Parasite World

by Trevor Williams

  Parasite World

  by

  Trevor Williams

  © 2017 Trevor Williams

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be

  reproduced or transmitted in any form

  without permission of the author.

  Welcome to Parasite World!

  Parasite World is a series of short stories set in a parallel world very much like our own. The born-to-rule Old Etonians are in power in the UK and the president of the USA is a Christian fundamentalist. Nothing much different there then, you say. However, in this world, the aliens landed a hundred years ago and established a colony that has spread worldwide. Not only that, the technology of this world has taken a different path from ours. Parasites are a major resource. For instance, you can use parasites to lose weight, infest sales prospects to make them more amenable to your sales pitch or attack your enemies. And guess who the best people are at developing biotech. Yes, it’s the aliens and they are an interfering bunch who think humans need a little help now and again.

  The Old Etonian clique and their mates are not averse to using parasite technology either: most of them have a parasitic homunculus growing out of the right shoulder. This little beast acts as an advisor, whispering in the human host’s ear night and day. The homunculus is also a badge of rank. You are immediately seen as upper crust in English society if you have one. But beware, there are downsides to parasite technology. You might well become a victim of a government plot to reduce the unemployment statistics, find that you are turning into a hybrid between plant and animal with green photosynthetic skin or even change sex. Anything is possible in Parasite World!

  Links

  Parasite 451 and Homunculus have also been published on Ether Books: http://etherbooks.com/.

  Contents

  Welcome to Parasite World!

  Parasite 451

  Homunculus

  Speed Dating the Alien

  A Feast of Crows

  Black Economy

  Interference

  Ungreening

  Holy Homunculus

  A Congenital Criminal

  Born to Rule

  Parasite 451

  The pilot and the sensor operator watched the Predator drone’s payload as it dropped towards the target. The small canisters didn’t explode on impact: they splashed down. The sensor operator looked at one of her five screens, watching the matt black cylinders float and then sink.

  ‘Target Water Source HP56 – P451 delivery made.’

  ‘Check. TWS HP56 – P451 delivery made,’ replied the pilot sitting to her left.

  He didn’t know what the canisters contained but he did know that the casings were biodegradable. That was part of his briefing. They had to be dropped into water and nowhere else. He set the controls for the Predator to fly to the next target, watching the terrain on the screens change as it manoeuvred. It would take all day to complete this mission. There were no bombs or missiles on board, so there wouldn’t be a single explosion to crow over. Nor would he be able to shoot at any of the insurgents. All he could do in the event of an attack was take avoidance measures.

  ‘Target Water Source HP57 – people in sight on river bank,’ said the sensor operator interrupting his thoughts.

  ‘Check. Abort Target Water Source HP57. Target Water Source HP58 next. We’ll come back to this one on the second pass,’ replied the pilot moving the joystick to bring the drone round.

  Elsewhere in the bowels of the CIA headquarters in Langley, a group of suits from DARPA also observed the action on their screens with satisfaction. The streams and rivers that supplied water to the Taliban fighters in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, were receiving a gift of extra life, soon to be transmitted to the insurgents themselves.

  ****

  Three and a half thousand miles from Afghanistan, a very different operation was in progress. At an emergency call centre in Manchester, UK, a call was being taken.

  ‘Emergency. Which service do you require?’ asked the operator.

  ‘Ambulance, paramedics, I’m dying, worms coming out everywhere,’ replied a faint female voice.

  ‘Please speak up caller. I can hardly hear you. Was that something about worms?’

  ‘Yes, worms. Please, please send help now,’ said the caller, spitting and choking.

  ‘Still can’t hear you very well. Name and address please.’

  ‘It’s on your screen. It always is in all the medic dramas I’ve been in. What are you playing at?’

  ‘Address as transmitted: 17 Dugong Gardens. Name?’

  ‘Also on screen. Emily Rivalle,’ said the voice fading to nothing.

