“I think this is what shock feels like,” I said, thoughtfully. “It’s a pity it didn’t kick in earlier. I think I would have been less afraid of dying if my whole body had been made of cotton balls and Novocain.” I turned away from Nathan again, looking at the bloody smears on the glass.
“Come away from there.” Nathan’s voice was low, almost cajoling. I blinked, twisting to look at him again, this time in surprise. I hadn’t even realized when I moved.
Something hit the top of the car. I jumped, making a sound that was somewhere between a squeak and a scream as I plastered myself against Nathan for the second time in almost as many minutes. He didn’t seem to mind. He put his arms around me, holding me fast; I could feel the shaking in his chest. He was as scared as I was.
It was good not to be scared alone—and it wasn’t over yet. A moment later both Nathan and I screamed in earnest as Tansy’s upside-down head appeared in front of the windshield. One hand clutched the edge of the roof, while the other appeared next to her head, waving merrily. It might have been cute, if she hadn’t still been clutching the gun she’d used to shoot the sleepwalker. There was blood splattered on one of her cheeks. That damaged her potential cuteness even more.
“I’m going to kill her,” muttered Nathan, arms still locked around me.
Somehow the question just popped out: “Does it count as murder if your mom is right and Tansy’s actually a tapeworm?”
Nathan didn’t have an answer for that.
Tansy gave a little “roll down your window” motion with her gun hand and withdrew, disappearing again. The sound of her weight shifting atop the car made it clear that she hadn’t gone far.
“What…” I asked.
“I guess Mom didn’t think it was safe to send us out without a bodyguard.” Nathan let go of me as he leaned away from his window in order to roll it down. My window probably wouldn’t work anymore, given the amount of damage the fallen sleepwalker had managed to do to the glass before Tansy shot him.
Speaking of Tansy, she stuck her head down again, this time so that she could talk through Nathan’s open window. She beamed at us, seeming completely comfortable in her inverted state. “Hi!” she chirped. “Are you two okay in there? Can I get you anything? Did you pee? Sometimes people pee when they see me shoot things right next to them. So I won’t be disappointed in you, you know. If you did.”
“Neither one of us peed, thank you,” said Nathan stiffly. “Are you following us?”
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Did Dr. Cale send you after us?”
“Yes and no and maybe so,” said Tansy. “I’m here with the extraction team, but when the tracer showed that you were stuck in traffic inside the danger zone, Doctor C thought it might be a good idea for me to come and take a little peek at your situation. Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“Tracer?” said Nathan.
I felt suddenly tired, a thin coil of exhaustion winding itself through my chest. “It’s in the book,” I said. “She put a tracking device in the book because she knew that one of us would ask for it.”
Tansy’s grin grew even wider. “Okay, wow, you’re way smarter than you look when you’re passed out and drooling on yourself. Doctor C just wanted to keep an eye on you guys, that’s all. You should feel super-flattered. It’s not like she has the time to go around bugging just anybody.”
“She could have asked,” I said. My voice sounded weak, even to my own ears.
“No, she couldn’t have,” said Tansy. “You would have told her ‘no,’ because you’re both being stupid and stubborn about admitting what’s really going on. And then you’d be stuck out here, with sleepwalkers trying to get into the car, and nobody would be coming to save you. Besides, the tracer also scrambles SymboGen bugs. They think that it’s normal cellular interference, if they’ve even noticed, but it means that no one’s listening in right now.” She frowned, taking in the looks on our faces. “You weren’t even thinking about that, were you? You people. How have you been the dominant species for so long? Sure, you’ve got sweet bodies with thumbs and shit, but it’s like you don’t have any sense of self-preservation.”
“You’re the one hanging upside down from a car in a place you called ‘the danger zone,’ ” snapped Nathan. “I don’t think you get to lecture us about common sense.”
“Don’t I?” In one smooth motion, Tansy swung down from the car, landing solidly on the flats of her feet with her knees bent to absorb the impact. She straightened, looking coldly down her nose at us. “I’m also the one with the gun, who came here with backup, and with a plan, and who didn’t start acting like everything was hunky-dory as soon as I drove away from the secret mad-science lair of mad-science… ness.” She paused. “That sentence sort of got away from me.”
“That happens to you a lot,” said Nathan.
“Don’t change the subject, meat-car,” said Tansy. “My point is valid: you didn’t have a plan, and I did. Also, I have a gun. That puts me in a superior bargaining position, no matter how you want to look at things.”
“Wait,” I said. “What do you mean, SymboGen bugs? Is Nathan’s car bugged?”
“Of course it is, silly-billy. So are you—or at least, so’s your stuff.” Tansy pointed her gun at my shoulder bag, lying discarded in the passenger side footwell. I had to fight the urge to grab my bag and shield it from her with my body. If she was going to shoot it, let her. I could get a new bag more easily than I could get a new body. “The people in charge of SymboGen security never miss the chance to slip a bug into something.” She giggled. “I guess it’s just a continuation of the overall corporate philosophy, right? Their whole business model was built on slipping bugs into people.”
