by Grant, Mira
“SymboGen more than anyone else,” said Nathan. “What happened?”
“I’m getting there.” For the first time, Dr. Cale’s voice was sharp, holding the snap of authority she needed to organize her own underground lab and control this many people. “What happened, Nathan, is that we didn’t realize the antiparasitics hadn’t worked until I began losing feeling in my legs. It was intermittent at first, just pins and needles. Bit by bit, it turned into a numbness that didn’t go away. It could still have been sciatica, brought on by hard living and exacerbated by stress. I thought I was working too hard. I thought I was getting old. I didn’t think that the antiparasitics might have driven my stolen tapeworm out of my intestine and into my abdomen. He was very clever in what he did and didn’t chew through—instinct is a powerful thing, and he didn’t want to kill his host—but when he reached my spine, he didn’t have anywhere else to go. He was too large to migrate upward at that point, which is the only reason I’m alive today. So he compressed my spinal cord more and more tightly, until the day he permanently compromised the nerves. I collapsed in the middle of the lab.
“My assistants performed basic medical triage, including the X-ray films I’ve posted on the light box for you to study. It was immediately clear that we would need to operate. Adam and I had reached the point at which we could no longer share one body, and while I hated to do it, I couldn’t cede the ground to him. I had too much work to do. They removed eight and a half pounds of worm mass from my pelvis and abdomen. Unfortunately, the nerve damage was not so easily undone. Barring medical advances that I probably won’t live to see, I’m staying in this chair.” Dr. Cale shrugged. “I suppose I’m not the first person to see hubris as an object lesson, but I’ve worked very hard to make up for it since then.”
“Mom,” said Nathan, sadly. “Oh, Mom.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me, now. It was for science, and as long as something is for science, it’s worth doing. It’s just not necessarily worth repeating.” Dr. Cale’s smile was sudden, and very bright. “Now that we have all that out of the way, there’s someone that I very much want you to meet. You needed to understand what had happened right after I left SymboGen before this would make sense to you. All right?”
“Sure,” I said, uncertainly. “This is going to tie back into the sleeping sickness soon, isn’t it?”
“Oh, my dear Sal, the broken doors are open, and we can’t close them on our own. Believe me; everything I am telling you ties back into the sleeping sickness.” Dr. Cale looked past us, into the gloom near the back wall. “It’s all right; you can come out now, dear. They’re ready for you.”
Tansy appeared, leading a young, gangly-limbed man by the hand. He was wearing a lab coat, like everyone else we’d seen since arriving inside the bowling alley. The T-shirt he had on under the lab coat advertised a children’s TV show I’d never heard of, and his jeans were torn out at the knees. His hair was cut short, and his eyes were wide and anxious. He was probably in his twenties, but those eyes made him look like he was barely out of his teens.
“Mom?” he said, uncertainly.
“It’s all right, Adam,” said Dr. Cale, beckoning him forward. “They really want to meet you. This is Nathan, my son, and his girlfriend, Sal.”
“What’s going on here?” asked Nathan.
Tansy giggled.
I looked into the eyes of the man Dr. Cale called “Adam,” and I knew. There was no point in wasting words on asking. “He’s your tapeworm.”
Dr. Cale beamed like I’d just answered a particularly difficult riddle correctly. “Brava, Sal. There may be hope for you—and for humanity—yet.”
INTERLUDE II: NUMBERS
Lies are truth in tattered clothes.
—SIMONE KIMBERLEY, DON’T GO OUT ALONE
Money speaks louder than morality.
—DR. STEVEN BANKS
January 07, 2016: Time stamp 13:22.
[This recording is rough, and the lab is a tangle of mismatched equipment, scavenged machinery, and dented metal furnishings that were likely acquired from some other, richer facility. The camera is focused on a pale woman lying on a hospital bed. An IV needle is hooked to her arm, and her hair does not appear to have been brushed in some time.]
DR. CALE: Doctor Shanti Cale…
[She stops, coughing.]
DR. CALE: I’m sorry. Doctor Shanti Cale, postoperation report. I appear to have survived the surgery which removed the D. symbogenesis mass that had formed around my spinal cord. Only time will tell whether I am going to walk again, but the signs are not currently positive.
[She stops to cough again before looking wearily at the camera.]
DR. CALE: I am making this record because I don’t know if Steven is still looking for me, and something has to survive. When things inevitably go wrong—and it is inevitable; I’m living proof of that—we’re going to need this. We’re going to need proof that someone knew. Someone tried to warn him. And yes, sadly, so far, I have failed.
[She sighs, closing her eyes.]
DR. CALE: Turn off the camera. I’m tired.
[The recording stops there.]
[End report.]
STAGE II: EXPANSION
SymboGen: practicing Nature’s medicine, Nature’s way.
—EARLY SYMBOGEN ADVERTISING SLOGAN
Oh, God. What have we done?
