Parasite p-1 Page 9

  “Still. I could go in with you.” The car finally stopped moving, pulled up snug against the curb.

  “No,” I said, and unfastened my seat belt. In the back, Beverly sat up, ears pricked, as she waited to see whether I’d be taking her with me. “Sorry, girl. You’re going to the office with Dad today, and I’m going to the vet.”

  Dad snorted, amusement briefly overwhelming his concern.

  I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for taking Beverly. See you when I get home?”

  “I’d be happy to come and pick you up,” Dad said, and hugged me awkwardly, around his seat belt.

  “I like taking the bus; it gives me time to think,” I said gently as I retrieved my messenger bag from the footwell and slid out of the car. I shut the door before he could object. He shot me a look through the window, half-annoyed, half-amused. Then he waved. I waved back, and turned away from the car, facing the SymboGen building.

  It looked as pastoral and welcoming as it always did, thanks to hundreds of architects and public relations designers, and part of me—the part that had come first, during my endless hours of physical therapy and laborious progress—still thought of it as home. I knew that years of work had gone into creating that facade, the perfect blend of glass and stainless steel, representing scientific futurism, with growing plants and artificial waterfalls, representing a connection to the natural world. The original architect wrote a book about the process of building SymboGen HQ. It says something about the size and strength of the company that he was able to have it published.

  And no matter how false it was, it was still the first home that I remembered having, and the one that my heart never really seemed to leave. I took a breath, squared my shoulders, and walked toward the sliding glass doors at the front of the building.

  They opened silently at my approach, the first strains of Muzak drifting out into the morning air. It sounded classical, but I knew if I pulled out my phone and triggered the app that was supposed to help me identify songs off the radio, it would come up as a generic pop song, slowed down, sweetened, and stripped of whatever raw power it might have had when it was new. No matter how comfortable I felt at SymboGen, I needed to remember how good they were at taking things and reducing them to their lowest common denominators.

  I took a deep breath as I stepped over the threshold into SymboGen proper, shutting out the music in favor of savoring the carefully balanced perfume suffusing the lobby. The scent was a custom blend, according to Joyce: a mixture of apple, orange blossoms, and fresh corn. It was supposed to make people think of health and vitality. It made me think that everything was going to be all right, and at the same time, that nothing was ever going to be all right again. It was the smell of home. Home isn’t always a good place to be.

  “Ms. Mitchell. We’re so glad you could join us today.” The voice was as smooth and soulless as the music drifting from overhead.

  “Hi, Chave,” I said, turning to face the speaker.

  She was beautiful: she had to be, to be one of the public faces of SymboGen. As always, she was sleekly groomed, not a hair out of place. She was wearing a dove-gray suit, and her dark skin practically glowed against its pale backdrop, making her look like the pinnacle of health. I was gripped with the sudden, almost undeniable urge to ask her whether SymboGen employed a fashion consultant to make sure their employees only went out in public wearing colors that were guaranteed to make them look like they were ready to run a marathon.

  “You’re right on time. That’s wonderful.” Chave’s smile was as artificial as the rest of her, but I didn’t hold it against her. “Did you remember your paperwork?”

  “It’s all right here, same as always.” I held up my bag, wondering if this was the way kids in school felt when they were asked if they’d remembered to do their homework. One more piece of missing emotional memory, clicking into place. “Do you know where I’m supposed to drop it off?”

  Chave looked at my battered Target messenger bag distastefully, like it was a snake that might decide to take a bite out of her manicured fingers. The polish was clear, which probably meant it was expensive; there was no other way she could have gotten away with something so bland. “I’ll be happy to take that to Accounting for you. You have a meeting with the financial department after lunch, to discuss any questions they may have or inaccuracies that they may find.”

  “Inaccuracies” was the approved corporate way of saying “attempts to make SymboGen pay for something that wasn’t their problem.” They weren’t going to find anything, but the idea was still enough to make my mouth go dry. I hated dealing with the SymboGen financial people. They were always so nice. Somehow, that made them worse than the blandly professional faces that made up the rest of the company’s human infrastructure.

  “Oh. Good.” I swung the messenger bag around to the front and dug through it until I found the heavy manila folder with my receipts and mileage statements for the past six months. I offered it to her. “Everything’s in there. We used the filing instructions we got from you last time.”

  “Then there shouldn’t be anything to worry about.” Chave’s utterly fake smile remained in place as she took the folder and tucked it under her arm. “This way, Ms. Mitchell.” Then she turned and walked away across the lobby, her heels sinking silently into the plush blue carpet.

  I didn’t want to go with her. I went anyway.

  The first time I was at SymboGen, I didn’t know I should be impressed by my surroundings. I had been out of my coma for less than a week, and was being moved to their parasitology wing for further study. The public hospital came later, after I’d regained fine motor control and the rudiments of language. First came SymboGen, and their many, many experts. I stayed there for almost a year. I learned what trees were from their arboretum, and what birds were from their aviary, and I cried for days when they made me leave.

