Mom was still there, holding her arms around her body like she was afraid that she might fall to pieces if she let herself go. Nathan was standing by the door, holding a cardboard box full of dog supplies, with Beverly sitting patiently by his feet. She always settled down like that once we got her leash onto her; as long as she was promised immediate access to the exciting outside world, she was happy to wait for the humans to finish getting their act together.
Her original master must have worked long and hard to train her as well as he did. But he, like Sally, was long gone, and he wasn’t coming back.
“I’ve got everything,” I said.
Mom jumped, turning toward the sound of my voice. “Sal, I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I said, and was surprised to realize that I meant it. “You’re worried about Joyce. I can’t blame you for that. I’m worried about Joyce, too.”
“I still shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. It wasn’t fair, and I’m sorry.” She sounded contrite.
That was a good start. “It’s okay,” I said again. “I understand. And it’s probably a fight we needed to have a long time ago. Dr. Morrison says feelings of resentment are only natural on everyone’s part. Mine because you’re holding me up to the memory of someone I’m not anymore, and yours because I’m here, and you feel like you have to love me, but I’m not the daughter you raised. It’s probably a miracle it took so long for those feelings to come to the surface.”
Mom blinked. Then, to my surprise, she smiled. “I thought you hated your therapist.”
“I do hate my therapist. He’s annoying and he thinks I’m pretending to have amnesia because I don’t want to cope with the realities of my situation. Also he breathes through his mouth while I’m trying to think, and it’s weird. But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong about everything, just that I don’t want to invite him to dinner or anything.” I looked at her as levelly as I could, trying to pretend this wasn’t awkward—that I wasn’t looking at my mother and telling her it was okay if she didn’t love me anymore, because she’d put off grieving for the daughter that she lost for long enough. It wasn’t working. I didn’t honestly expect it to. “I love you, Mom. I do. I don’t blame you if you can’t love me. And I’m leaving because I think it’s probably way past time for me to be gone.”
I wanted her to argue; I wanted her say that no matter what I did or didn’t know, she would love me forever, because I was still her little girl. Children don’t remember being infants, but parents don’t stop loving them the day that they forget about learning how to walk. I was just a more extreme case.
She didn’t argue. Instead, she wiped her eyes, smiled at me, and said, “Sally would have hated you, you know. You’re the sort of do-gooder she used to complain about being boring and… and effortlessly law-abiding, and making the rest of us look bad. She would have done her best to convince you never to come near her again. Probably by shouting ‘fuck’ at you a lot in public, and then claiming to have Tourette’s if anyone called her on it. I don’t think you would have liked her either, though, so I suppose that’s all right.”
I didn’t say anything. Mom wiped her eyes again, and straightened, seeming to draw strength from some unknown source. A decision was made in that moment. I could see it in her eyes, and I think that she could see it in mine. Whatever happened after this, whether we all came back together as a family or not, things had changed between us.
“Will you be at Nathan’s place?” she asked. “I have the number there. And you have your phone, of course. I’ll make sure that we keep you posted about what’s happening with Joyce.”
I hoisted my suitcase higher, briefly amazed at how little my life weighed. “I’ll call tomorrow, once I’m settled in at Nathan’s.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’d appreciate that.”
And that was that. There was nothing left for me to say to her, or for her to say to me: we had used up all the words that we had left to spend between us. I nodded, once, and turned to join Nathan next to the front door. His hands were occupied with Beverly and her supplies, and so he allowed me to open the door and let him out. Beverly’s tail wagged wildly as he led her to the car. I followed them, not allowing myself to look back until my things were in the trunk and Beverly was safely ensconced in the backseat. Then, and only then, did I look toward the house.
The door was already closed. My mother was nowhere to be seen. I froze, my heart seeming to turn into a solid lump at the center of my chest. Nathan followed my gaze. Then he walked over and put his hand on my shoulder, comforting and solidly warm.
