Symbiont (Parasitology Book 2) (29 page)

The drive from Pleasant Hill to Vallejo took a little more than an hour, since we had to navigate a bridge choked with stalled-out and abandoned cars. Fishy and Fang got out at one point, pushing several of the cars out of the way with an ease that spoke of greased wheels and hidden levers. We drove through and they got out again, pushing the cars back into their original positions. “No one knows that we’re using this route for our supply runs, and we’re going to keep it that way,” said Fishy amiably, while Fang restarted the car.

“Good idea,” I said vaguely. It was hard to pay attention to them—the scene outside the car windows was too distracting.

We’d been passing abandoned cars and empty houses the whole time, but for the most part, the lack of light had kept me from really looking at what was around us. Now, the sun was rising, and there was no way not to see the wreckage of the world. Not without closing my eyes, and part of me felt
responsible enough for what had happened that I couldn’t bring myself to do that. This was the world my species had made. It didn’t matter that I had never willingly hurt a human being, or that I had actually killed multiple sleepwalkers, thus putting myself firmly on the side of my creators. This was still my fault. Somehow.

The cars on the bridge weren’t alone. The streets of Vallejo were equally choked, although the vehicles had been carefully pushed to this side or that, creating open channels in the motionless traffic. A casual observer would have thought those channels were organic, arising naturally as the drivers had succumbed to their invertebrate attackers. From the way Fang swung the car from one clear path to the next, it was clear that they had been created to allow for occasions just like this one.

It might have been okay if the cars had been empty, or at least intact, but both those things were too much to ask. Windows were smashed, or smeared with streaks of long-dried blood, or both. Bodies were still belted into the seats where they had died, while others had fallen in the street, dried out by the elements or picked clean by predators. Every time we came around a corner it seemed like we dislodged another flock of crows, sending the urban scavenger birds flapping into the early morning sky. They’d clearly owned the streets long enough to turn bold, because they came back as soon as we rounded the next corner; I could see them returning to their prizes if I looked behind me. And I couldn’t stop looking back.

The lights were still on in half the city, with flickering streetlamps and incongruously well-lit storefronts on every street. Nathan saw me looking and said, “Not all systems fail at the same rate. Enough of the city is on solar or hydro power that it’ll be months before Vallejo is completely dark.”

“Even then, a few of the power stations are still pumping,” said Fishy amiably. “We could go around and shut everything off, but if this place goes dark before it stops being a bright spot
on the grid, someone could figure out that we’re here, and we’d rather avoid that for as long as possible.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because Doctor C is wanted for terrorism, naturally,” said Fishy.

Nathan didn’t say a word.

I twisted in my seat to look at him, eyes wide, and asked, “Is that true?”

“She
did
help create a creature that is now in the process of destroying the human race,” said Nathan. “Whether that was her intention or not, it doesn’t look good.”

“Oh,” I said, and then the vast, primary-colored shape of Captain Candy’s Chocolate Factory came into view ahead of us, and conversation died, at least for the moment.

Fang drove across the largely empty parking lot and through an open gate into an underground garage that had probably been used to house delivery trucks, once upon a time, before the end of the world. Most of those trucks were gone now, except for a few parked against the far wall. Fang drove across the garage to the row of spaces right in front of a pair of sliding glass doors. Soft white light poured through the glass, bathing us in radiance, welcoming us home.

“You parked in the handicapped space again, asshole,” said Fishy amiably. He opened the car door, picking up his rifle as he slid out. “Dr. Cale’s going to have your head.”

“Dr. Cale doesn’t drive, and like I keep telling you, humanity is a handicap,” said Fang. “How else can you explain the things we’ve done to ourselves? Sal, I’m glad we were able to recover you. Now don’t get lost again.” He got out of the car, pocketing the keys, and went striding toward the door.

“Asshole,” repeated Fishy, and trotted after him.

I stayed where I was, my legs suddenly feeling like they were frozen to the seat. I’d wanted nothing more than to get back to the people I’d lost since I was taken, and now that safety
seemed like it was within my grasp, I was terrified. What if Dr. Cale was angry with me for letting myself get grabbed? What if they tried to lock me up to keep me from going missing again? I couldn’t handle another cage. I just
couldn’t
.

