The Parasite War

by Tim Sullivan

  In the darkness, he ran from her. But as he moved through the terrain of his nightmares, he always found her just ahead. She was his beloved . . . and he feared her.

  She embraced him, and he struggled, screaming in terror. But as her warmth enveloped him, he succumbed. And he knew that Jo was no longer the creature he had feared.

  She released him and he lurched forward, falling . . .

  And then he was awake. Late afternoon light streamed through the apartment's windows. The room was cold, but he was coated with his own sweat.

  Ronnie was bending over him, stroking his forehead.

  "You had a bad dream," she said.

  It occurred to Alex that he might always have bad dreams from now on. He clung to the memory of Jo—the Jo he had known before her infection. The Jo who could never have led Flash to his death.

  Alex bitterly remembered the remnant of Flash imprisoned inside a colloid, robbed once and for all of the defiant spirit that made him a unique human being.

  Those swirling ghosts were not his loved ones, not anymore. He would go mad if he believed otherwise.

  "Are you okay?" Ronnie asked.

  "Yeah."

  "Can I get you something?"

  "No, I just want to go home."

  Ronnie nodded. While he had slept, she doubtless had been thinking of what he had told her about the people at the armory. He wanted her to go with him, to be with other people.

  "I'll get my stuff," she said.

  An hour later they roared up to the big red doors of the armory, finding them wide open. Riquelme sat on a folding chair just inside with an M-16 propped against the jamb, warming himself at a fire in an iron drum, its smoke escaping from the entrance. He stared in disbelief as Alex got off the back of the chopper and walked toward him.

  "Man," he said, getting up and bear-hugging Alex, "we thought you were dead."

  "Not yet."

  A woman Alex didn't know came out of the armory, and Riquelme said, "Liz, this is Alex." He turned back toward Alex, saying, "Liz joined us the morning after you disappeared."

  "Glad to meet you, Liz."

  Others were emerging from the depths of the armory, no longer afraid to come out in the open now that the colloids and the infected were gone. They gathered around Alex.

  "It is the Prodigal," Samuel intoned, "returned from the land of the wicked."

  Claire stood next to the cassocked prophet. She stepped forward and hugged Alex. "Welcome back," she said.

  Alex said nothing until Jo appeared. She stayed back at the group's fringe for a moment, as if unsure that it was really him. Then she ran to him tearfully, embracing him with all of her renewed strength.

  "You're alive," she said over and over again. "You're alive, you're alive, you're alive!"

  "Shaky, but still alive," Alex said. "I want you to meet a friend of mine." He turned to Ronnie and introduced her to the guerrillas. "I think she saved my life this morning."

  "Let's go inside and talk," said the usually less than garrulous Elvin.

  Everyone laughed at that, and though Elvin seemed puzzled by their mirthful reaction, he smiled a little, too. Alex, his arms around Jo and Ronnie, went inside the armory for the first time in days. Just how many days remained to be seen; he was almost afraid to ask how long he had been gone.

  "We missed you, Alex," Polly said. "Where have you been all this time?"

  "In hell." Overcome by emotion at this reunion with his friends—no, his family—he felt physically weak and exhausted, in spite of the food and sleep he had enjoyed earlier today. It would take more than a few hours to recover from the living death he had endured.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Alex had another bad dream, and as a result he awakened sometime during the night. The room, the CO's office outfitted with a cot, was still. He lay without moving for some time, staring at the ceiling. A sweaty film dampened his face and neck, moistening the pillow. The blanket was on the floor.

  The nightmares would probably stay with him for some time. He was reminded of the years immediately following his military service, when he'd dreamed repeatedly that he was back in the Marine Corps, on his way to some unnamed desert combat zone, where he would surely die.

  What if there were still some vestige of the colloid inside him? What if his victory had been nothing of the kind, but a ruse to make him infiltrate his own people once again?

  He might never know . . . until it was too late.

  Well, there was one person who might be able to help him learn the truth. He stretched his limbs and got out of bed gingerly, bumping around in the dark while he looked for his clothes.

  Soon he was dressed and out in the corridor searching for Jo. The last time he remembered seeing her, she had been covering him with the blanket, just after she had washed his body with a damp cloth and dried him with a towel. He must have dropped off almost immediately after that.

  Alex walked down to the big motor pool on the ground floor. He was amazed to see that nobody tended the front doors. They were closed, but appeared to be unlocked. A few days of peace had made the guerrillas very lax, it seemed.

  He couldn't blame them. There was no sign that the infected would return. They had lived in fear for such a long time that the chance to breathe freely once again must have been irresistible. The colloids and their slaves were gone; if there was an enemy among them, it was Alex.

