Parasite

  And that was when Nathan had said the most damning thing of all: “I’m starting to think it’s because SymboGen doesn’t want it to be.” Each outbreak was reported on the local news—that was unavoidable—triggering a brief flurry of concern, but after that, it just vanished, falling into whatever pit waited for buried news cycles. Miracle diets and pop starlets ruled the headlines, and a few dozen sleepwalkers in a few dozen American cities barely registered as worthy of attention.

  But it wasn’t just a few dozen, according to the reports Nathan had. There were a few hundred cases, once you looked at the whole country, and they weren’t limited to American soil. We knew of definite cases in Canada, the United Kingdom, and South America, and there were rumors of more cases elsewhere in the world. If this was as widespread as Nathan suspected, worldwide infections were probably somewhere in the vicinity of ten thousand, and climbing—which just made the lack of major media coverage more alarming. Someone, somewhere, was spending a lot to bury this.

  SymboGen obviously didn’t have a treatment protocol—that was clear from the way they’d eliminated Chave—but they knew more than anyone else did. So why hadn’t they shared their information with the rest of the medical community? Why were they choosing to shut out all the other researchers and scientific establishments in the world? There were a lot of potential motivations for that sort of thing. None of them were altruistic.

  After what Nathan and I had seen at SymboGen and the hospital, neither of us was in the mood for company. He’d dropped me off at home, barely beating Dad and Beverly to the driveway. I’d kissed him goodbye, whistled for my dog, and gone straight to bed. That was—I lifted my head enough to check the clock. That was either three or fifteen hours ago, depending on whether it was nine o’clock in the morning or nine o’clock at night.

  The knocking wasn’t stopping. I finally forced myself to roll out of the bed, raking my hair out of my eyes with my fingers as I walked to the door. I wrenched it open, and demanded, “What is it?”

  Joyce blinked. “Whoa. Dad said you’d gone to bed as soon as you got home, but I expected you to be wearing your pajamas. Why are you wearing scrubs?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. The hallway was brightly lit, but that didn’t tell me anything; there were no windows. “What time is it?”

  “Don’t you have a clock, sleepyhead? It’s nine in the morning. You’ve slept the clock all the way around.”

  “Oh.” I stood there, blinking dumbly at my sister, as I realized one of the things her statement meant: I’d slept for more than twelve hours. That guaranteed deep REM. So why didn’t I remember any of my dreams? Last night should have been a perfect candidate for a trip into the hot warm dark.

  Even as I thought that, another realization hit me: I resented the absence of the dreams. The hot warm dark was always safe, always constant, always there for me, even if it represented something I didn’t understand. I woke up from those dreams confused but at peace, like I was only fully myself in those moments when the drums still echoed in my ears. So why had the hot warm dark deserted me when I needed it most?

  “Sal? You okay?”

  “Huh?” I wrenched myself back into the conversation, shaking my head to clear it. “I’m sorry. I just woke up. Did you need something?”

  “You mean apart from wanting to be sure you weren’t dead? SymboGen just delivered a great big package for you. It’s labeled ‘time-sensitive’ and ‘perishable’ and ‘this end up,’ and I thought it would be a good idea to get you up so you could go and deal with it.”

  I eyed her. “You just want to know what’s inside.”

  My sister beamed unrepentantly. “That is correct. Besides, you know it’s not healthy for you to be in bed for too long. There’s a whole big world out there just waiting to be explored.”

  “You can cut the New Age nature spiel. I’m not buying it, and we both know you never sound like a physical therapy motivational tape unless Mom’s been priming you,” I said without rancor. Mom could be pretty persuasive when she wanted to be, and Joyce probably hadn’t taken much persuading—not with a mystery package waiting to be opened.

  “Come on, Sal. Come open your big box.”

  “What if I don’t want to?” I shot back. Beverly chose that moment to shove past my ankles and go trotting off down the hall, her tail waving languidly behind her as she made a beeline for the door to the backyard.