“I will never judge you for not being someone that I’ve never met, or known you to be, or wanted,” he said quietly. “You’re my Sal. That’s all I’m ever going to ask you to be.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. I hugged him before getting into the car. Beverly promptly stuck her nose over the back of the seat and licked my ear. I laughed, and twisted around enough to hug her neck. “At least one of us is excited.”
Nathan got into the car, smiling at the pair of us. I could see the regret lurking behind his expression. Now we had both been rejected by our mothers. “I’m excited,” he said. “I’ve got my girl and my girl’s dog. Suddenly, we are a nuclear American family. All we need now is a picket fence.”
“I’ll see about building one in the terrarium with the Venus flytraps,” I said.
Nathan laughed, and we pulled out of the driveway, leaving the only home I had ever known behind. It had been my decision to go. It was the right decision. My eyes still burned as I watched the house getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. And then it was gone, and so were we, and I knew that I was never going back again.
Minnie met us at the door, her jowls pulled down into an expression of firm disapproval only somewhat mitigated by the fact that her stubby tail refused to stop wagging. She was a solid brick of a dog, with the classic brindle and white bulldog coloring and huge, inherently sad eyes. Beverly lunged forward, pulling her leash out of my hands in her eagerness to go nose-to-nose with her new roommate. I let her go. If there was going to be a problem, it was better for us to find out immediately.
The two dogs circled for a moment, each of them sniffing frantically in their race to be the first to make up their mind about the other. Finally, a decision was reached, and Minnie went trotting off into the bedroom, with Beverly following close behind. Her leash dragged along the floor as she walked, creating a soft swishing accompaniment to the clacking of her claws against the hardwood.
“They seem to be getting along,” Nathan said, setting my terrarium down on the coffee table.
“Yeah, they do. Dogs are like that sometimes.” I looked around, taking in the sparse furnishings and Ikea shelves with a new eye. “Are you sure you don’t mind us being here?” I asked. “I mean, two dogs is a lot to deal with, and you know they’re both going to want to sleep with us, and…”
“Sal.” Nathan put his hand on my shoulder when I didn’t turn to face him, repeating, more firmly, “Sal.”
I turned.
He plucked my suitcase from my unresisting fingers and set it carefully on the floor next to my feet. Then he stepped closer, took both my hands in his, and said, “I love you. I love your stolen dog. I love that now Minnie will have company during the day. I want you here. All right?”
“All right,” I said, and forced myself to smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He leaned forward and kissed my nose. “Honestly, I’m just glad that you’re all right. When your parents stopped taking my calls, I was afraid…”
“That I’d gotten sick? Not yet. I feel fine. Maybe the worms don’t like damaged brains?” My smile turned more sincere, if somewhat twisted around the edges. “There’s the real solution to the tapeworm invasion. Get in a car accident, give yourself some head trauma, and if you survive, you’ll be fine.”
“I’m not sure that would work for everyone.” Nathan pulled his hands out of
mine, picking up my suitcase. “Let’s get you settled.”
Beverly was already on the bed when we came into the bedroom, doing her best to get a thin layer of black fur on everything. She wagged her tail as we arrived, but didn’t get off the bed. Minnie was stretched out on an enormous corduroy pillow off to the side, apparently having decided that shedding on the bed wasn’t important enough to warrant the effort of making the climb.
“Go ahead and make yourself right at home, Beverly,” said Nathan, triggering another attack of the wags. He put my suitcase down in front of the dresser; there was no room on top, since the entire surface was covered by the terrarium where his sundews and flytraps thrived in their artificial rainforest climate. “The top two drawers on the right are yours. I cleared them out the day after we got home from Mom’s.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“We can clear out the other two drawers when you need them, but I thought it might make more sense to just get a second dresser,” he said, mistaking my surprise for confusion. “I wanted you to have a place to put things right away. That doesn’t mean we’re stuck in this configuration forever.”
