Parasite (Parasitology) (50 page)

“So the sleepwalking sickness is parasitic, but it’s not a SymboGen parasite?”

“Now you’re catching on. We think that whoever created the parasite that causes it wanted to make something small—something that wouldn’t catch the attention of the implants. They’re very territorial, you know, and they won’t tolerate the presence of a competing parasite. So these unknown engineers started with a protozoa parasite, and worked their way up from there. The trouble is, protozoa can be transmitted in water. And most modern filtration systems haven’t been constructed to filter out parasites. It would be a waste of money.”

The chain of transmission he was proposing made sense. People ingest illegal, black market parasites for some reason—and let’s face it, there are always people willing to do things that seem stupid if they think they’re going to get something out of it—and then those parasites find their way into shower drains and sinks as their new host’s body adjusts to their presence. Once they got into the water, the parasites would be able to sail right into the body of another host, with no one the wiser. I wasn’t sure how big protozoa were, but they’d have to be pretty small if they were designed not to attract the attention of the implants.

“Wouldn’t the protozoa be territorial?” I asked.

“Not in the same way,” he said, sounding more confident now, like I’d finally ventured onto territory he knew how to manage. “Tapeworms are generally solitary, because they have
to be; very few hosts can support two healthy adult tapeworms without dying. Even so, in nature, it’s not unusual for people to have multiple tapeworms, because they’re hermaphrodites, and sometimes their babies just don’t go looking for places of their own.”

The fact that he was making jokes, even terrible ones, made me want to claw his eyes out. I forced myself to remain still. “So these protozoa, they’d come in groups? And that way, if some of them got out of the body, there would still be protozoa in their original hosts?”

“Yes, exactly. We believe that what’s happening—the most reasonable chain of transmission—is fools looking for a magic bullet ingesting the generation one, or G1, protozoa. Once their infection is established, they start shedding excess parasites into the water supply, where they reproduce, creating generation two, or G2, protozoa. From there, the G2 protozoa make their way into faucets and showers, and gradually spread the infection.” Dr. Banks shook his head. “What’s truly tragic about this is that it seems likely that the people who started this whole mess are the only ones
not
getting sick. Having a pre-established G1 colony is likely to protect them from the encroaching G2 colony, and it seems likely that only the G2 protozoa are actually causing their hosts to succumb to the sleepwalking sickness.”

“Oh.” My head was starting to spin from all the scientific jargon he was spouting. I desperately wished that Nathan was there. He’d have been able to tell me how much of this was real and how much was carefully created spin doctoring, using possibilities and potentials to craft a story that sounded almost plausible. “So how much of this do you know? I mean, you keep saying ‘we think’ and ‘we guess,’ but you haven’t said very much ‘we know.’ How much have you proven?”

“Enough,” said Dr. Banks, with sudden vagueness. “I’m so sorry that you’ve been walking around thinking that our
test meant we had a treatment. Until we know for sure what’s attacking these people, we can’t put forth a viable course of antiparasitics, and we don’t want to risk a mass panic.”

“Why not? Are you afraid that it would hurt your stock prices?”

“No, Sally, we’re afraid that it would hurt everyone who trusts our brand enough to have one of our implants. The SymboGen Intestinal Bodyguard was created to mitigate the worst effects of the hygiene hypothesis. It allowed us to undo, in a single step, literally decades of excessive sterilization and reduced microbial diversity. Since then, the implants have become responsible for everything from maintaining insulin levels in diabetics to controlling issues with human brain chemistry and secreting natural birth control. They represent millions of dollars saved in pharmacological costs annually. That doesn’t even take into account the savings they naturally cause in the areas of preventative medicine and allergy control. They’ve changed the face of medicine.”

“And?” I asked.

