Parasite

  Feeling awkward, I gave her what she was looking for: “Sometimes we have to do things for science that we wouldn’t have done normally.” Also, I didn’t understand why SymboGen would want me in “protective custody,” but that didn’t feel like a Tansy question. That felt like a Dr. Cale question. One that was best asked in person.

  “Yeah, exactly, just like that. Anyway, when we cut their heads up? Their brains were pretty much intact.” Tansy stopped, looking between the two of us like she expected an epiphany to shake us both, leaving us understanding her completely.

  The epiphany didn’t come. “Isn’t reduced brain damage a good thing?” asked Nathan.

  “Oh, totally—I wish I had reduced brain damage, or at least, I wish bananas didn’t taste like tangerines all the damn time—but this isn’t the good kind of reduced brain damage. This is the kind of reduced brain damage where the cousins are doing less damage burrowing into the brains of their hosts, which means a quicker adjustment and integration period, and maybe even some of them managing to take over without anybody noticing.”

  Nathan blanched. “Ah. No, that’s not the good kind of reduced brain damage.”

  “See, that’s exactly what I was saying! Well. Without the stuff about the bananas, but hey.” Tansy shook her head. “We’ve known for a while that this was possible without surgical intervention. You’d need just the right set of circumstances, and up until now, we thought you also needed just the right genetic template for the cousins. Only these are newer cousins—some of them haven’t been in their hosts for more than six months—and they’re managing to slide right in there, lickety-split. And that’s bad. They’re not seamless yet, but they’re gonna be, if we don’t figure out what’s changed on the genetic level.”

  “As fascinating and horrifying as all this is, why are you here?” Nathan frowned. “Mom could have explained what you’d found when Sal and I managed to sneak away next. It shouldn’t be more than a few days.”

  “She’s here because the implants are teaching each other, and that means that as more of them figure out how to get into the brain without killing or permanently damaging their hosts, they’re going to go on to teach even more,” I said. I barely recognized my own voice. “You only need a few pioneers. That means we need to know how they’re doing it, and we need to know sooner, rather than later.”

  “Exactly,” said Tansy, beaming like I’d just done something exceptionally clever. I didn’t feel clever. I felt small and scared, and not even the distant pounding of the drums was helping me hold on to the scene in front of me. “That’s why we need you to go to SymboGen as soon as you possibly can.”

  “We can’t just walk into SymboGen,” said Nathan. “They’d know something was up.”

  “I’m sorry, was I unclear?” Tansy beamed at him. “I don’t mean ‘we.’ I don’t mean you, and I don’t mean me. Just her.” She pointed at me. “Sal’s going to go in alone, and she’s going to find out what they know and we don’t.”

  “Wait,” I protested. “Didn’t you just say that SymboGen was going to be coming to take me into protective custody soon? Why in the world would I deliver myself to them? And why would SymboGen be coming for me? I’m not at home anymore. They can’t learn anything about what USAMRIID knows by monitoring me.”

  Tansy’s smile faded, replaced by a look of profound sympathy. Something about it made me feel almost dirty, like I was being afforded a level of concern I hadn’t done anything to earn. “You mean you haven’t figured it out yet?” she asked. “I mean, I understand sometimes people have to learn things at their own pace, and sometimes people don’t want to learn things, so they don’t allow themselves to learn them, and all that, but there’s sort of a limit, don’t you think? We’ve been giving you all the answers. You’ve even gone digging for a few of them on your own. Shouldn’t you be a little farther along than this?”

  “Tansy, back off,” said Nathan.

  “What?” Tansy turned to him, opening her eyes in a wide parody of innocence. “She asked.”

  “It’s because of my accident, isn’t it?”

  They both turned to look at me. Nathan looked worried; Tansy, expectant, like I was finally going to do the marvelous trick she’d been waiting for since we met. Nathan spoke first, asking slowly, “What do you mean, Sal?”