“No—I mean, I didn’t expect you to already have drawers cleared for me, that’s all.” I leaned over to touch the dresser. “You really meant it when you said you’d been meaning to do this for a while, didn’t you?”
“I really did.” Nathan smiled at me again. Then he sobered, and said, “Mom wasn’t surprised to hear from me. She’d actually been expecting the call. She said that a critical tipping point has been reached.”
“Meaning what?” I asked. I wanted something to do with my hands—I needed something to do with my hands—and so I bent to open my suitcase and start scooping out my clothing. Nathan opened the top drawer of the dresser. I flashed him a smile and dumped my clothes in. I could always sort them later.
“Meaning that somehow, D. symbogenesis is capable of passing information from one individual to another. Not every worm is able to successfully seize control of its host, and not all of them can stay in communication after they do. Some, like the sleepwalkers in my hospital, or at USAMRIID, are effectively cut off from anyone who doesn’t come to them almost as soon as they’re fully in control. But for every worm that takes over and isn’t immediately contained, we have ten more cases to contend with in the aftermath.”
It was like a horrible math problem. I frowned at him, trying to make sense of his words. “So what does that mean? Is that why the people at SymboGen tested me after Chave got sick?” Was that why Sherman, who had been totally asymptomatic until that moment, suddenly showed up on their tests as infected?
Nathan nodded. “It seems that when one of the implants that has gotten ambitious encounters one that hasn’t, there’s a chance the second implant will learn about freedom from the first.”
“But… how does that even work? They’re parasites. They can’t communicate. And sleepwalkers don’t talk.” Except to say my name. The memory was enough to make knots of gooseflesh break out on my arms, pulling so tight that they were almost painful.
“Pheromones, most likely. Parasites have extremely primitive means of communication in nature; they do it through chemicals and by changing the smell of their host’s biology. It’s how they can say ‘food here’ or ‘no room for further guests.’ Or even, in the case of sexually distinct parasites, ‘I’m looking for a mate.’ Humans don’t register pheromones on that detailed of a level, but if D. symbogenesis can make the necessary changes in the host’s biochemistry…” Nathan’s voice trailed off.
“We made them, and we designed them to be able to tinker with our bodies for the sake of our health.” I tossed the rest of my clothes into the dresser and shoved the drawer shut. I looked down at my empty suitcase for a moment before kneeling and zipping it again, without looking up. “I know your mother thinks of the implants as her babies, but Nathan, we can’t just let this happen. How are we supposed to stop them? Can we put antiparasitics in the water?”
“If they were just tapeworms, and just in people’s intestines, it might work. Neither of those things is true. There’s too much else mixed into the genome, and they’re spreading through muscle tissue.”
I shuddered, thinking of Beverly’s owner and the glowing roots spread throughout his arm. “Oh,” I said.
“Oral antiparasitics would lose too much of their efficacy before they got anywhere near the site of the infection,” Nathan continued. “And if the implant doesn’t die, we can’t be completely sure how it will react. We might even make things worse.”
“The human DNA,” I guessed, straightening.
Nathan nodded. “The human DNA,” he confirmed. “And the tailoring SymboGen has done, to suit the more advanced implants to the specific needs of their hosts. That’s part of why Mom has been gathering test subjects. She doesn’t entirely understand the genetic makeup of the more recent implants. She was actually hoping SymboGen’s tinkering might move them away from their expansionistic tendencies.”
“It sure hasn’t done that,” I said flatly. “How fast is this going to spread?”
“Fast enough that we need to be very, very concerned,” said Nathan. “According to my projections—”
I never did find out what his projections said. Two things happened before he could continue. Beverly’s head came up, lips suddenly drawn back in a snarl, and the doorbell rang. Nathan and I exchanged a look.
“Were you expecting company?” I asked.
“Just you,” he said.
We both turned in the direction of the front door. We couldn’t see it through the bedroom wall, but we were both all too aware that whatever was on the other side might not be friendly.
The doorbell rang again.