—DR. NATHAN KIM
It wasn’t something as simple as an ethical disagreement: it was a basic division of morality. Shanti felt that the life of every creature she worked with was of equal value—meaning she ranked you, me, and her lab assistants on the same level as her test subjects. Given a choice between saving the life of a human and saving the life of a tapeworm, it was impossible to tell which way she would go. It made her a liability, once we reached a certain point in the process. She couldn’t be trusted.
It broke my heart to lose her. It really did. But given what we’ve turned up in her lab notes, it was for the best. We wanted to improve mankind’s future, and with Shanti’s help, we were able to do that. The thing about working for the future, though, is that sometimes you have to admit that it’s time to stop clinging tightly to the past. Sometimes you have to let things go.
—FROM “KING OF THE WORMS,” AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. STEVEN BANKS, CO-FOUNDER OF SYMBOGEN. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ROLLING STONE, FEBRUARY 2027.
Lies are truths in tattered clothes,
At least that’s how the story goes.
Once you’ve found the keyhole, then you’ll need to find the key.
Don’t be scared of what’s to come,
Don’t forget the place you’re from.
Take your time. Remember, you’ll be coming back to me.
The broken doors are open—come and enter and be home.
My darling girl, 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 12
AUGUST 2027
This is insane.” Nathan recoiled from Adam, who didn’t move. He just looked at Nathan sadly, his hands twitching by his sides. Nathan took a step backward, nearly bumping into me, and said, “You’re delusional. Mom, I don’t know what’s happened to you over the past several years, but—”
“Calm down, Nathan,” said Dr. Cale. There was a coldly maternal snap in her voice. It was the same tone my own mother sometimes used on me. “I’m not delusional. Or did you think I was explaining my research to make my psychotic break with reality a little more believable? I wanted you to understand enough that you’d be able to handle this moment with dignity. I didn’t expect you, of all people, to be so small-minded.”
“I didn’t hurt our mother,” said Adam, attention remaining focused solely on Nathan. His voice had a measured quality to it that was audible even through the anxiety. He clearly needed Nathan to believe him, but he wasn’t able to force the words out any faster than he already was. I recogniz
ed that tempo. It was the way I used to talk, when I was first coming out of speech therapy. His thoughts and his tongue weren’t in accord with each other yet. “I wasn’t in her when the bad stuff happened.”
“She’s not our mother,” snapped Nathan.
“Adam was implanted using the material that had been extracted from me before my first course of antiparasitics,” said Dr. Cale. She beckoned for Adam to join her. He hurried to her side, lurching slightly as he walked. When he reached her, he crouched so she could put an arm around his shoulders while she looked defiantly at Nathan. “Tapeworms can regenerate from practically nothing. Adam and the worm that damaged my spine began from a single egg, but they’re not the same individual.”
“Of course he’s not the worm that hurt you,” snapped Nathan. “He’s not a worm at all. He’s… he’s a clearly disturbed young man who’s taking advantage of… of…” He stopped.
Tansy raised both eyebrows, looking at him hopefully. “Well? What’s he taking advantage of? Doctor C’s well-known weakness for pretty boys claiming to be horrific abominations of science? Or maybe her total willingness to believe whatever dumbass thing you tell her, as long as you make sure to sprinkle it with a bunch of technical junk and go ‘blah blah blah SymboGen is evil’ at the end? Or is there a third option? I love a third option, that’s always when things get silly.”
“The original name of Adam’s body was Michael Rigby,” said Dr. Cale calmly, as if Tansy hadn’t spoken. I could see where pretending that Tansy wasn’t involved in a conversation could make things go a lot smoother, if she was always like this. “He was in a coma, and had been on life support for the better part of six years. His parents could no longer afford his medical bills. In exchange for a reasonable cash settlement, I was able to convince them that their son had work to do, to push forward the bounds of science.”
“You bought their son?” I asked. Feelings of disgust tangled in my belly. I had been on life support after my accident. Would my parents have been willing to sell me if they hadn’t been able to afford my care? And honestly, was I being selfish by being upset by the idea? I hadn’t been in a position to choose one way or the other, and I’d never been the one paying those bills.
Maybe things looked different when you were facing a future with no hope of ever paying off those debts. Maybe selling a son you’d already mourned would stop looking inhumane, and start looking like a way to salvage things for the living.
“I bought Michael’s body, yes,” said Dr. Cale. “He was perfect. Young, fit, guaranteed brain-dead—and best of all, the family was too poor for anything beyond the basics that would keep his body breathing, but too well-off to qualify for state assistance. They were in the gap. He’d never been fitted with a SymboGen implant.”
“That’s like, totally required,” added Tansy helpfully. “The lack, I mean, not the… what was I saying?”
Adam didn’t say anything. He just stayed crouched down next to Dr. Cale’s chair, holding on to her arm like it was a lifeline. His eyes stayed on Nathan, pleading for… something. I didn’t know what. Acceptance, maybe, from the man he’d been told to think of as a brother? Or maybe something more. Understanding.
Nathan, meanwhile, was staring at his mother. “This is insane.”