  ****

  George Emanuel pulled his vehicle out of the bay at the ambulance station. The other paramedic, Karen Zematis settled herself into her seat. They made a contrasting pair. George, slim, muscular and black; Karen, squat, white and with short blonde hair. They were both wearing their regulation white short sleeve shirts with navy epaulets and black trousers.

  Karen reviewed the call details.

  ‘Emily Rivalle, 17 Dugong Gardens, Didsbury. Very up-market apartment block. The operator said she’d got a garbled message about worms.’

  ‘Not another helminth job. I hate those,’ responded George.

  ‘Second one this week,’ said Karen. ‘Very fashionable, worms. All the celebs use them.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t I know it. Our Sophia keeps going on about it. She’s thin as a lath, eats pretty well nothing and wants to lose weight. Slimming worms are what she wants most in the world apart from a rich boyfriend with a flash car.’

  ‘You’ve told her about the possibility of side effects?’

  ‘Oh yeah, she knows everything: the chances of brain damage if the tapeworm spreads out from the gut and encysts in other organs and all that. But she weighs that against a list of diseases caused by obesity. She reckons it’s a balance of risks. For a 14 year old kid, she comes out with some amazing ideas, most of them off the web.’

  The radio interjected. ‘Foxtrot Victor Tango 2, where are you?’

  ‘ETA ten minutes, Control,’ replied Karen.

  ‘What she doesn’t think about is the cost,’ George continued.

  ‘Yeah, I did think about using the worms a while ago but the cost put me off as much as anything else. Designer worms are really expensive. It’s cheaper to eat less, I reckon.’

  ‘You should talk to Sophia. She might take notice of you.’

  Karen looked at the screen to check the details of the caller once more.

  ‘I know that name. Emily Rivalle; she’s in a soap. Now which one is it?’

  ‘I never watch ‘em.’

  ‘Got it. The one with the screaming women.’

  ‘That narrows it down a bit. About a couple of hundred at least.’

  ‘She’s the tarty one in Goin’ Bananas. You know, the one where everybody is on the way to the funny farm but they never quite make it.’

  ‘Right we’re here. You can see your celeb in the flesh.’

  George pulled up outside a small apartment block painted a stark white. The statutory solar panels covered the roof and in front was a small walled courtyard containing a single tree. The two paramedics shouldered their backpacks and walked up to the front door. George spoke into a small grille set in the wall.

  ‘Emergency paramedics. Category A call from Ms Emily Rivalle,’ he intoned.

  ‘I have no record of an emergency,’ replied the disembodied voice of the building’s AI. ‘Let me check.’

  A few seconds later the AI returned. ‘Ms Rivalle appears to be lying on the floor in her bedroom. Please enter. The apartment is on the first floor.’

  The door opened and the paramedics thundered down
the corridor and up the stairs, their gear bumping against their backs. When they arrived at the door to the apartment, it was open and they rushed in, swinging their backpacks off as they went. In the bedroom lay the prone, naked body of a grey-skinned, cadaverous woman. Her legs were curled up and she was clasping her knees up towards her chest. She was lying in a pool of fluid alive with writhing thread like forms.

  Karen donned protective gloves and knelt down beside her.

  ‘Recorder on,’ she said activating the miniature video camera built into her top shirt button. ‘She’s still alive, George. Emily can you hear me?’

  The woman on the floor groaned and choked as she tried to reply.

  Karen put her hand under the woman’s head and looked into her mouth. She then pushed her fingers inside, attempting to clear any obstructions. After a couple of minutes of poking around, she extracted a bolus of compacted material comprising thousands of worm segments. Karen then cleared the woman’s airway.

  The patient heaved in a deep breath. ‘Oh god,’ she spat out. ‘I thought I was going to die. I just couldn’t get any air in. Thanks.’

  George, in the meantime, had unpacked his gear and was assembling equipment that clicked together as he did so. By the time Karen completed her first task of getting Emily Rivalle breathing, he had the device ready.

  ‘Vac ready?’ asked Karen.

