Mira Grant - Symbiont

Your loving husband,

Fishy

The cultures are progressing at an admirable rate. I have to give the little bitch this much, loath as I am to grant her much of anything after her betrayal of us and all that we stand for here: she provided genetic material of surprising strength and malleability. As I had hoped, she is perfect for our purposes, and best of all, she does not need to be present for her service to the cause to not only grow, but flourish.

It really is a pity. Maybe after the world has been properly reshaped into the image of its new dominant species, she and I will be able to start again. Or even better—maybe I’ll be able to find a version of her that hasn’t been corrupted with such foolish ideas, and such a dreadfully virulent strain of humanity.

We couldn’t bring much. Traveling fast meant traveling light, and we were already going to be contending with a burden much larger than either of us would have voluntarily carried: Dr. Banks, who was almost sure to try running as soon as we were away from the factory. On one thing, however, I dug my heels in.

“We have to take her,” I said, gripping Beverly’s leash so tightly that I could feel the leather biting into my hand. Beverly herself sat calmly by my feet, tail thumping and snout canted upward as she gazed adoringly into my face. We were going on an adventure. That was all she knew, and all that she cared about.

Nathan frowned. “She’ll slow us down.”

“She’ll warn us of any sleepwalkers we don’t see,” I countered. “I can’t pick up on their pheromones as well as they can pick up on mine, and I know I smell like something interesting enough to follow. But their pheromones upset the dog. She’ll bark her head off before anything can grab and eat us. That makes her worth however many potty stops she needs to make along the way.”

“Sal—”

“We need weapons, Nathan. Much as I hate to say it, Beverly is a weapon now. She’ll attack anything that wants to hurt us.” And if USAMRIID ambushed us, having a dog along would broadcast, loud and clear, that whatever we were, we weren’t sleepwalkers. It might buy us a few minutes before they shot us in the head.

“Mom’s sending Fishy with us,” said Nathan. “He always carries a gun when he’s in the field, and he doesn’t really believe that any of this is happening. The man has no fear.”

“That’s swell,” I said. “I want more.”

Nathan looked at me for a long moment before he sighed deeply. “We don’t have to do this.”

My eyes widened. “Yes, we do! We need to get Tansy back. I’m taking the dog, but that shouldn’t be enough to make you change your mind. We have to do this.”

“I know. It’s just…” Nathan stopped for a moment before he said, “Look, Sal. I won’t pretend not to worry about you. I worry about everything now. I worry constantly. We’ve been like this little… this little island of science surrounded by a world that’s falling to pieces. It’s like we’re on the Island of Doctor Moreau crossed with ‘Masque of the Red Death’—they’re stories,” he added, seeing my confusion. “One was about a man who made animals into men because he wanted to prove that he could do it, and the other was about a bunch of people who locked themselves away from everything when the plague came to town, and they danced and celebrated and drank while everyone else was dying. But eventually the men turned into monsters, and the plague broke through the walls. Both stories end the same way.”

“Everybody dies?” I guessed.

Nathan nodded. “They’re cautionary tales, I guess. Sometimes I feel like my life is a cautionary tale. So please, forgive me when I seem like I’m being slow to adjust. I’ve adjusted more in the last months than I thought was possible. Bring Beverly if it makes you feel better.”

“It does, and that means we’re bringing the dog,” I said blithely. “I already made sure Adam has Minnie. He’ll take good care of her.”

“Good.” Nathan shouldered his pack, full of equipment I didn’t understand and first aid supplies I was all too familiar with. “Do you have everything you need?”

I turned and looked at the room that hadn’t been home for nearly long enough, and that I was probably never going to see again. Then I shouldered my own pack, looked back to Nathan, and nodded. “I do,” I said.

He offered me his hand. I took it with the hand that didn’t hold Beverly’s leash, and we walked away from everything, moving toward the distant, terrifying future.

Getting from Captain Candy’s Chocolate Factory to the ferry terminal was easier said than done. On paper, it was a relatively straight five-mile shot down Tennessee Street to the waterfront. From there, we’d be able to navigate the short, clearly labeled streets around the docks to find what we needed. Fishy and Fang both agreed that what we needed was the actual ferryboat: it was not only designed to be relatively easy to steer, but it was made to handle the shoals and waves of the open bay, while most of the smaller, privately owned craft were likely to capsize if the water got choppy. California didn’t have much of a winter compared to the rest of the world, or even the rest of the country, but we did get more wind in November and December. Since a cold, wet shark encounter wasn’t going to help anything, it was better if we grabbed a boat that was big enough to do the job.

Dr. Banks complicated things. After a lengthy discussion with Fang, we had decided to cuff his hands in front of him for the journey. It would leave him relatively defenseless—not good—but it would also make it less likely that he would run away. Yes, any USAMRIID soldiers who happened to intercept us would immediately know that he’d been taken prisoner. That was a small price to pay for not losing him in the maze of streets that was downtown Vallejo.

Fishy was coming with us: Fang was not. Which brought us to the next problem on our rapidly growing list:

We didn’t have a security team. We only had one assault rifle between the four of us. And we had to travel almost six miles total, most of it through territory that had been ceded to the sleepwalkers, if we wanted to make it to the water.

“My biggest recommendation to you is take it slow, take it quiet, and whatever you do, don’t make any noise that isn’t strictly necessary,” said Fang, walking with us toward the exit to the parking garage. “The van is ready for you, but you should abandon it when you reach the harbor. The sound of the engine will just draw more sleepwalkers.”

“This is inhumane,” said Dr. Banks, giving another yank on his cuffs. “You can’t honestly expect me to stay quiet while your people treat me like a common animal.”

“You can’t honestly expect ‘my’ people to let you stay in the van if you insist on making noise,” Fang countered. He placed his hand between Dr. Banks’s shoulder blades, giving the older man a hard shove. Dr. Banks staggered forward a few feet before he managed to stop and turn, shooting a venomous glare back at Fang, who smiled serenely. “You must understand my position, Doctor . You have never benefited me in any concrete manner. You have neither improved my life nor changed its course in any positive way. What you have done is knock everything I had ever planned for myself askew, trapping me in a future I neither designed nor desired. So please, enlighten me. Why should I recommend mercy when you’ve never deigned to show any to anyone else?”

Fishy yawned extravagantly. “You’ve been hanging out with the mad doctor too long,” he said, digging an elbow into Fang’s side. “I think making speeches is contagious.”