Mira Grant - Symbiont

I wanted to believe her, I really did—I was her tapeworm “daughter,” after all, and I’d been dating her biological son for several years. She had every reason to want to help me stay healthy and psychologically intact. But she wouldn’t meet my eyes, and I had to ask myself whether she’d been viewing me as a true control group: something not to be touched or interfered with, because that would have spoiled her data.

“So Sherman left right after you gave him a clean bill of health,” I said slowly, trying to select the words to make what I was saying both inoffensive and clear. “Did you say anything like ‘this means you’re stable’ or ‘this proves the interface can sustain itself in the long term’ or ‘yay, you’re not going to melt’?”

Dr. Cale frowned. “Maybe…”

Sometimes smart people can be a special kind of stupid. The kind where they know so many facts and are so good at saying “no one would ever do that ” that they somehow manage to convince themselves the world is going to care about what they think. It’s like they believe that intelligence alone defines the universe. “So what if he saw that as permission?” I asked. “He left, and he knew what he was, and that humans had created him, and that maybe there was a way to make more like him. And then I happened, and he realized that it could happen naturally. You knew what the signs looked like. So did Dr. Banks. Why wouldn’t Sherman?”

“You think he went to SymboGen specifically to begin engineering the downfall of the human race.” It wasn’t a question, and Dr. Cale didn’t sound horrified when she said it. If anything, she sounded… impressed. Like this was something any parent would absolutely want their son and protégé to think of doing.

I looked to Nathan, too baffled by her tone to know what to say. Thankfully, he wasn’t siding with her on this one. Expression hardening, he looked at her and asked, “Mom, do you think that what Sal is suggesting is possible?”

“Possible, yes,” said Dr. Cale. “Probable, given the rest of what we know… oh, yes. Sherman never went to college, for obvious reasons, but all of my chimera children have helped me in the lab as part of their chores. He understands genetics at least as well as your average lab assistant, and probably better than the majority of them. He knew that we were going to have issues when the human population figured out that their implants had the potential to become sapient; he knew there was a chance that the chimera and human races would wind up competing for ownership of the planet. He could very easily have decided this was the appropriate way to approach the problem, and simply put his plans into action once he managed to find a sympathetic ear.”

“I don’t understand how anyone could think handing their bodies—and their world—over to a different species was a good idea,” I said.

“Humans have done a lot to damage this world, Sal,” said Dr. Cale. “The idea of keeping our human bodies, which are useful things for manipulating the environment, but replacing their brains with something that might be a little kinder…”

I stared at her. “We’re tapeworms ,” I said. “We’re parasites .”

“Yes. You don’t kill your hosts on purpose, although you’re more than happy to rewire them to suit your needs. Humans, on the other hand, have a long tradition of killing our hosts. It’s almost a genetic imperative with us.”

“But we kill the original personality,” I protested.

“Biology doesn’t care. The genes are still there; the body is still alive,” said Dr. Cale. “I’m not saying Sherman had the right idea by encouraging his people to increase the amount of human DNA in the implants—if it was Sherman; I’ll be able to tell whether he asked them to use any of my research techniques once I’ve had the chance to cross-check this data against the recent specimens that Tansy brought back from Lafayette—but I am saying I understand how he could have talked other people into going along with him.”

“If this was Sherman, how is he activating the sleepwalkers?” asked Nathan. “What mechanism is he using?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Dr. Cale. “But I will. Trust me on that. I will.”

“My head hurts,” I said, putting one hand against my temple. It felt surprisingly fragile now, like I was carrying around my brain and my body in an eggshell, one that could smash open and spill me on the floor at any moment. “I want to go home.”

Dr. Cale actually looked alarmed. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you do that.”

“What?” I lowered my hand, staring at her. “What do you mean, you can’t let me do that? I want to go home. Why is that so difficult?”

“Because SymboGen’s security is going to be looking for you by now, and Tansy still isn’t back,” said Dr. Cale. “It’s not safe for you to go out without someone to keep an eye on you. The sleepwalker activity in San Francisco is rather extreme right now.” She shot a meaningful look to Nathan, who frowned and looked away.

I scowled at the both of them. “You didn’t mention my—I mean, Sally’s father, who’s probably looking for me by now, especially if that treatment we suggested for Joyce didn’t work, and did I mention that I don’t care what you think? I want to go home. Beverly and Minnie need to be let out, or they’re going to destroy the apartment.”

“Beverly and Minnie?” asked Dr. Cale blankly.

“Our dogs,” said Nathan. “Sal’s right, Mom. Even if it’s not safe for us to stay in the apartment anymore, we can’t leave the dogs alone there. They’ll run out of food and water, and I’m not willing to do that to them.”

Beverly and Minnie were rescues, casualties of the same epidemic that had claimed so many human lives. Beverly’s owner was last seen in the hospital, sunk deep in the coma that claimed many sleepwalkers in the early stages of their illness. He’d been hospitalized when he lost consciousness, and he’d still been there when vital services began to collapse. I didn’t know whether he had died or woken up and shambled off to join his fellows, but either way, I wasn’t giving back his dog. Minnie’s situation was similarly tragic, and made slightly worse by the fact that Nathan and I had known her owners. Katherine had become sick and had killed her wife, Devi, who used to work with Nathan at San Francisco City Hospital.

Whether she was still trapped in the hospital or loose on the streets of San Francisco, I hoped that Katherine didn’t remember anything about the woman she used to be: I hoped her colonizing worm had wiped her original identity cleanly away. No one should have to live remembering that they murdered their own wife.

I shook my head vigorously. “I didn’t come here to be your prisoner, and I’m not going to stay if I’m not allowed to come and go when I want. I’ve already been through that with the Mitchells. If you’re not willing to let me go and take care of my dogs, I’m going to leave anyway, and I’m not going to come back.”

Dr. Cale sighed, sagging in her chair. “Do you understand that this is all about your well-being?” she asked. “It’s not safe out there, and from what I’ve been able to determine so far from the data you retrieved from SymboGen, it’s not going to get safer anytime soon. Things are going to get much worse before they get better.”

“How much worse?” asked Nathan.

“Ten percent human DNA,” said Dr. Cale grimly. “That’s an apocalypse number.”

“How soon?” asked Nathan.

Dr. Cale hesitated before she said, “I don’t know.”

“Then why don’t we compromise?” I asked. They both turned to me. “Nathan and I will go and get the dogs. We’ll be careful, and we won’t let ourselves get arrested or eaten or anything, but we’ll go, because we have to go. And then we’ll come back here. You won’t keep us prisoner, and we’ll be here willingly for as long as it takes to find an answer that doesn’t end up in the extinction of the human race. But you have to show that you can let us go before we’re going to agree to do that. You have to show that you’re playing fair.”