I did remember Nathan being oddly concerned about how I’d slept, and asking three times whether I was going to keep my appointment with Dr. Morrison. I bit my lip before asking, “Why didn’t you say anything? You know I don’t like it when people keep things from me.”
“You also don’t like it when I upset you right before you have to see Dr. Morrison, and I’m saying something now,” Nathan countered. “If it weren’t for your medical history, I’d think you were having night terrors—they’re rare in people in their twenties, but they’re not unheard of. But with your amnesia…”
“There goes my medical history, complicating everything again,” I said bitterly.
“I love you, medical history and all, but it scared me. It should scare you, too. That’s why I wanted you to tell Dr. Morrison about the dreams. I know you don’t like him, but you don’t have another psychiatrist you can discuss this stuff with, and it’s better if this is psychological.”
I caught his meaning immediately. If this was psychological, it meant I was still recovering from that first big knock to the head. If it was physical, it could mean almost anything—and very little that was good. “I know. I’ll tell you what: we’ll keep a record of how I’m sleeping for the next few weeks, okay? If it happens again, I’ll tell SymboGen.”
“You promise?”
I solemnly drew a cross across my left breast with my right index finger. “Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”
He actually laughed. “When did you learn that?”
“Yesterday, from a little girl who came into the shelter to pick out her new kitten.” I grinned. “I am full of surprises.”
“Yes, you certainly are,” he said, and leaned across the table to kiss me.
I returned the gesture, although my mind was only half on the moment. I might not understand the gruesome details of my medical history the way he did, but I knew enough to understand that my problems didn’t end with any of the nasty physical side effects that I was being tested and monitored for on a regular basis. My implant had kept me alive. We still didn’t know what that meant, but it did involve waiting, every day, for the other shoe to drop.
Talking to SymboGen about the night terrors—if that was what they were—meant resigning myself to even more therapy, and possibly another sleep study at SymboGen. I could deal with that. If Nathan was worried, I’d be a fool not to be.
When I pulled away, Nathan smiled. “Love you.”
“I love you, too,” I said. “And I’ll talk to SymboGen. I just won’t be happy about it.”
“If you were, I’d start worrying about your sanity.”
“I don’t trust Dr. Morrison.”
“You shouldn’t,” Nathan said, with a wry smile. “He works for SymboGen.”
I laughed, and then the food arrived, and we had better things to talk about.
Nathan didn’t ask me anything else important until the waitress came back to pick up the check. Then he asked, “You sleeping over tonight?”
There was only one good answer to that question. So I smiled back, and said, “I was just waiting for you to ask.”
Nathan’s apartment was in a gated complex near the Ferry Building. He had almost a quarter of the ninth floor, complete with a balcony on the wall that faced the Bay. He had it decorated in what he assured me was an utterly forgettable mishmash of Ikea and bachelor pad chic. It didn’t look like either the sleekly sterile halls of the hospital or like Sally Mitchell’s room, haunted by the ghost of a girl I didn’t remember being, and so I loved it.
But I loved him more. We were barely inside before I grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the bedroom, where the big black bed was waiting for us. Nathan went willingly. I’d been the one to first take our relationship sexual; he was always trying to go slowly, trying to let me be sure of what I wanted. This was what I wanted. This room, this place, this time, and a man who’d never met Sally Mitchell, but who loved me for me.
By the time we fell asleep, tangled in the sheets and in each other, it felt like things would be better. And I dreamt…
When I listened to books about dream imagery—which I did more than I was willing to admit, because I wanted to understand my dreams as much as Nathan did, if only because I was worried about Sally rising from below and fracturing my fragile psyche with her own, older memories—they always seemed to focus on things happening to bodies. Bodies flying. Bodies getting older, or losing teeth, or being seen in public without their clothes on. Bodies everywhere, doing things.
I never dreamt about bodies.
