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The rumbling sound of my bike’s engine echoes within the confines of the parking deck. I flash my card in front of the reader and the barrier lifts. The hand scan works, too, as does the facial scan and voice recognition. I feel oddly relieved and concerned at the same time. Relieved because I was allowed entry. Concerned because, after all the biological data Kristen took, she could probably clone me.
I ride the elevator and when I step out, James is waiting for me. He’s wearing a pair of black slacks and shirtsleeves.
As we walk downstairs, he asks, “Ready to start?”
“I guess.” I’ve no idea what this training requires. As always, James is keeping me in the dark.
“It’s difficult work, but I think you’ll do just fine,” he says, as we reach the bottom of the stairs.
James leads me toward the area with all the gym equipment, and as we pass by the glass cubicles I wave at Kristen and ignore Aydan. He needs a taste of his own medicine. Rheema, who I met last time, has her hands inside a huge engine block. She pulls one out and waves greasy fingers our way.
“Hey there, Marci.” Her smile is friendly, but again it makes me pause and look closer. There’s something strange about her teeth. Her canines are narrow and pointed, with gaps at their sides. Weird.
“Hi, Rheema,” I say.
She blows a lock of straight, dirty blond hair off her face. “Good luck on your first day.”
“Thank you.” I turn to James, starting to feel tense. An admonition from James and good luck wishes from Rheema can’t be good. “So, what are we doing today?”
“Let me see.” He rubs his chin.
We step into the gym pod. Like the rest of The Tank, this area has clear walls, and I can see everyone else at work. Worse yet, they can see me. James sits on a workout bench, still thinking.
“Why are there no real walls in this place?”
James looks up. “Is the reason so hard to imagine? You notice it’s also bright?”
I nod.
“We fight the fog enough every day as it is.” He sighs, then stands. “I think we’ll try meditation today.”
“You’re kidding, right? You want me to meditate?”
James raises one eyebrow. “Have you tried it before?”
“Uh, no,” I lie. I don’t want to admit that I have and that I’m terrified of trying again.
I tried meditation once at Sensei’s insistence, and all it did was bring on one of my infamous “epilepsy attacks” in front of the whole class. As soon as I tried to clear my head, the shadows went crazy. They burst out like hungry hounds, finding my almost empty mind a far easier target than one full of fluid thoughts. The whole experience was awful, not to mention embarrassing. It might work for James, but I know for a fact that, for me, meditation is a terrible idea. Still, I don’t want him to think I’m weak, so I act nonchalant.
“I don’t see how some New Age foolishness can help.”
“You don’t risk anything by trying.”
I swallow my pride, which is no easy matter. It feels like a grapefruit going down my throat. “I guess not.”
“Good.” James removes his shoes, sits on a padded mat and crosses his legs yogi-style. “Take off your shoes and sit there.” He points at the mat in front of his.
Cursing inwardly, I do as I’m told. James’s eyes lock on mine, serious, way too serious. I feel ridiculous and terrified.
“All right, before we begin, tell me something, Marci. What works for you? What helps keep the fog away?”
“Um ...” The question makes me squirm. I should feel comfortable talking about it with James, but, for so many years, it has been the most private and terrifying secret I’ve kept. Spilling it all out now doesn’t come easy. “I ... uh ...” I sound like an idiot.
“It’s okay. You can tell me.” James’s voice is gentle, almost dreamy.
“I keep my thoughts fluid,” I say in a quick stream of words.
“Thought-jumping. That’s what we call it,” he says, nodding. “Okay, what else do you do?”
Thought-jumping? Good name, I suppose. “Um, I don’t know. Martial arts, I guess. Punching, kicking, they’re a release. They relax me.”
“Good. Anything else?” James asks.
I shake my head and shrug. “That ring trick you showed me worked. I didn’t care much for it, but it worked when nothing else would. So pain too, I guess.”
“Thought-jumping is common among everyone here. Pain isn’t as widely used, but fairly so. Focus on physical abilities, like martial arts, is another. All Symbiots use one of these or a combination of them,” he explains.
“Symbiots?”
“Yeah, that’s what we like to call ourselves. Although, I have a feeling you won’t like that name. In any case, it’s what we are. The agent gets a place to live in. And we’ve learned to reap the benefits.”
I roll my eyes. Whatever. I don’t buy that I’m smarter and more agile because of this parasite. I don’t care what James says.
He chuckles. “As I said before, you’ll change your mind soon enough.”
I hate his amused expression. I don’t see how something like that can make him happy in the least. “O-key doke. If you say so.”
“So tell me, thought-jumping, how do you do it?” James asks.
“Huh?”
