Mira Grant - Symbiont

“Baseline human DNA in the implants is about three percent, or was before Sherman started getting to the lab rats. I was tailored, so I started with five percent, some of it taken directly from my host. It was supposed to keep his immune system from identifying me as an irritant and taking me over. Instead, it caused total immune collapse. Not fun for either one of us. I don’t really remember much about being him. I know I migrated to his brain during the shutdown, but he didn’t survive the process. We got hospitalized—this was in the early stages of the outbreak, back when there were only one or two of us at a time.” He was switching pronouns with dizzying speed, making it difficult for me to know exactly who “us” meant—him and his trucker, or sleepwalkers in general? “He died.”

I blinked. “Who died?”

“My trucker.” Ronnie shook his head. “He crashed and he died and that should have been the end of me, but SymboGen was collecting all the dead sleepwalkers for analysis, in case they could figure out what was going on. Anything to protect the profit margin, right?”

I sort of suspected it was more about “anything to protect the public health,” but I kept that observation to myself, in part because I didn’t want Ronnie to stop talking, and in part because there was a good chance that I was being overly optimistic again. Dr. Banks had never shown any indication of caring about the health of the world, except when it could put money in his pockets. Keeping the sleepwalkers from eating his entire customer base had probably seemed like a pretty good idea, at least as far as the bank was concerned.

Ronnie took my silence as agreement, because he continued, saying, “Sherman found me in my trucker’s head. I was still alive, and he removed as much of me as he could. I don’t remember any of this—I mean, I didn’t have a brain to plug into at that point, so I wasn’t much of a deep thinker—but I’ve seen my medical records, and I believe things happened the way he explained them. He managed to get me out of the building, and he implanted me in my first stable host. His name was Francisco, and he was a mountain.” A little smile played across Ronnie’s lips. “Six and a half feet of solid muscle—damn. I couldn’t have asked for a better host, you know? I guess I should have known that it couldn’t last.”

“What happened?”

“Rejection.” Ronnie shrugged. “Same thing we’ve been telling you happens to a lot of us. My host’s body recognized me as an infection, and fought me off. I had to be moved to a new body. That’s where I got the name ‘Ron.’ Another big guy. I liked being Ron. He was strong. Too strong, I guess, since his immune system figured out I was new in the neighborhood and beat me off with a stick. That’s how I wound up in here.” He spread his arms, indicating his thin, immature, biologically female body with a bob of his chin. “And we don’t have bodies to spare, so until this one breaks or we come into a sudden wealth of unwanted humans, this is where I’m staying.”

“But… if we become who we are because we’re tapping into human brains, and they can process more information than we can handle with our little tapeworm brains, how can you remember being anyone before you were who you are right now? How can you be…” I stopped, not sure how I could possibly finish that sentence.

Ronnie finished it for me. “How can I be so sure that I’m supposed to be male? I don’t remember a lot about my first three hosts. No one who’s been through rejection remembers much . But there are little bits and pieces. It’s like… it’s like some of the traits of my original hosts got written into me. Sherman says it’s epigenetics at work, and that we’re all going to wind up mosaic individuals, hopping from body to body, bringing just these little pieces of who we’ve been onward with us.”

I blinked at him. Ronnie shrugged.

“Sherman says we’re going to live forever, once we figure out how to keep our hosts from rejecting us. We’ll have to learn a lot of shit new every time, but our core personalities will stay the same. We’ll stay the same. Humans have had stories about reincarnation and the afterlife for millennia. We’re finally going to prove it.” Ronnie stood. “Anyway, that’s how I know I’m a guy, no matter what this stupid body says, and since I want a new host sooner rather than later, it’s time for you to come with me.” He grabbed my arm.

I was bigger than he was, and stronger than he was, but I went without protest.

Sherman was waiting for us in the store that had been converted into his private office, a former photo studio now packed with lab equipment and computer monitors. He was sitting on a wooden stool that had probably come with the studio, peering through a microscope into a Petri dish. He looked up when he heard our footsteps, a wide smile spreading across his face.

“Sal! I’m so delighted that you were able to join me.” He slid down off the stool, stretching as he did. “Ronnie, thank you for passing my invitation along. You can go now; your services are no longer required.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think they would be.” Ronnie let go of my arm. “Later, toots. Try not to piss him off too bad today, okay? I don’t want to have to clean this place up again.”

I blinked. I hadn’t heard anything about needing to clean Sherman’s office. The claim was apparently true, however; Sherman glared at him as he turned and walked away.

“She’s getting ideas above her station,” he said mildly. “I think she likes you. I also think it might be a good idea if I didn’t let you spend any time with her alone for a little while, since you seem bound and determined to play the Disney Princess of this scenario.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Friend to all living things, my sweet Sal; friend to all living things. But what you fail to comprehend is that I don’t want you to be a friend to all living things. I want you to be a friend to me and me alone.” Sherman reached out and tweaked a lock of hair that had fallen in my face. “We need to get you a haircut. Something short and tidy and easy to care for. You’re starting to look a little unkempt, my dear, and we both know how little tolerance I have for that.”

I fought the urge to bat his hand away. He wasn’t touching my skin, which meant that the drums wouldn’t synchronize to his heartbeat, but having him touch any part of me felt like a violation. “I like my hair the way it is.”

“Ah, but appearances must be maintained. You know that. It’s how we fit into the world, snug as a needle fitting into an injection site. Nothing that attracts attention of the wrong sort.” Sherman delivered this little sermon with the pious air of a man who was preaching to the heathens, but knew they would catch on sooner or later. As always, it made me want to scratch his eyes right out of his head.

There was a time when I’d found his little life lessons endearing, attractive even. That was before I knew he was a tapeworm, and before I knew he was on the “kill all humans” side of the program, and most of all, before he was keeping me captive in an abandoned mall, with no way of reaching the people I loved most in all the world. “The only attention I’m attracting here is from you,” I countered. “ All the attention I get from you is the wrong kind of attention, now that I know what you are.”

“You still don’t understand, do you?” He grabbed my arm. It was a swift motion: I had no opportunity to dodge or defend myself. Fingers sinking into my skin, he continued: “My attention is the only attention you will ever need. My approval is the only approval you should ever crave. I am your perfect other half, Sal, and the sooner you come to terms with that idea and begin making yourself over in my image, the sooner we’ll be able to move on to the next phase of our relationship.”