  George handed her the handheld vacuum cleaner.

  ‘Emily, we’re just going to clear up around you and tidy you up. So just stay where you are for the moment,’ she instructed.

  The vacuum cleaner whined as she switched it on and she swept the area around Emily, rolling her gently so that the device could be used underneath her. Finally, with a flourish, Karen sucked up the worms escaping from Emily’s rear end. She handed the cleaner back to George who looked at the swollen bag with disgust. He detached it, thrusting it into a black self-sealing polymer disposal bag.

  ‘There,’ said Karen. ‘That’s cleaned things up a little. Emily, we still need to clean you up some more. Can we move you on to the bed?’

  Emily moaned and the paramedic took this as assent.

  Karen and George rolled Emily on to a portable stretcher and moved her to a bed laden with frilly silken sheets. Karen sponged her down before covering her with a blanket.

  George got out more equipment.

  ‘This is the worst one yet,’ he whispered to Karen. ‘We’ll have to use the crawler.’

  She nodded and looked down at Emily who was now breathing with a slight rasping sound, eyes tightly closed as if it would all disappear as long as she couldn’t see it.

  Trying to sound as soothing as possible, Karen spoke softly to Emily. ‘Now Emily, we think you need more treatment to make sure the worms are gone. We’ll have to send you to sleep for a short while. Is that OK?’

  Emily nodded slightly.

  Karen spoke for the recorder. ‘Non verbal consent for anaesthetic and further treatment given.’

  ‘OK George, get the propofol. I’ll program the crawler,’ Karen continued.

  She opened a yellow plastic container about the size of a shoe box and pulled out a jumble of wires and tubes. Then, she flipped open a laptop and keyed in a comms code. The jumble of tubes beeped and started to move, forming itself into a long thin animal with a small head containing a pair of lenses for eyes and a small rotating set of jaws. Karen looked over at the robotic crawler to check that its physical form matched the status on screen.

  ‘Crawler ready,’ she told George.

  George had been looking hard for a suitable vein to inject the anaesthetic. Emily was so thin and skeletal that blood vessels were hard to find. After about five minutes of careful inspection of her right arm, he found a vein and inserted the hypodermic. The two paramedics stood at the bedside waiting for the anaesthetic to take effect. A couple of minutes later, when Emily was asleep, Karen slid the crawler into Emily’s mouth and down her throat. George watched the screen of the laptop which showed the robot’s view of Emily’s oesophagus as it made its way down towards her stomach. He provided a running commentary of what was happening on the screen.

  ‘Looks OK. Stomach full of worms and proglotids. Helminthicide released. Bloody hell, those worms are everywhere.’

  ‘Check her level of anaesthesia. She’s twitching.’

  ‘OK. Another shot should do it. The crawler is about half way through. What beats me is why she infested herself with this parasite. It can’t be legal. You only have to look at her to know it’s not exactly benign.’

  ‘What planet are you living on? Just walk down the street or look at the models in the mags. What do you see? It’s called famine chic.’

  ‘You mean being as thin as a stick insect and half as healthy?’

  ‘That’s it. You and I are obese by comparison. Why did she do it? She’s a woman on TV: gotta be thin and sexy, otherwise no job. That’s why.’

  ‘If that’s sexy, I must be abnormal. I like a woman to be soft and curvy, not a bag of bones.’

  ‘Keep an eye on the screen will you. Must be getting to the colon by now,’ said Karen interrupting George’s train of thought.

  Ten minutes later, the crawler had finished its work and was pulling itself out.

  George inspected the robot’s report on the screen.

  ‘Looks like she’s clear now but she’ll need follow up to make sure she doesn’t get reinfested.’

  ‘Good work, but we’ll take it from here,’ an American voice chimed in from behind them.

  The paramedics spun round to be confronted by a tall brown haired man in dark glasses and combat fatigues. Suddenly the room was filled with armed men in full face helmets. As one, they pointed their assault rifles at the pair.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ George shouted.