“And if you take all that away, even assuming that every single host was able to survive the course of antibiotics necessary to flush both the implant and the unknown protozoa from their system, what infrastructure is going to be there to step up and take care of all these people’s medical needs? Who is going to be standing by with the pills no one is in the habit of taking anymore, the shots no one wants to give themselves? What happens to the women who live in regions where birth control is unfairly restricted, but have been getting around that by buying their implants out of state? Suddenly they’re back in the bad old position of needing to find a way to convince their doctors they’re not immoral whores just because they want to be allowed to control their own reproduction. Take away the implants, and the medical system of this country crumbles.” There was a strange new light in Dr. Banks’s eyes. He sounded
appropriately solemn as he was speaking, but something about his expression was almost… proud. “That’s just America.
D. symbogenesis
is a global phenomenon. What do you say to the people who are finally able to control their own medical destinies? How do you convince them to throw away their miracle because they might, potentially, come into contact with another type of parasite someday, and it could hurt them?”

“Oh.” I bit my lip, worrying it between my teeth before asking, “But how does that excuse not sharing the test with the authorities? I mean, you could tell them everything, just the way you told me, and then show them how to check for the bad parasites, and they’d be able to… I don’t know, quarantine people when they started getting sick. Maybe then, no one would get hurt just because they got too close to someone who was already going to die.” I thought of Devi, who’d only wanted to be sure that her wife was okay. Would putting Katherine under quarantine as soon as she tested positive have made any difference? Probably not. But we would never know, would we?

“We could also trigger a panic, leading to millions of people overdosing on antiparasitics as they become convinced that
D. symbogenesis
is somehow connected to the outbreaks. We’re already starting to see resource hoarding in some areas where the sleepwalkers have been especially active.” Dr. Banks shook his head. “We set out to become the first name in parasites. Well, we achieved it. Now we have to be careful, or the sins of an entire biological genus will be heaped upon our heads.”

“You mean your head,” I said.

Dr. Banks blinked. Apparently, declarative statements were more surprising than bewildered questions. “What do you mean?”

“I mean Dr. Jablonsky is dead, and Dr. Cale is missing, so any blame is going to fall on you. Is that why you look so tired?” I tried to sound sympathetic. I wasn’t sure that it was working.

For his part, Dr. Banks looked even more surprised than he had before. “I wasn’t aware you knew so much about SymboGen’s history.”

“Everyone knows about SymboGen’s history,” I said. It was true: he’d made sure we couldn’t forget it. I just knew a little more than I was meant to. “I didn’t read the books, but they’re available in audio. I listened to them while I was at work. There was a lot I wanted to understand.”

“Ah, yes, work,” said Dr. Banks, suddenly looking like he was back on familiar ground. “Will tells me that you haven’t been to the shelter in more than a week. Have you been feeling unwell?”

SymboGen got me the job at the shelter. Of course Dr. Banks would be on a first-name basis with my boss. “I was at home,” I said. “Nathan and I got caught in an outbreak in Lafayette.”

“Oh, yes, I heard about that,” said Dr. Banks. “Whatever were you doing out there?”

Fortunately, I had a believable, if utterly frivolous excuse for what we would have been doing out in Lafayette: “There’s this ice cream company called Jeni’s? They’re from Ohio? Anyway, the only place in the Bay Area that carries most of their flavors is Diablo Foods in Lafayette. I wanted ice cream, and Nathan felt like indulging me, I guess.” I bit my lip again. “Maybe we should have just gone to Ghirardelli Square.”

“Maybe you should have,” Dr. Banks agreed. “Sally, I am so, so sorry you had to see that.”

There was one question I hadn’t asked yet. I sniffled again, doing my best to look pitiful, and asked, “If the sleepwalking sickness is because of a proto-whatsit, not the implants, how is it messing up everyone’s behavior? I mean. I know some parasites can get into the brain, but don’t those have to be bigger? Not so tiny that they can get through water filters?”

Dr. Banks paused. In that momentary silence, I heard everything I needed to hear: he was testing a line of public spin on
me. There were no protozoa, no black market parasite that was creating this sudden health hazard. Given sufficient time, I was sure that SymboGen could synthesize one and introduce it to the water table, thus deflecting suspicion onto whatever underground genetic labs they could find.

Labs like Dr. Cale’s.

Finally, he said, “We don’t know. But we’re going to find out, and as soon as we have concrete proof of our accusations, we’re going to take our findings to USAMRIID and the CDC. You have my word on that.”

