Parasite

my eyes and squinting into the shadows as I tried to figure out where I was.

All I found was more darkness, and a growing sense of dread.

The dread intensified when I tried to sit up and discovered that I was strapped to the unfamiliar surface beneath me. I froze, suddenly, horribly convinced I’d been hallucinating when I heard the sleepwalkers saying my name before. I’d been undergoing my own conversion, that was all, and the syllables that sounded like my name were really moans, translated into words by my own damaged ears as my implant devoured my mind, my self, everything that was me—

I made a strangled squeaking sound, feeling hot tears rise burning to my eyes. The sound wasn’t a moan, and that was more of a relief than I could have imagined. Besides, argued a small, logical part of me, if I’d been succumbing to the sleepwalking sickness, I wouldn’t be here to worry about it, now would I? Sally Mitchell would be gone, replaced by a confused tapeworm in a body it didn’t understand or know how to operate.

At some point between leaving my house and waking up alone in the dark, I’d stopped questioning what Dr. Cale had explained to me. It made too much sense when I held it up to the situation. Frankly, it was the only thing that made sense.

Anyone with a SymboGen implant was in danger. Anyone with a SymboGen implant was a danger, to themselves and to others. Nausea rolled in my gut, intensified by the ongoing knowledge that I was strapped down. If I threw up, I was going to be lying in it until someone came and let me up. But the thought that I might have a tapeworm laying siege to my brain, my self, was just too horrifying to put aside.

There was another thought beneath that. It was even worse than the idea of the siege. I buried it more firmly, trying to dwell on the more understandable horror. And I did understand what Dr. Cale was claiming she, Dr. Banks, and Dr. Jablonsky had done. I wasn’t a doctor, and I wasn’t a scientist, but I wasn’t stupid, and I learn quickly. So I understood, even if there was no way I could have re-created her work, or even explained the fine nuance to someone who hadn’t been present for her explanation. It wasn’t until the containment ward at USAMRIID that I started to fully believe her, and to accept what her actions meant.

My throat was dry. At least the room was silent; no sirens, no moaning, and no distant sound of drums. I licked my lips to moisten them, and said, “H-hello? This is Sally Mitchell. I’m not sick. Please, is anyone there? Please, can you come and untie me? I want to get up. I’m not sick. Please.” That didn’t seem like enough. I tried to count how many times I’d used the word “please,” how many times I’d said I wasn’t sick. It didn’t seem like enough. It didn’t seem like anything could possibly be enough. “I’m not sick,” I whispered, just once more.

“The sedatives you were given can have some unpleasant side effects, including increased salivation and sensitivity to light,” said my father’s voice, clear and firm and reassuringly familiar. It also sounded like he was speaking from somewhere inside the room—but that wasn’t possible. He was a quiet man, but I would have been able to hear him breathing in the absolute silence that had greeted me when I first woke up.

“Dad?” I said, craning my neck to peer into the blackness. I couldn’t see anything. That didn’t stop me from looking. “Where are you? Why am I strapped down?”

“It was a precaution in case you woke disoriented,” he said. He made it sound like it was a perfectly reasonable step to take. “Can you please say your full name?”

“Sally Mitchell. Can you untie me now?”

“Your full name.” His tone was gentle, like he was trying to prompt a recalcitrant child.

Anger began to gather in my chest, overwhelming the lingering nausea. “That is my full name,” I half said, half snapped. “I go by ‘Sal.’ Remember?”

“What’s your middle name, Sally?”

My middle name? My mind went blank. I didn’t remember having a middle name, much less being told what it was. No, wait—that wasn’t right. I had a middle initial. It appeared on all the official paperwork that SymboGen sent to the house. “It starts with ‘R,’” I said, slowly. “I know that. Is it Rebecca? Rachel?” I paused, trying to think of other names that started with the letter “R.” Finally, I ventured, “Rose?”

“Your middle name is Rae, Sally. Sally Rae Mitchell.”

I considered his words. Nothing about them was familiar. Still, it seemed best not to argue with him, not if I wanted to get out of here. “Fine, my middle name is Rae,” I said. “Now will you untie me?”

“What day is it?”

That was the last straw. The anger that had been gathering in my chest blossomed like a poisonous flower, and I was suddenly shouting at the darkness, hoping my words were at least somewhat aimed at the father I couldn’t see. “I don’t know, Dad, because I don’t know how long it’s been since you sedated me! And before that, I had sort of stopped paying attention, since you had me under house arrest! Now will you stop asking me stupid questions and let me out of here? I’m not sick, I’m not a lab experiment, and I’m not happy about the way you keep treating me!”

There was a click. An intercom had just been turned off somewhere in the room. My anger withered as quickly as it had bloomed, replaced by the sudden fear that my rant had been the last piece needed to convince them there was something seriously wrong with me. I couldn’t remember my middle name; I shouted at my own father. Clearly, I had to be sick.

Except that I wasn’t sick. I felt perfectly fine. And I had absolutely no idea how I was supposed to convince anyone else of that.

A door opened in the far wall of what was suddenly revealed to be a small room, much like the changing room that I’d used when we first arrived at the facility. A broad-shouldered silhouette appeared in the light. My father. I couldn’t let myself be relieved—not quite yet, no matter how much I wanted to—and so I just squinted at him, refusing to allow myself to speak until I had some idea of what he was going to do next.

“I need you to close your eyes for a moment,” he said. “I’m turning on the lights, and I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“Dad—” I couldn’t help myself. The word just slipped out, all fear and longing hanging in the air between us.

He sighed. “Just trust me, all right? Just for a few more minutes. Please.”

It wasn’t easy. It wouldn’t have been easy before he pretended to be a sleepwalker just to see what I would do. I still forced myself to squeeze my eyes shut, turning my head to the side in case the lights were bright enough to shine through my eyelids.

Instead of the expected brilliance, what I got was heat, shining on me from either side of the room. Startled, I turned back toward the door and opened my eyes, finding that my father was only slightly more visible than he’d been before. The room was still in almost total darkness, illuminated only by the two banks of UV lights positioned to either side of my cot. They were glowing a soft purple, turning the small hairs on my arms and the pops of cotton on the front of my scrubs an ethereal shade of raver-girl blue white.

“What?” I said.

“She’s clean,” called a voice from the hall, and the UV lights flicked off. The darkness seemed even deeper this time, despite the open door.

“Close your eyes again, Sally,” said my father, and stepped into the room.

I obliged, not wanting to do anything to delay his releasing me. A few seconds later, white light flooded my eyelids, making every vein in the thin skin perfectly visible. I waited a few seconds more before squinting through my lashes, watching my father as he approached.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“You showed us the test,” he said, beginning to unbuckle the strap that was holding my chest and arms to the cot. “We simply put it into a more immediately implementable form.”

I didn’t ask why USAMRIID just happened to have banks of UV lights around their facility, waiting to be used as an early parasite-detection system. They were a major military research center. If something had a potential medical application, I was sure it was somewhere in the building. Instead, I waited for my father to finish undoing the straps, then sat up, watching him warily. He took a step back from the cot, spreading his hands as if to show me they were empty. I appreciated the gesture more than I wanted to.

“Well?” I asked. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

He sighed. “Sally, I know you’re angry, but—”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”