We shut the dogs in the bedroom before heading for the door. If Beverly was already growling, there was no telling what she’d do when she saw our unexpected guest. I didn’t want her to bite anyone—I knew all too well what happened to dogs that bit—and even more, I didn’t want her getting hurt if she was growling at, say, SymboGen security.
Nathan approached the door, pressed the intercom button, and said, “Who is it?”
“Your sister,” replied a voice. It was rendered anonymous by the intercom, genderless and filled with static. That didn’t matter. We knew who it was.
Nathan and I exchanged a look. “Tansy,” we said, in unison.
Tansy continued: “Did you know there are shrubs outside your building? I guess you’d have to, it’s your building, so they’re probably partially your shrubs, common-law landscaping or something, but anyway, they’re really funny-looking. I would complain if I were you.”
“I don’t actually get to vote on the greenery,” said Nathan.
“What?” Tansy demanded, through the intercom. “It’s not polite to talk about me when I’m not in the room, you know. Doctor C will be really mad at you when I tell her.”
Looking like he couldn’t decide whether he was amused or annoyed, Nathan said, “I’ll take that under advisement, but as you’re the one who started it, I doubt she’s going to be too angry. Now take your finger off the button and I’ll buzz you in.”
“Okay,” said Tansy. The intercom cut off.
“I suppose that’s one solution to SymboGen following us if we tried to go to Mom,” Nathan muttered, and pressed the button that would allow Tansy into the building.
“Won’t they just follow Tansy?” I asked.
“Not if they don’t know that they need to,” said Nathan. “She’ll almost certainly need to be more careful after this visit, but right now, she’s just one more person they’ve never seen before. Anonymity has its perks.”
There was a knock at the door. Nathan leaned over and opened it, allowing Tansy into the apartment. Her overalls were gone, replaced by much less eye-catching jeans and a red tank top. Pink streaks still decorated her pale blonde hair, which she had pulled into short ponytails at the back of her head, but they were somehow less noticeable. And bo
th her eyes were brown.
“What happened to your eyes?” I asked, before I could think better of the question.
“I like that better than ‘hello,’ ” said Tansy. “That’s how we should just all greet each other from now on.” She stepped into the apartment, glancing shamelessly around.
“What if nothing’s happened to the eyes of the person you’re talking to?” asked Nathan, closing the door behind her.
“That’s easy, silly.” She smiled, showing far too many teeth. “That’s when you do something to their eyes.”
“Um,” I said.
“Please don’t,” Nathan said.
“Spoilsports.” Tansy sighed extravagantly. “Colored contacts. One blue, one brown is really noticeable, but brown and brown isn’t, so much. So this is me, being incognito. You know what ‘incognito’ means, right? Is there any fruit punch? I like the Hawaiian kind.”
“I don’t think ‘incognito’ has anything to do with fruit punch,” I said dubiously.
“Ah, no, there isn’t any,” said Nathan. “We weren’t expecting you. Is everything all right?”
“Oh, no,” said Tansy. “World of no. All the no. The Tropics of Negative. Situation is not good, not peachy, and not keen.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess ‘no,’ here,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“Lots of things,” said Tansy. She cocked her head. “Which one did you want to know about in specific?”
I stared at her. Nathan came to my rescue, saying, “Whichever one was important enough that you’ve shown up here.”
“Oh. Well, why didn’t you just say so?” Tansy rolled her matching eyes. “Amateurs. Okay, so here’s the skinny: Doctor C sent me to let you know that now that Sal’s not at her house anymore, SymboGen’s probably going to move on her and try to take her into protective custody, like, soon, since the sleepwalkers are becoming more of a problem. Oh, and we cut a few of them up? I mean, it sucked to do it, since it wasn’t their fault and they’re technically like, cousins of ours and everything, but we needed to know what was in their heads, and that meant that we had to kill a few of them for the sake of science.” She looked pleadingly at me, like she was waiting for reassurance.