Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 54

by John Joseph Adams

  There were more technicians around than I had seen on previous visits to Dr. Cale’s lab. They swarmed around the equipment like ants, some of them checking cultures or typing at workstations, while right next to them others broke down shelves and packed glassware with an eerily silent efficiency. Adam led me unflinchingly through their midst, his hand clasped tightly around mine, like he had absolute faith that nothing here could hurt either one of us. A few of the technicians turned as we passed, and while they seemed perfectly comfortable with looking directly at Adam, their eyes skittered off me like I’d been Teflon-coated while I was asleep.

  Seeing my confusion, Adam said, “It’s because Mom finally told them you were my sister, and they’re all getting used to the idea. They knew there was a control subject in the wild, and I think a few people—like Daisy, maybe—sort of suspected that it was you, but suspecting isn’t the same as knowing, you know?”

  Did I ever. “They know I’m really a tapeworm? And who’s Daisy?”

  “She works for Mom, and everybody knows.” Adam nodded, seeming to think that this was perfectly normal. For him, it sort of was. SymboGen had dedicated years of therapy and education to making me into a perfect human being; all Dr. Cale had ever forced Adam to learn was how to be a decent person. Maybe those two things weren’t as closely related as I had always automatically assumed. “They don’t care. Or they won’t care, once they get over the shock of meeting the control subject without realizing it. I think some of them are just a little shaky about it, you know?”

  “It could’ve been them,” I said quietly. “If one of them had had an implant, and been in that car accident …”

  Adam’s head whipped around to stare at me, his eyes wide and somehow affronted, like I had just insulted us both. “It could not!” he said. “Both parts of you had to be strong, and had to be clever in just the right ways, or you could never have become one person. You did it without any help, and that’s more than me or Tansy or even …” He stopped, affronted expression melting into guilt.

  “I know about Sherman,” I said, the taste of his name on my tongue setting my stomach roiling again. I was starting to feel numb all the way down to my toes. Too many revelations at once will do that to a girl, I guess. “I get what you’re saying, Adam. I’m just … I’m like the people here, a little. I’m still shaky, too.”

  “You be as shaky as you want,” he said. “I’ll be here to help you when you’re done.” He smiled at me.

  I smiled back. I couldn’t help it.

  We had walked maybe half the length of the bowling alley while we were talking and had stopped just outside a curtain of sliced plastic, cut lengthwise, like the screen on a butterfly aviary or a grocery store produce department’s storage area. I looked at it and swallowed hard. There was something impersonal and medicinal about those dangly strips of waxy plastic, like nothing I was on this side would really matter once I was on that side.

  “The broken doors are open,” I murmured.

  “That’s my favorite book,” said Adam.

  “Of course it’s your favorite book,” I said. Don’t Go Out Alone had been written by a good friend of Dr. Cale. It had been a key part of Nathan’s childhood. It was only natural that it would be a key part of Adam’s as well. I was starting to be a little jealous. I was the only member of our family who hadn’t grown up with that book.

  Adam let go of my hand. “If you’re still shaky, I think you’ll feel better talking to Mom and Nathan without me. It’ll be easier to pretend that you’re all humans, and not just all people.”

  I wanted to tell him that he was wrong, and that his absence wouldn’t make anything easier at all—that no one ever made anything easier by walking away from it. I couldn’t. When I tried to form the words my lips shaped only silence, and in the end I had to force myself to smile, nod, and say, “I think that might be a good idea. I’ll come find you, though, when we’re done. I think I’m …” I faltered, and then continued, “I think I’m going to need you to teach me a lot of things about the way life is now.”

  “Always,” said Adam. Before I could react, he hugged me, let me go, and trotted off into the lab, moving with a lanky sureness that somehow broadcast how comfortable he was in the shape of his own skin.

