The door slammed behind me. I flinched.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated more quietly to Tasha, who was standing next to the coffee machine with an amused expression on her face.
“You’re sorry?” she asked. “Really? You’re late, and you’re sorry about it? Truly this is unprecedented in the annals of our humble shelter. I’ll mark the calendars.”
I stuck my tongue out at her.
“Did the bad psychologist try to tell you that you were crazy again?” asked Tasha, seemingly unperturbed. Perturbing Tasha was practically impossible. She was the kind of girl who would probably greet Godzilla while he was attacking downtown by asking whether he’d ever considered adopting a kitten to help him with his obvious stress disorder. “You can tell your Auntie Tasha about it. I swear I’m not a SymboGen plant reporting all your actions back to the corporation.”
“You’re a jerk,” I said mildly, and grabbed my apron. “Come on. Scale of one to murder, how mad is Will over the whole ‘late’ thing?”
“Will isn’t mad at all, because you just volunteered to clean all the cat boxes,” said Will. I turned to see the shelter’s owner standing in the doorway of the kitten room, a seemingly boneless cat draped across his forearm. “Thanks, Sal!”
I rolled my eyes. “Lateness is not a legally binding promise to scoop shit.”
“No, but keeping your job sometimes means doing things you don’t want to do. Now go forth and scoop.” Will stepped out of the doorway. “Look at it this way. You spent the afternoon feeding metaphorical shit to your therapist, and now you can clean up some literal shit. It’ll be symbolically cleansing.”
“You just don’t want to do the boxes.”
“That, too,” Will agreed.
I rolled my eyes again and walked past him to the supply cabinet. Will was making a bigger deal of punishing me than was strictly necessary—I had a disability clearance excusing me for all my mandatory medical appointments, and since SymboGen made healthy donations to the shelter in exchange for keeping me on the staff, it wasn’t like he was going to argue with them needing a little of my time. I was also making a bigger deal of disliking my punishment than I had to. He was right. I needed a little normal after the day I’d had. I didn’t like dwelling on the reality of my situation, or the fact that SymboGen essentially controlled my future, at least for now. They paid for everything. The medical care, the lab work, the classes… everything. Until I was perfectly healthy and finished relearning the world, they held the strings.
The cats chirped, meowed, and hissed their greetings as I came into the room and shut the door behind me. I smiled at them, ignoring the paws that reached for me between the bars of their cages. “Okay, guys,” I said. “Let’s get to work.”
There’s one more good thing about being the girl who lived because her genetically engineered tapeworm refused to let her die: I lived. That made everything else possible. Everything else in the world.
I was wondering when you’d get around to asking about the Mitchell case. She’s a remarkable girl, young Sally. There are some people who think SymboGen saved her life. Well, I don’t feel that I’m bragging when I say that they’re probably right. We were nowhere near the accident, of course, we didn’t find out about it until later, but the presence of her implant made it possible for her body to survive the amount of trauma she experienced. The machines can only do so much, they’re on the outside. An implant, on the other hand… that can work from the inside, it can tailor its response faster than any doctor. It helps that the Mitchell family was able to get a really good, top-of-the-line model for Sally. Colonel Mitchell made sure his entire family was equipped with tailored Intestinal Bodyguards™. That must be what saved her.
SymboGen saves lives. Don’t let anyone try to convince you differently. If you think I’m wrong, well. Why don’t you try asking Sally Mitchell?
—FROM “KING OF THE WORMS,” AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. STEVEN BANKS, CO-FOUNDER OF SYMBOGEN. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ROLLING STONE, FEBRUARY 2027.
… the core genetic material for the SymboGen Intestinal Bodyguard™ was taken not from T. solium, as many would naturally assume, but from a subspecies of Diphyllobothrium—specifically D. yonagoensis. Many other genetic sources were utilized in the development of the Intestinal Bodyguard™; however, D. yonagoensis provided fully 63% of the initial genome.