  Or possibly Jo. Where could she be?

  Alex went over to the south wing and tried a few doors. On the third try, he found a most surprising sight. Claire and Samuel slept together on a mattress, their entwined limbs loosely covered by army blankets.

  Gently, Alex closed the door, hoping that he had not disturbed them. He had missed a few things while he had been gone, apparently. But he found this unexpected union strangely appealing. It was a wedding of science and religion, after a fashion. He chuckled a little as he continued his search for Jo, opening one door after another until he came to the briefing room where they had once discussed the nature of the colloids hypothetically.

  In the glow of a Coleman lantern, Jo and Ronnie sat talking in the large, empty room.

  "Mind if I join you?" he asked.

  They turned toward him.

  "Alex," said Jo, "what are you doing out of bed?"

  "I couldn't sleep. Nightmares."

  Jo looked at him tentatively, as if she had heard something that recalled a memory she had believed lost to her. "Nightmares," she repeated.

  Alex nodded. "Have you had them, too?"

  "Yes. Ever since . . . "

  Ronnie looked from one to the other questioningly.

  "Ever since . . . ?" Alex had to hear her say it without prompting.

  "Ever since I got sick."

  "Me, too." He moved closer to her. "What are the nightmares like?"

  "Like . . . like that thing left part of itself behind."

  "Its memories? Maybe not all, but at least some of its memories?"

  "Yes." She looked very frightened, and Alex put his arms around her.

  "What are you two talking about?" Ronnie demanded to know.

  Without looking at her, Alex said, "We were both infected, Ronnie."

  "What?"

  "It's true," Jo said. "It happened to me first, and we managed to get it out of my system, and then . . . "

  "And then I got it," Alex said.

  "The same one?"

  "Yeah."

  "Wow."

  "Don't worry, Ronnie," Jo said. "We're not going to turn on you."

  "I don't get it," Ronnie said. "I thought that once you were infected, that was it."

  "It's a new strain," Alex replied.

  "You both got infected, and you got better. I can't believe it."

  "That's the trouble, Ronnie," Alex explained. "We don't know if we really are better."

  "Well, you're not trying to kill anybody, are you?"

  "Not yet."

  "Look," Ronnie's pretty face frowned, "would you be tell
ing me all this if you were planning to wipe this place out?"

  Alex felt Jo's body quaking. He looked down at her face and saw that she was laughing. "She's right, you know. Why would we be standing here talking about it in front of her?"

  "It would have to be an extremely subtle form of mind control, wouldn't it?" Alex agreed. "So subtle that the host not only reveals the nature of the parasite to every person he comes in contact with, but even reveals his doubts about being cured."

  "Reverse psychology," Jo said, evoking a term Alex had not heard in many years.

  "Besides," Ronnie said, "if you've got the colloid's memory, Alex, that means you've got its memories of Jo, too."

  "You may be right," he said, hugging Jo. "We'll see if I can dredge it up a little later. Right now, I think we have some catching up to do."

  "Well, I'll see you guys later," Ronnie said. Smiling, she stood up and left the briefing room.

  "'Bye," Jo said.

  As soon as the door closed behind Ronnie, they kissed long and deeply. Both of them knew that it would not end there, but neither of them wanted to take the time to find a more comfortable room for their love making.

  The floor would have to do. Their clothes formed a cushion underneath Jo. Alex rubbed her all over, kissing her. He licked her ears, her face, her breasts, slowly working his way down. At last he found her sex and worked it with his mouth, revelling in her hot, sweet taste. He teased her with the tip of his tongue, until she began to quiver ecstatically. Her shuddering grew ever more intense, and he worked harder and faster, until Jo exploded into orgasm, bucking and writhing with the greatest pleasure a woman can know.

  Grinning, Alex lifted his head. Jo took his face in her hands and drew him toward her, kissing him lovingly. He mounted her then, lying still between her smooth thighs for a few sweet moments. And then he moved, kissing her neck. He thrust, at first very slowly. At last he drew back, his movements almost imperceptible, like those of a minute hand on a clock, and then he pushed his loins into hers, and she moaned appreciatively. Building and building toward his own climax, the tempo faster and faster, reaching new heights of ecstacy with each thrust. They were locked in a sensuous dance that seemed as if it would never end.

  And then it happened. All of Alex seemed to well up and escape through this tiny part of him, like a hot flood through the eye of a needle. It was eternal, exquisite.

  He closed his eyes. And yet he could see, looking down at him, his own face.

  "Alex!" Jo cried, from somewhere inside him. "Alex, I'm . . . I'm you!"