“Tapeworms aren’t bugs,” said Nathan. He sounded like he was grasping at taxonomical straws, like the only way he could stay afloat in the increasingly turbulent waters of this conversation was through falling back on pedanticism.
Tansy saw it, too. She smiled at him, lowering her gun back to her side. “You are so much like your mother that it’s annoying,” she said. “So anyway, yeah, SymboGen’s bugging you, but the book should block their signal, so please try to only talk about certain stuff when you’re near the book.”
“You couldn’t have told us that before?” I demanded.
“Didn’t think of it.” Tansy’s pocket beeped. She produced her phone, bringing it to her ear, and listened for a few seconds before lowering it again. “We have what we came for, and you’re safe now, so I’m out of here before the authorities show up. When the police ask what happened, just say one of the other motorists started shooting when the sleepwalkers flipped out, and you stayed in your car until everything was over. Mostly true is better than totally fake, you know? Makes the story easier to swallow.”
I swallowed hard, and nodded.
“Good. We’ll be in touch with you soon.” Tansy blew Nathan a kiss, winked at me, and went running off into the trees, disappearing quickly from view.
Nathan and I were still sitting there, too stunned to know what to say, when we heard the sound of sirens in the distance. Now that the danger was over, the police were finally on their way. Assuming the danger was ever going to end. Between the sick feeling in my stomach and the constant pounding of drums in my ears, I was afraid that the danger was really just beginning.
Do I have any regrets?
I have saved millions of lives, and improved millions, if not billions, more. I have done more to improve the quality of those lives than any single man since Dr. John Snow, the epidemiological pioneer who first connected water to the transmission of disease. I have changed the course of modern medicine. People are healthier, and by extension, happier, than they’ve ever been before. I did that. Me, and my company. I made that happen.
I have made more money than I can possibly spend, and I have used it to provide a good life for my family, as well as funding hundreds of charities and research projects to further improve the human condition.
&nbs
p; Yes, there have been costs. Yes, there have been consequences. But I have no regrets. Regrets would imply I’d done something wrong, and when I look at the legacy I’m leaving for the next generation, I see nothing but rightness.
—FROM “KING OF THE WORMS,” AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. STEVEN BANKS, CO-FOUNDER OF SYMBOGEN. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ROLLING STONE, FEBRUARY 2027.
Walk the way you think is best,
Solve the riddles, pass the test.
Try to keep your balance when you think all else is lost.
Give it time, but not too much,
Give it space, but keep in touch.
Once you’re past the borders, then you’ll have to pay the cost.
The broken doors are waiting, strong and patient as the stone.
My darling boy, be careful now, and don’t go out alone.
—FROM DON’T GO OUT ALONE, BY SIMONE KIMBERLEY, PUBLISHED 2006 BY LIGHTHOUSE PRESS. CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT.
Chapter 14
SEPTEMBER 2027
My parents were terrified when they got home to find a note from me on the refrigerator and six messages from SymboGen security on the answering machine, asking with increasing levels of thinly-veiled anxiety if I would please contact the office. Not calling Mom and Dad to tell them about the sleepwalkers in the yard turned out to have been the wrong decision, at least from a “preventing panic” standpoint. Getting the call from the Lafayette Police Department must have been the last straw. They were convinced something had happened to me, and in a way, they were right. It just wasn’t anything I was in a position to talk about.
My parents were waiting when Nathan and I pulled into the driveway, and they were out of the house before we even managed to get out of the car. The first thing I saw when I slid out of the passenger seat was my father’s grim expression. He didn’t say a word as he surveyed the damage the sleepwalker—and Tansy—had done to Nathan’s car. The passenger side window was a spider’s web of cracks, and there were dents in the door, hood, and roof.
Mom was standing next to him. She didn’t look grim, more distraught, like this was something she’d been waiting for since the day I woke up in the hospital.
The sound of drums had never seemed louder, or farther away. “Dad—” I began.
“Nathan, I think it’s time for you to go.” Dad’s voice was very calm. That was a warning sign all by itself. “I’m sure Sally’s had a long day, and we still need to talk to her before she can go to bed.”
I hugged Don’t Go Out Alone to my chest as I looked across the dented roof of the car to Nathan, who was staring at my parents. Finally, he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in a way I would normally have found adorable, and said, “Actually, sir, I think we might all have a few things to discuss.”
“That may be true, but we won’t be discussing them tonight,” said my father implacably. “Go home, Nathan. Sal will call you when she’s free to talk.”
“Um… when will that be?” I asked.
“If you’re lucky, before you’re thirty,” said Mom, speaking up for the first time. “Goodnight, Nathan.”
“Goodnight, Ms. Mitchell,” said Nathan, his shoulders drooping. He knew when he was beaten. “Sal, I’ll talk to you soon. I love you. Don’t go out alone.”
I nodded to show that his message was received, still hugging the book tight against my chest. “You, too,” I said. Then I walked away from his car and past my parents, up the front walkway to the house. I was inside by the time I heard his engine turn over, and I didn’t see him drive away.