“Science always starts out looking like insanity, darling; that’s why the phrase ‘mad science’ gets bandied about so much. But what seems like madness at its inception will become the way things have always been if you give it enough time. Look at SymboGen. In a sane world, they would never have been able to get approved for human testing, much less brought their product to the market. But money talks, and people like science that seems just a little bit insane. It reminds them that the future is tomorrow, and that we have a chance to shape it.” Dr. Cale shook her head. “All scientists are mad scientists. It’s just a question of how long you can keep yourself from starting to look thoughtfully at the nearest thunderstorm.”
“So you’re seriously telling me that you bought this boy,” he indicated Michael, “from his parents, brought him out of his coma, and have convinced yourself that he’s actually your alpha tapeworm? Mother. That’s not mad science. That’s just madness.”
Dr. Cale sighed. “I really wish I’d played a bigger part in your education, Nathan. I never expected you to become this rigid in your thinking. Michael Rigby was dead in every sense but the biological one. Adam was alive, and without a host… and I had a theory to prove. Once I was finished with my initial calculations, we took Michael Rigby’s body and prepared it for Adam’s introduction.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that he didn’t ingest the implant. Instead, we opened the back of his skull and introduced Adam directly to his brain. We monitored the condition of both the host and the parasite closely for the first several days, and then closed the patient up and left it to his natural powers of recovery to decide what would happen.” Dr. Cale turned a warm, maternal smile on Adam. “He woke up six months later. My darling boy. My second son.”
Dr. Cale’s smile was warm, but my skin felt cold. Everything about me was cold, like the temperature in the room had suddenly dropped below freezing. I didn’t like the things that she was saying. I didn’t like them at all.
“I had to learn everything,” said Adam haltingly. “It took a long time. Everyone’s been very kind. Mom most of all.”
“Adam’s been awake for almost a year and a half,” said Dr. Cale. “He’s done remarkably well, don’t you think?”
The pounding was in my ears again. “I’m not like that,” I blurted. “I had an accident, and I was unconscious for a while, but I’m not like that. I’m me. I didn’t have to learn everything from scratch, I remembered things during my therapy. I remembered things all the time.” Things like reading and writing and how to put together a sentence. Things like walking and doing basic math. There were things I’d never remembered, like slang and where I went to elementary school—anything about the girl I’d been before the accident—but that was different. Those memories were in a different part of the brain.
I wasn’t like him. I wasn’t like it.
“Did you have an implant before your accident, dear?” asked Dr. Cale calmly.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Then you can’t be like Adam. I understand why you’re concerned—I would be, too, if I had your medical history—but you don’t need to be. The implants are too territorial. There’s no way yours would have tolerated the introduction of a second to its habitat.” Dr. Cale smiled at me. It was probably meant to be reassuring. It chilled me even further. “It would take a miracle for something like my Adam to happen under natural conditions. Tansy is proof of that, aren’t you, Tansy?”
“Right as rain in the middle of a drought, Doctor C,” said Tansy brightly. She rocked onto her heels, and said, “I didn’t have caring parents who kept me on the plugs until a helpful stranger offered to come along and buy me for science. I had a tag that said ‘Jane Doe’ and a deadline for someone to come and claim me before the doctors pulled the plug. Lucky for me, Doctor C came along and managed to spring me loose. Only there’d been a lot of damage, and the girl who’d been me before wasn’t home anymore, so the Doc figured I’d make a great test subject.” She glanced to Dr. Cale. “Did I get that right?”
“A little out of order, dear, but yes, you got the broad details of what happened,” said Dr. Cale. “Tansy was a ward of the state. When I heard about her case, she had just been declared legally dead and was only being kept alive to fulfill a few formalities before they began using her for organ donations. I simply chose to keep all the organs in their original conformation. I needed to test something.”
“What’s that?” asked Nathan warily. He took a step back, putting our shoulders in a line with each other. I reached over and laced my fingers into his, grateful for his presence. If I’d been trying to deal with this alone, I would have been hysterical and crying in a corner by now.
“A
dam isn’t properly a member of D. symbogenesis as the species is currently recognized. He may be the only representative of his subspecies, but he’s distinct enough to be an entity in and of himself. He was able to take over a properly prepared host, one that was already ideally suited to his needs. I needed to know whether the D. symbogenesis worm introduced into the general population could do the same thing. I had no idea whether the implants being handed out like candy were capable of taking control of and integrating with a human host.”
“Can they?” asked Nathan. He still sounded like he didn’t quite believe her, maybe because he didn’t want to. I, on the other hand, believed every word.
And I didn’t want to. Because if they were all true…
“You bet we can!” Tansy beamed at him. “I am new and improved and don’t even remember most of the time that I’m actually an invertebrate in really fancy pants! I mean, when I remember pants, which isn’t always.” She flung her hands up in the air like she was waiting for applause that would never come.
“There were more complications with the newer generation of worms,” said Dr. Cale calmly, once again acting as if Tansy hadn’t spoken. That really was a time-saver. “She didn’t mesh quite as well with her host’s nervous system. Her physical coordination is good, but she demonstrates some neurological oddities that I would have preferred to avoid.”