“Your middle name is Rae, Sally. Sally Rae Mitchell.”
I considered his words. Nothing about them was familiar. Still, it seemed best not to argue with him, not if I wanted to get out of here. “Fine, my middle name is Rae,” I said. “Now will you untie me?”
“What day is it?”
That was the last straw. The anger that had been gathering in my chest blossomed like a poisonous flower, and I was suddenly shouting at the darkness, hoping my words were at least somewhat aimed at the father I couldn’t see. “I don’t know, Dad, because I don’t know how long it’s been since you sedated me! And before that, I had sort of stopped paying attention, since you had me under house arrest! Now will you stop asking me stupid questions and let me out of here? I’m not sick, I’m not a lab experiment, and I’m not happy about the way you keep treating me!”
There was a click. An intercom had just been turned off somewhere in the room. My anger withered as quickly as it had bloomed, replaced by the sudden fear that my rant had been the last piece needed to convince them there was something seriously wrong with me. I couldn’t remember my middle name; I shouted at my own father. Clearly, I had to be sick.
Except that I wasn’t sick. I felt perfectly fine. And I had absolutely no idea how I was supposed to convince anyone else of that.
A door opened in the far wall of what was suddenly revealed to be a small room, much like the changing room that I’d used when we first arrived at the facility. A broad-shouldered silhouette appeared in the light. My father. I couldn’t let myself be relieved—not quite yet, no matter how much I wanted to—and so I just squinted at him, refusing to allow myself to speak until I had some idea of what he was going to do next.
“I need you to close your eyes for a moment,” he said. “I’m turning on the lights, and I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“Dad—” I couldn’t help myself. The word just slipped out, all fear and longing hanging in the air between us.
He sighed. “Just trust me, all right? Just for a few more minutes. Please.”
It wasn’t easy. It wouldn’t have been easy before he pretended to be a sleepwalker just to see what I would do. I still forced myself to squeeze my eyes shut, turning my head to the side in case the lights were bright enough to shine through my eyelids.
Instead of the expected brilliance, what I got was heat, shining on me from either side of the room. Startled, I turned back toward the door and opened my eyes, finding that my father was only slightly more visible than he’d been before. The room was still in almost total darkness, illuminated only by the two banks of UV lights positioned to either side of my cot. They were glowing a soft purple, turning the small hairs on my arms and the pops of cotton on the front of my scrubs an ethereal shade of raver-girl blue white.
“What?” I said.
“She’s clean,” called a voice from the hall, and the UV lights flicked off. The darkness seemed even deeper this time, despite the open door.
“Close your eyes again, Sally,” said my father, and stepped into the room.
I obliged, not wanting to do anything to delay his releasing me. A few seconds later, white light flooded my eyelids, making every vein in the thin skin perfectly visible. I waited a few seconds more before squinting through my lashes, watching my father as he approached.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“You showed us the test,” he said, beginning to unbuckle the strap that was holding my chest and arms to the cot. “We simply put it into a more immediately implementable form.”
I didn’t ask why USAMRIID just happened to have banks of UV lights around their facility, waiting to be used as an early parasite-detection system. They were a major military research center. If something had a potential medical application, I was sure it was somewhere in the building. Instead, I waited for my father to finish undoing the straps, then sat up, watching him warily. He took a step back from the cot, spreading his hands as if to show me they were empty. I appreciated the gesture more than I wanted to.
“Well?” I asked. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
He sighed. “Sally, I know you’re angry, but—”
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Yes.” He straightened, all traces of apology leaving his eyes. “All the patients who survived the… incident… demonstrated clear signs of infection when put under UV lights. So did three of our researchers. They’re in quarantine now, while we figure out how to proceed.”
I suddenly realized who was missing from the room. My eyes widened as I looked at him. “Joyce?” I asked.
He looked away.
I closed my eyes. “Oh, crap.”
“She’s only showing some very preliminary signs. We may be able to stop the infection from progressing, now that we know what we’re dealing with. We’ve started her on a course of antiparasitics.” I opened my eyes in time to see a small smile twisting his lips, utterly insincere, but clearly meant to comfort me. “She’ll be fine.”
“No.” I shook my head. “She won’t. You don’t—she won’t be fine.” I slid off my cot, getting my feet back under myself.
“Sally? Where are you going?”
“I need a phone.” What I was about to do might cause problems for a lot of people, but I couldn’t let my sister die. I couldn’t. “There’s someone I need to call.”
“Sally—”
“You asked me to trust you, Dad. Now I’m asking you to trust me. Please. Isn’t Joyce’s life worth it?”
Slowly—very slowly—he nodded. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get you to a phone.”
They weren’t willing to leave me alone while I called Nathan. I didn’t know how many people had actually died during the incident in the lab, but it was enough that the survivors were edgy and inclined to twitch when anyone made any sudden movements. Dad followed me into the small office, where two armed guards stood to either side of a manual telephone.
Feeling oddly like I had somehow tripped and fallen into a spy movie, I picked up the receiver and dialed the number for the San Francisco City Hospital. An electronic receptionist came on, prompting me to tell her who I was calling and what I needed. I selected the options for Parasitology and dialed Nathan’s extension.
