Mira Grant - Symbiont

“I asked her lab staff about biological interfaces and statistical probability. I asked her technicians about skeletal structures and backup functions and how often blood circulated through the brain. And I asked our mutual creator about the structure of my soul. She was very glad to tell me as much as I wanted to know, because she didn’t think I’d have the background to understand what she was telling me. She even taught me—albeit accidentally—how one went about creating a false identity for someone, and what it would take to get on Steven Banks’s good side.” Sherman cast me a sly, sidelong look. “You see what I did for you, Sal? I twisted the world into knots so I could make it a pretty bow to tie in your hair. Your human lover never did anything half so nice.”

Bile rose in my throat as I realized that he meant what he was saying. Some of this—not all, thankfully, but enough to be disturbing—had been intended as a form of courtship, like he could convince me to love him if he just spent enough time working on the problem. “You’re not answering the question,” I said. “People keep doing that to me. I don’t like it.”

“I do appreciate that you’ve started growing a spine. It’ll make this much more of an equal partnership, and much less of a burden.” Sherman shook his head. “Yes, I knew. I recognized you for what you were when they first rolled you into SymboGen and I thought, this is it. This is what fate looks like. This is the way destiny presents itself. With a brunette on a stretcher, wetting herself and staring dispassionately at the ceiling. You were the Holy Grail, Sal. A natural chimera in the process of full neural integration, yet awake through the entire process. Most of us didn’t get to wake up until a full six months further along. I honestly feel that it hampered our ability to completely inhabit our bodies. The protocols for integration as practiced here are based largely on your experience. We have so much to thank you for.”

We had reached the far end of the mall while he was talking. A metal grill was half-lowered across the mouth of what had clearly been a department store, once upon a time. Sherman ducked to get under the grill, not letting go of my arm, and so I bent to follow him. The grill creaked down and locked onto the floor as soon as we were through. Because that wasn’t disturbing or anything.

“You never told me.” My voice sounded small and betrayed, matching the slivers of ice that felt like they were piercing my heart. I knew Sherman was on the other side of this conflict. It didn’t matter. Part of me was always going to want him to be a good guy.

“What would I have said? ‘I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, dear, but not only are you not actually Sally Mitchell, you’re not even a human being. You’re something new, and better, and everyone you have ever loved is going to view you as a monster.’” He let go of my arm and stepped away, turning to face me. “Everyone but me, that is. You have never been a monster in my eyes, Sal. You have never been anything short of perfect. I doubt that you ever could be. You feel it, don’t you? The way your heart slows down to beat along with mine.”

I paused. “But… you can do that to anyone, can’t you?” Sherman’s startled, guilty expression was all the answer I needed. “Ronnie asked if you’d kissed me, and then she called you an asshole. What is it, some sort of biofeedback loop? Can you do that to all chimera, or am I just in a lucky subset of the population?”

“Sal…” He started to reach out, like he was going to caress my cheek. I slapped his hand away. His expression hardened. “Yes, if that’s what you wanted to hear: yes, I can do that to any chimera, and to any of the charmingly named ‘sleepwalkers,’ if the need strikes me. It’s a matter of controlling the pheromones I’m giving off. They tell you what to do on a level you simply weren’t engineered to fight. I could teach you to do the same thing, but why would I put such a useful weapon in the hands of a child ? Because don’t misunderstand me, Sal: you are a child in this fight. I am romantically interested in you despite my better judgment, but that isn’t going to buy you the sort of lazy disregard that you’re accustomed to. You are a child and you are a weapon, and as we don’t let children play with weapons, I’ll be the one deciding how you are aimed and fired.”

I glared at him. “You can’t make me do anything.”

“Oh, but darling, as you’ve already seen, I can.” He smirked. “All I need to do is get skin-to-skin with you, and you’ll dance to any tune I play. Now make yourself comfortable: find something to wear, find a bed in housewares. I’ve got cameras on this whole place, and the front of the building is sealed off, so you’ll not be escaping. Aside from that, feel free to do as you like.”

“Where are you going?”

“Didn’t you hear me before?” This time when he smiled, he showed all of his teeth. I quailed away. “I’m going to go start a war.”

That’s enough science for today. I can’t really focus on it anyway: it’s all just facts and figures and not enough answers. I need answers. I’m not going to find them in a Petri dish or a simulation, but those are the only places that I’m being allowed to look.

Sal has been missing for almost a month. Those words are still so hard for me to type, because they don’t make any sense. We were home free. We were safe. All we had to do was make it across a parking lot and we could get back to the lab, back to the safety of Mom’s defenses. There was no way anything could go wrong, and I guess maybe I thought that too loudly, because the universe decided to make sure I knew just how wrong I really was.

There hasn’t been a sign of her since USAMRIID grabbed her out of that parking lot. I know she’s not dead. I can feel it. I also know that I’m probably lying to myself, because psychic powers don’t exist. She could be rotting in a freezer by now, and I would still swear she was alive. I’m going to keep swearing she’s alive until we find her, and then I’m never, never letting her go again.

Please, Sal. Please come back to me.

This is Private Arlen West with the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. I have been stationed in the San Francisco base for the past year. I have gone AWOL. I am releasing this recording without consent from my commanding officers. I understand that there will be consequences for this action. I also understand that those consequences cannot be carried out before I am able to insert the muzzle of my service pistol into my mouth, make my peace with God, and pull the trigger. I am doing a service to my country with this announcement. I am fulfilling my duty to the American people.

The sleepwalking sickness has not been contained. It is not a new form of the swine flu. It is not airborne. There is no vaccine. I repeat, there is no vaccine. The vaccinations you are receiving are standard flu shots, and will not protect you from the sleepwalking sickness. You are already infected. You have become infected of your own free—

They’re trying to break the door down. I guess I don’t have as much time as I thought. Take antiparasitic drugs. Take them now. Your life depends on it.

It was hard to keep track of time in Sherman’s converted mall. There were no windows in the department store that was my home and my prison, and the metal plates that sealed the doors to the outside world were snug with the ground, preventing me from even figuring out whether it was day or night outside. I guessed at the time by how many people walked freely in the mall outside my cage, and tried to measure the days by the delivery of my meals. It was harder than I’d expected it to be. Every time I felt sure I’d cracked the code, the meal I thought of as dinner would be pancakes and sliced fruit, or the mall would empty out completely during what I’d assumed was the middle of the day. Before long, I was completely disoriented.