I managed to force a smile through the cold wall of fear that was wrapped around me. “I’ll try.”
The rest of our “talk”—really a lecture, with me as the sole attending student, and Dr. Banks as the professor who didn’t know when to leave the podium—was the usual generic platitudes about the wonders of SymboGen and the Intestinal Bodyguard, interspersed with the occasional softball question about how I was doing, how Nathan was doing, how Joyce and I were getting along. All the usual pleasantries, all asked with a fake concern that was somehow more insulting than rote disinterest would have been. When he pretended to care, I had to pretend to listen. It didn’t seem like a fair exchange.
After what felt like a hundred years, but was really slightly under an hour, Dr. Banks glanced ostentatiously at his watch, and stood. “I’ve enjoyed our time together, Sally, but I’m afraid I have a meeting I can’t reschedule. Do you know what the rest of your day with us will look like?”
“Not yet,” I said, taking the hint and getting out of my own chair. I’d been sitting still for too long; my legs felt like jelly. “Chave brought me straight up to see you.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ve got some exciting adventures ahead of you.” Dr. Banks started walking toward the door. He didn’t gesture for me to follow him. He knew that I was going to do it, just like he knew that he would eventually be able to convince me to accede to the interview with Rolling Stone. Being his kind of rich made it easy to shape the world to suit your standards. “I’ll check with my secretary. Maybe we can have lunch together. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Sure,” I said. For a change, I meant it, at least a little. Eating lunch at SymboGen was part of the visitation process; they probably observed me for some set of symptoms I didn’t even know I was supposed to be expressing. The company’s main cafeteria was excellent, but the executive cafeteria—where I’d eaten every chance I got since remembering, or maybe learning, that food could get better than macaroni and cheese with applesauce on the side—was something special. They hired five-star chefs, and their menu was never the same two days in a row.
“There’s something you’ll have to do for me, of course.”
I paused, giving him a wary look. “What?”
“What’s the newest piece of slang you’ve learned?”
Fortunately, this wasn’t one of the insulting ones. “Taking the Mickey,” I said. “It means making fun of somebody by telling them a fib. I think it has something to do with Mickey Mouse, but I’m not quite sure.”
Now he laughed, a big, bold sound that filled the room like the drumming filled the darkness in my dreams. I flinched, barely stopping myself from clutching at my ears. “Mickey Mouse, huh? Truly, Sally, you are an endless delight.”
“Thank you, Dr. Banks,” I said.
“And like all endless delights, you have other lives to brighten.” He pushed open the door, revealing Chave standing still as a statue on the other side. She looked monumentally bored, and a little bit annoyed. For her, that was the equivalent of kicking her feet and screaming. “Are you here to take Miss Mitchell to her next meeting?”
“If you don’t mind,” said Chave, in her usual cool tone. “We’re already twenty minutes overdue for her appointment in the blood lab. Did you feed her?”
“Not a crumb,” said Dr. Banks.
Chave nodded curtly and looked to me, as if for confirmation.
“He didn’t feed me,” I said.
“Good. Come along.” With that, she turned her back and stalked toward the elevator, her shoulders locked into a tight, unhappy line. I glanced back at Dr. Banks, who still hadn’t formally dismissed me. Then I ran after her, clutching my bag to my chest like a lifeline.
It said something about how little I enjoyed my time with Dr. Banks that being locked in an elevator with an unhappy personal assistant who clearly blamed me for disrupting her entire day was better than spending another minute alone with him. I stood as far away from her as the tiny elevator allowed, watching as the numbers on the display counted down to the first floor, and then farther down, into the basement levels.
Maybe it’s crazy to build a high-rise with multiple subterranean floors in the state of California, earthquake capital of the United States, but that didn’t stop the founders of SymboGen. When Drs. Banks and Jablonsky decided to build a state-of-the-art research facility, they didn’t let silly things like logic and geography stop them. SymboGen was cut deep into the bedrock of South San Francisco, and the only reason it wasn’t closer to the water was that no amount of money or hubris could deny the ocean. The building would have flooded long since if it had been as close to the coast as they originally wanted it to be. SymboGen: the castle that worms built.
We finally stopped on subbasement level three. I found myself relaxing when the elevator doors opened to reveal a generic hospital hallway, the kind that could be in any public research facility or university in the world. Home.
