Peeps p-1

by Scott Westerfeld

  “So that’s enough?” Lace asked. “A closet?”

  “Like I said, the parasite has to be spread by biting,” I explained. “It’s not like the flu; it doesn’t travel through the air.”

  “Ynneeeeow!” complained Cornelius, and sounds of ratty panic answered from inside the closet.

  “But we’re going to be listening to that all night?”

  “No. Watch this.” I picked up a can of cat food and ransacked the silverware drawer for a can opener. “Nummy-time!”

  As the opener’s teeth incised the can, a million years of predatory evolution was sandblasted from Cornelius’s brain by the smell of Crunchy Tuna. He padded back over to the kitchen and sat on his haunches, staring raptly up at me.

  “See? Cornelius has priorities,” I said, spooning the tuna into a bowl.

  “ ‘Nummy-time’?” Lace asked.

  I swallowed, realizing that I wasn’t used to filtering my cat-to-owner gibberish. Lace was the first guest ever to set foot in this apartment. Between peep hunting and parasitology textbooks, I hadn’t had much time for socializing. Especially not with women.

  The whole thing made me nervous, like I was being invaded. But I kept reminding myself that I wouldn’t lose control like I almost had on the balcony. That had been a moment of fear and excitement in a very small space.

  I was considering, however, putting another rubber band around my wrist.

  “It’s just a thing Cornelius and I do,” I said, placing his bowl on the floor.

  Lace didn’t respond. She was touring the apartment, all one room of it, stretching from the kitchen to the futon squished into one corner. It was the same size as most, but I was suddenly self-conscious. Scoring an apartment in a fancy building had probably dampened Lace’s enthusiasm for slumming.

  She was inspecting my CD tower.

  “Ashlee Simpson?”

  “Oh, wait, no. That was an old girlfriend’s obsession.” Actually, more of an anathema, lately. When I’d tracked Maria—the unfortunate girl I’d made out with at a New Year’s Eve party—to an abandoned 6-train station below Eighteenth Street, I’d brought a boom box full of Ashlee for self-defense. “I’m more into Kill Fee.”

  “Kill Fee? Aren’t they, like, heavy metal?”

  “Excuse me, alternative metal.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. But you realize that having a girlfriend who’s into Ashlee Simpson isn’t much better than liking it yourself.”

  “Ex-girlfriend,” I said, moving around the room and putting away my books from the Night Watch library. “And she wasn’t really… It was a short-term thing.”

  “But you stocked up on tunes she liked? Very smooth.”

  I groaned. “Listen, you can stay here, but you don’t have to snoop.”

  Lace glanced at a T-shirt on the floor. “Yeah, well, at least I didn’t bring my ultraviolet wand.”

  “Hey that was for work. I don’t usually seek out bodily fluids.” I crossed to the futon and pulled it out straight. “Speaking of which, I’ll put clean sheets on this. You can have it.”

  “Listen, I don’t want to kick you out of your bed.” She looked at my run-down couch. “I’ll be okay there. It’s not like I’m sleeping that close to the floor again ever, especially not with an infected rat about ten feet away.”

  I glanced at the closet, but apparently PNS had no comment.

  “No, I can take the couch.”

  She shook her head. “You’re too tall. You’ll wake up crumpled.”

  She sat down, her houndstooth-check coat still wrapped around her. “And I’m too tired to care; I’m even too tired to worry about your pigeon mites. So keep your bed, okay?”

  “Um, sure.” At least the couch and the futon were a decent distance apart. Lace’s jasmine smell was already filling the apartment, making my palms sweat.

  She lay down, coat and all. “Just wake me up before ten.”

  “Aren’t you going to brush your teeth?”

  “I forgot to pack a toothbrush. Got an extra one?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “Man, I forgot pretty much everything. That happens when things scare me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Not your fault, dude.”

