Symbiont Read online

No. No, I was not. I forced myself to breathe slowly, trying to bring my heart rate back down to something less alarming. Nathan and the others had reached the car: I knew that from the sounds of tires I’d heard behind me in the parking lot. They wouldn’t have been vulnerable the same way that I had been. They got away. They had to have gotten away. They would go back to Dr. Cale and tell her that USAMRIID had me, and she…

  She would say she was very sorry, and that it sucked to lose such a valuable research subject. And then she would tell them to start packing, because if USAMRIID was in the area, she could no longer stay there. None of us was more important than the entire human race. Not one. It didn’t matter how much Nathan disagreed. Dr. Cale would make him go along with her. She was the one with the paid security, after all. All Nathan had was a pair of dogs. He didn’t even have the Prius anymore.

  I closed my eyes. It was better than staring at the distant ceiling, waiting for the moment when someone would come and load me onto a transport. Maybe they’d put me in a room with a bunch of people who didn’t know what was going on, and I’d be able to escape. Or maybe they’d put me in with the sleepwalkers, and I’d wind up ripped to pieces before I had a chance to defend myself.

  This can’t be how it ends, I thought. This isn’t fair.

  Fair didn’t seem to be playing any part in things.

  Footsteps approached from my right. I opened my eyes and rolled my head in that direction, calling, “Hello? My name is Sal Mitchell. I’m not sick. Can you unstrap me, please?” It was a long shot, especially considering that the stranger in the dark could easily have been Dr. Huff, but it was better than lying here, waiting to be moved.

  “Is that your legal name?” asked a cool male voice that I didn’t recognize—not quite—although there was something halfway familiar about it. Like Fang. Whoever this was, I knew him in some other context.

  “Not quite,” I admitted. “My legal name is Sally Rae Mitchell.” That was the name my body’s parents gave to it at birth, and the original Sally had never wanted to change it. The “Rae” was after some aunt I’d never met. Maybe changing my name legally to just plain “Sal” would be the honest thing to do, but I was starting to suspect it was already too late for that. We were standing on the razor edge of a national emergency. The department that handled name changes probably wasn’t going to be taking appointments for a while.

  “Subject is confused about her identity,” said the man, his words accompanied by the sound of fingertips drubbing softly against a touchscreen.

  “What? No! I’m not confused! I know who I am, I just never use the name ‘Sally.’ I don’t like it. It’s—” I was going to say “not me,” but I caught myself at the last second, twisting the rest of the sentence into “—it doesn’t suit me very well. I like ‘Sal’ better, so that’s what I always call myself. I’m not confused, I swear.”

  “Subject is defensive,” said the man, accompanying his words with more taps.

  “I’m not defensive!” I protested. “You try giving calm answers when you’re strapped to a table and nobody’s willing to tell you what’s going on! It’s not that easy. I don’t think you could do it.” Inspiration struck. “Unless you do think you could do it. Let’s trade places. You come strap yourself down and I’ll ask you questions, and we’ll see how calm you sound.”

  The man chuckled. “Oh, pet. You always did like your little jokes, didn’t you?”

  I froze.

  The man with the touchscreen stepped out of the shadows and into my field of vision. He was tall and gangly, with limbs that seemed a little too long for his body, yet nonetheless moved with artful grace, like he had spent his time learning exactly how to present himself to best advantage. The heavy artificial tan he’d worked so hard to cultivate was gone, as were the neatly tailored clothes; he was wearing off-the-rack tan slacks and a blue button-down shirt under a lab coat with the USAMRIID logo on the breast. He’d even added black-framed glasses to his ensemble, completing the illusion that he belonged here. His hair was still cut in the latest style, brown with bleached tips and a spiky outline that could only be achieved through pomade and care, but it seemed less natural and more like an affectation when set against the rest of him. Whatever game he was playing, he had taken the time and put in the effort to play it well.