  ‘Calm down Mr Emanuel. We’re not here to cause you any harm. Ms Rivalle is our target.’

  Karen stood up and looked the American in the eye. ‘What do you mean, target? We’ve just saved this woman’s life. You’re not going to kill her are you?’

  ‘Not at all Ms Zematis. We’re here to help.’

  Two of the visored men stepped forward and covered them with their weapons while another two bound Emily hand and foot with tape and gagged her. The paramedics watched helplessly as the men wrapped their erstwhile patient in a blanket, carried her out of the room and down the stairs. Then the men covering them sprayed them with a sweet smelling gas and all went blank.

  ****

  Emily woke to find herself in a small room populated with hospital equipment and she was hooked up to most of it. She tried to move her arms but found that they were taped to the sidebars of the bed. Try as she might, she couldn’t free her arms. She could move her legs but there was something strange about the left one. She yanked her leg and felt the pull of a chain shackled to her ankle. She swivelled her eyes around the room. The window was barred and too high for escape even if she could get free of the bed. Panic billowed through her. She remembered clearly the paramedics helping her and being given an anaesthetic jab. After that was a bit hazy. There were men in black helmets who had tied her up and bundled her into a van. Then her memory was a blank until she woke up in the room. Surely it wasn’t a kidnap. They wouldn’t get much of a ransom. She had no savings and her parents were flat broke no hopers hooked on booze and street drugs. They wouldn’t pay: she knew that for certain.

  The noises around her intruded on her musings. The heart monitor beeped its regular chirp and there was a hum of air-conditioning. Another look around. A camera pointed its snout straight at her from its perch high on the opposite wall. She stuck her tongue out at it.

  ‘Come on you bastards. I’m awake now. Whatever you want, let’s hear it. And bring some food. I’m starving,’ she said to the observing lens.

  As if on cue in a TV drama, the door opened and a nurse bustled in with a cheery smile.

  ‘Oh good, you’re awake and hungry. That’s a good sign. Not all of them survive
you know,’ said the nurse.

  ‘Can you release my arms? It’s not very comfortable like this.’

  ‘Of course, dear. But I’ll have to leave the leg chain on for the moment,’ replied the nurse, producing a scalpel and slicing through the tape.

  ‘What about if I want to pee?’ said Emily rubbing her arms.

  ‘All in good time dear. What would you like to eat? Tell you what, I’ll get the menu. We have a good cook here.’

  The nurse was back within a minute brandishing a menu and fifteen minutes later Emily was demolishing a plate of chicken sandwiches bedecked with salad. The nurse had told her that a doctor would come as soon as she’d eaten and she appeared as Emily took the last mouthful.

  The doctor was an American in military uniform.

  ‘Hi, I’m Dr Bains. You can call me Sally. You’re wondering what you’re doing here I expect,’ said the doctor.

  ‘Well, yes. One minute I’m being treated by emergency paramedics and the next I’m being abducted by armed men. Look I’m not rich: no ransom. Understand?’

  ‘Yeah, I can see why you’re confused. Look, I’m here to check you over but I can reassure you that we’re not kidnappers. My colleagues will explain everything after I tell them you are fit enough for interrogation.’

  ‘So, you’re going to torture me. What for? I’m not a terrorist. I’m just a small time soap star. You’ll have seen me on TV I expect.’

  ‘No, but you sound genuine. Keep it up. Now I just want to examine you. I can take off this chain but don’t try to escape. There’s a guard outside the room and your nurse is armed. She’d shoot you if necessary.’

  Emily looked down at herself as the doctor unlocked the chain and released her ankle. The hospital gown with US Army decals wasn’t particularly flattering and she couldn’t see herself wanting to be seen out in it.

  ‘How about my clothes? Did those soldiers or whatever they are, bring any of my stuff with them?’

  ‘Those special forces guys aren’t good on the subject of women’s clothes. We’ll find something in your size for the moment and send somebody round to pick up what you need from your apartment.’