  “When I had my accident, I hurt my head. I mean, bad—the doctors said I was legally brain dead, remember?” Nathan didn’t say anything. He just nodded. I continued, “So if SymboGen knows about the implants going wrong—and at this point I’m pretty sure they do; Dr. Banks isn’t stupid, and neither is anyone who works for him—then they have to be looking for ways to stop them. I have brain damage because of that accident. It’s not severe, but there’s scarring. That’s probably the sort of thing that would interfere with the implant taking over, don’t you think? Like a physical barrier against the process. SymboGen probably wants to keep me under observation because they’re trying to figure out how to keep the implants from taking anyone else over. If the implants can’t control their hosts, they’ll just go back to doing what they were designed to do, right?”

  “We hope so,” said Nathan. He adjusted his glasses, the gesture seeming oddly relieved somehow, like he had been expecting a different answer. “SymboGen has definitely been tracking you since the accident. I didn’t realize just how dedicated they were to keeping tabs on you until I started talking to Mom, but—”

  “Wait,” I said. “Have you been in touch with Dr. Cale since we went to her lab? I mean, other than today, when I called about medical treatment for Joyce. I assumed that was where you went when my father couldn’t find you, but I wasn’t sure.”

  “Well, sure,” said Tansy. “I’ve had to let him into the lab twice. Three times, almost, except there was an outbreak and he wound up having to work. I tried to tell him there was no point, since those folks were already symptomatic, but you know Nathan.”

  Nathan looked sternly at Tansy. “I don’t care whether you and Mom have written them off as failed integrations. They’re people, and they’re sick. I took an oath to heal the sick when I chose to become a doctor.”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” said Tansy. She looked at me. “He’s boring. Was he always boring, or did you suck all the interesting right out of him by being all you all the time?”

  “What do you mean, ‘being all me’?” I planted my hands on my hips, frowning at her the way that Tasha frowned at recalcitrant animals at the shelter.

  It didn’t seem to have any effect. “You know.” She waved her hands in my general direction. “All comfy jeans and slouchy shirts and boring hair and ‘no I don’t want to go out I don’t want to do anything I just want to stay home and talk and maybe watch a movie.’ You’re like the poster child for dull.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t feel like falling back into old bad habits. I’ve been ‘interesting.’ As far as I can tell, I didn’t like it very much.”

  “What?” Tansy looked perplexed. “When the heck were you interesting?”

  I didn’t feel like having this fight with her. Even more, I didn’t feel like summoning the ghost of Sally to float around our conversation, judging my every boring thought and action. Because Tansy was right—I might not remember the girl I used to be, but I knew enough about her to know that Sally Mitchell would have taken one look at Sal Mitchell and written me off as too boring to be tolerated. Sally liked action and adventure, fast cars and loud music, and all those other things that I just didn’t have the time for. And me?

  I liked not being Sally. “Drop it,” I said shortly. “What did you mean before, when you said you wanted me to go to SymboGen? What can I possibly find out that we don’t already know?”

  “Oh!” Tansy beamed, suddenly all business again. “Doctor C prepped this thumb drive for you. If you can just put it in one of their computers, it’ll totally harvest the data we need. Only it has to be inside their firewalls, and it has to be connected to a computer
that the network trusts, otherwise it’s a no-go. We’ll get nothing, and then we won’t be able to stop the cousins from trashing the brains of their hosts all willy-nilly and without asking them to dinner first. And let me tell you, a rogue tapeworm chowing down on your cerebellum? Will not respect you in the morning.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “What happens after I get the information? How am I supposed to get it out of SymboGen? From the way you two were talking, they’re not just going to let me walk back out with it. They’re not going to let me walk back out at all.”

  “Let us worry about that,” said Tansy, with a dismissive wave of her hand.

  The drums were suddenly pounding in my ears again, as loud and undeniable as they had ever been. “No,” I snapped. She hadn’t been expecting that tone from me; she dropped her hand and stared, looking utterly bemused. Even kittens have claws. Someone should probably have told her that before they sent her to talk to me. “I’m not going to let you worry about that. If you want me to walk into danger because you’re hoping it’ll get you something you need, I’m damn well going to worry about it myself. I’m the one whose neck is on the line in this little plan of yours. So don’t tell me not to worry. Tell me what you think is going to happen if I do what you want me to do.”