By using a species not known for parasitizing humans as a primary host, SymboGen was able to control the life cycle of the Intestinal Bodyguard™ to an unprecedented degree. Their guarantees of sterility and planned obsolescence have thus far been borne out by all independent and internal testing. Their tailored species of Diphyllobothrium, D. symbogenesis, is stable, and genetically distinct enough not to be confused with any naturally occurring genotype, yet is incapable of reproducing itself outside the laboratory environment…
—FROM “THE DEVELOPMENT AND LIFE CYCLE OF DIPHYLLOBOTHRIUM SYMBOGENESIS,” ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE STANFORD SCIENCE REVIEW, JUNE 2017.
Chapter 2
JULY 2027
It took half an hour to do the litter boxes, and another hour to feed and medicate the kittens in the isolation room. They would be kept away from the rest of the cats until their blood tests came back negative for any infections or parasites; then they would be integrated into the rest of the shelter’s population, to await their “forever homes.” The irony of an organization where every human was a proud parasite-carrier working diligently to cure animals of parasites was not lost on me. Nathan liked to say that SymboGen wouldn’t rest until they’d perfected the Intestinal Bodyguard for use in every animal in America. Then he’d laugh like he was joking, even though we both knew he wasn’t.
I didn’t get the chance to check my phone until I was done with the last cage. There were two messages waiting for me. The first was from my sister, demanding—in her usual, strident Joyce way—to know how therapy had gone, and whether she got to keep treating me like the crazy one. There was a note of genuine concern under her nagging. She knew how much I hated seeing Dr. Morrison.
Nathan had left the second message only a few minutes before. It was substantially shorter than Joyce’s had been:
“Look outside.”
I lowered the phone as I crossed to the window. Nathan’s car was parked across the street. He was sitting on the hood in an easy cross-legged position, elbows resting on his knees as he smiled at the shelter, like he was waiting for me to appear.
I swiped my thumb across his name on my contact list before raising my phone to my ear. He dug out his own phone a few seconds later. “Hello?” he said.
“This is stalker behavior, you know,” I said sweetly. “Only stalkers park outside women’s places of employment and sit there waiting to see if they’re going to come out.”
“I prefer to think of it as being a compassionate, concerned boyfriend who didn’t want to make you take the bus,” said Nathan. “Stalker behavior would have me hiding in the supply closet.”
“What if I was looking forward to riding that bus?” I asked. “What if I’m playing a game of guess-that-smell with the driver, and I don’t want to let him pull ahead of me as we approach the championship round?”
“I suppose I’d just have to slink sadly back to my empty apartment, no girlfriend in my car, no one to go out to dinner with me,” said Nathan, and sighed theatrically. “I’ll just sit there in the dark, all alone…”
I laughed. “You’re a ham. You’re an absolute ham.”
“Probably true, and good use of the word ‘ham,’ ” Nathan replied, the faux mournfulness gone in an instant. “Come down, Sal. I’ll give you a ride home, and you can tell me how your appointment with Dr. Morrison went.”
“Do I have to?”
“Come down? Sure, unless you want to live at the shelter—a valid lifestyle choice, I admit, but probably boring in the long run.” Nathan paused before adding, “We don’t have to talk about Dr. Morrison if you don’t want to. I just thought you might.”
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As soon as he said it, I realized that he was right: I did want to talk about it. I didn’t want to go home and try to sleep with all that rattling around my brain. “I’ll be right down,” I said, and hung up.
Tasha was gone when I emerged from the back. Will was still there, sitting at the front desk. The cat from before was sitting next to the computer, nonchalantly washing a paw. It looked up when I entered the room, flicking its tail once. The tail landed across the keyboard, and Will looked up.
“Taking off?” he asked.
“Yeah. Nathan’s here to get me.” I retrieved my bag from the hook by the door. “The kittens in the isolation room are fed, and all the boxes are scooped in all five rooms. You going to be okay without me for the rest of tonight?”