  It seemed indecent, almost: he was a worm wearing a boy like a suit. Shouldn’t he have seemed awkward, or shambled like the sleepwalkers, even? Something—anything—to betray the fact that he wasn’t what he seemed to be. I hadn’t felt that way about him before. I considered the emotion for a moment, spinning it around in my head as I tried to find the angle that would tell me where it was coming from. In the end, though, the answer was so simple that I almost missed it:

  Guilt. I hadn’t been guilty when I’d seen Adam before; I hadn’t been allowing myself to understand my own origins, and so I’d assumed I was my body’s original owner. Now I was a stranger in my own skin, and if I couldn’t make myself move awkwardly or look visibly like an intruder—like a thief—I’d think those horrible things at Adam—at my brother.

  “No, I won’t,” I ordered myself sternly, and stepped through the plastic sheeting, into the small, white-walled lab beyond.

  It was maybe eight feet to a side, creating a space that would have been borderline claustrophobic if that sort of thing had bothered me at all. As it was, it struck me as nicely snug, which meant that it probably made most people uncomfortable. Like the majority of the lab spaces in the bowling alley, this one was isolated only in the most technical sense of the word. The walls didn’t go all the way up to the ceiling, and powerful, if quiet fans were occupied in sucking air up from the floor and spitting it over the top of those three-quarter walls, creating a sort of poor man’s negative pressure zone. It wasn’t quite enough to qualify as a “clean room,” and wouldn’t even have necessarily worked as a quarantine zone back at the shelter, but it was clearly enough for Dr. Cale to feel comfortable setting up some serious hardware. An array of computer towers occupied one wall, their constant buzz setting up a low thrumming sound that vibrated through the soles of my bare feet. Nathan and Dr. Cale were both there already, their attention focused on the same monitor.

  “I’m awake,” I announced. They both turned toward me, Nathan with naked relief, Dr. Cale with clinical interest that was so closely akin to the way that Dr. Banks used to look at me that I quailed slightly, shrinking in on myself. “I mean, if it matters. I woke up,” I finished awkwardly.

  “How do you feel?” asked Nathan, starting to take a step toward me.

  Dr. Cale caught his arm, stopping him before he could fully commit to the motion. “I’m sure we’re both very interested in how Sal is feeling, but we need to finish this, Nathan.” She flashed me a quick, strained smile. “I’m glad to see you up and about. Do you need something to drink? You hit your head pretty hard when you fell, and you’d just given blood. Some orange juice would probably do you a lot of good. Go find Adam, he can take you to get some juice.”

  I frowned. “You’re trying to avoid telling me something. You don’t normally try to get me to go away and find juice.”

  “Untrue: I gave you juice the very first time you came here,” Dr. Cale replied. “And it’s not like you’ve spent that much time with me. Maybe all of my personal relationships are heavily dependent on juice consumption.”

  “You gave me juice that was in the room where we were, and there’s a mini fridge in the corner over there, so if you were that dependent on juice for normal social interaction, you’d be telling me to go and get myself a glass, not telling me to go find Adam.” I folded my arms. “I may not be a human being, but I’m not stupid either. What’s going on? Why do you want me to leave?”

  “I told you,” said Nathan, clearly directing his words at Dr. Cale. He was smiling slightly when he turned to face me, although the expression died quickly, replaced by solemnity. Looking at them both, I was struck again by just how much he resembled his mother sometimes. Genetics mattered. “Sal, we’ve been g
oing over the data that you were able to recover from SymboGen. Thank you again for doing that. I didn’t want you to, but I’m coming to understand just how necessary it was.”

  I worried my lower lip between my teeth before asking, “How bad?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s there—it’s only been a few hours.” He shrugged, his arms flopping limply, like they belonged to a doll and not to a man. “How does the end of the human race sound to you?”

  “Oh,” I said, and looked to Dr. Cale. She nodded. That was all it took: one little nod to confirm the end of humanity. “That’s bad,” I said.

  © 2014 by Mira Grant.

  Excerpted from Symbiont by Mira Grant.