  Joyce pointed after Beverly, beaming angelically. “It won’t matter, because you need to clean up after your dog.”

  I groaned. “Fine. I’ll be out as soon as I have some real clothes on.”

  “Just remember that you keep your clothes in your dresser, and don’t go looking for them in your bed,” said Joyce sweetly.

  I took great pleasure in closing the door in her face.

  It only took me a few minutes to get dressed. Brushing my hair took longer. I might not remember any of my dreams, but I’d clearly been tossing and turning in the night, and my hair was a matted mass of tangles and knots that gave way with an audible ripping sound. I cringed and kept brushing until I felt vaguely presentable. Then I went out to join my family.

  All three of them were sitting at the kitchen table, waiting. That was unusual all by itself. Mom would normally have left for her volunteer work by now, and Dad and Joyce usually made their way over to the lab before eight. The box from SymboGen was in the center of the table, covered with even more warning labels than Joyce had reported. I stopped in the hallway door, blinking at them.

  “Is today a holiday that I forgot about?” I asked. “Because if it is, I’m going back to bed.”

  “Good morning to you, too, sweetie,” said Mom.

  “I called the lab and told them that Joyce and I would be in a little late this morning,” said my father. “We were concerned about you after last night, and I wanted a chance to talk to you before we left.”

  “Besides, mystery box,” said Joyce. She was her usual blithe self. Mom and Dad… weren’t. They were both smiling, trying to look normal, but there was a grim undertone to their expressions that spoke of things they weren’t quite willing to say. I found myself wondering what secrets they were keeping from me, and pushed the thought aside. If I was going to start thinking like that, I might as well turn myself over to SymboGen right now. At least there I would know who I could trust—no one—and who was lying to me—everyone.

  “Mystery box,” I agreed, and walked over to take a seat at the table. I tried to tug the box toward me, but it was so heavy I couldn’t move it. “What’s in here? Bricks?”

  “The normal question is ‘rocks,’ and I don’t know, but I almost gave myself a hernia getting it inside.”

  I blinked at my father. Corrections like that seemed normal and right from Sherman, but coming from him, it just felt like I was being scolded. I turned my attention back to the box, trying not to let my discomfort show.

  The box had been taped shut, but there were tags built into the cardboard to make the box easier to open. They also rendered it impossible to use a second time, but I guess when you’re a giant multinational corporation, you don’t need to worry as much about reusability. I gripped the tabs and tugged them apart, causing the entire top of the box to detach. Biodegradable packing peanuts spilled out onto the kitchen table.

  “Hang on a second, sweetie, I’ll get a bag,” said Mom, gesturing for me to stop. She pushed her chair back and bustled into the kitchen, returning a few moments later with a large plastic garbage bag. She swept the fallen packing peanuts into it, and stood ready to catch any more that tried to escape. “All right. Proceed.”

  “Efficiency, thy name is Mom,” said Joyce.

  I forced a chuckle, and pulled the top off the box, sending a larger flood of packing peanuts in all directions. I put the box top on the floor next to my chair. Mom hurried to capture all the packing peanuts before they could roll under the furniture, where they would be later inhaled by the dog. I ignored her in favor of digging down
into the box, spilling more packing peanuts. My fingers hit plastic. “Got it,” I said, and lifted.

  Whoever had been responsible for sterilizing and packing my personal possessions had taken their job very, very seriously. My things were swaddled in a double layer of plastic wrap, and there was an itemized inventory of what was inside affixed to the front. I scanned the list, and rolled my eyes. They’d definitely been thorough. I just didn’t see the utility of itemizing individual tampons.

  “Is that all?” asked Joyce. She flicked a packing peanut at me, looking disappointed. “I was hoping for pirate gold.”

  “Not even SymboGen can hand out big boxes of pirate gold without good reason,” I said, setting my things aside. “But that can’t be all that’s in here. Look at the size of this box.”

  “Maybe SymboGen’s packing department is just really enthusiastic,” said Joyce.