Instead, I dreamt about the dark—the hot warm dark, which was always those three distinct things. It was hot the way a summer night was hot, when the air trapped moisture like a sponge, even in San Francisco, all humidity and untaken breaths. It was warm the way Nathan’s arms were warm, comfortable and close and safe, and the two states weren’t antithetical at all. They were two parts of the same whole. When I dreamt, it was absolutely natural that hotness and warmth would be different things, capable of existing simultaneously. It was only when I was awake that it seemed like a contradiction. And the dark…
The dark wasn’t like the dark in the apartment when the lights were off, or the dark in the street when the sun went down. It wasn’t even like the dark inside my eyelids, although that came closer than anything else did. The dark was. It was entire and eternal, without question, and it didn’t need to be anything else, because there was nothing else that the dark could possibly be. It was just the dark, the hot warm dark, and it was perfect. I didn’t need anything but the hot warm dark, and the feeling of the world’s arms closed around me.
That night was one of the good dreaming nights, where it was just me and the hot warm dark, and part of me was still dimly aware of the apartment where my body lay sleeping in its own cocoon of hot warm dark, the space created where my skin pressed against Nathan’s. We encompassed a world between us. Anything outside that world wasn’t worth worrying about.
Somewhere across the Bay, a boat horn blew a long, mournful note. Everything else was still, and I slipped deeper down into dreams and the safety of the hot warm darkness inside me.
The early success of the SymboGen Intestinal Bodyguard™ line of products can be partially ascribed to canny advertising. Their marketing department hired an actress best known for her work in a series of horror movies featuring a monster modeled off a species of parasitic wasp. Her first infomercial began with her in her original costume smiling her A-list smile and saying, “I know a bad parasite when I see one. Now it’s time for you to learn about a good parasite—one that wants to help you, not hurt you.”
While SymboGen would quickly move away from use of the word “parasite” in advertising material, the early groundwork had been laid, and people were beginning to trust the concept behind the Intestinal Bodyguard™. After that, all that remained was to sell the idea to the world.
—FROM SELLING THE UNSELLABLE: AMERICAN ADVERTISING THROUGH THE YEARS, BY MORGAN DEMPSEY, PUBLISHED 2026.
Little boy with faith so thin,
Little girl so strong within,
I said I’d never leave you, and I’m sorry, but I lied.
If you’re set to pay the price,
Learn the ways of sacrifice,
Leave this world to grieve you, take a breath, and step outside.
The broken doors are waiting, down the path you’ve always known.
My darling ones, be careful now, and don’t go out alone.
—FROM DON’T GO OUT ALONE, BY SIMONE KIMBERLEY, PUBLISHED 2006 BY LIGHTHOUSE PRESS. CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT.
Chapter 3
AUGUST 2027
Iglared at the sheet of paper in front of me. The words that were printed there swam in and out of focus, seeming to actively evade my attempts to understand them. Joyce placed a steadying hand on my shoulder. “Deep breaths, Sal,” she said. “Let them come to you.”
“Yeah, because that’s going to happen,” I muttered,
and kept glaring at the paper.
Learning to read again had been more difficult than learning to talk, and I still wasn’t comfortable with it. Apparently, I hadn’t been dyslexic before the accident. The old Sally Mitchell was a voracious reader. I preferred audiobooks, which didn’t change themselves around when I was tense or tired.
After several minutes of continued glaring, the recalcitrant letters began to obey me, assembling themselves into tidy sentences, which read:
THE PRESENCE OF PATIENT SALLY R. MITCHELL IS HEREBY REQUESTED AT SYMBOGEN INC. ON THE MORNING OF FRIDAY, AUGUST 20TH, TO DISCUSS ONGOING TREATMENT. PLEASE BRING ALL RECEIPTS RELATING TO HEALTHCARE EXPENSES INCURRED SINCE FEBRUARY 2027, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO HOSPITAL STAYS, TRANSPORTATION TO AND FROM APPOINTMENTS, APPROVED SPECIALISTS (SEE APPENDED LIST)…
The words started scrambling themselves again. I stopped trying to read them. There was only so much SymboGen doublespeak I could take at any one time, and “requests” from the corporation were never really requests. They were commandments wearing their best Sunday clothes, and that didn’t make me like them any better. “I think I have everything they’ve asked for,” I said, and thrust the paper at her. “Can you please check the list? I can’t read this anymore.”