“Please be at work,” I whispered. “Please oh please oh please be at work…” I didn’t have the number for Dr. Cale’s lab. If he was still with her, still hiding, I’d have no way of reaching him. I’d have no way of helping Joyce.
The phone clicked. “San Francisco City Hospital, Dr. Kim speaking.”
Relief made my knees go weak. I grabbed the edge of the desk for balance. “Nathan, it’s me.”
“Sal?” His voice spiked upward as he said my name, tone clearly broadcasting how worried he’d been—and how worried he still was. “Where are you? Are you all right? Your father told me… well, it doesn’t matter.”
I shot a glare at my father and said, “He was lying. I’ve been grounded.”
“Grounded?” Now Nathan sounded confused.
“Apparently, I wasn’t supposed to let SymboGen security into the house. They bugged the place, and so my father put me under house arrest. He didn’t want to risk me saying anything where the transmitters might pick it up.”
“But that’s…” Nathan caught himself. “No. That’s not irrational. I don’t think anything is irrational anymore. But Sal—where are you now?”
“I’m at USAMRIID. I got my father to take me to work in exchange for showing him SymboGen’s test for the sleepwalking sickness.” I took a breath. “Joyce is getting sick, Nathan. How do I kill the implant? I mean, really kill it, for absolutely certain? I don’t think the normal antiparasitics are going to cut it.”
There was a brief silence from the other end of the line before he said slowly, “No, I don’t suppose they are. What are they already using?”
“Let me ask.” I lowered the receiver, not bothering to cover the mouthpiece with my hand. “Dad? W
hat are you treating Joyce with?”
“Praziquantel,” he said.
I turned back to the phone. “Did you get that?”
“I did. And it’s a good start. Sal, tell them to add pyrimethamine and sulfadiazine. That should take care of the toxoplasma aspects of the parasite.”
“I don’t know how to pronounce those.”
Nathan sighed. “I’m sorry. Repeat after me. P-Y-R—” He spelled out both drugs carefully, and I repeated the letters as he said them. When he was done, I looked to my father for confirmation that he knew what Nathan was asking for.
He nodded. I turned back to the phone.
“If that’s the toxo, what about the rest?” The SymboGen implant had DNA from multiple sources, including human. I wasn’t sure what it would take to actually kill one. I was absolutely sure that we would lose Joyce if we didn’t figure it out, and fast.
“Let me… okay, just let me make a few calls,” he said. “Can I call USAMRIID and reach you?”
“Yes,” I said, looking straight at my father. “If you call USAMRIID in the next thirty minutes, you can reach me. After that, I want you to come and pick me up, please. I think we’re going to come and stay with you for a few days.”
Nathan’s apartment probably hadn’t been bugged by SymboGen—and even if they’d somehow made it into the building, the jammers in Don’t Go Out Alone would be able to keep them from picking up anything useful. His apartment didn’t normally allow pets, but they were already making an exception for Devi and Katherine’s bulldog, Minnie. Beverly could come with me, and I’d just take her to work during the day if she and Minnie didn’t get along. The shelter wouldn’t mind. What’s one more dog amongst the pack? I just needed to know that Joyce was going to be okay, and then I wanted to get the hell away from my family, who thought that it was reasonable to lock me up for days without an explanation, lie to me to see what I would do, and treat me like a child who didn’t know how to take care of herself.
I might only have six years of experience behind me, but I knew enough to know that I deserved better than that.
“You and Beverly are always welcome here,” said Nathan.
“Thank you. Hurry?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said solemnly. “I love you, Sal. Stay safe.”
“I love you, too,” I said, and hung up the phone. My father was looking at me impassively, his expression not giving away anything of what he thought. I did my best to look as blank as he did, and said, “Nathan’s going to check a few things, and then he’s going to call me back. After that, he’s going to come and pick me up.”
“And do you think I’ll be letting you leave with him?”
“Yes, I do,” I said, still keeping my face schooled into careful neutrality. “I’m an adult. Fuck the legal guardianship: I can leave if I want to. These last few days—these last few hours—haven’t really made me think that it’s safe for me to stay.”
“So you’ll just go?” Dad’s eyes darkened, his brows lowering until it looked like he was on the verge of scowling. “Your sister is sick.”
“That’s why I’m still here. I want to help. But Dad, it’s pretty clear you don’t trust me. I don’t know why. I think I’ve always tried to be a good daughter. I’m smart enough to realize that after you’ve locked me in my room, lied to me about your own medical condition, and strapped me to a table in the dark while refusing to tell me what’s going on… maybe you don’t have my best interests at heart.” My eyes were starting to burn with tears I wasn’t going to allow myself to shed. For once, I would have welcomed the sound of drums.
“I could have you both arrested for withholding information,” he said. There was a new chill in his voice, a coldness I’d heard before, but never directed at me. It was the tone he sometimes took when he was on the phone with work, or with the men from SymboGen who called to ask if I could come in for tests between my scheduled appointments.