“Yes, and for the rest of the week. See you Saturday.” Will smiled, making a waving gesture toward the door. “Go on, Sal. You need to spend some time with your boyfriend. Do normal things before your review. I worry when you let yourself get this stressed out.”
“You, Tasha, and everybody else,” I said. “Goodnight, Will.”
“Goodnight, Sal.”
It was a warm night, and the streetlights cast just enough light to make walking down the steps feel like something out of a movie: darkness that wasn’t really dark, more… cosmetic. Nathan slid off the hood of the car when he saw me coming.
He was in the driver’s seat by the time I reached the passenger side door—which was, naturally, locked. I tugged the handle and glared at him through the glass. He smiled without showing his teeth. I made a downward gesture with my free hand, and he hit a button on the steering wheel, causing the window to drop.
“Yes, miss?”
“You’re a dork,” I informed him. “A giant dork.”
“That’s a new word.” He pressed another button. The door unlocked. “Where’d you learn that one?”
“Eric—the kid next door. He said it was less offensive than calling someone a dick, but that it came from the same family of words.” I slid into the seat, glancing toward Nathan and quirking an eyebrow. “Why? Did I use it wrong?”
“No, you seem to have grasped my essential dorky nature.” Nathan leaned over to kiss me slowly. “Missed you today.”
“I missed you, too.” I returned his kiss before sinking deeper into the seat, trying to let my shoulders relax. Nathan adjusted the environmental controls. My seat warmed up and began rubbing my back in slow, rhythmic motions. “Mmm. Thanks.”
“You’re more fun when you’re not so tense that I can see the whites all the way around your eyes,” he said, and started the car. I tensed again, and relaxed as Nathan pulled smoothly onto the mostly empty street. Cars make me nervous. But Nathan was a good, safe driver who let me read his insurance statements when I asked him to confirm that he’d never been in an accident. He also kept both hands on the wheel when he had me in the car with him. “How did it go with Morrison?”
“He thinks I’m crazy.”
“Yes, he does.”
Nathan’s honesty was usually one of the things I appreciated most about him. At the moment, I wasn’t feeling much like embracing my inner truth. I glared at him. “You could be a little slower to agree there, you know.”
“I didn’t say I thought you were crazy, I said that he thinks you’re crazy. Or at least he’s convinced himself to think that you’re crazy.”
I frowned. “Support your thesis.”
“Normal people don’t say ‘support your thesis’ in casual conversation, honey.”
“Right.” I sighed. English is not an easy language to learn, and it was no better the second time. Basic sentence structure was mostly okay, but I had trouble with colloquialisms—the slang, the shading of the words, the reason that some things were more appropriate than others. English is a language full of words and syntax and phrases. It was a good reason for not talking much around strangers. “Can you explain?”
“Look, to Morrison, you’re a unique case that needs to be studied, and he figures that he might as well be the one doing the studying. Most people don’t come back from what you experienced.”
“I know that,” I said peevishly. “Why does that give him the right to act like I’m insane?”
“It doesn’t. It just gives him the motivation he needs to convince himself that you need his help more than you need anything else in the world, and so he keeps looking for excuses.” Nathan glanced at me, then back at the road. “He thinks I’m doing the same thing, you know.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Morrison. He thinks I’m dating you because it’s the best way to keep track of what’s going on with your metabolism.”
“That’s… wow. If you were doing that, you’d be an idiot. I’m peeing in so many cups and giving so many blood samples every week that you wouldn’t need to buy me dinner to keep track of my condition.” Nathan was a doctor—a parasitologist, to be exact—at San Francisco City Hospital. We’d met when Joyce had to go to the hospital to have the health of her implant checked. He’d given her some basic nutritional supplements and asked me out to dinner. It was the first time someone had shown interest in me like that, and I’d been delighted. I still was.