“You tried, and that’s what matters,” said Joyce, taking the paper and glancing down it. “It looks like we have everything. Now come on, Sal, it’s going to be fine. This is just your six-month review. They’re not trying to pull a fast one. They’re making sure they have all their paperwork in order and that you haven’t started hiding symptoms from them. This is totally normal, and that means it’s fine.”
“You know, I don’t mind so much when our parents talk to me like I’m six, but you need to cut it out,” I said. “You’re not the one who has to go to SymboGen and get poked at by their scientists for an entire day.”
“I’m also not the one who decided to play chicken with a bus,” said Joyce. “See, this is how a single bad decision can shape your whole life. I’m the good daughter, and you’re a cautionary tale.”
Despite myself, I laughed. Unrepentant to the end, Joyce grinned.
Joyce and I looked alike enough for our relationship to be obvious: we had the same pale Irish skin, the same round faces, and the same lanky frames. We even both had brown hair and eyes. But my hair was a middling chestnut, while hers was a dark red-brown that looked like it belonged in a shampoo commercial. Her eyes were light enough to be almost hazel, while mine basically matched my hair. We both burned in any kind of strong light, but my skin freckled, while hers eventually tanned. It didn’t take me long to realize that of the two of us, she was “the pretty one”—something I’m sure I resented when I was Sally and had to deal with growing up shadowed by a prettier, smarter, genuinely nicer younger sister. Now that I didn’t have any of that baggage, I could appreciate Joyce for what she was. That was nice. If I was going to have a sister, I wanted her to be someone I could like.
She was also a biologist, working with our father in his lab. I’d been going to college for a general Liberal Arts degree—something everyone I met assured me was useless—when I had my accident. Now I seemed destined for a long, productive life as a lab rat. So I guess we were in the same general profession, at opposite ends of the food chain.
“Now come on.” Joyce dropped the paper on the kitchen table and grabbed my hand. “You promised me an afternoon of mindless shopping at the mall, followed by a brainless summer blockbuster and all the popcorn I could consume. This is our sisterly bonding time, and I won’t let you out of it again.”
“But Joyce—”
“Nope, no buts. I was promised commerce and togetherness, and commerce and togetherness I shall have.” She gave my hand a tug. “Come on, Sal. Live a little. Buy uncomfortable shoes and makeup that you’ll never wear in a million years.”
I sighed. “You really want me to go shopping with you.”
“You’d think that would have been obvious, from the way I’ve been saying ‘hey, let’s go shopping like you promised’ since you got out of bed, but yes, I want to go shopping. It’ll help you relax before your review.” Joyce dropped my hand. “Come on. We’ll go to the big mall in San Bruno. They have an Orange Julius!”
“Why didn’t you say so before?” I stood, stretching slowly just so I could watch the impatience blossoming in her expression. Joyce glowered at me. I smiled. “What? Am I not fast enough for you?”
“Stop messing around with me, or I’m making you drive.”
My smile died. “Not funny, Joyce.”
“Oh, shit, Sal, I’m sorry,” said Joyce, immediately seeing that she had gone too far. She leaned over to touch my shoulder, adding, “I just keep thinking it’s been long enough. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll tell you when it’s been long enough, okay? Just… for right now, please, no more jokes about making me drive.”
Joyce nodded, biting her lip.
I somehow forced myself to smile. “It’s not that bad. Don’t American social norms mean that younger siblings are normally fighting to be the ones behind the wheel?” Not that I was that comfortable having Joyce drive me anywhere. According to her driving history, she’d been in six minor accidents and received eleven speeding tickets since she got her license. It wasn’t the sort of thing that inspired confidence. But if I was going to be a good sister, I was going to let her drive me to the mall.