  The second time I was at SymboGen, I had been back with my parents for less than a week, and I was returning for physical and cognitive therapy. I’d run into the building and hidden in its halls for three hours, refusing to leave. They’d had to sedate me to get me back into the car. It felt like the world had stopped making sense, like the only home I believed in didn’t want me anymore. The third time I was at SymboGen, the tests began in earnest, and I learned what home—the place I thought was home, anyway—had wanted me for all along.

  Psychological exams. Puzzles and mazes and endless, endless tests to see what I could learn and how long I could retain it under stress. The scientists were kind and did their best to make things easy, but they weren’t the ones giving the orders. It was like the corporation had been waiting for someone like me to come along, and now that I’d finally arrived, I was just a lab animal to them. I was a lab animal that they had to release at the end of their twice-yearly study dates, letting me go back into the wild and learn a few more tricks to impress them with.

  Every time the doors of SymboGen closed behind me, I was a little more convinced that we were inching toward the day when they would no longer let me leave. Part of me insisted my parents would never let that happen. The other part of me, the one that was loudest when I was actually inside the building, reminded me, over and over again, that I was a stranger. I’d killed their real daughter, taken over her life, and if SymboGen decided to petition for custody, my parents and sister would probably be relieved. SymboGen already felt more like home than home did, according to that part of me; why couldn’t I see that I belonged there forever and ever? I tried not to listen to that little voice, but sometimes it was so hard that I might as well have been trying to ignore Dr. Morrison’s grin.

  Chave was one of my two primary handlers when I was on company property. I liked her counterpart, Sherman, a lot better, and I liked them both more than I liked any of their substitutes. They were always impeccably groomed, and they clearly had their own agendas—which ironically made me like them more than I liked the administration. Some of them treated me like a human bein
g, but I was a lab animal all the same, and lab animals aren’t entitled to personal space. It was nice to have at least a few people outside the science wing who didn’t feel like they could grab me at any moment.

  “Where are we going first?” I asked, once we were in the glass-backed elevator, sliding high into the grasp of SymboGen. The schedule for my visits was never provided ahead of time. I just knew when I was supposed to show up, and when to tell my parents that someone needed to come and get me. One of the psychiatrists once told me it was so I wouldn’t psych myself out about the tests. Personally, I thought they just enjoyed it more when I was unprepared.

  “We’re actually beginning with an interview today,” said Chave, her tone as mild and uninflected as ever.

  “An interview? I didn’t agree to any interviews. They still have to let me approve those.” Once—and only once—SymboGen had surprised me with a reporter. That particular article had presented me as some kind of idiot savant who had managed to overcome traumatic brain damage in order to become a semifunctional person. It was syrupy, sweet, and almost entirely untrue. My parents had threatened to sue the company for libel, slander, and half a dozen other things, some of which I was pretty sure were exclusive of one another. SymboGen apologized and promised never to do that again without getting my consent and allowing me to have someone of my choice to be an unbiased observer.

  “It’s not that kind of interview,” said Chave. The elevator stopped moving, the doors sliding smoothly open.

  Standing on the other side was Dr. Steven Banks, creator of the Intestinal Bodyguard and the only remaining member of the trio that founded SymboGen. He was smiling. Somehow, that didn’t help.

  “Hello, Sally,” he said. “It’s very nice to see you again.”

  Dr. Banks’s office was larger than the reception lobby at the hospital where Nathan worked. Two of the walls were actually windows, solid sheets of glass looking out on the city below. He had a perfect view of the Bay. From this distance, you couldn’t see the traffic or the people wandering the streets. All you saw was the natural beauty of San Francisco, the allure that had been drawing people through the Golden Gate for centuries. I guess when you’re one of the richest people on the planet, you can buy yourself a window that never shows you anything ugly. It’s one of the perks that comes with the position.

  Dr. Banks gestured for me to sit down in one of the plush leather chairs in front of his desk as he walked around to sit in his own larger, plusher leather chair. “It’s so nice to have a little time to talk, don’t you think, Sally?”

  “Yes, Dr. Banks,” I said automatically. I sat down, perching on the very edge of the chair like I was getting ready to jump to my feet at any second. To be honest, I was considering doing just that.

  “It’s all right, Sally. You’re not in trouble.” He smiled, showing his perfect teeth. I fought the urge to bolt. “I just wanted to see you.”

  “Yes, Dr. Banks,” I repeated.

  His smile faded. “Do I make you nervous?”

  I sighed. “Yes, Dr. Banks,” I said, for the third time. “You really do.”

  It wasn’t just his teeth that were perfect. Everything about him was perfect, from his hair and skin down to his subtly sculpted physique. I found myself wondering whether he had somehow managed to make his Intestinal Bodyguard start secreting steroids along with all the other chemicals it pumped out to ensure the well-being of its host. Dr. Steven Banks was not the kind of man who spent that many hours at the gym, or gave up fried food of his own free will.

  “I wish I didn’t make you nervous, Sally,” he said. He sounded sincere, which just made me more nervous. “I want us to get along. I think we’re both smart enough to know that we’re not going to be friends, but I’d like it if we could at least be friendly acquaintances.”