  Published by permission of the author and Orbit Books.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mira Grant was born and raised in Northern California, where she has made a lifelong study of horror movies, horrible viruses, and the inevitable threat of the living dead. Currently, Mira lives in a crumbling farmhouse with an assortment of cats, horror movies, comics, and books about horrible diseases. When not writing, she splits her time between travel, auditing college virology courses, and watching more horror movies than is strictly good for you. Favorite vacation spots include Seattle, London, and a large haunted corn maze just outside of Huntsville, Alabama.

  Tor Books Presents

  The Three-Body Problem

  (novel excerpt)

  Cixin Liu

  (translated by Ken Liu)

  THE FRONTIERS OF SCIENCE

  Wang Miao thought the four people who came to find him made a rather odd combination: two cops and two men in military uniforms. If the latter two were armed police, that would be somewhat understandable, but they were actually PLA officers.

  As soon as Wang saw the cops, he felt annoyed. The younger one was all right—at least he was polite. But the other one, in plainclothes, immediately grated on him. He was thickset and had a face full of bulging muscles. Wearing a dirty leather jacket, smelling of cigarettes, and speaking in a loud voice, he was exactly the sort of person Wang despised. “Wang Miao?”

  The way the cop addressed him by name only, so direct and impolite, made Wang uncomfortable. Adding to the insult, the man lit a cigarette as he addressed him, without even lifting his head to show his face. Before Wang could answer, the man nodded at the younger cop, who showed Wang his badge.

  Having lit the cigarette, the older cop moved to enter Wang’s apartment.

  “Please don’t smoke in my home,” Wang said, blocking him.

  “Oh, sorry, Professor Wang.” The young police officer smiled. “This is Captain Shi Qiang.” He gave Shi a pleading look.

  “Fine, we can talk in the hallway,” Shi said. He took a deep drag. Almost half the cigarette had turned to ashes, and he didn’t blow out much smoke. He inclined his head toward the younger police officer. “You ask him, then.”

  “Professor Wang, we want to know if you’ve had any recent contacts with members of the Frontiers of Science,” the young cop said.

  “The Frontiers of Science is full of famous scholars, and very influential. Why can’t I have contact with a legal international academic group?”

  “Look at the way you talk!” Shi said. “Did we say anything about it not being legal? Did we say anything about you not being allowed to contact them?” He finally blew out the lungful of smoke that he had sucked in earlier—right in Wang’s face.

  “All right then. Please respect my privacy. I don’t need to answer your questions.”

  “Your privacy? You’re a famous academic. You have a responsibility toward the public welfare.” Shi threw away the butt and took out another cigarette from a flattened pack.

  “I have the right to not answer. Please leave.” Wang turned around to go back inside.

  “Wait!” Shi shouted. He waved at the young cop next to him. “Give him the address and phone number. You can come by in the afternoon.”

  “What are you really after?” Wang said, his voice now tinged with anger. The argument brought the neighbors, curious about what was happening, out into the hallway.

  “Captain Shi! You said you—” The young cop pulled Shi aside and continued speaking to him in hushed, urgent tones. Apparently, Wang wasn’t the only one annoyed by his rough manners.

  “Professor Wang, please don’t misunderstand.” One of the army officers, a major, stepped forward. “There’s an important meeting this afternoon, to which several scholars and specialists are invited. The general sent us to invite you.”

  “I’m busy this afternoon.”

  “We know. The general already spoke with the head of the Nanotechnology Research Center. We can’t have this meeting without you. If you can’t attend, we’ll have to reschedule.”

  Shi and the young cop said nothing. Both turned and went down the stairs. The two army officers watched them leave and seemed to sigh with relief.

  “What’s wrong with that guy?” the major whispered to the other officer.

  “He’s got quite a record. During a hostage crisis a few years ago, he acted recklessly, without concern for the lives of the hostages. In the end, a family of three all died at the hands of the criminals. Rumor has it that he’s also friendly with elements of organized crime, using one gang to fight another. Last year, he used torture to obtain confessions, and permanently disabled one of the suspects. That’s why he was suspended from duty… .”