“Every time I think you’re halfway back to normal, you go and say something like that.” Joyce rolled her eyes, distress forgotten in favor of making sure I realized how weird I was. That had been the idea. “You get your coat. I’ll get the keys.”
“I’m on it,” I said, turning toward my room. Dwelling on my upcoming appointment wasn’t doing me any good, and maybe Joyce was right. Maybe commerce would do the trick.
After an hour at the mall, I was absolutely certain of one thing: Joyce was wrong. My feet hurt, my shoulders ached from carrying Joyce’s bags—something I hadn’t volunteered to do, but seemed to be doing all the same—and I was starting to think longingly of the isolation room back at the shelter. It was hot and snug and always smelled like cats, and it would have been paradise compared to the food court at the San Bruno Mall.
Worst of all, the outing wasn’t doing anything to take my mind off my upcoming visit to SymboGen. If anything, it was making me dwell on it more, since the mall wasn’t giving me anything better to think about. Except for maybe going home.
I’d been sitting by myself for almost fifteen minutes, ostensibly guarding Joyce’s many purchases, when she came flouncing back through the crowd and placed an Orange Julius cup in front of me with a grand flourish. “Ta-da!”
I raised an eyebrow.
“What?” She frowned. “You’re supposed to be overcome with gratitude. I hunted and killed that smoothie for you.”
“My hero,” I deadpanned.
“I think you mean ‘heroine.’ Heroes are male.”
“Whatever.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Joyce. I’m not trying to be a spoilsport.”
“Yet somehow, you’re still managing to do an excellent job.” Joyce flopped into a plastic chair, propping her chin on her knuckles. “You wanna tell me why this SymboGen trip has you all fucked in the head, as opposed to all the other ones?”
I sighed, taking the lid off my smoothie and swirling my straw through the thick orange goo. “I had another fight with Mom.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joyce wince. “The moving out thing?”
“The moving out thing,” I confirmed. “Until SymboGen says I’m both healthy and mentally stable, she’s not going to let me move out.” For most adults, “let” wouldn’t matter. For me… there had been a period following my accident when I wasn’t expected ever to recover the ability to make my own decisions. My parents had been granted conservatorship over me until such time as my doctors judged me fully recovered. Until SymboGen signed the papers to certify that I was both healthy and sane, “let?
?? was the only word that mattered. I couldn’t do anything my parents didn’t want to let me do.
“It could be worse,” Joyce said.
“Sure. They could decide not to let me go to work anymore. Or maybe they’ll decide not to let me see Nathan.” I shoved my smoothie aside. “I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for them. I know that. And I know that I have to let SymboGen keep studying me, because we need to understand why I didn’t die. But sometimes I’m just tired of feeling like this is my life, you know? Like this is all I get, and it’s all because of our parents, and SymboGen.”
I stopped, startled by the venom in my own voice. Even Joyce was staring at me, briefly shocked out of her normal too-cool-for-this attitude.
“I…” She stopped, reaching for the words, and tried again: “I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“Yeah, well.” I shrugged halfheartedly. “It feels like there’s no way out sometimes.”
“You’ve been so much better these last few years. It’s like you’re… it’s like you’re happy for the first time in your life. I thought that meant… I mean, you seemed happy, so I thought you had to be happy.”
“I am happy,” I said. “I’m happy that we’re friends. I know from what you’ve said, and from what everyone who knew me before the accident won’t say, that you and I didn’t always get along. I like my job. I like working with animals.”
“And Nathan?” asked Joyce, a trace of her normal insouciance creeping back.
“And Nathan,” I allowed. “I like him, too. I love him, even. So it’s not that I’m not happy. It’s just that I don’t like feeling trapped.”
“I get that,” said Joyce. “Sometimes—” She cut herself off, blinking at something behind me. “What the hell is going on over there?”