“How do you keep your—what did you call it?—oh yeah, how do you keep your thoughts fluid?”
“Um, I just do.”
“Give me an example,” he says.
“Well ...” It’s hard putting it into words.
“When Aydan hacked into your computer, that must have been a pretty stressful time for you. Maybe shadowing became a threat. How did you keep it at bay?”
“Shadowing?”
“I forget you’re not used to our terms. We like to give everything a name.”
“No kidding.”
“It makes talking about it easier, if we all give things the same name. Anyway, shadowing is what we call that moment when you sense the darkness coming over your mind, ready to steal your thoughts. The moment when you feel you might lose yourself. It’s like a shroud descending over you.” James’s voice is low and ominous, like that of a child trying to describe the boogeyman.
“Oh,” I say in a quick breath of realization. The description is somehow perfect. I clear my throat, try to answer his question in hopes of dispelling the gloomy atmosphere. “All right, so I guess the best way to describe how I deal with the shadowing is to say that I ... weave random thoughts with my normal ones. I’ve found it works best when I think about off-the-wall stuff. Like old memories, song titles, favorite foods, odd words, street signs, cartoon characters, anything.”
“Good,” he says. “Notice anything interesting about that?”
“Sure,” I say. “It’s nuts. Not trying to be sarcastic or anything. I really believe it’s completely messed up. I used to think I was crazy,” I admit.
“We all did at some point,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone, before continuing. “What’s interesting about thought-jumping is what happens in your brain when you do it. Memory storage is complex. There’s been research showing the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex are involved, as well as other parts of the brain. No one really understands the whole process.”
I wonder where this is going and how long it will take because it already feels like a million ants are crawling on my butt. Yogi-style isn’t the most comfortable position. I shift, trying to relieve the numbness.
James inclines his head. “Do you follow?”
“Sure.”
He narrows his eyes, looking skeptical.
“Keep going,” I say. The sooner we finish this, the sooner I can stretch my legs.
“When you think of your favorite cartoon character ...”
Wile E. Coyote.
“... You’re essentially recalling an image that has been imprinted in your memory. Same with song titles, street signs, etcetera. Those memories are strewn about, tucked away in different corners of your brain. Thought-jumping forces you to exercise different brain cells. If we were to do an MRI while someone is doing it, we would see different areas of the brain come to life. Does that make sense?”
“One hundred percent,” I say. “So how does that prevent the agent from taking over?” And how does meditation, which is supposed to leave my brain as empty as my bank account, work better than thought-jumping? Besides, I can hardly drop into yogi pose in the middle of a stressful situation, which is when the shadowing kicks into full gear.
“Our best guess is that agents need a train of thought to latch on to, A to B to C and so forth. Due to the nature of these connected thoughts, they can predict what will come next. They would know that D will follow C, and E will follow D.”
Um, I know the freakin’ alphabet, James.
“When a person is first infected, no matter by which method, the agent—”
My ears perk up. “You mentioned a different method of infection before, what is it?” The idea of finding out still makes me queasy, but I need to know. I have to resolve the question of how I came to be possessed by another life form. Right now, my best guess is Mrs. Contreras, but I should know all the possibilities in case I’m wrong. If it turns out to be that soap-toting woman, though, I’ll make sure she never infects anyone again.
“We’ll go over those another time.”
“But—”
“We don’t have time today. Let’s see, what was I saying? Oh yeah, when somebody is first infected, they don’t realize it. Eklyptors make sure of that by drugging their victims, as you well saw in the party. After a few days, the host may notice its effects, but by then—for ninety-nine point nine percent of the population—it is too late. The agent has already figured out the host’s thought pattern, and it’s ready to take over. Then one morning, the poor bastard wakes up, punches the alarm clock, brushes his teeth, takes a shower and by the time he’s eating breakfast he’s been shadowed. What is worse, from our own experiences we know the host is aware of it.”
James twists his neck from side to side, visibly angry. He takes a deep breath and his eyelids flutter for an instant. Then he continues. “Thought-jumping breaks the pattern the agent expects. It makes it difficult for it to guess what your next thought will be; in other words, it makes it difficult for them to supplant you. After each attempt, you probably notice a fairly quiet period. It’s possible the agent gets tired or maybe it’s just biding its time for when your guard is down. We don’t know.”
For all I know, there are holes in James’s theories, but they ring of truth and I find myself nodding.
James rests his hands on his knees. “This finally brings us back to meditation and how you can use it to control your agent.”
“You really mean that? I’ll be able to control it?” It seems impossible.
“Yes, Marci.” Then he adds with contempt, “I’ll teach you to control the bastard. It’s a promise.”