  Sherman Lewis smiled at me coolly. I stared at him, unsure of what else I could do. He had been my handler for years, taking care of moving me around the building and keeping me out of trouble during my periodic visits to SymboGen. He had also been a chimera the whole time, another product of Dr. Cale’s lab. He was like Adam and Tansy, surgically created, rather than being natural like me, and the last time I’d seen him, he’d been in the basement at SymboGen, and I’d been running for my life.

  “This is a fun situation, don’t you think? I always hoped you’d see the light and leave your stupid boyfriend so that you and I could get to know each other better, but I’ll admit, I never thought I’d convince you to try bondage.” Sherman leaned over me, invading the fragile bubble of my personal space.

  “Your accent’s gone.” It was a stupid thing to say. I couldn’t think of anything better, and besides, it seemed important. Sherman had always had a thick British accent, even though he came from a California lab. That was why I hadn’t recognized his voice sooner, not until he called me “pet”: without the accent, he didn’t really sound like himself.

  “Oh, you mean this?” Sherman’s voice was suddenly plummy and thick again, full of subtly twisted vowels and lilting consonants. “I can suppress it if I need to, like when I’m working a different undercover identity. Never did figure out why I sounded British. Just woke up this way. Mom always said it was a sign that something interesting had happened during my integration, but she couldn’t say precisely what it was, and she had other things to worry about most of the time. Keeping Tansy out of trouble, keeping Adam from seeing anything that might upset his precious sensibilities—and you, of course. She would probably have come looking for me before too much longer, if you hadn’t decided that you were tired of living in this pretty little body’s gut, and moved on up to the big leagues.”

  He put his touchscreen down on my stomach, where the weight of it was an unpleasant reminder that I was trapped. Leaning forward, he traced a finger along my clavicle and smiled. I squirmed. That just made him smile more.

  “You really did get lucky. You’re nicely symmetrical, and you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Don’t laugh. The shape of the skull probably makes a large difference in the integration.”

  I glared at him. “I nearly died because of that integration. No thanks to you.”

  “Ah, is that what you were doing at the hospital? I had wondered what would possibly have possessed you to go someplace so patently foolish.” Sherman put his hand on the side of my face, trying to turn my head to the side. I struggled against him, and he scowled. “Be still, Sal. I’m not going to hurt you. Whether you believe me or not, I want you on my side, and damaging you now would just convince you never to work with me. I want to check your bandages.”

  “How do you know I have bandages?” I demanded.

  “You just as good as told me you’d gone to the hospital to have those faulty arteries in your head repaired, and you’re asking how I know you’ve got bandages on? Learn to remember what you said thirty seconds ago, will you? It’ll make a big difference in how the rest of this day goes. Now stop fighting me, or I’ll tell Dr. Huff you need to be sedated again for your own safety.”

  I stopped fighting.

  Sherman rolled my head to the side, his long, clever fingers probing down through my hair until they found the bandage concealed there. “It’s caught on the small hairs—they should have shaved your neck before they cut you open, the barbarians. Bite your tongue, Sal, this is going to hurt a bit, and I can’t have you making a sound.” That was all the warning he gave before he pulled the bandage loose. It took what felt like half the hair on my head with it, even tho
ugh I knew that was anatomically impossible. I squeaked but managed not to shout; Sherman’s warning had been sufficient.

  His fingers resumed probing almost instantly, not even waiting for the pain to fade. I stared into the dark, eyes watering, and wondered what he was looking for.

  I didn’t have to wonder for long. “There’s a little mark, and anyone doing a truly detailed inspection would be able to tell you’d had surgery recently, but as long as you don’t tell anyone to look more closely, you should be all right.” Sherman pulled his hand out of my hair almost reluctantly, pausing at the last moment to swipe his fingers across my cheek. “I’m glad that little problem’s been fixed.”

  “You knew, and you didn’t make them put me back together,” I said sullenly, still staring off into the darkness. I didn’t want to look at him. He was a traitor and a turncoat, and worst of all, he was a liar. He’d known my life was in danger, and he’d said nothing. I didn’t matter to him.