“Sal.” Nathan’s voice was gentle. I turned to face him, and he reached out to rest the back of his hand against my cheek, smiling just a little. “It’s all right to be frightened. I’m pretty sure that I’d be scared too, if our positions were reversed. But you’re home now. Mom isn’t going to be mad at you. To be honest, she thinks you’re some kind of miracle. None of us thought we were ever going to see you again.” His voice broke a little on the last word. That, more than anything, told me that he was telling the truth.

I leaned forward and kissed him. He kissed me back, and for a few minutes, all the rest didn’t matter: we were actually alone, and together, and no one was trying to pull us apart. That was worth everything in the world. So I kissed him, and he kissed me, and then he was undoing my seat belt and pulling me into his lap, and I was exactly where I was meant to be. Where I should have been all along, and would have been, if we’d been just a little bit more careful.

Nathan’s cheeks were flushed when he pulled away, and his glasses were fogged, making him look young and wild-eyed and a little lost. “I thought you were gone, and I was trying to make myself believe it,” he said. “I am so sorry. I am so sorry I was ready to give up on you.”

“You didn’t,” I said, and leaned in to kiss him one more time. “Let’s go see your mother.”

Nathan nodded, and undid his own seat belt as I slid out of his lap and back to my own side of the car, where I opened the door and climbed out into the cool air of the underground garage. It was actually chilly enough that I shivered a little, making me suspect that it would never really get warm down here; it would always be the perfect temperature for shifting
pallets of chocolate, or—in the case of the new management—cases containing delicate scientific samples. The more things changed, the more they really stayed the same.

Nathan walked around the car to join me, offering me his hand. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.

“I hope so,” I said, lacing my fingers through his and stepping close enough that I’d be able to grab hold of his arm if things got too overwhelming inside. I felt suddenly shy, and more than a little sick to my stomach.

“I love you,” he said. “Now breathe.” With that last proclamation, he pulled me forward, and together we stepped through the sliding glass doors and onto the red and white tile floor beyond. It had been designed to look like a giant peppermint swirl, which went well with the gust of warm, mint-scented air that greeted us as the doors slid shut again behind us.

I stopped dead, blinking for a moment, before I passed judgment on the rush of artificial mint with a sneeze.

Nathan grinned. “Disabling the mechanism that ‘greets all visitors to our candy wonderland’ would mean dismantling half the air-conditioning system, and we don’t have the time or the manpower to waste on something like that. Fishy says that the scent will run out eventually, and in the meantime, anyone who has a chemical sensitivity should use the other door or cover their nose when they walk through here.”

I sneezed again before sniffling and saying, “That’s really thoughtful of him.”

“He’s a thoughtful guy,” said Nathan, starting for the nearest escalator—which was running, I noted. No matter how many buildings around here might go dark, this one had power to spare. The rail was shaped like a never-ending rope of licorice, which was a nice, if surreal, touch.

Once we were both standing on the moving walkway, Nathan sobered and said, “Fishy’s been working with Mom for a while, but he wasn’t able to convince his wife not to get an
implant. Mom says he experienced a profound disassociation from reality when she started trying to eat him—the wife, not Mom—and I think she’s probably right.”

“Dr. Cale, not the wife,” I guessed.

Nathan nodded. “Yeah. Fishy thinks of the rest of us as… well, characters in a uniquely immersive video game environment. That’s how he’s coping at this point, and as long as he isn’t trying to shoot people for extra points, we don’t press too hard. He’ll come around to reality when he feels like he’s ready.”

“Assuming reality is any better,” I said softly.

“Yeah.” Nathan sighed. “There is that.”

We both quieted then, and I looked curiously around as the escalator carried us through the open-air lobby—where people in lab coats and sweaters were gathered in small groups, some clutching coffee cups like their lives depended on it, others gesturing wildly with empty hands as they tried to get some vital point of science across. I recognized some of them from Dr. Cale’s lab. Others were new. Members of both groups turned to watch as the escalator carried us onward, toward the second floor.