  “I don’t know.” I had to stand to see over the edge of the box. I rummaged down into the packing peanuts, flailing around until I hit what felt like the handle of a medium-sized cooler. “What the…?” I lifted.

  It was, in fact, a cooler, labeled “Open Immediately.” I passed it to Joyce, who gave a little squeal of delight, and went back to rummaging around in the packing peanuts. By the time I’d found the next item—a flat box made of reinforced memory plastic and smelling suspiciously like croissants—Joyce had opened the cooler, and was squealing more loudly as she unpacked sliced fruit, berries and cream, and an assortment of cold breakfast meats onto the table. I passed the box of croissants to my father and went rummaging around in the big box one more time.

  The last item inside was a square box with a small chemical heating unit attached to keep the contents warm, and a note taped to the outside:

  Sally—

  I hope this helps to make up for lunch. I will see you soon, under better circumstances. For now, be well, and know that I am thinking of you fondly.

  Sincerely,

  Dr. Banks

  “Sal? Did SymboGen just send us breakfast?” asked Joyce.

  “It looks like it,” I said. Mom made the big box disappear while I opened the box with the note. Inside was a stack of waffles, a bottle of what I was sure would prove to be real maple syrup, and a large bowl of eggs scrambled with cheddar cheese and chunks of tomato. It was a four-star breakfast packed for delivery, and I would have bet good money that it was prepared in the reopened executive cafeteria.

  My pride wanted me to announce that I wasn’t hungry and leave this extravagant bribe—because there was no way this wasn’t a bribe—for my family and Beverly to consume. My body had other ideas. My stomach, which had been rumbling since I recognized the smell from the flat box as croissants, began to roar when I smelled the eggs. I resigned myself to the inevitable. I was going to eat my bribe, and I was going to like it.

  Mom returned from the kitchen with place settings and a broad smile that didn’t look quite genuine. “Isn’t this nice? Breakfast for the family, catered by SymboGen.”

  “I wouldn’t have eaten that cereal if I’d known you were ordering this much food,” said Joyce. She didn’t let her complaint stop her from taking two waffles and a sizable portion of the eggs.

  “I didn’t know either,” I said. “Dr. Banks told me he’d be sending my things. He didn’t say that he’d be sending them along with enough food to feed an army.”

  “Now, Sal, don’t exaggerate,” said my father. “You have a Labrador. There’s no way we could feed an army on this.” He grabbed a croissant.

  My father was US military. He wouldn’t have been eating the food if it wasn’t safe. I laughed a little, some of my tension easing, and reached for a plate.

  Dad looked tired. That was the first thing I noticed, and as I noticed it, I realized he’d been looking tired since before the outbreak Joyce and I witnessed in San Bruno. That was when he’d told me he knew about the sleepwalkers. Just how much did he know?

  Joyce didn’t look tired—she looked focused, like she was calculating exactly how many calories she was getting from each bite, and how far she could make each of those calories take her, if she really pushed herself. Getting a late start was one thing. Paying for it by skipping meals throughout the day was something else entirely, and spoke to an urgency in whatever she was working on.

  I took a bite of waffle, chewed, and said, as casually as I could, “They had to keep my things for decontamination because one of the PAs who usually helps me around the building suddenly freaked out and started attacking people. She seemed to go to sleep first, while she was still standing up. It was like all the lights went out inside her brain, and she wasn’t home anymore.”

  Joyce put down her fork.

  It was a small gesture, marked mainly by the faint clink of metal against ceramic, but it said worlds. Very little could make my sister stop eating once she got started. I turned my attention to our father.

  “They tried to make her stop, but she wouldn’t. So some of the security officers who’d come to take care of the situation began zapping her with these electric batons they carry. They hit her over and over again, until she fell down and didn’t move anymore.” I didn’t tell them she’d said my name as she was falling. Some things I wasn’t ready to think about yet, and that was one of them.

  “Sal…” said my father, and stopped, his throat working like he was trying to say something else. No sound came out.

