Symbiont (Parasitology Book 2)

by Grant, Mira

  I suppose I should have expected that. Dr. Cale’s people were among the best in the world, and had been even before the population of the world started to drop precipitously. But they didn’t all share her “a person’s a person” attitude toward the chimera, or her sympathy toward the sleepwalkers, who had, after all, not asked to be designed with dangerously high levels of human DNA. I was starting to worry that she would have a mutiny on her hands before too much longer. What felt like half her technicians didn’t want to broker a peace between the two sides: they wanted to wipe the other side out completely, sweeping the slate clean and creating a world where allergies and autoimmune disorders would return to their proper place in the human body, rather than being suppressed by tapeworms that could turn traitor at any moment.

  It was sort of hard to blame them for that. I probably wouldn’t have been too thrilled at the idea of harboring my own replacement.

  The elevator stopped two floors down from our living quarters, and the doors opened on a sugar-scented, candy-colored wonderland. As always, the sight of the party level sent my train of thought spinning out of control, replaced by a strong desire to run laughing through the cookie garden until the Buttercream Fairy appeared and told me to stop. I glanced to the side. Nathan was grinning at me again.

  “I just really like it here,” I said defensively.

  “I just really like it when you’re happy,” he said, laughing, and stepped out of the elevator, leaving me with little choice but to follow him.

  The party level had been designed to be managed by no more than six staff members, but had been subdivided into enough small grottos and private rooms that it was impossible to tell how many people were there at any given time. The elevator opened into the arrival area, which smelled like jelly beans and gumdrops and didn’t have a specific “candy” theme apart from “dentists are the enemy.” The randomly changing candy scents made meals an occasionally interesting experience, since this was also the only place in the building that was properly set up as a dining area. There was a cafeteria, but it was small and gray and depressing, and pretty much all of us preferred to eat in the cookie garden.

  The smell of bacon wafted from what used to be the sticky toffee oasis, but had become the main station for fried meats in the morning and hot soup in the afternoon, thanks to its plethora of heat lamps and electrical outlets. According to the flyers in the old manager’s office, the sticky toffee oasis had been the only party destination to offer fondue as an option for the birthday boy or girl. I wasn’t really sure why anyone would want to eat toffee-flavored fondue on the steps of a plywood and plaster pyramid. Clearly, my lack of a human childhood had warped me in some way.

  Daisy was on duty at the hot bar when Nathan and I came around the corner. He got a bright smile, which faded somewhat as her eyes focused on me. “Good morning, Nathan,” she said. “Sal.”

  “Morning, Daisy.” I picked up a plate. “Nathan said there were waffles?”

  “Third tray,” she said, pointing with her tongs before refocusing her smile on Nathan. It got even brighter, if that was possible. “I saved you some ham. It’s from the freezer we found last week, so we know it’s good.”

  “Mmm, ham,” said Nathan. “Did you know that most natural tapeworm infections in the United States came from undercooked pork before we started importing our produce from South America? Salad tainted with human feces turned out to be an excellent transmission method for the infection.”

  Daisy blanched, looking faintly nauseated. “Is that your way of saying you don’t want any ham?”

  “I try to avoid pork as a rule.” Nathan picked up a plate of his own. “Breakfast potatoes?”

  “That, I can do,” said Daisy, looking relieved. She opened the second of the silver serving platters and spooned a heaping pile of potatoes onto Nathan’s plate. “The fruit is down at the end.”

  “I know my way around the hot bar,” said Nathan, with a smile that came nowhere near hers, for brightness, but was kind, which was really more than I would have given her. “Thanks for breakfast.”

  “Thanks for eating,” said Daisy. Her blanch became a blush. “I mean, let me know if you want any orange juice.”

  “Okay.”

  I took my plate of waffles and previously frozen berries, stopped in front of Daisy long enough to take the ham Nathan had refused—it wasn’t like it could give me a tapeworm, since the chemicals I released into Sally’s body as part of claiming it as my own prevented any other parasitic infection from taking root—and flashed her a toothy smile before I turned and followed Nathan deeper into the party floor, looking for a table.