  She closed her eyes, and I went into the bathroom, trying to be silent, every sound I made rattling my super-hearing. I hid my toothbrush, just in case Lace got desperate in the morning. It’s not a good idea to share a toothbrush with a positive, seeing as your gums bleed a tiny amount every time the brush scrapes across them. Not a very likely vector, but it could happen.

  When I emerged, Cornelius had finished eating and was eyeing the closet. I knelt to stroke him for a while, building up a good purr. He wasn’t strong enough to open the closet door—but I didn’t want him and PNS yelling at each other all night. As always, I saved the fur that shed from his coat in a plastic Ziploc bag.

  I went to bed in my clothes. Lace hadn’t stirred since closing her eyes. She looked pretty crumpled herself, huddled there, and I felt guilty for having the almost-real bed, and for having blown up her world.

  It took a long time for silence to come. At first, I was too aware of Cornelius purring at my feet and the panicky short breaths of PNS as he shivered in his metal prison. I could smell cat food and Cornelius dander and even the scent of infected rat with its weird hint of family. I could also smell Lace’s jasmine shampoo and the oils in her hair. From her breathing, I knew she wasn’t asleep yet.

  Finally she stirred and pulled her coat off.

  “Cal?” she said softly. “Thanks for letting me stay here.”

  “That’s okay. Sorry for messing up your life.”

  She made the slightest movement—something like a shrug.

  “Maybe you saved it. I knew that damn apartment was too good to be true. But I didn’t think it would try to kill me.”

  “It won’t.”

  “No, thanks to you.” She sighed. “I mean, I always figured one day I’d be a fearless reporter and everything, but your job? Going down into that basement knowing what might be down there? Looking for those peep thingies instead of running away? You must be really brave, dude. Or really stupid.”

  I felt a flush of pride, even though she didn’t know the pathetic truth. I hadn’t really chosen my job; I’d been infected by it.

  “Hey, you followed me down there,” I said. “That was pretty brave.”

  “Yeah, but that was before I knew about the cannibals, you know?”

  “Mmm,” was all I said.

  “Anyway, I don’t think I would’ve slept at all tonight, if I’d been alone. Thanks.”

  We fell silent, and the glow inside me from Lace’s words stayed for a long time. Her smell was intense, all around me, and I seemed to be expanding as I breathed it in. I really did want to get up and kiss her good night, but I don’t think it was the parasite that wanted her. Not entirely.

  And somehow, that made it easier to lie there, unmoving.

  After a while, Lace’s breathing slowed. My ears grew accustomed to the stirrings of cat and mouse. The rattle of steam heating and the rush of passing traffic gradually faded away. Finally, all that was left was the unfamiliar sound of someone breathing close to me. It was something I hadn’t heard since the Night Watch had informed me that any lovers in my future were guaranteed to go crazy.

  It kept spinning around in my head that Lace trusted me, a guy she’d only met the day before. Maybe it was something more than trust. Before the parasite, I’d wondered every few minutes if one girl or another liked me, but it had been a long six months since I’d entertained the question seriously. The fact that the answer was worthless didn’t stop my brain from turning it over and over again. It was pure torture, but in a funny way it was better than nothing. Better than being alone.

  I listened for hours as Lace drifted deeper into sleep, rose up slowly, almost breaching the surface of consciousness to utter a few words of some imagined conversation, then descended again into dre
amlessness.

  Even those sounds faded as I reached my own half-waking slumber, trapped alone inside my head with the rumble of the beast, the hum of the never-ending war raging inside me, the keen of optimum virulence … until something strange and wonderful happened.

  I fell asleep.

  Chapter 12

  THE MASTER PARASITE

  Meet wolbachia, the parasite that wants to rule the world.

  Wolbachia is tiny, smaller than a single cell, but its powers are enormous. It can change its hosts genetically, tamper with their unborn children, and create whole new species of carriers … whatever it takes to fill the world with wolbachia.

  No one knows how many creatures on earth are infected. At least twenty thousand insect species carry it, and so do a lot of worms and lice. That’s trillions of carriers as far as we know. And every new place scientists look, they find more.