  “So security took everyone who’d been in the cafeteria when all this happened—and I mean everyone, they even took Dr. Banks—to the lab level for examination, so they could figure out whether or not we were infected. That’s where they took my clothes away.”

  “They have a test for whether or not someone’s infected?” Joyce half stood in her excitement, hands braced against the table.

  “Joyce Erin Mitchell, sit down,” said my father, his voice like a whip cracking. Joyce gave him a startled look and sank slowly back into her seat, eyes wide. He turned his focus on me. “Sal, honey, what you have to understand—”

  “There’s this one PA, Sherman? He’s always really nice to me. He acts like I’m a guest or a volunteer, not a lab rat who doesn’t have a choice about what they want to do to her. He teaches me new slang. I usually have to look it up to make sure he’s not messing with me, but that’s part of the fun, you know? Well, when they took us all underground to be tested, he failed. He’s infected. And now I’m never going to see him again.” My voice was getting louder. I didn’t do anything to stop it. “And what I have to ask you, Dad, what I have to know, is whether you know anything about this that you’re not telling me. Because it seems like there’s a lot of people not telling people things, just now. And now my friends are dying. I don’t have that many friends. I can’t spare them.”

  My father looked at me. I glared back. We stayed like that for almost a minute, no one moving to break the silence. It was like we were all afraid of what would happen when we did.

  Finally, he stood. “I have to get to the lab,” he said. “Joyce, are you ready?”

  “Wha—um, yeah.” Joyce shoved her chair away from the table, scrambling to her feet. “Have a nice day, Sal. Bye, Mom.” Mom got a hasty kiss on the cheek. I got a wave and an apologetic look as Joyce darted past me to grab her bag. Then she was gone, following Dad toward the garage.

  The garage door slammed hard enough to rattle the pictures on the walls. That was the moment Beverly chose to bump her head against my thigh, eyes pleading for a taste of the delicacies she could smell on the table above her. Like all Labradors, she was magnetically drawn to food, and was an incurable beggar. It only worked once in a while, but that was enough for her to keep on trying.

  This was one of the times when it was going to work. Lucky dog. “I’m not hungry anymore, and they need me at the shelter,” I said. I stood, pausing only to set my plate on the floor for Beverly to lick clean. Then I turned and walked, tight-shouldered, to my room.

  It was that or start screaming. And if I start
ed, I didn’t know when I was going to stop.

  Mom knocked on my door twenty minutes later. Her mothering radar was in good form: twenty minutes was exactly the amount of time I’d needed to stop being so mad that I wasn’t fit for human company. I wondered, very briefly, whether Sally would have needed twenty minutes, or whether she’d been one of those people who had ten-minute tantrums. Maybe she’d gone in the other direction, and screamed for forty minutes every time she got upset. I’d never know. Sally was gone, and I was living her increasingly confusing life without her.

  “Yeah?” I called.

  “I can give you a ride to the shelter if you can be ready to go in five,” Mom called back.

  I paused, assessing. I hadn’t showered, but there was a shower at the shelter that we were supposed to use after cleaning out the puppy cages. I could always volunteer for cage-cleaning duty—something no one sane would refuse to let me do if I was offering—and then use that as an excuse to take a shower afterward. Shoveling a little shit would be good for me. I could use the time to think.

  “I’ll be ready.”

  Mom hesitated before saying, “Sal—”

  The rest of the sentence never came. I heard her steps move away from my door after a few minutes had passed, and I turned myself to the essential business of getting out the door.

  I was lacing my shoes when I realized my bag was still sealed in plastic wrap on the kitchen table. I swore under my breath, shoving a change of clothes for after my shower under my arm, and left my room. I needed that bag. Not just for the emotional reassurance of having my things with me, although that was important. I didn’t want to go to the shelter without my ID, and it was in my wallet, which was, naturally, in my bag.

  Mom was banging around in her office; I could hear her moving papers and shuffling things on her desk, looking for whatever it was she needed to start a successful day of volunteer work. I grabbed the scissors from the kitchen and returned to the task at hand: freeing my possessions from their plastic prison.