  He finally settled at an empty picnic table that had been painted to look like it contained our recommended daily allowance of chocolate chips. I slid into a seat across from him. The waffles were pretty good, especially considering that it had been made with condensed milk—we had chickens, even a few goats, but no cows. That would have required more arable land than we could create with potting soil and fences.

  Captain Candy’s had been designed to serve three disparate purposes: tourism, research, and food production. It still served three purposes. They just weren’t what the original architects had had in mind. The wonderland areas were still mostly intact, used as social space and meeting areas. The research and development labs had been repurposed into living space, with some people choosing to paint the walls white and others—like Nathan and myself—choosing to keep them primary colored and comforting. No one’s ever come up with a universal color scheme for the apocalypse, and if ours wanted to come in neon and peppermint stripe, well. That was okay.

  The real factory level was being used for research, development, and all the things that went with having a team of working scientists rather than a bunch of independent researchers. I stayed out of there as much as I could. It wasn’t that people were unfriendly—for the most part, they were perfectly nice, if a little distant and occasionally wary of my nonhuman status—it was just that I didn’t understand anything that was going on there, and I had long since learned to keep a safe distance from what I didn’t comprehend. Call it the last great survival strategy.

  The false factory was located on the second floor, which had been divided into two levels by some cunning tricks of interior design and elevator programming. The first level was a walkway made of plastic-coated steel gridding surrounded by a clear, waist-high plastic guardrail. It was completely wheelchair accessible, all long, gentle turns and shallow ramps as it made its way around the room, taking the most circuitous path possible. The elevator always stopped there first no matter how the buttons were pushed, since that was where the tourists were supposed to get off, and then continued down to the actual work level.

  Once, the view beneath the walkway would have been all colorful, impractical machinery being tended by men and women in neon scrubs, with perpetual smiles plastered across their faces. No facial hair, pregnancies, or visible tattoos were allowed in the tourist factory, although all three were tolerated and even encouraged in the real Captain Candy. The good Captain didn’t care what you looked like, as long as you came to work and did your job the way that you were told to. The Captain’s PR department was a little more fixated on appearances, and they insisted that he run a tight ship, if only to keep those birthday dollars rolling through the door.

  I think I would have liked Captain Candy. You know. If he’d actually been a real person, and if he’d managed to survive the rise of the SymboGen implants with his mind and his humanity intact.

  The view from above had changed considerably since the factory switched hands, even if it all still belonged to the corporation on paper. The colorful machines were still there, but most of them had been gutted for whatever useful parts they happened to contain, and then left open to the air as they were converted into planters or small habitats for the less free-range inhabitants of our private indoor farm and animal sanctuary. The neon uniforms were long gone, along with the people who used to we
ar them. Instead, an observer would find Dr. Cale’s assistants moving between the machines, most of them wearing T-shirts or tank tops and jeans, a few with dirty white lab coats thrown over the top, as if to say, “I’m working in an indoor farm, but I’m still a scientist; I will always be a scientist.” The number of lab coats had dwindled even in the weeks since I’d come to the factory, as people realized that maybe some trappings of the old world were less important to hang on to than others.

  We were building a world, one piece at a time. It was a small world, and a strangely dysfunctional one, but it was one where we could be relatively safe, and relatively happy, and maybe find a way to save the human race. If we were lucky, and we worked hard enough—which meant science for most of the people around me, and farming and taking care of the animals for the people like me, who had connections to the science community without being part of it—there was still a chance that we could find a way for everyone to live in peace. All we had to do was stop the cousins from taking over their hosts, and stop the humans from killing all the sleepwalkers and chimera who had already resulted from those takeovers. The sleepwalkers were bitey, but maybe they could still be helped, if we could just keep them alive.