  “Whoa.” Tansy turned to Nathan, pointed to me, and asked, “Where did that come from? I like it!”

  “Do you and my mother both have so little faith in my taste in women that you assumed I’d date a pushover?” Nathan smiled, amusement lurking under his obvious unease. “Sal doesn’t wear her aggression on her sleeve the way you do, but she’s quite capable of taking care of herself when the need arises. You’re telling us that the need has arisen. That means she gets to ask you questions that you don’t want to answer.”

  “Well?” I said.

  Tansy sighed. “Okay, fine,” she said. “Maybe we better sit down.”

  Nathan didn’t have any fruit punch, but he did have some lemonade mix in the back of the cereal cupboard, which Tansy allowed was an acceptable substitute, after he allowed her to add a cup of sugar and a disturbing amount of red food coloring. She claimed that she could taste it. I wasn’t going to argue with her.

  While Nathan was getting Tansy settled in the small dining area, I went back to the bedroom and let the dogs out. It was, in its own way, a test. If my dog didn’t trust Tansy, I wasn’t going to let her send me to my possible doom. The opinions of a Labrador retriever might seem less than relevant, but Beverly had already saved my life once before. She didn’t like people who were out to hurt me. Hopefully, that dislike would extend to situations where the danger was less immediate.

  It wasn’t until the door was open that I remembered Beverly’s reaction to her original owner when he first started getting sick. If she could detect the implants taking over, how was she going to react to Tansy? And what about Minnie—would she respond the same way, once she realized what was going on?

  It was too late to stop them from getting to the kitchen: Beverly was already running full-tilt down the hall with Minnie close at her heels, the duo lured by the seductive sounds of company and dishes rattling. Maybe there would be food. Maybe the food would be given to them. I ran after the dogs, hoping that I could somehow hold them both back long enough to stop them from tearing Tansy’s throat out with their teeth if things went badly—

  —and stopped when I reached the kitchen just in time to hear Tansy’s ecstatic cry of “Doggies!” It was followed by her sliding out of her chair, dropping to her knees on the hardwood, and throwing her arms around Beverly’s neck. For her part, Beverly bore the embrace with her usual stoic good cheer, only the thumping of her tail against the floor betraying her ongoing interest in treats. Minnie ignored her, choosing to head for Nathan instead, sitting down at his feet and looking adoringly up at him.

  “Sal,” said Nathan, sounding surprised. “You let the dogs out.”

  “I didn’t want Beverly to get upset and start shredding your pillows,” I said. “Minnie just sort of came along for the ride.”

  “Oh, is the black one’s name Beverly? What a good name for a doggy! Are you a good doggy? Yes, you are a good doggy, you are.” Tansy kept hugging Beverly’s neck as she spoke. “Where did she come from?”

  “Her owner was taken over by his implant while we were walking in the park,” said Nathan. “Sal works at an animal shelter. She couldn’t just leave Beverly running wild. Somehow, that turned into ‘we have a dog now.’ ”

  I couldn’t help noticing the “we” in his statement, and I approved. “She seems to like you. I was a little worried about that.”

  “Oh, animals totally like me. They like Adam, too. It’s only people who are in transition that they don’t like. They can smell the way the body gets all confused, and it freaks them right the fuck out.” Tansy gave Beverly one more squeeze before rising from the floor. “Funny story: when I was first staggering around trying to figure out how my legs worked, I totally got swarmed by bats. Like, little tiny Dracula-style bats. I’m not sure what they thought they were going to do, but wow, were they gonna do it as hard as they could.” She chuckled. “Little idiots.”

  “So animals only react negatively to people in the process of getting sick?” I asked, giving Beverly a pat on the head as I walked past her to take a seat at the table. “What about sleepwalkers?”