“You can, yeah, but we’re not withholding the information that can help Joyce. I already told you how to adjust her treatment. Do you really want to put your own daughter in jail because you think I might know something I haven’t shared yet? Not because you know. Because you suspect, and you’re grasping at straws now.” I lifted my chin, challenging him. “Is that a step you’re ready to take, Dad?”
“If I knew for sure that you had any information worth having, I would take that step,” he said quietly. “Please believe me. If I let you leave with Nathan, and I find out the two of you have been withholding anything I might have been able to use, I will arrest you both.”
I thought of Dr. Cale and her lab; of Tansy and Adam, who almost certainly qualified as something he would have been able to use. And I nodded. “I do believe you. But right now, there’s nothing else we can tell you. We just know some stuff about the structure of the parasite because Nathan’s a parasitologist, and he got hold of some development notes that actually made sense to him.” That was true enough, and it was even believable, to some degree.
“We have all the publicly available development notes,” said my father. “Why has Dr. Kim been able to make sense of them if no one else has?”
The fact that he was using Nathan’s last name was a warning. My boyfriend was moving out of protected status, and into “potentially useful.” Trying hard not to reveal my anxiety, I said, “He was watching some old lectures of Dr. Cale’s, from before the IPO. Some of the things she said made him realize he was looking at the genome all wrong. I don’t really understand the science, but what he said was that the SymboGen implants aren’t based as much on tapeworms as they always told us they were.”
“We know they contain other genetic material; it’s in the documentation.” My father sounded almost dismissive now, like there was nothing I could say about the science that he wouldn’t already know.
My cheeks burned as blood rushed to my face, hot on the heels of irritation. “Did the documentation tell you the implants contain material from Toxoplasma gondii?” I asked.
The two guards who flanked the phone hadn’t spoken since we arrived. Now one of them jumped, his grip on his rifle shifting so that the gun clanked against the edge of the desk.
I glanced to them and then back to my father, who was staring at me in what looked very much like shock. “Didn’t you know that?” I asked. “You just said that it was in the documentation.”
“That’s not possible,” he said.
“Dad, we’re talking about genetically engineered tapeworms SymboGen somehow managed to convince the whole world to voluntarily infect themselves with. I don’t think we get to call anything impossible anymore.” I shook my head. “There’s toxoplasma in the implants. That’s how they can colonize the brain so well. They know how to do it, even if they don’t know they know.”
The two soldiers were both staring at me now, and so was my father. Something about the weight of their gazes made me deeply uncomfortable. I took a half step backward, putting a little more distance between us. “So what you’re telling me, Sally, is that these worms can get into anyone’s brain, and they were built that way? They were designed that way? Do you understand what that would mean?”
“No,” I said, with complete honesty. “I barely understand what toxoplasma is, except that it’s a parasite that really, really likes the brain, and is really, really hard to kill, which is probably why they used it. Tapeworms are pretty easy to kill, aren’t they?”
“Until they get into the brain,” said my father darkly.
There was something in his eyes I couldn’t stand to look at, and was terrified of understanding. I looked away.
“Sal…”
Somehow, having him say my name and not his dead daughter’s didn’t help. I shook my head. “I don’t want to think about that,” I said. “Joyce will be fine. She has to be.”
He wasn’t looking that way because of Joyce. I wasn’t scared because of Joyce. But neither of us was ready to deal with what that look really meant. Maybe
we were both hoping we’d never have to.
The phone rang. I was reaching for it when my father stepped crisply in front of me, snatching the receiver from its cradle. “Colonel Mitchell,” he said by way of greeting.
There was a pause as he listened to the person on the other end.
Then: “Yes. Put him through.”
“Is it Nathan?” I asked, before I could think better of it.
He glanced my way, pressing the forefinger of his free hand against his lips in a signal for me to be quiet. “Yes, Sally’s here. No, you may not speak to her. Whatever you need us to know, you can explain it to me.” There was another pause before he said, “Dr. Kim, I am speaking as a representative of the United States military when I say you will tell me what I want to know before I tell you anything further about my daughter.”
The next pause was longer. Finally, my father said, “Intramuscular praziquantel? Are you certain?” Another pause. “Son, you’re asking me to inject the patient with antiparasitics. I think you owe me an explanation as to why.”
Please, Nathan, be careful, I thought, locking my hands together to keep myself from making another grab at the phone. Whatever you tell him, you have to be careful. If Nathan wanted to tell my father about his mother’s involvement with all this, that was his decision… but if he didn’t do it the right way, I wasn’t going to be going anywhere with him, and he might wind up leading a military retrieval team to Dr. Cale’s lab before the sun came up.
Finally, my father said, almost grudgingly, “Well, yes, that does make medical sense, and I suppose the risks of intramuscular praziquantel are substantially outweighed by the risks of not reaching the parasite in time. Thank you for your assistance, Dr. Kim.” He thrust the receiver unceremoniously toward me. “Your boyfriend wants to talk to you. Privates Dowell and Fabris will see you back to the main lab when you’re finished.” Pressing the receiver into my hand, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room, presumably on his way to tell the doctors responsible for Joyce’s treatment how to adjust her medication.