  It didn’t even sound easy. I put my fork down and looked glumly at the smears of syrup and berry juice that remained on my plate. Across from me, Nathan kept eating. He knew that whatever was bothering me, I’d share it eventually, and he needed to pack in as many calories as possible before his shift in the lab started. There was no eating allowed near the active cultures, for fear of contamination.

  Footsteps on the faux stone pathway behind us caught both of our attention. I turned in my seat while Nathan raised his head. Daisy was standing in the doorway to the area, eyes wide, a slightly poleaxed expression on her round, normally friendly face.

  “You’re both needed downstairs,” she said without preamble.

  “I’m not on duty for another thirty minutes,” said Nathan.

  “I know.” Daisy sounded frustrated. “But like I said, we need you both, and right now there’s no such thing as being off duty, because we have a situation. Sal is required, and you’re not going to let her go out alone.”

  “Why won’t he let me go alone?” I asked, bemused. “What kind of situation means I can’t go out alone?” The unconscious echo hit me an instant later, and a thin worm of panic writhed in my stomach. Everyone here at Dr. Cale’s lab was steeped in the mythology of an obscure, out of print children’s book, and from us, those words meant something very concrete.

  Daisy looked at me solemnly, an uncharacteristic reserve in her mossy green eyes. “Dr. Banks is here,” she said. “He’s asking for you.”

  The transfer of genetic materials was complete at 6:52 p.m. on October 18, 2027. The selected donor, a lab assistant originally attached to the tissue rejection research team, was put under twilight sedation but remained conscious and able to respond to stimulus. All remained normal within the subject area for approximately forty-five minutes, following which the donor began to experience confusion, disorientation, and some pain. This continued for approximately fifteen minutes. Pertinent parts of her final words have been captured and attached to this document.

  The donor lost consciousness for the first time at 9:01 p.m. on October 18, 2027. She regained consciousness once, for approximately three minutes. Consciousness was lost for the final time at 11:57 p.m. The subject awoke the following morning at 5:13 a.m., seeming fully integrated with the nervous system and mind of its new host. All medical readings and records have been attached.

  Things are going to be different now.

  –FROM THE NOTES OF DR. STEVEN BANKS, SYMBOGEN, OCTOBER 2027

  >> Yes, I can hear you, Dr. Banks. Thank you. I’m very comfortable. Thank you. I believe the drugs are working. I feel… light. Like there’s nothing holding me down. Is something holding me down?

  >> I can hear the bone saw. It’s very loud. Bone conduction is funny.

  >> Did you put something inside the incision? I think you may have left something inside the incision. It feels like something is pushing on me. Like there’s pressure where pressure isn’t supposed to… isn’t supposed to… oh.

  >> My mother took me to the carnival once. It was in a field. Just a field. Most of the time it was full of cows and grass and now it was full of magic. Everything was magic. I said I wanted to be a carnival girl. She said no, be a scientist, make something of yourself… I’m cold. I’m cold.

  >> It hurts.

  >> It hurts.

  >> [screaming]

  >> [screams continue]

  >> I don’t… I don’t… I can’t… I’m not…

  >> Where am I let me out I want to go home I can’t—

  >> [barely audible] I’m still in here. Let me out. I’m still here.

  –THE FINAL WORDS OF CLAUDIA ANDERSON, AS TRANSCRIBED BY DR. MICHAEL KWAN, SYMBOGEN, OCTOBER 18, 2027

  Chapter 12

  NOVEMBER 2027

  Daisy fidgeted as the elevator slid down into the bowels of the factory, plucking at the hems on her sleeves and casting sidelong glances at me and at Nathan, like she thought we had somehow been struck blind by the discovery that Dr. Banks had managed to find us. It wasn’t like Captain Candy’s was a natural place to conceal an underground biotech lab. If he’d located us here, he must have spent quite a lot of time and effort on looking. He had to have a reason.