  “Dr. Banks wouldn’t let me.” He pulled his hand away. “Chave and I both suggested it, on multiple occasions, under the guise of monitoring your well-being. That was part of our job, after all, so we thought we could get away with it. He eventually told us both to stop, and said that we’d be fired if we didn’t. He wanted you to have that inbuilt weakness, and it’s not that easy to perform surgery on someone whose medical power of attorney is controlled by someone else. Plus, any surgeon we could have found who was willing to perform the operation would have discovered your… little condition, and then I would have had to kill them. I’m not fond of killing people, Sal.”

  “What?” I finally rolled my head back to its original place, frowning up at him. “You were talking about creating a world without humans. You’re totally okay with killing people.”

  “One,” he said, holding up a long finger, “that doesn’t mean I like it. And two, you have perhaps made some mistaken assumptions about my desire for a world without humans. I’m not going to wipe out the species. That would be silly, and wasteful, and nigh impossible.”

  I frowned. “Then what do you want to do?”

  He smiled. That expression was the same as it had always been, and for just a second, it was like I was looking back through time to a moment when I almost understood things. “I want to round them up and put them in breeding camps, at least until we have enough stable chimera to breed our own babies,” he said. That broke the illusion. Instantly. “Integration is easier with younger subjects. We’ll be able to introduce implant to infant, tapeworm to toddler, and slide ourselves right into their skins without any need for trauma on any side. Imagine, Sal. There won’t be any displacement—you’re not kicking out the original owner if they never had a chance to develop. There won’t be the sort of dysphoria you and I and the others like us have had to live with, because we’ll grow with our bodies. We’ll grow into them, and they’ll be ours.”

  I stared at him. “You want to replace humanity by becoming humanity?”

  “In a controlled sense, yes.” He kept smiling, his lips tight and his teeth concealed. “We’ll be much better shepherds for this world, and after all, isn’t it the nature of things for children to replace their parents? They made us. We’ll take their place.”

  “I don’t…” I stopped. There was no way to make him understand why replacing humanity would be wrong, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to try. It would give him the opening to keep explaining why replacing humanity was exactly right—and I was deeply afraid, on a level I didn’t want to think about too hard, that if he spoke, I would listen. Almost every human I’d known during my short life had lied to me. There were good ones, sure. I loved Nathan more than anything. But was that an argument for an entire species? They had created the sleepwalkers. They had killed their own people because they didn’t want to sneeze anymore. I wasn’t sure that was an endorsement.

  Of course, if the fact that almost every human had lied to me was going to be a factor, I needed to consider the fact that every chimera had either lied to me or moved against me in some way. Neither side of my heritage was blameless.

  “Good. You’re learning to stop and think.” Sherman picked up his touchscreen. When he spoke again, his accent was gone, leaving him sounding as neutral as a newscaster. “Here’s how this is going to work. I’ll tell my supervisor, Dr. Huff, that you’re lucid and coherent, and that we can probably move you to an unsecured transport. She’ll try to argue with me, and I’ll bat my eyelashes at her and remind her that the sooner we get you all processed, the sooner she and I will be able to get a little time for ourselves. I can’t guarantee that will work, but I’d say it’s got a good chance. Once you’re unstrapped, go with the men who come to escort you. They’ll take you to the holding pen. Wait for me there. I’ll come for you as soon as I can.”

  “A holding pen?” I asked blankly. “What, so I can get ripped apart by sleepwalkers? No, you have to get me out of here. Just undo the straps. I’ll run, and you’ll never have to deal with me again.”

  “But I want to be dealing with you, Sal my darling, and more importantly, you’re being intentionally obtuse, which is not a good look for you. Try using that fantastic brain that you’ve wired yourself into.” He tapped his touchscreen, apparently changing one of the notations on my chart. “We have the potential to be ten times smarter than our human hosts ever were without us, you know that? Our presence stimulates formation of new nervous tissue and enhances nerve transmission speed. I’m not sure exactly how yet—I never did manage to get a chimera on the operating table where I could take it apart—but science supports my claim. That means you have no excuse for being stupid. Now, why would I want you ripped apart when you’re ever so much more delightfully useful in one piece?”

