Parasite

“Tansy, back off,” said Nathan.

“What?” Tansy turned to him, opening her eyes in a wide parody of innocence. “She asked.”

“It’s because of my accident, isn’t it?”

They both turned to look at me. Nathan looked worried; Tansy, expectant, like I was finally going to do the marvelous trick she’d been waiting for since we met. Nathan spoke first, asking slowly, “What do you mean, Sal?”

“When I had my accident, I hurt my head. I mean, bad—the doctors said I was legally brain-dead, remember?” Nathan didn’t say anything. He just nodded. I continued, “So if SymboGen knows about the implants going wrong—and at this point I’m pretty sure they do; Dr. Banks isn’t stupid, and neither is anyone who works for him—then they have to be looking for ways to stop them. I have brain damage because of that accident. It’s not severe, but there’s scarring. That’s probably the sort of thing that would interfere with the implant taking over, don’t you think? Like a physical barrier against the process. SymboGen probably wants to keep me under observation because they’re trying to figure out how to keep the implants from taking anyone else over. If the implants can’t control their hosts, they’ll just go back to doing what they were designed to do, right?”

“We hope so,” said Nathan. He adjusted his glasses, the gesture seeming oddly relieved somehow, like he had been expecting a different answer. “SymboGen has definitely been tracking you since the accident. I didn’t realize just how dedicated they were to keeping tabs on you until I started talking to Mom, but—”

“Wait,” I said. “Have you been in touch with Dr. Cale since we went to her lab? I mean, other than today, when I called about medical treatment for Joyce. I assumed that was where you went when my father couldn’t find you, but I wasn’t sure.”

“Well, sure,” said Tansy. “I’ve had to let him into the lab twice. Three times, almost, except there was an outbreak and he wound up having to work. I tried to tell him there was no point, since those folks were already symptomatic, but you know Nathan.”

Nathan looked sternly at Tansy. “I don’t care whether you and Mom have written them off as failed integrations. They’re people, and they’re sick. I took an oath to heal the sick when I chose to become a doctor.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” said Tansy. She looked at me. “He’s boring. Was he always boring, or did you suck all the interesting right out of him by being all you all the time?”

“What do you mean, ‘being all me’?” I planted my hands on my hips, frowning at her the way that Tasha frowned at recalcitrant animals at the shelter.

It didn’t seem to have any effect. “You know.” She waved her hands in my general direction. “All comfy jeans and slouchy shirts and boring hair and ‘no I don’t want to go out I don’t want to do anything I just want to stay home and talk and maybe watch a movie.’ You’re like the poster child for dull.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t feel like falling back into old bad habits. I’ve been ‘interesting.’ As far as I can tell, I didn’t like it very much.”

“What?” Tansy looked perplexed. “When the heck were you interesting?”

I didn’t feel like having this fight with her. Even more, I didn’t feel like summoning the ghost of Sally to float around our conversation, judging my every boring thought and action. Because Tansy was right—I might not remember the girl I used to be, but I knew enough about her to know that Sally Mitchell would have taken one look at Sal Mitchell and written me off as too boring to be tolerated. Sally liked action and adventure, fast cars and loud music, and all those other things that I just didn’t have the time for. And me?

I liked not being Sally. “Drop it,” I said shortly. “What did you mean before, when you said you wanted me to go to SymboGen? What can I possibly find out that we don’t already know?”

“Oh!” Tansy beamed, suddenly all business again. “Doctor C prepped this thumb drive for you. If you can just put it in one of their computers, it’ll totally harvest the data we need. Only it has to be inside their firewalls, and it has to be connected to a computer that the network trusts, otherwise it’s a no-go. We’ll get nothing, and then we won’t be able to stop the cousins from trashing the brains of their hosts all willy-nilly and without asking them to dinner first. And let me tell you, a rogue tapeworm chowing down on your cerebellum? Will not respect you in the morning.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “What happens after I get the information? How am I supposed to get it out of SymboGen? From the way you two were talking, they’re not just going to let me walk back out with it. They’re not going to let me walk back out at all.”

“Let us worry about that,” said Tansy, with a dismissive wave of her hand.

The drums were suddenly pounding in my ears again, as loud and undeniable as they had ever been. “No,” I snapped. She hadn’t been expecting that tone from me; she dropped her hand and stared, looking utterly bemused. Even kittens have claws. Someone should probably have told her that before they sent her to talk to me. “I’m not going to let you worry about that. If you want me to walk into danger because you’re hoping it’ll get you something you need, I’m damn well going to worry about it myself. I’m the one whose neck is on the line in this little plan of yours. So don’t tell me not to worry. Tell me what you think is going to happen if I do what you want me to do.”

“Whoa.” Tansy turned to Nathan, pointed to me, and asked, “Where did that come from? I like it!”

“Do you and my mother both have so little faith in my taste in women that you assumed I’d date a pushover?” Nathan smiled, amusement lurking under his obvious unease. “Sal doesn’t wear her aggression on her sleeve the way you do, but she’s quite capable of taking care of herself when the need arises. You’re telling us that the need has arisen. That means she gets to ask you questions that you don’t want to answer.”

“Well?” I said.

Tansy sighed. “Okay, fine,” she said. “Maybe we better sit down.”

Nathan didn’t have any fruit punch, but he did have some lemonade mix in the back of the cereal cupboard, which Tansy allowed was an acceptable substitute, after he allowed her to add a cup of sugar and a disturbing amount of red food coloring. She claimed that she could taste it. I wasn’t going to argue with her.

While Nathan was getting Tansy settled in the small dining area, I went back to the bedroom and let the dogs out. It was, in its own way, a test. If my dog didn’t trust Tansy, I wasn’t going to let her send me to my possible doom. The opinions of a Labrador retriever might seem less than relevant, but Beverly had already saved my life once before. She didn’t like people who were out to hurt me. Hopefully, that dislike would extend to situations where the danger was less immediate.

It wasn’t until the door was open that I remembered Beverly’s reaction to her original owner when he first started getting sick. If she could detect the implants taking over, how was she going to react to Tansy? And what about Minnie—would she respond the same way, once she realized what was going on?

It was too late to stop them from getting to the kitchen: Beverly was already running full-tilt down the hall with Minnie close at her heels, the duo lured by the seductive sounds of company and dishes rattling. Maybe there would be food. Maybe the food would be given to them. I ran after the dogs, hoping that I could somehow hold them both back long enough to stop them from tearing Tansy’s throat out with their teeth if things went badly—

—and stopped when I reached the kitchen just in time to hear Tansy’s ecstatic cry of “Doggies!” It was followed by her sliding out of her chair, dropping to her knees on the hardwood, and throwing her arms around Beverly’s neck. For her part, Beverly bore the embrace with her usual stoic good cheer, only the thumping of her tail against the floor betraying her ongoing interest in treats. Minnie ignored her, choosing to head for Nathan instead, sitting down at his feet and looking adoringly up at him.

“Sal,” said Nathan, sounding surprised. “You let the dogs out.”

“I didn’t want Beverly to get upset and start shredding your pillows,” I said. “Minnie just sort of came along for the ride.”

“Oh, is the black one’s name Beverly? What a good name for a doggy! Are you a good doggy? Yes, you are a good doggy, you are.” Tansy kept hugging Beverly’s neck as she spoke. “Where did she come from?”

“Her owner was taken over by his implant while we were walking in the park,” said Nathan. “Sal works at an animal shelter. She couldn’t just leave Beverly running wild. Somehow, that turned into ‘we have a dog now.’”