Men and women in white lab coats and sensible slacks walked past, some of them pausing to wave or smile in my direction. I beamed back at them, my smile widening as my eyes found the one person who was wearing a tailored suit. He stuck out like a sore thumb amongst all their practical, functional clothing. It didn’t help that he was tall, gangly, and sporting an artificial tan that clashed with the laboratory pallor of the people around him.
I stepped into the hall, still clutching my bag as I walked toward Sherman. I was moving too fast, and nearly collided with one of the researchers. He swerved at the last moment, and we both regained our balance as the elevator doors slid closed behind me.
The change in Sherman once Chave was out of sight was instant. He relaxed from his ramrod-straight attention, suddenly grinning. Even his artfully spiked hair somehow seemed less “the latest style,” and more “I couldn’t be bothered to do anything but chop it off and rub some gel into it.” “Come here, you bloody twit,” he said, his heavy British accent twisting the words until the mockery seemed almost friendly, like a more personal way of saying hello. “Can you manage it, do you think, without sending half the research staff sprawling? I ask out of personal interest, and because if you’re going to treat them like bowling pins, I want to take a moment to place a bet with the staff in the radiology lab.”
I laughed. “Are you my escort for the rest of today?”
“The rest of your life, my pet, if you’d only allow it.” He leaned over and took my hand, spinning me around like we were getting ready to dance the waltz in the middle of the hallway. More of the research staff walked by, slowing to watch us with visible amusement. Sherman had that effect on people. “Are you ready to leave that parasite pasher of yours for a real man?”
“That’s a new word and I demand a definition before I answer,” I replied. “What’s a pasher?”
“A pash is a kiss, so a pasher is someone who kisses. Ergo, I have called your boyfriend a tapeworm kisser.”
“Never seen him kiss a tapeworm, but he pashes me on a pretty regular basis. I think I’ll keep him.” I paused. “Well? Was that right? Did I use it right?”
“You used it perfectly.” Sherman let go of my hand, snapping back to business as he consulted his clipboard. “I’m supposed to take you for a blood draw, a urine test, and a nice cool glass of barium. I hand you back to Chave after that—sorry, Sal—so that you can head up to Accounting and go over your receipts, but then it’s back to me for a lovely nap in the gel ultrasound chamber before lunch.”
“My favorite place,” I said. I wasn’t kidding. Tight spaces didn’t bother me—they never had—and while I was in the ultrasound tube, all I had to do was lie perfectly still. There were no needles or difficult questions involved. That could be nice, considering everything else that a visit to SymboGen entailed.
“I know.” Sherman smiled. “I also know how much you hate dealing with the bureaucrats upstairs, my pet, but it’s good to see you in the flesh. I never quite trust those reports that tell me you’re doing perfectly well, sandwiched between profit-and-loss statements and requisition slips for more paper towels in the kitchen.”
As much as I hated to think about myself as being just one more report to circulate around the offices at SymboGen, I appreciated Sherman’s concern. He was one of the only administrative staffers who actually treated me like a human being, or at least like a pet he was happy to have around the house, rather than like an escaped lab rat. I attributed that partially to his own dual nature, formal when the higher-ups were within hearing range, totally relaxed when he was alone with anyone who didn’t trump his pay grade.
“I can put up with it,” I said, adjusting my grip on the strap of my bag.
“Good.” Sherman started walking, those long legs of his unfolding to set a pace that was frankly inhumane. I scampered to keep up. He didn’t even seem to notice. That, too, was a part of his charm. He didn’t treat me like a lab animal, but he didn’t treat me like an invalid, either. “Standard questions, then. Did you eat anything, drink anything, or do anything else that might send your blood chemistry into a tizzy?”
“What’s a tizzy?”
“A tailspin, a scramble, a mess.”
“You know, sometimes I think you’re making up words just to screw with me,” I said. He wasn’t; I looked them all up after every visit, and while some of them had regional variations that didn’t match up with the definitions he gave me, his basic words and phrases always checked out. He was playing it straight, or as straight as Sherman was capable of playing anything. He was the sort of man who thought a crooked line could use a little bending, just to put a little more interest into it.
“Answer the question, Sal.”
“No, I haven’t done anything to mess with my blood sugar. No food, no drinks, and the last time I went to the bathroom was before I got here. I am totally ready to donate blood to the cause of keeping your phlebotomists employed.”