I nodded. “Thank you.” Then I sagged forward, covering my face with my hands, and wailed, “But it’ll be too late for Joyce. She’s going to die. She’s going to get sicker and sicker, and forget who she is, and then she’s going to die.”

“Sally…” I heard Dr. Banks get out of his chair. I didn’t lift my head, but listened to the sound of his footsteps coming closer. I managed to brace myself enough so that I didn’t flinch when his heavy hand landed on my shoulder, trying to offer comfort. “I’m so sorry about your sister. There was nothing I could have done to help her. But you should never have been forced to see that. You should never have been forced to see any of this.”

I didn’t say anything. I kept my head down, continuing to make small choking noises, like my air supply had been fatally compromised. Dr. Banks gave my shoulder an awkward pat. I bent further forward and whimpered.

That seemed to be the missing ingredient. “Let me send someone to get you a glass of water.”

“No,” I mumbled, just loudly enough to be heard without my needing to sit up. If I sat up, he’d see that I wasn’t really crying. At that point, he might start wondering why I’d been faking it, and then the jig would most certainly be up. “I don’t… I don’t want to see anyone else.”

“Oh,
Sally
,” he sighed, and pulled his hand away. “Let me get it for you, then. I don’t mind.”

“Thank you,” I whispered. I kept my head down as I listened to his footsteps retreating across the room, waiting for the sound of the door being opened and closed. I didn’t have much time. I still forced myself to count to five before I raised my head and risked a glance behind me.

Dr. Banks was gone.

Moving as fast as I could without tripping over my own feet, I slid out of the chair and dug the thumb drive out of my pocket at the same time. In five steps I was around his desk, bending to shove the thumb drive into one of the USB ports at the front of his computer. It beeped once, and the little light on top of the thumb drive came on, glowing a steady green. I didn’t know whether that was good or not. What color was a thumb drive supposed to glow? That kind of thing had never been important to me before. Here, now, it seemed like the most important thing in the world.

According to Tansy, I only needed to keep the thumb drive connected for ten seconds. I dropped into Dr. Banks’s chair and dug wildly through my backpack, coming up with the one thing that could potentially explain why I had changed seats: my notebook. I flipped it open to the first empty page, grabbed a pen out of Dr. Banks’s jar, and started scribbling words almost at random. My writing was even more illegible than normal. That was a good thing.

I counted down from ten as I wrote, trying to give the thumb drive time to do its work. I itched to pull it out, choosing safety over giving it time to finish. Quashing the urge took everything I had in me, but I did it, continuing to write as the seconds slipped by.

The doorknob turned while I was still counting. I hunched farther down over my paper, and stayed that way as Dr. Banks stepped into the room. “Sally?” he said, sounding surprised.

I raised my head, hoping he would read my borderline panic as misery, and said, “I needed to write, and I couldn’t get my
notebook to balance on my knees. Dr. Morrison says I should write whenever I feel like I need to. You don’t mind, do you?” The drums were suddenly hammering in my ears. I swallowed and forced myself to keep looking at Dr. Banks, reading his expression for any sign that he knew I was lying to him.

Instead, his face softened, and he said, “I don’t mind at all, Sally. You should absolutely do what your therapist recommends. Dr. Morrison is a good man, and I have the utmost faith in his methods.”

“I’m glad you’re not mad,” I said, and sniffled again, wiping my nose on the back of my hand before I went back to writing. Dr. Banks walked over to the desk, putting the paper cup of water he’d gone to fetch down next to me, and lingered just a little too long, clearly trying to make some sense out of the messy loops and swirls of my writing. The joke was on him. While I could write legibly when I tried, I wasn’t trying, and even I wouldn’t have been able to decode some of what I’d written. Dr. Morrison always yelled at me when I did that. I didn’t care.

“What are you writing about, Sally?” he finally asked.

“Joyce. How scared I am about what might happen to her. How much I hope she gets better. How guilty I feel for moving out of my parents’ house.” I looked up, meeting his eyes as I said, “I moved in with Nathan last night.”

“Is your family not reacting well?” He paused, frowning. “Did they release the medical custodianship?”