  So, do you have to worry about wolbachia? We’ll get back to that later.

  Here’s the strangest thing about wolbachia: No living creature has ever been infected with it. That’s right, you don’t catch wolbachia; you are born with it.

  Huh?

  You see, wolbachia is like one of those scrawny supervillains with a big brain. Wolbachia is a wimp: It can never leave its host’s body, not even in a drop of blood. At some point in its evolutionary history, wolbachia gave up the whole jumping-between-creatures thing and adopted a strategy of staying in safe territory—it spends its whole life inside one host.

  So how does it spread? Very cunningly. Rather than risk the outside world, wolbachia infects new carriers before they’re born. That’s right: Every infected creature gets the disease from its own mother.

  But what happens when wolbachia is born into a male host? Males can’t have children, so they’re a dead end for the infection, right?

  This is the evil genius part.

  In many insect species, wolbachia scrambles its male hosts’ genes with a secret code. Only other wolbachia (living inside a female) know how to decode the genes and make them work right. So when an infected insect tries to mate with a healthy one, the kids are born with horrible mutations, and they all die.

  Over hundreds of generations of breeding only with one another, the infected insects slowly evolve into a new species. This species is one hundred percent infected with wolbachia and dependent on its own parasite to have children. (Insert evil laugh here.)

  And this isn’t wolbachia’s only species-altering trick.

  In some kinds of wasps, wolbachia has an even more power-crazed solution to the male problem. It simply changes all its host’s unborn children into females. No boys ever get born. Then wolbachia gives these females a special power: They can have kids without mating. And of course, all of those kids are born female too. In other words, males become completely irrelevant. Because of wolbachia, some species of wasp have become entirely female. All the boys are dead.

  In fact, some scientists believe that wolbachia’s tricks may be responsible for creating a big chunk of the insect and worm species on our planet. Some of those species, like parasitic wasps, go on to infect other creatures. (That’s right, even parasites have parasites. Isn’t nature wonderful?) In this way, wolbachia is slowly remaking the world in its own image; without ever leaving the safety of home.

  So what about you? You’re not an insect or a worm. Why worry about wolbachia?

  Meet the filarial worm, a parasite that infects biting flies. It happens to be one of wolbachia’s big success stories. All of these worms are infected. If you “cure” a filarial worm with antibiotics, it can’t have kids anymore. It’s dependent on its own parasites—one of many species genetically engineered to be wolbachia carriers.

  So what happens when a fly infected with filarial worms bites you? The worms crawl into your skin and lay eggs there. The eggs hatch, and the babies swim around in your bloodstream, some of them winding up in your eyeballs. Fortunately, the baby worms don’t hurt your eyes. Unfortunately, the wolbachia they carry sets off a red alert in your immune system. Your own immune system attacks your eyeballs, and you go blind.

  Why does wolbachia do this? What is its evolutionary strategy in blinding human beings?

  No one knows. One thing is for sure, though: Wolbachia wants to rule the world.

  Chapter 13

  HOPEFUL MONSTERS

  “Dude, get up.”

  My brain came awake slowly, appalled at the interruption of its first real sleep in ages. Then I smelled Lace’s jasmine hair, heard Cornelius’s claws scratching the closet door, felt the rat’s infection in the air… and all of yesterday’s memories crashed into place.

  There was a deadly reservoir bubbling to the surface near the Hudson River. The parasite had jumped to a new vector species. I had betrayed the Night Watch, risking civilization as I knew it. And the most important thing? For the first time in six months I had spent the night with a girl, if only in the most narrow, technical sense.

  Suddenly, I was awake, and feeling pretty decent.

  “Come on, dude,” Lace said, stabbing my shoulder with the toe of her shoe. “I’ve got class, but I want to show you something.”

  “Okay.” I pulled myself from the bed, eyes gummy, my slept-in clothes clinging to me. Lace had already showered and changed, and a wondrous smell filled the apartment, even more wondrous than hers. “Is that coffee?”

