to analyze the data from her latest series of surveys.

  “Hey Archie, Luddite was telling me that you had a good hike,” Veronica giggled a little as she greeted Archie. “How is your pet?” She smiled, unable to veil her sarcasm.

  “Have you been able to analyze your data set yet?” Archie was unperturbed by Veronica’s mocking.

  “What? Um, no I’m still working on it. This stupid software is driving me nuts. I’m trying to work off of some examples that this other guy put up on the help forum, but they’re not working for me.”

  “Well let me take a look at it for a moment.” Archie sat down at the computer and touched the mouse. “What do you want to know with your data?”

  “Well I surveyed a random sample of residents in the city, spanning a range of ages, ethnicities, and incomes about their preference for physical attraction. I am hypothesizing that people prefer symmetry. So, I’ve presented everyone with a series of photographs from both genders and asked them to rank their attractiveness from most attractive to least attractive. Each photograph I have analyzed with imaging software to give a score for symmetry ranging from 0-1, with 0 being perfectly symmetrical. If my hypothesis is correct, then the average values across my samples should approximate 0 for the top rated photographs down to 1 for the lowest rated photographs.” With no one touching the computer, Archie looked at the screen and code was entered into the statistical software. A series of graphs appeared on the screen.

  “What happened?” Veronica was astonished.

  “That’s my pet,” Archie smirked. “There are a lot of things that I can do with it. For instance, look at these graphs. When we rank the images from those who were rated highest to those who were rated lowest, then yes we do get what we expect given your hypothesis. There is a nice trend that correlates to the deviance from perfect symmetry. However, if we look at this next graph, which takes a look at the average preference for symmetry, we see that while overall, perfect symmetry appears to be preferred, on an individual level, people prefer faces that are a little off. It is only when we average out individual preference, does that trend for perfect symmetry come out. It skews the Reality.”

  “How did you figure out how to do that so quickly? I’ve been working on this data set for days now.”

  “I
told you, it’s my new ‘pet’ as you called it. It can do other things too of course.”

  “Oh yeah? Like what?” Veronica’s interest was peaked. Archie touched her hand and little red worms came out of his fingertips. They quickly burrowed into Veronica’s skin.

  “AAH! What are those!” Veronica was clearly frightened. ‘This guy is freaking me out. I can’t believe what he just did to me,’ Archie could hear Veronica’s thoughts loud and clear.

  ‘Veronica, get me some coffee.’ Archie thought to himself as an experiment. Veronica grabbed a mug and poured Archie some coffee from the pot.

  “Thank you Veronica.” Archie smiled again at this new revelation. Taking a sip of his coffee, Archie’s phone vibrated. Without looking, Archie knew he got a text from Luddite. It said, “Hey, let’s get lunch later”. Again, without taking out his phone, Archie texted “Sure, paninis or Chinese?” “Let’s do Chinese,” Luddite replied.

  Archie met up with Luddite at the Chinese place in the student union.

  “So how is your worm thing?” Luddite asked sarcastically.

  “Pretty awesome actually. Watch this.” Archie took his empty hands out of his pocket and Luddite’s phone vibrated. Luddite took his phone out.

  “Its a text from you? ‘I can manipulate technology just by thinking about it’ it says. How did you do that?” Luddite was