I waited in the living room until my parents came inside. The pause gave me time to put my thoughts together, and I thought that I was ready when they arrived. “What happened today—” I began.
Dad cut me off with a single sharp jerk of his head. “We are not discussing this right now,” he said. “The new security system will be installed tomorrow. Your mother and I will be staying home to oversee it, and we will review our new household rules before one of us drives you to work. One of us will also pick you up. You will come straight home after your shift at the shelter is finished. This will continue for the duration of your punishment.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, too bewildered to be really annoyed. Annoyance would come later, when I was alone in my room with time to think about what had just happened. “Are you grounding me?”
“Yes,” he replied coldly.
“You can’t ground me. I’m an adult.”
“We are your legal guardians. I don’t care how old you are: while you are under our roof, you will live by our rules,” he said. “If you have a problem with those rules, we can discuss adjusting them after your punishment is complete.”
“How long is that going to be?”
“The foreseeable future,” Dad said. He held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
Too stunned to do anything but obey, I dug my phone out of my pocket and dropped it into his waiting palm. He closed his fingers around it, pulling it out of my reach.
“Now go to your room.”
Through all of this, Mom didn’t say anything at all. She just watched me, with an expression of such profound disappointment on her face that it made my chest ache. I looked between them, my shoulders sagging. I had the book; I had the scrambler. I could have told them everything without any fear that SymboGen would overhear.
All I said was, “Goodnight,” before I turned and walked down the hall to my room.
Joyce was standing in her own doorway, watching my approach with dark, sad eyes. She shook her head as I passed her, and mouthed, “You fucked up,” silently before she vanished into the shadows of her room. I sighed and kept walking.
Beverly was curled up on my bed when I stepped into my room. She raised her head, tail thumping twice against the mattress. I closed my door, dropping my bag on the floor and setting the copy of Don’t Go Out Alone carefully on the desk. “At least someone’s glad to see me, huh, girl?”
Beverly’s tail thumped the bed again.
“Good dog.”
I was exhausted and overwhelmed by my day. I climbed into bed with my clothes still on. Beverly shifted positions so that her nose was tucked into the curled palm of my hand, and I fell asleep feeling her breath against my skin.
When I woke up the morning after our visit to Dr. Cale’s secret lair, I found myself a prisoner in my own home. The new security system not only controlled the doors and windows; it extended to the side gates, and it could be locked down hard by anyone who controlled the master codes—specifically, my mother, father, and Joyce, all of whom were deemed “responsible enough” to decide whether poor little Sal could be allowed to go wandering around the neighborhood unprotected. The sliding glass door to the backyard had been replaced with a wooden one. Beverly now had an electronic collar keyed to the brand-new doggie door, and she could use it to come and go during the hours when no one was home. From the perspective of the security system, I was no one.
The new security extended to the wireless network and even the television, both of which had been locked down. I couldn’t get on the Internet at all, and I couldn’t access any of the news channels—just movies, children’s shows, and endless reruns of nostalgic sitcoms made before I graduated from high school.
“This is insane,” I’d objected, only to have my father look at me with cold eyes, like he was looking at someone he didn’t even know.
“You should have thought of that before you ran off without telling us what had happened here,” he’d replied. “You made your bed, Sal. Now you get to lie in it. Next time, you’ll consider your actions before you commit to them.”
“But Dad—”
“I’m not ready to talk to you yet. Have a nice day.” Then he’d been out the door, heading for the car where Joyce was already waiting. I never even saw Mom that day. She was up and out before I got out of bed; she didn’t come back until after I’d gone to sleep for the night.
The scope of my punishment didn’t see
m to fit the crime that had inspired it. I’d disappeared with my boyfriend for a day, following the sort of traumatic event that probably should trigger that sort of behavior. They were acting like I’d killed somebody. As one day faded into the next, they kept shutting me out. Dad was constantly leaving for the office, or at the office, or not coming home, and Joyce was with him. After the second night, she stopped coming home at all. When Mom came home from her own errands, she made herself scarce, speaking to me only in generalities. All the while, I paced the house like a caged animal, reading Nathan’s copy of Don’t Go Out Alone over and over again like it was going to teach me something new.
The story never changed. Every time, the little boy and the little girl—neither of them with a name, neither of them ever shown fully out of shadow, so that they could have looked like anything, they could have looked like Nathan, or like me—went into the forest, searching for the broken doors. Every time, they found them, and found the prize they’d been searching for: eternity in the land of monsters. That was where the story ended, every time. There was nothing about their parents, beyond “they chased the monster away, and the journey began.” But wasn’t that what parents were supposed to do? Chase monsters away? It seemed like they were just doing their jobs, and yet somehow that was enough to justify them losing their children forever.
On the morning of the sixth day, I opened my bedroom door, ready to face another day locked in an empty house—at least I’d be going back to work the next day, where Will and Tasha would have to take responsibility for keeping me under guard—and found myself looking at my father. I froze. The hair on the back of my neck was standing up for some reason, like he was an intruder, and not my father, who loved me, and had been there since the day I woke up from my coma.