Chimera (Parasitology) by Mira Grant Page A

inevitable.
    “I’m here, Paul, I’m here,” I said, putting my hands on his arm. The drums in my ears pounded even louder, and for the first time, I wished that whatever genetic quirk had allowed me to become the person I was now had come with Sherman’s gifts, and not my own. I was the only chimera I knew of who could access the hot warm dark at will, sinking down into the peace and safety of my original home. Sherman could use a host’s original biology against it, soothing and smoothing out the body’s systems until the chimera or sleepwalker fell into a trance, letting him tell them what to do. It didn’t always work on sleepwalkers—most of them were too damaged—but Paul wasn’t that far gone yet. It might have worked on him, and then he wouldn’t have needed to be aware of what was going to happen next.
    “S-Sally?” Even getting my name out seemed like an impossible effort. Paul’s eyes flicked from me to the patrol, jittering as badly as the rest of his body, before he focused back in on me. “W-what’s happening to me? Why can’t I move?”
    “Sir, we have a situation in the N-sector. Civilian down, apparent epileptic seizure. How do you want us to proceed?” Lieutenant Robinson didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. His words, and the faint hiss of his radio as he called in the emergency, were more than loud enough to get the point across.
    I twisted to look back at him, and said, “This is my friend. This is the friend I was looking for. He’s sick. This isn’t a situation, he’s just sick.” The lies came out smooth and easy, like I’d been intending to tell them all along. Paul was sick, all right, but his sickness was going to become a situation very soon. The original personality would die, subsumed by the parasite now working its way into his brain, and we would be left with a hungry, unthinking predator that knew only that it needed to feed. Some sleepwalkers were more capable of planning and strategy than others—some of them might even have a chanceat recovering some higher brain functions, if they managed to stay alive long enough—but none of that mattered when compared with the danger Paul would soon present.
    And this was wrong, this was
all wrong
. He shouldn’t have been able to speak by the time he reached this stage. Something was different. Maybe he was going to be a chimera. I knew how unlikely that was, and I knew that he was going to die. None of the odds were on his side. Nothing about this situation was on his side.
    My loyalties were too divided, and I couldn’t change that. But I could shield him for now. I could keep them from shooting him while he would still be able to see the muzzle of the gun swinging toward him. If I was careful, I might even be able to do it without giving myself away.
    I wasn’t sure I knew how to be careful.
    “Not s-s-s-sick,” stammered Paul, looking increasingly frustrated as the sibilance of “sick” tried to escape him. He made an effort to sit up. The shaking got worse, and he slumped against the wall, twitching and trembling. “Don’t know what’s w-w-wrong with me.”
    Lieutenant Robinson’s radio squawked. I couldn’t make out the words buried in the static. I was too far away, and too focused on holding on to Paul, who felt like he was going to shake himself into pieces. But I heard Lieutenant Robinson’s reply.
    “As I said, sir, he appears to be having a seizure. Slurred speech, tremors, inability to stand or move. One of his housemates is here: Colonel Mitchell’s daughter.”
    The radio squawked again. There was an ominous pause, during which I heard the click of safeties being released.
    “Miss Mitchell, please move away from your housemate.” Lieutenant Robinson’s voice was suddenly flat, devoid of all inflection or emotion. I twisted to look at him again. It wasn’t a surprise to see that all the guns were pointed toward me—or more accurately, toward Paul, who was continuing to shake and