Nathan laughed. I loved that sound. “I know. Add the fact that SymboGen handles everything having to do with your Intestinal Bodyguard internally, and there’s a media blackout that means I couldn’t get your medical records if you asked me to, and I’d be a specialist without a subject.”
“That’s why I adore you,” I said. “You’re willing to waste time on me even when I don’t advance your career.”
“Right now, I’m more interested in advancing dinner,” he said.
“Good plan,” I said. “How do you feel about Mexican?”
“Excellent,” he said, and we drove on into the night.
In less than twenty minutes, we were seated at a white Formica table with a basket of chips and salsa, watching the waitress weave her way through the crowd to put our orders in. Nathan had ordered iced tea; I had ordered watermelon agua fresca, which I was intending to doctor liberally with Tabasco sauce. We’d discussed the relative merits of one another’s drinks a dozen times before—he thought mine was disgusting, I thought the same of his—and so we were able to skip that exchange in favor of a brief, companionable silence.
Nathan looked toward the window, watching someone walk past. I watched him. It was an activity I’d learned to like a lot since we met. I’d been surprised when I first realized that I found him attractive; that hadn’t happened to me before. The fact that he turned out to be handsome to other people was irrelevant.
He wasn’t tall as men went, only an inch or so taller than me, and having a Korean father and an English mother meant that he was always tanner than me, no matter how much time I spent in the sun. Both my parents were Irish, and the Irish word for “suntan” is “burn.” Of the two of us, he was still better about remembering to put on sunscreen, since he was much more aware of the dangers of cancer than I was. He wore wire-framed glasses in front of his dark brown eyes, citing a dislike of sticking things into his body as a reason to avoid either contacts or retinal implants.
That was another thing: Nathan was the best parasitologist I knew, and knew more about the SymboGen Intestinal Bodyguard than almost anyone who hadn’t helped to develop it, but he didn’t have one of his own. In a world where most people managed their medication automatically via tapeworm, he still took pills, because he said that it was less disturbing than the alternative.
The pause, and the introspection, couldn’t last. Nathan turned to look at me. I bit back a sigh. I knew that look. It was the “I’m about to ask you how therapy went” look, and it never ended well, for either of us.
“Did you tell him about the dreams?”
Yup: this was going to suck. “What about them?” I asked lightly. “The red part, the red part, or the red part?”
“Sal…”
“Yes, I told him about the dreams. He thinks I’m
dreaming about being in the womb. I think he’s wrong. He’s probably going to tell SymboGen I’m repressing, or regressing, or something, and I’m going to wind up with another year of therapy.” I stabbed a tortilla chip viciously into the salsa. “He’s the one who needs therapy.”
“Unfortunately, he’s not the one getting it. You are.”
“Nathan, I’m fine.” Sure, I woke up screaming three or four times a week, but that was normal for me. It was what I had been doing for all six years of my remembered life.
Nathan frowned, starting to say something. He was interrupted by the return of the waitress with our drinks. Once she was gone, he said, “You didn’t know who I was yesterday morning.”
I stopped in the middle of reaching for my agua fresca. “Excuse me?” My mouth was dry. I grabbed my drink and took a gulp, trying to rinse the dryness away. It didn’t work.
“Yesterday morning, you screamed and sat up in bed. I asked you what was wrong. You looked at me like you’d never seen me before. Then you looked at your hands and screamed again. I was honestly waiting for my neighbors to call the police and report that I was beating you, you screamed so much.”
My head was spinning. It felt like all the blood had drained out of it, heading for safer climes elsewhere in my body. “What happened after that?” I didn’t remember any of this, I didn’t remember any of it. Was Nathan lying to me? Worse, was Nathan telling me the truth?
“You stopped.”
The words were so simple that they didn’t quite make sense. I blinked at him. “What?”
“You stopped screaming. You didn’t wake up, you didn’t react when I touched you, you just collapsed back onto your pillow like you’d never moved at all. When you sat up again, about ten minutes later, you didn’t remember any of it.”