  I leaned against Nathan’s side, trying to calm my breathing, or at least get the frantic pounding of my heart under control. In that moment, I would almost have welcomed Sherman and his weird biomechanical control. At least then I wouldn’t have felt so much like I was on the verge of losing consciousness.

  The elevator dinged as it reached the ground floor lobby. I stepped forward, almost bopping my nose on the opening doors in my eagerness to get out of that small, tight space full of questions and uncertainties. I wasn’t in a hurry to see Dr. Banks—I was never going to be in a hurry to see him—but in that moment, anything would have been better than staying where I was and trying to figure out how this was making me feel. I didn’t know how it was making me feel. No, that wasn’t right: it made me angry. All of this made me angry, and that was what I didn’t know. I didn’t know how to deal with the anger. I didn’t know how to handle the sheer feeling of betrayal that came with the thought of seeing him again.

  I was going to need to figure things out, and fast. There were five figures waiting for us at the front of the Captain Candy Chocolate Factory lobby, outlined by the early morning sun that slanted in through the big glass windows. The boards nailed up to protect us from sleepwalkers only extended about eight feet up from the floor; there was plenty of light. People moved outside the glass, nailing the boards back into place. There must have been another attack while we were sleeping.

  That got more common every day.

  Even with them reduced to nothing more than silhouettes, I could tell who four of the five people in the lobby were. The low-slung figure in the wheelchair was Dr. Cale, and the two men who flanked her were Fishy and Fang, recognizable by outline alone. One of the figures, a willowy female, was unfamiliar to me. And the fifth…

  The fifth was one of the first people I remembered, one of the first humans to sit down with me and tell me I didn’t have to be defined by my accident and my memory loss, that I could learn to be a full, productive member of society despite the way my life had changed. He’d been lying all along, of course—he’d known exactly what I was, and that each of the skills I learned would be learned for the very first time—but he’d always known what to say to get me to come around. Even later, when I’d started to chafe against SymboGen’s pseudo-parental treatment of me almost as much as I’d been chafing against Sally’s parents, he’d always known what to say. After all, he was one of the people who had created me.

  But he couldn’t talk me into taking a job at SymboGen, even when he tried his best, and he hadn’t convinced me not to steal the data Dr.
Cale had asked me to get for her. Maybe he didn’t know me as well as I thought he did.

  I wondered what he thought as he saw me walking slowly across the lobby toward him, with Nathan by my side. Did he look at me and see a woman, stronger than she used to be and only a little weaker than she had the potential to become, who had survived the apocalypse and the discovery that she wasn’t even the species she’d always believed herself to be? Or did he see the broken girl he’d worked so hard to keep under his control, the experiment gone horribly right and taking its first steps out into the world? And did it matter? Sally Mitchell was gone. This body was mine. Not hers, not anyone else’s, not ever again. I was even suddenly grateful for Sherman’s unasked-for haircut, because it was something Sally would never have done to herself. I looked like someone else. I was someone else.

  And then I got close enough to see the bright, paternal smile on Dr. Banks’s face, and I was just Sal again, dressed in a paper gown and waiting to be told that it was time for cookies and juice.

  “Sally,” he said, and while the name he used wasn’t mine, I couldn’t deny the reality of his relief. He sounded like a man who had just discovered that Christmas wasn’t canceled after all. “You really made it. I’d heard rumors, but I wasn’t sure.”

  “No thanks to you,” said Nathan. “What is he doing here, Mother?”

  “Manners, Nathan; Dr. Banks is our guest, at least for the moment,” said Dr. Cale. “He may be our prisoner in a little while. I haven’t decided yet. You’ve met my son, haven’t you, Steven? Oh, what was I thinking? You were having him monitored by SymboGen security. Of course you’ve met my son, even if I wasn’t always sure he’d met you.”

  “Hello, Dr. Banks,” I said. I kept my eyes on his face, not letting myself look at the interplay between Nathan and Dr. Cale. They didn’t matter as much as he did. Not in this moment. “You made it too. I thought you’d have been arrested for crimes against humanity by now.”