I shrunk back against Nathan, who put an arm around my shoulder and said, “We’ve gained some people. Mom needed the labor, and they needed a safe place.”

“Right,” I said weakly, and tried to focus on the faux Candyland furnishings and bright, juvenile murals on the walls. I’d never been here before, in either of my incarnations. Sally’s family had been too middle class and respectable to have taken her there as a child. All the family photo albums were focused on Disneyland and Hawaii and other places that were probably a lot of fun for her, even if she looked sullen and annoyed in more than half the pictures. Sally would probably have rolled her eyes at Captain Candy’s Chocolate Factory. I was amazed.
The thought that a place like this could exist had never crossed my mind.

It had probably looked a little different before the disaster. Someone had nailed plywood sheets across the lowest of the lobby windows, and all the lobby doors, and only the fact that those sheets were painted in candy colors kept them from being glaringly out of place. The chandelier—a dizzying confection of giant peppermints and gumdrops—was draped in surveillance equipment and wireless boosters, keeping the entire building connected to whatever was left of the Internet.

The lobby passed out of view as the escalator finally reached the second floor, passing through another cheerfully painted tunnel before terminating at a landing covered in carpet so wildly patterned in swoops and swirls that it made my stomach churn if I looked at it for too long. There was also an elevator, which Nathan walked toward and pressed the call button. Going down. I blinked at him.

“Captain Candy’s Chocolate Factory is a weird sort of hybrid building,” he explained, motioning for me to join him. “It was designed half as a working confectionary company, and half as a theme park that kept the rest afloat by selling tour packages and ‘birthday party extravaganzas.’ There’s a whole floor upstairs dedicated to the party rooms. They’re pretty ridiculous, and they make the rest of the place look like it has a subdued color scheme.”

I blinked again. “I’m having trouble picturing that,” I admitted.

“I’ll take you for a tour later on,” he said. “Anyway, the place is pretty clever in its use of space. There was a false factory set up for tours, so that people could see candy being made the way it is in the movies—one piece at a time, being hand-wrapped and put into whimsical boxes—and then there was the real factory floor, underneath the rest of the building. That’s where
Mom set up her lab. She said it would help her get back to her roots. Also, it’s the only place aside from the cookie garden in the upstairs party rooms that’s fully ADA compliant, and she wanted to be able to get around her own lab.”

“That makes sense.” The elevator arrived, and we stepped inside. I was obscurely relieved to see that it didn’t have glass walls. Our descent into children’s literature was not yet complete.

The elevator counted off the floors: first the lobby we had passed through on our way to the elevator bay—not a very efficient building design—and then two lower floors before it binged reassuringly and opened its doors, revealing the latest incarnation of Dr. Cale’s lab. It was, as always, an oasis of chaos masquerading as calm. The various people who rushed back and forth with quick, meaningful steps all wore lab coats over scruffy jeans and T-shirts. A few of them glanced in our direction, nodding at Nathan before they continued on their way, having apparently written me off as a nonentity. I frowned as I stepped out of the elevator.

“Has there been a total staff turnover?”

“No, but most of the people who’ve been working with Mom for a while have moved on to heading their own research groups rather than doing grunt work,” said Nathan, following me out of the elevator. The doors slid shut behind him. “It’s amazing how many leads we have to follow, and how few of them are leading us anywhere. You’ll see more familiar faces when it gets a little later in the day. There’s not much motivation to keep really normal hours.”

“Right.” I took Nathan’s hand, half automatically, and looked around. This had been the working factory level of the building: as such, industrial gray and sterile hospital white still had a place here, rather than being painted over with a hundred shades of candy swirl. The floor was uncarpeted tile, and
posters covered the walls. I couldn’t read most of them, thanks to my dyslexia, but I knew enough to recognize the
D. symbogenesis
parasite. It was pictured at various stages of its life cycle, which made me feel vaguely uncomfortable, like I was seeing my own naked baby pictures held up for the perusal of strangers.