  She handed me a cup, smiling. “You got it, Sherlock. Man, you sleep like a dead dog.”

  “Huh. Guess I needed it.” I gulped the coffee, strong and welcome, while crossing to the fridge and pulling out a package of emergency franks. My parasite was screaming for meat, having missed out on its usual midnight snacks. I ripped the plastic open and shoved a cylinder of cold flesh in my mouth.

  “Whoa,” Lace said. “Breakfast of crackheads.”

  “Hungry.” It came out muffled through the half-chewed meat.

  “Whatever wakes you up.” Lace sat at the tiny table that separated the kitchen from my living room and pointed to a piece of paper on it.

  Cornelius was screaming for food, winding around my feet. On autopilot, I opened a can.

  “So I got this out of your coat pocket,” Lace said. “And I noticed something weird.”

  “Wait. You did what?” I looked over her shoulder—spread across the table were the building plans Chip had printed for me. “You went through my pockets?”

  “It was sticking out, dude. Besides, you and I have no secrets now.” She shuddered. “Except that food; close your mouth while chewing.”

  I did, managing a necessary swallow.

  “This is the basement of my building, right?” Lace continued. “No, don’t open your mouth. I know it is.” She stabbed at one corner of the printout. “And this is the rat pool below the health club. Did you get these plans from city records?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Very interesting. Because they don’t match reality. They don’t show a swimming pool at all.”

  I swallowed. “You know how to read blueprints?”

  “I know how to do research—and how to read.” Her fingers traced a grid of little squares that filled one corner of the page. Next to it, the words Storage Units were neatly written. “See? No pool.”

  I studied the plans silently for a moment—remembering what Chip had said the day before. The pool was a few yards deep, just deep enough to reach the Underworld. Because someone had added a swimming pool, Morgan had been infected. Then me and Sarah and Maria …

  “A simple little change,” I said softly. “How ironic.”

  “Dude, screw irony. I just wanted you to see how clever we journalism students are.”

  “You mean how snoopy you are.”

  Lace just grinned, then ran her eyes across my crumpled clothes and up-sticking hair. “Dude, you are bed-raggled.”

  “I’m what?”

  “Bed-raggled. You know, you’re all raggled from being in bed.”

  The gears in my head moved slowly. “Um
, isn’t it bedraggled?”

  “Yeah, no kidding. But my version makes more sense, you know?” Lace checked the time on her phone. “Anyway, I’ve got to run.” She swept up her bag from the table and headed for the door. Opening it, she turned back to face me.

  “Oh, I don’t have any keys to this place.”

  “Right. Well, I might get back pretty late tonight—I’m already behind schedule today.” I cleared my throat, pointing at the fruit crate by the door. “There’s an extra set in that coffee can.”

  Lace stuck her fingers into the can, rummaging through laundry quarters until she pulled out a ring of keys.

  “Okay. Thanks. And, um, see you tonight, I guess.”

  I smiled. “See you tonight.”

  She didn’t move for a moment, then shuddered. “Wow, all the discomfort of a one-night stand, with none of the sex. Later, dude.”

  The door slammed shut as I stood there, wondering what exactly she’d meant by that. That she was uncomfortable with me? That she hated being here?

  That she’d wanted to have sex the night before?

  Then I realized something else: I had trusted the biggest secret in the world to this woman, and I didn’t even know her last name.

  “There’s actually a form for that?”

  “Well, not for cats specifically.” Dr. Rat tapped a few keys on her computer. “But yeah, here it is. ZTM-47/74: Zootropic Transmission to New Species.” She pressed a button, and her printer whirred to life.

  I blinked. I had imagined a citywide Watch alert, an extermination team scrambling and heading for the West Side, maybe even a meeting with the Night Mayor. Not a one-page form.

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “Look, it says, ‘Process immediately’ at the top. That’s not nothing.”

  “But…”

  “What are so you worried about, Kid? You secured the site, didn’t you?”

  “Um, of course. But does this happen a lot? A whole new species getting infected?”