  I glared at him. “I’m not going to help you.”

  “Yet,” he said calmly. “The word you’re looking for is ‘yet.’ And don’t let your stubbornness worry your pretty little head. I’m going to help you either way.” He blew me a kiss, and then turned and walked away, leaving me alone again.

  I wanted to scream expletives after him—many of which were words that he had originally taught me, back when he was pretending to be a loyal, human SymboGen employee who had only my best interests at heart, rather than a dangerous chimera bent on the destruction of the human race. He’d been one of my two handlers, along with Chave, an icy African-American woman who had always made me uncomfortable by keeping me at arm’s length and treating me like a bomb that was about to go off. It was funny how much context changed things, because now I was sure Sherman was the reason the sleepwalking sickness was spreading so fast and so catastrophically, while Chave—who had died when her own implant went active and chewed its way up into her brain—had been working for Dr. Cale all along. Like Fang, she’d been there to gather information on Dr. Banks, and to protect me.

  So many people had died or endangered themselves to keep me safe, and almost none of them had been on the relatively short list of people that I had trusted at the start of this whole mess. Chave had been on my side all along. Sherman was on nobody’s side except his own. I was starting to seriously doubt my ability to judge human nature.

  The echoing space around me grew silent as Sherman’s footsteps faded. I frowned up into the darkness. Wherever I was being held, it didn’t make sense. There should have been cots like mine on every side, occupied either by sleepwalkers or by other patients who had been collected and deemed to be clean. Instead, while the lack of light blocked off any extensive study, I was pretty sure there was no one to either side of me. Just more blackness, shadows reaching out and claiming everything that they touched as their own. It was… unnerving.

  Was I the only person they’d managed to save from the hospital?

  Two men came walking out of the gloom, both wearing lab coats and plain white masks over the bottoms of their faces. They didn’t say a word to me. One of them seized my arm, twisting it so that the inside was pointed at the ceiling.

  “Hey!” I instinctiv
ely tried to pull away, only to find myself stopped by the straps that held me down. “Who are you? What are you doing? Let go of me!”

  They ignored my cries. One of them produced a syringe from inside his pocket, uncapping it and jamming it into the soft tissue of my arm before I had time to frame a new objection. I squeaked. He pulled the needle free.

  “What did you just inject me with? Answer me! You have no right to do this! I’m a United States citizen!” As long as I was legally human, I was pretty sure that was still true. “You need to answer me right now!” My vision was starting to go blurry around the edges. Not black this time, but gray and sort of wispy, like a fog was rolling in. I tried to frown. My face didn’t feel like it was responding. But I kept trying, because anything else would have felt too much like giving up, and giving up would have meant that I was allowing them to win. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t let them win. I couldn’t…

  Most sedatives take a few minutes to kick in. Either this one worked faster than most, or it had started by distorting my sense of time, because my ability to fight faded, and it took me with it. For the second time in a day, I’d been drugged into unconsciousness.

  I was starting to get really tired of these people.

  Consciousness returned like someone had flipped a switch inside my brain. I sat up with a gasp, only realizing after it was done that I could sit up; nothing was holding me down anymore. I looked down at myself, checking for restraints or IV lines. There was nothing. All the medical equipment had been mercifully removed, although a familiar burn in my crotch told me that the equipment had included a catheter for some reason, which meant they’d kept me under for more than eight hours. That wasn’t a good sign.

  My stolen clothes were also gone, replaced by mint green medical scrubs and soft booties with plastic treads on the bottoms. There was a plastic ID bracelet clamped around one wrist. I raised my arm and squinted at the type on the bracelet, forcing my eyes to focus. The words swam in and out, finally settling down to something I could read: