Some of the samples we’re finding in the sleepwalker population imply as much as eleven percent human DNA, without any visible change to the morphology of the D. symbogenesis worm.
What this means, I do not know. I cannot imagine it means anything remotely good.
Chapter
4 SEPTEMBER 2027
The car pulling to a stop woke me, if “woke” is the correct word: I wasn’t sleeping in the traditional sense, just so deep in the hot warm dark that I had ceased to be aware of distance. I opened my eyes on a world without sunlight, the car lit only by the dim glow from the instrument panel. We were pulled off to the side of the road somewhere in the rolling hills that seemed to cover a third of the Bay Area. I blinked, trying to get my bearings, and then twisted in my seat to look at Nathan.
“Why are we stopped?” I asked.
“The dogs need a bathroom break, and according to the traffic reports, we’re in the clear from here on out,” he said, unfastening his seat belt as he spoke. “We made it over the bridge. No incidents. If the quarantine on San Francisco has been declared, no one’s told anyone this far from the city yet.”
“Anything on the news?” I sat up, rumpling my hair with one hand and yawning. I felt, if anything, even more limp and wrung-out than I had before we left the apartment. However much energy I’d been able to gain from the cookies and juice, it wasn’t going to last forever.
“They’re reporting fires in San Francisco, and advising travelers to either stay in their hotels or cars and await evacuation, if they’re already in the city, or stay at home, and as far from San Francisco as possible. There hasn’t been anything about a bridge closure yet. That may just be a media effort to keep people from rushing to see what’s going on. People love to gawk at accidents. They’re not quite as fond of being set on fire.”
“Right.” I reached for my seat belt. Nathan’s hand on my shoulder stopped me. I turned to face him, blinking. “What?”
“I want you to stay in the car,” he said.
“What? Why?”
“Because your hands are shaking. They’ve been shaking since you woke up.” He pulled his hand away. “You need medical attention. I’m not going to risk you collapsing by the side of the road because you didn’t want me to walk the dogs by myself.”
Much as I hated to admit it, Nathan had a point. I sighed, sagging back in my seat. “Okay, but leave the keys? I want to listen to the radio.”
“You’ve got it.” He leaned over and kissed my temple before turning the key in the ignition, reactivating the car’s electrical systems. I reached for the radio and was starting to scan through the local stations when he got out of the car, slamming the door behind himself, and let the dogs out of the back. I was alone.
The first three stations were generic classic rock, all power ballads and songs about how awesome it was to be young forever. I skipped past them, looking for the news. I was so focused that I scanned right past a familiar voice, only realizing what I’d done two stations later. The drums beginning to hammer in my ears again, I rolled the scanner carefully back.
“—during a tragic break-in at our offices earlier today. I knew our competition was capable of a lot of things, but I had no idea they would stoop to corporate espionage, or that they’d be willing to involve someone who couldn’t understand what she was doing.” Dr. Banks sounded solemn and upset, like he was barely keeping himself under control. I’d always known he was an excellent liar, but as I listened to him talk, I started to understand how good he really was. “Sally Mitchell is a wonderful girl. I’ve enjoyed our time together immensely, and I think of her as a daughter, but it’s no secret that she’s not… well. She suffered some fairly severe brain damage in her accident, and she’s never fully recovered. She never will. Her family has been holding her in custodianship for the last several years, and she and I had been speaking about the virtues of transferring that custody to me. I think of her as a daughter, and her biological parents, well, they could never look at her without seeing everything she had lost. I love her. I know she’d never have done anything like this of her own initiative. Someone put her up to this. Someone exploited a poor, mentally handicapped girl for their own ends, and when I find out who did this, I swear, I am going to come down on them with the full force of the law.”
His tone changed, becoming ingratiating. I knew that most of the station’s listeners—if it was just this station; if this wasn’t going out nationwide—would take his words as paternal and loving, but I saw them for what they had always been: a trap. He was trying to trap me, just like he’d been doing for my entire life.
“Sally, if you can hear this, if you’re out there somewhere, listening to me, Sally, please, come home. The people who told you to steal from me, they’re not your friends. I don’t know what lies they’ve been feeding to you, but I only have your best interests at heart, I’ve only ever wanted to help you, and I can’t do that if you’re running from me. I’m not pressing charges against you for what you did. I’m not blaming you for the people who were hurt. I know that none of this was your idea. But Sally, please, please, I am begging you. Please come home.”
The quality of the sound abruptly changed, and an unfamiliar woman said, “That was Dr. Steven Banks at his press conference earlier today, discussing the break-in at the SymboGen headquarters that resulted in the deaths of three security guards, and the hospitalization of two doctors. It is widely believed that this break-in was made possible by the actions of Sally Mitchell, a patient of SymboGen’s. Miss Mitchell, as you may recall, was involved in a tragic accident—”
I gasped and turned off the radio before the woman could start telling me about my own past. I was still staring at it, my arms wrapped tightly around myself, when the car doors opened. Beverly and Minnie came bounding into the backseat, and Beverly shoved her nose under my hair, snuffling loudly, in case I had changed while she was away. The door closed, and the driver’s-side door opened. I kept staring at the radio.
“Sal?” Nathan put a hand on my arm as he slid back into his seat. I didn’t react. He pulled the hand away, closing his door, creating a safe, enclosed space around us. Only then did he try again, asking, “Sal, honey, what’s wrong? What was on the radio?”
“Dr. Banks.” I turned slowly to face him. “He did a press conference. He told everyone about the break-in, and said that people got hurt, and that it was my fault. But he’s not pressing charges, he says, he just wants me to come home.”
“Which may mean he’s offering a reward for anyone who turns you in, and trying to deflect people from suspecting SymboGen’s involvement in the sleepwalker outbreak at the same time. Dammit.” Nathan scowled, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “I guess that just means we’ll need to be a little bit more careful for the rest of the drive. Are you ready to go?”
“Fasten your seat belt,” I said.
Nathan fastened his seat belt.
“Is your mom going to let us back into the lab when there are people looking for me?”
“There have always been people looking for you, and there have always been people looking for her,” he said. “Maybe that doesn’t sound reassuring, but it is, because she’s always been willing to let you in. You’re her greatest creation, a chimera that formed entirely without human aid. I’m not going to let her use you as a lab subject, but darling, you have to understand how much leverage this gives you over her. She needs to study you. She’ll let us in.”