  “You do sort of control my life, Dr. Banks,” I said hesitantly. “If I make you mad, or you don’t like my progress, you could decide to stop providing me with medical care, and I’d probably die. So I’m sure you’ll understand if I’m a little bit uneasy around you.”

  Now he looked a little hurt. “Do you really think I’d do something like that to you, Sally?”

  Normal people don’t use the names of the people they’re speaking to in every other sentence. Dr. Banks did, for some reason, and when I was around him, I found myself doing it, too. All children learn speech through mimicry. That stage was closer to the present for me than it was for most adults, and sometimes the habit was hard to break.

  “I think SymboGen is a business, Dr. Banks,” I replied, carefully. “I think that sometimes business investments don’t pan out.”

  “I think of you as much more than just a business investment,” said Dr. Banks. “You’re a part of the SymboGen family. Don’t you feel like a part of this family?”

  There didn’t seem to be any right answer to that question, and so I didn’t say anything at all. I just sat there, waiting for him to continue.

  After a minute or so, he did. “I wanted to meet with you today because it’s been too long since we’ve had the opportunity to just sit and talk. Monitoring your progress is important to me, Sally, and sometimes looking at facts on paper isn’t enough to let me see the whole picture. There are pieces that only come through when you can look someone in the eye and really understand what they’ve been through.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, a little more stiffly than I’d intended. “I’m still working at the shelter. I like it there. My boss lets me work with the kittens a lot.”

  “That’s the Cause for Paws animal shelter downtown, isn’t it?” As if he didn’t already know that. “I’m glad to hear that it’s still working out well for you. I heard you got a dog recently?”

  “Beverly. I’m fostering her. Her owner is sick and can’t take care of her at the moment, and his family doesn’t want the responsibility of taking care of his dog while he was in the hospital.” They’d been grateful, actually. I’d expected my own family to object to Beverly, but they had turned out to be totally fine with my bringing home a dog as long as she was housebroken and didn’t chew on the furniture. Beverly was so well behaved that everyone was in love with her by the end of that first night.

  That was a good thing. Dogs need to be loved, and her owner was probably never going to be reclaiming her, if the recovery—or lack of recovery—of the rest of the sleepwalkers meant anything.

  “Her owner… you saw him collapse, didn’t you?” There was something too casual about the question; the way that Dr. Banks looked at my face and then away, quickly, like he was afraid of being seen… he was worried. And I didn’t know why.

  “Yes. I was taking a walk with my boyfriend when we saw Beverly’s owner have some sort of a seizure. He didn’t fall down, though. He just shut off, like he wasn’t in his body anymore.” And Beverly, poor, sweet Beverly, had barked at him like he was some kind of a monster. She hadn’t barked at anyone else like that. Not once.

  “The dog must have been very frightened.”

  It wasn’t a question. I found myself answering it anyway, saying, “She was terrified. That’s why I wound up taking her with us. She was barking at him like she thought that he was going to hurt her. She came to me as soon as I whistled for her.”

  “Interesting. You didn’t think that maybe she was just an aggressive dog?”

  “No.”

  “Had you met this dog before?”

  I frowned, annoyance causing me to briefly forget that I was speaking to the CEO of SymboGen. “I already got the ‘did you steal this man’s dog’ questionnaire from the police. I’d never seen him, or the dog, before. But I work with scared animals all day, and when I realized how terrified she was, I couldn’t just sit by and leave her with no one to take care of her. Nathan called an ambulance for Beverly’s owner, and we agreed that it was best if she went home with me until we had a better idea of what was going on.”

  “Nathan—that would be your boyfriend, Dr. Kim, from the San Francisco City H
ospital Parasitology Department, correct? We offered him a job here at SymboGen once, you know.” Dr. Banks beamed at me, like this was the greatest honor that could be afforded to someone in the medical profession.

  “Yes,” I said. “I know.” Nathan had actually tried to take them up on their offer—SymboGen was the place for an up-and-coming parasitologist who wanted to stay on the cutting edge of the field—but had been passed up for employment when their Human Resources Division realized that he was serious about his refusal to accept an Intestinal Bodyguard. They couldn’t technically make that a requirement for employment, but the fact came out, and suddenly the job offer was withdrawn.

  “He seemed like a very nice young man.”

  “He is.”

  “Does your new dog have any problems with him?”

  “She’s not my dog, but no, she doesn’t. Beverly likes everyone. She’s the sweetest dog I’ve ever known.”

  Dr. Banks nodded before asking another of those overly casual questions, the ones that felt more like traps, iron jaws waiting to slam shut on my throat: “She doesn’t have any problems with you?”

  “She slept on my bed last night,” I said. “If she had problems, I think I’d know.”

  “Good, good. It’s important for a girl to have a dog. It helps with emotional and social development, and of course, dog ownership will bring you into contact with a wider variety of allergens. Pollens, dander, all those lovely bits of the environment.”

  I struggled to muster a smile, and barely succeeded. “So according to the hygiene hypothesis, owning a dog will be good for my immune system?”

  “Exactly!” Dr. Banks looked delighted. “Have you been reading the literature?”