  She was right. He was inside her, too. Seeing with her eyes, tasting with her tongue, feeling with her tactile sense. He knew how she felt at that moment, encircled in warmth with this big man between her legs, secure in the knowledge that she was giving all of herself to the one she loved.

  It was fleeting, but they both knew that it had really happened. There had been some sort of psychic exchange, a visitation one to the other. A brief, unfocussed moment had followed, and then they were back inside themselves.

  They collapsed, gasping and touching one another as if they were both part of the same person. In fact, they both realized at that moment that they were the same entity.

  "Jo," Alex said, breathlessly, "the colloid did leave part of itself in us."

  "Yes," she replied, "but we've turned it into something beautiful." She smiled at him in a way that he could only have described as beatific.

  "It was wonderful." He kissed her.

  "Let's see if we can do it again," Jo said, kissing him back. "For the purpose of scientific study only, of course."

  Alex laughed. "Seems as if it's our duty, doesn't it?"

  "Mm, hmm."

  She drew his face toward her again and kissed him passionately. Alex responded, his heart full of a love that he had never known before, not even toward his mother, or toward Sharon, or not even Billy. This was love to the nth power.

  As they made love for the second time, they went even deeper inside one another than before.

  The third time, they knew that they would never be separated again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  "This is too good to be true, Alex," said Claire Siegel. "Once you two figure out how to schematize the knowledge inside you and combine what you've inherited from the colloid . . . well, there's no telling what we'll learn."

  The guerrillas were gathered in the briefing room, listening intently to the exchange between Alex, Jo, and Siegel. Samuel stood next to Claire, and Ronnie sat in the front row next to Riquelme, Liz, and Polly. Clearly, none of them knew quite what to make of this new development; not even Siegel, though she tried to make some sort of sense out of it, good biologist that she was.

  "Well, we seem to be limited to certain moments for the mind link," Alex said.

  "Oh," Siegel looked a little disappointed.

  "But we don't mind stimulating each other to get results," Jo added.

  Siegel looked puzzled. "Stimulating each other?"

  "You see, Claire, we are linked at the moment of orgasm."

  Dr. Siegel's face registered consternation. "At the moment of . . . "

  "Orgasm," Jo repeated happily.

  "I see." Siegel seemed a little disappointed. "Well, perhaps we can still compile some data."

  "Be glad to help," said Alex.

  Many of the guerrillas were laughing now, in spite of Claire's sense of desuetude.

  "There's more to it than that," Jo said. "We both have dreams, too."

  "Dreams?" Siegel brightened a little.

  "Yes, dreams which seem to be some sort of residue left by the infection."

  "What are these dreams like?"

  "They seem to be about the experiences of the colloids. Mostly about the one that infected us, but there are others involved, as a result of their telepathic network."

  "I see."

  "It's my guess," said Alex, "that they opened up parts of the brain that aren't usually used. They broadcast with these—for lack of a better term—psi centers, never imagining that any of their hosts would escape their domination."

  "And now you and Jo are able to use those centers," Claire said cautiously. "Surely this can be useful."

  Alex shrugged. "Hard to say."

  "Well, at least we can be sure that the colloids didn't intend for you to have this power," Claire said.

  "If it is a power. We still don't know for sure what good it is."

  "Surely the Lord has provided us an opportunity to strike back at the heathen," Samuel said.

  Claire looked a bit embarrassed, but said nothing. Alex was confident that she would remain resolutely rational, even if she were having an affair with Samuel. Perhaps she would be even more rigorously logical, in compensation for his religiosity. In any event, she might not have wanted the others to know that she and the street prophet had become an item.

  "We'll try to find something," Alex said. "But this psychic linkage might not lend itself to a military application."

  "If they don't come back," said Elvin, "it won't matter."

  "They'll be back," Jo said with certainty. "And when they do, they'll be more dangerous than ever."

  The room became very quiet. Alex knew that Jo was right, but he didn't know why he knew it. It was more than just a deduction. There was something left in her mind that told her the colloids were not yet through with the remnants of the human race.

  "What do you mean, Jo?" Claire asked.

  "It's the fourth stage you predicted," Jo replied, looking both frightened and distant at the same time. "They're almost at that point now."

  And Alex knew that it was true. He had been witness to the colloid migration; more than a witness. He had been a part of it, and their purpose had been entrusted to the colloid who had ridden his nervous system. He knew what Jo knew, though it was hard to dredge up the memory.

  "I can't tell you any more now," Jo said. "Alex and I will have to concentrate."

  Smirks and sexual innuendo were no
t forthcoming now. All of the guerrillas sensed that something was happening, something that might be of the greatest significance. They disbanded, leaving Alex and Jo alone.

  Jo and Alex looked at one another, with a far deeper understanding than they could have ever known before.