Parasite

to the right parts of the building, and the floor was an industrial avocado green that looked like it had been chosen to coordinate with generic medical scrubs.

Another uniformed guard sat at the reception desk. Dad motioned for me to stay where I was as he walked over and exchanged a few words with the man in a low voice. The man’s eyes flickered to me and back to Dad again. I tried not to squirm. Finally, my father leaned over the desk and picked up an old-fashioned telephone. A thick cord connected it to a base that looked heavy enough to be used as a melee weapon. He brought the phone to his ear, and was silent for several seconds before he said, “This is Colonel Alfred Mitchell. My daughter, Sally, is with me. Can you confirm the current conditions in the main lab?” There was another pause before he said, “Yes, I’ve cleared her presence through the appropriate channels. I am the appropriate channels. Can you confirm current conditions?”

He sounded annoyed. I stayed where I was. When my father was annoyed, the last place I wanted to be was in his line of fire. He never really yelled at me—that pleasure was generally reserved for Joyce, who didn’t seem to mind; she gave as good as she got, anyway, and that seemed to work for both of them—but he’d look at me sometimes like he wasn’t sure what I was doing, or why I was allowed to be wherever I was, and that was something I wanted to avoid if at all possible.

When he looked at me like that, he was frightening.

Dad made a small, irritated sound. “Well, tell Michael to put things back in their boxes. We’re coming through in five minutes. Sally has something she needs to show me, and that means we need to be inside the lab space.” He slammed the receiver down on its base harder than he needed to as he turned to face me. “The lab is not prepared for civilian visitors. They’ll be ready for us shortly.”

“Do you mean ‘not prepared’ like ‘they need to clean up,’ or ‘not prepared’ like ‘someone dropped a vial and now it’s all melting flesh and screaming’?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. I wasn’t sure I’d ever sleep again if I didn’t know the answer.

That actually made Dad smile. “Neither,” he said. “It’s ‘not prepared’ in the sense of ‘there is confidential material that shouldn’t be seen by civilian eyes out on the counters.’”

“Oh.” I paused, frowning. “But… isn’t Joyce a civilian?”

Dad’s smile faded. “Yes,” he said, and the weight of disappointment in that word was as crushing as it was confusing. If Joyce was a civilian, what was the problem with my asking the question?

He turned away before I could ask him, saying something else quiet to the guard at the desk. The guard nodded, handing him a key card and a visitor’s pass. The pass had my picture on it. Dad turned, holding them out to me.

“How did they make it so fast?” I asked, taking the pass and card.

My father ignored my question. “The women’s changing room is over there,” he said, indicating a door at the back of the reception area. It was unmarked. “Go in there and get yourself into some scrubs; affix the pass to the front of them. We’re going into a clean area, and I’d rather you didn’t introduce contamination.”

“Dad—”

“Just get changed, Sal. We’ll talk about all this later.”

I frowned. His mood swings and changes in attitude were starting to worry me. Given Dr. Cale’s description of the components of D. symbogenesis, what were the chances it could be interfering with his brain function? Was my father’s implant beginning to take over? And if it was, was there anything I could possibly do about it?

That line of thought would lead me nowhere good, and it wasn’t like I’d have to wait long to learn the answer: we were about to go into a clean area. Once we were there, I’d show him how the UV light tests worked, and I could use that as an excuse to check him for signs of infection. After that was done… well, we’d see what happened after that. If nothing else, if I knew he was infected before he did, I could run like hell.

I bit my lip. “I’ll be right back,” I said.

“Good,” he replied. “You wouldn’t want to go wandering off in here. There are some very dangerous things in this facility.”

I nodded quickly before I turned to head through the door he had indicated before. Dangerous things. Yes. They were all around me.

The problem was, I was starting to wonder if he might be one of them.

The women’s changing room was lined entirely with pea-green lockers. Some of them had combination locks on them, keeping their contents secret. The three nearest the door were marked VISITOR. I opened one of those, pulling out the pale blue medical scrubs inside. There were even slippers, and a plastic cap for my hair. Reduce the risk as much as possible. Not to zero—never to zero; the only thing that’s at absolutely zero risk is something dead, or that was never at risk at all—but to as close as science can manage.

I stripped to my bra and underpants before stopping to wonder whether they might have cameras in the room. Modesty was one of the more difficult lessons they’d tried to drill into me, and I was still trying to get the more subtle details down. Were cameras supposed to be one of the things I couldn’t let see me naked, or could I relax around them?

Sherman would know.

That thought sent the cold dread roiling in my stomach once again. I’d almost forgotten about Sherman, and how very personal this infection could be. If Dad was sick…

He wasn’t showing any of the signs of the sleepwalking sickness. He was still calm, and coherent, and aware of his surroundings. He’d driven me to USAMRIID. The sleepwalkers weren’t capable of operating a car. That level of fine motor control was long gone by the time they started rambling. So why couldn’t I shake the feeling that I was missing something?

I dressed quickly, tying my hair into a ponytail before tucking it into the plastic cap. I stuffed my clothes into the locker. I didn’t have a lock. That wasn’t a problem, since the only things that really mattered—my notebook and Nathan’s copy of Don’t Go Out Alone—were still in my bag and safely hidden under the passenger seat in Dad’s car. If someone wanted to wander away with my clothes, I’d be annoyed, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

The pass was a flexible piece of memory plastic with my name and basic description printed on it, along with my picture. It softened when I pressed it against the breast of my scrubs, bonding with the fabric. I didn’t know how they were going to get it off again, and I didn’t care.

Dad was waiting when I emerged from the changing room, and he had changed his own clothes for blue scrubs identical to mine. The feeling that something was wrong just got stronger when I saw the look on his face, a grim mix of determination and unhappiness. I forced a smile before handing back the key card.

“All ready,” I said.

“There’s been another mob of sleepwalkers,” he replied. “This one formed in downtown Walnut Creek. They attacked the outdoor shopping center. Casualties are still being tabulated. It’s spreading—and it’s not staying off the news this time. We’re already getting reports of runs on water and canned goods at the local grocery stores.”

I glanced at the guard at the reception desk, who gave no sign of having heard, before turning back to my father. “I… Dad, why are you telling me this?”

“Because if there is anything, anything, you know about this disease, and you don’t share that information today, I don’t know how I’ll be able to justify letting you leave without arresting you for treason.” He shook his head. Something behind his eyes was hard and unfamiliar. The dread in my stomach wound itself even tighter. “I’ve tried to be patient. I’ve tried to wait for you to come around. I’ve tried, God knows, to understand how difficult this is for you—how hard it’s been for someone with your limited exposure to the world to understand the severity of our current situation. I’ve defended my actions to my superiors several times already. I don’t know how much longer I can do that.”

I stared at him. It was the only thing I could do. What he was saying… “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If that’s true, then we’re both in a great deal of trouble. Come along.” He turned his back on me again, this time as he walked to the next sealed door and swiped his key card across the lock. The door swung open. He stepped through, and I followed him.

The main room of the USAMRIID L4 lab looked so much like Dr. Cale’s makeshift bowling alley laboratory