  Wang Miao suspected that he was meant to overhear the conversation between the officers. Maybe they intended to show him that they were different from that rude cop; or maybe they wanted to make him curious about their mission.

  “How can a man like that be part of the Battle Command Center?” the major asked.

  “The general specifically requested him. I guess he must have some special skills. In any case, his duties are quite restricted. Other than public safety matters, he’s not allowed to know much.”

  Battle Command Center? Wang looked at the two officers, baffled.

  • • • •

  The car they sent for Wang Miao took him to a large compound in the suburbs. Since the door had only a number and no sign, Wang deduced that this building belonged to the military, rather than the police.

  Wang was surprised by the chaos as he entered the large meeting room. Around him were numerous computers in various states of disarray. They had run out of table space and put a few workstations directly on the floor, where power cords and networking wires formed a tangled mess. Instead of being installed in racks, a bunch of routers were left haphazardly on top of the servers. Printer paper was scattered everywhere. A few projector screens stood in various corners of the room, sticking out at odd angles like gypsy tents. A cloud of smoke hovered over the room… . Wang Miao wasn’t sure if this was the Battle Command Center, but he was sure of one thing: Whatever they were dealing with was too important for them to care about keeping up appearances.

  The meeting table, formed by pushing several smaller tables together, was piled with documents and odds and ends. The attendees, their clothes wrinkled, looked exhausted. Those wearing ties had all pulled them loose. It seemed as if they had been up all night.

  A major general named Chang Weisi presided over the meeting, and half the attendees were military officers. After a few quick introductions, Wang found out that many of the others were police. The rest were academics like him, with a few prominent scientists specializing in basic research in the mix.

  He also found four foreigners in attendance. Their identities shocked him: a United States Air Force colonel and a British Army colonel, both NATO liaisons, as well as two CIA officers, apparently acting as observers.

  On the faces of everyone around the table, Wang could read one sentiment: We’ve done all we can. Let’s fucking get it over with, already.

&n
bsp; Wang Miao saw Shi Qiang sitting at the table. In contrast to his rudeness yesterday, Shi greeted Wang as “Professor.” But the smirk on Shi’s face annoyed Wang. He didn’t want to sit next to Shi, but he had no choice, as that was the only empty seat. The already thick cloud of cigarette smoke in the room became thicker.

  As documents were distributed, Shi moved closer to Wang. “Professor Wang, I understand you’re researching some kind of … new material?”

  “Nanomaterial,” Wang answered.

  “I’ve heard of it. That stuff is really strong, right? Do you think it could be used to commit crimes?” As Shi’s face was still half smirking, Wang couldn’t tell if he was joking.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Heh. I heard that a strand of that stuff could be used to lift up a truck. If criminals steal some and make it into a knife, can’t they slice a car in half with one stroke?”

  “There’s no need to even make it into a knife. That kind of material can be made into a line as thin as one-hundredth of a hair. If you string it across a road, a passing car would be sliced into two halves like cheese—but what can’t be used for criminal purposes? Even a dull knife for descaling a fish can!”

  Shi pulled a document halfway out of the envelope in front of him and shoved it back in again, suddenly losing interest. “You’re right. Even a fish can be used to commit a crime. I handled a murder case once. Some bitch cut off her husband’s family jewels. You know what she used? A frozen tilapia she got out of the freezer! The spines along the back were like razors—”

  “I’m not interested. Did you ask me to the meeting just to talk about this?”

  “Fish? Nanomaterials? No, no, nothing to do with those.” Shi put his mouth next to Wang’s ear. “Don’t be nice to them. They’re prejudiced against us. All they want is to get information out of us, but never tell us anything. Look at me. I’ve been here for a month, and I still don’t know anything, just like you.”

  “Comrades,” General Chang said, “let’s get started. Of all the combat zones around the globe, this one has become the focal point. We need to update the current situation for all the attending comrades.”