  “They’re still all scrambled. It’s like somebody’s running a big blender in the chemicals that live inside the brain. It’s not until that settles down that animals are going to be cool with them again.” Tansy sipped her bloody-looking, over-sugared lemonade before adding casually, “Not that it matters for most people. I mean, they’re never going to get better, so who cares if the dog doesn’t like them anymore, you know? They’ve got bigger problems.”

  As fascinating as I found the discussion of animal reactions to the sleepwalkers, it was clear that we were going to get utterly derailed if we didn’t get back on topic soon. “What is the plan for getting me out of SymboGen?” I asked.

  Tansy blinked, trying to look guileless. It didn’t work. I raised both eyebrows, and waited until she sighed and said, “Oh, fine. You know, you’re boring even when you’re not being boring. It’s like a gift. So here’s the deal: we have some back doors into SymboGen. If you get in, we can use them to get you out.”

  I blinked. “If you have back doors into SymboGen, why do you need me to go in at all? Can’t you just use your back doors for, you know, door purposes? Like, accessing a place through the door?” I paused, grimacing. “Great, now I’m starting to talk like you. What I’m asking is this: If you have a way of getting into SymboGen, what do you need me for? Can’t you do this more safely if I don’t get involved?”

  “Sure, if all we want to do is fiddle around on the lab levels and not get anything useful,” said Tansy. “We’ve been in and out of there a hundred times. The genomes aren’t being stored in the general labs, and we don’t have anybody who can access the private levels anymore. Not since our last spy went and got herself all sick. I swear, if the cousins understood English, I’d give them a piece of my mind for eating a piece of hers…”

  “You lost a spy to the sleepwalking sickness?” I was scrambling to keep things straight. This was all starting to feel like some big action movie, and I didn’t have a copy of the cast list. Or the script.

  “Yeah, but she didn’t have access to anything anyway, so it’s not like it matters.” Tansy waved a hand, dismissing their lost spy as an inconvenience. “Just about the only thing she ever did right was keep an eye on you, and she wasn’t the only route we had to that, so it’s not like—”

  “Wait,” I said, cutting her off before she could say “not like it matters” again. If I had to hear her say that one more time, she might wind up wearing her fruit punch. “Are you telling me Chave was working for you?”

  “Well, yeah.” Tansy frowned at me. “What, you hadn’t figured that out yet?”

  “Sal,
I know it’s tempting, but please don’t kill her,” said Nathan. “I don’t want to lose my security deposit on your first night here.”

  “How long were you expecting it to take?” I asked.

  “It would be nice if we could hold out for at least a week without any major stains or structural damage.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” I focused back on Tansy. “How long was Chave working for you?”

  “We got her hired.” Tansy ignored my stare as she continued, “We just need you to get in, get into Dr. Banks’s office—or to a computer that’s connected to his computer, it’s not really important which one you use, although you might have better luck if you use his actual personal machine—and plug in the thumb drive. Wait about ten seconds, and then head for the labs. We’ll be able to evacuate you.”

  “And if you fail?” I asked, as mildly as I could.

  “Try to throw the thumb drive under something before they take you down. We’ll find a way to get it back later.”

  I stared at her. So did Nathan. Tansy looked between us, brows furrowing in frustration.

  “What, did you think this was some kind of game?” she asked. “That you could open the broken doors, look through, and decide that this wasn’t for you, so sorry, you were just going to go home and have a nice cup of hot cocoa and not think about it? Puh-leeze. This isn’t that kind of picture book, and once you’ve opened the doors, you’re sort of required to step through them. Doctor C warned you when she first made contact. You knew what you were getting into.”

  “I wasn’t aware that you and my mother were going to begin treating Sal like she was somehow expendable,” said Nathan stiffly.

  “Your mother swallowed a genetically modified organism that hadn’t been cleared for human use because she thought it was important she continue with her work,” said Tansy. Her voice was surprisingly level, all the good cheer and manic instability suddenly gone. It was like she’d flipped a switch, turning off the chipper-but-strange persona she usually projected in favor of something substantially darker. “What in the world would make you look at a woman who was willing to do that and think ‘she won’t send me or my little girlfriend into danger’? This is so much bigger than you are, for all of us.”