Hosts

Kate backed further away from this puppet that had once been Jeanette, edging toward the kitchen. But something within wanted her to stay close to her and was making it difficult to move, the same something that was trying to soothe her riled emotions, calm her fears, ease her anger.

But she forced her legs to move, to inch toward the kitchen.

"That's not a human agenda, Jeanette. That's a viral agenda. It's aimed at one thing: more hosts in which to replicate. A virus is a parasite—the ultimate parasite. It can't even reproduce on its own. It enters a cell, co-opts the cellular machinery, then reprograms it to create copies of itself so it can go occupy more cells. That's what this whole plan is about, Jeanette: creating more hosts for the virus."

Jeanette followed her, a missionary trying to convert a heathen. She reached out but Kate avoided her touch.

"You don't understand, Kate. An outsider ca

Kate felt as if she were wading against a current in chest-high water as she fought her way into the kitchen toward the microwave, and fought the anger-and fear-numbing tranquillity forcing its way through her mind.

"Oh, but I do. I understand perfectly: the Unity is the virus. In taking over your brains it's imprinted its agenda on your minds—or on your uber-mind or whatever it is. Be fruitful and multiply… and multiply… and multiply—and create nothing else. That's a virus's code of ethics, and that's what you're spouting."

Jeanette moved closer, her expression intense.

"Think of it, Kate. No nations, no borders. No me and not-me, no mine and not-mine—the sources of all conflict. Nothing can belong to anyone when everything belongs to everyone. The Unity future—"

"—is a sterile existence, Jeanette!" Hard to speak now. Her words slurred, her thoughts sludged. And Jeanette was closer, still reaching for her. "You want to turn humanity into a homogeneous mass of content, well-fed, healthy bodies in a healthy environment where we can breed like rabbits. You say you'll do away with livestock, Jeanette, but the truth is you'll become livestock!" Kate whirled, punched random buttons on the microwave over control panel. "And I refuse to live like that!"

Kate hit START.

And suddenly her mind cleared, her limbs freed up.

"Thank goodness!" she said. She turned to Jeanette. "Now we can really talk."

But Jeanette stood facing her, shaking her head and smiling ruefully.

"If you're looking for the old me, that won't work anymore. Not on me. I'm fully integrated now. The old me is gone, shucked like a worn-out skin. There's only the new me now."

Kate felt her breath clog in her throat. "Oh, no."

"The Unity doesn't understand why, but the vibrations caused by microwaves interfere with oneness in the unintegrated, causing the Unity to become blind to you. But it's only temporary. Once you're fully integrated, nothing can come between you and the Unity."

Kate's vision blurred as tears filled her eyes. Jeanette was gone, replaced by this… drone.

"Don't cry, Kate. I've never been happier. And you'll be happy too. Don't waste tears on the old me, and don't fight for the old you. The battle is already won. In a few more days the new, better you will emerge triumphant. And as for this…"

She reached past Kate, unplugged the microwave, then slid it off the counter and let it smash on the floor.

"… don't waste your time."

Immediately Kate sensed that her thoughts were again no longer completely her own.

"Jeanette—"

The phone rang. They both stared at it, waiting for the fourth ring when the answering machine would pick up. Kate heard a beep, then a woman's voice.

"Oh, Kate. I was hoping you'd be there. I—"

Kate snatched up the receiver. "Yes? Who is this?"

"Oh, I'm so glad you're in. This is Gia. We met—"

"Yes, of course. I remember you. Jack's friend." She sensed the strain underlying the other woman's voice. "Is something wrong?"

"It's Jack. He's sick."

Her gut clenched. "How sick?"

"A hundred-and-four temperature. Delirious. Shaking chills alternating with drenching sweats. I don't know what to do."

"I'll be right over. Wait—I don't know where he lives." Gia gave her an Upper West Side address. "Don't leave him. I'm on my way."

"Your brother is sick," Jeanette said—a statement, not a question. Her expression was troubled.

"Yes. No thanks to you and your virus."

"But… this is not right. The virus does not make one sick. It slips past the immune system and—"

"Well, my brother's has thrown up a roadblock."

At least Kate hoped that was what it was. Those symptoms could indicate any number of infections, pneumonia among others.

She hurried to the bedroom where she changed into khaki pants and a chambray shirt. She gathered up the stethoscope and diagnostic kit she'd brought along in case she needed them for Jeanette—that was a laugh—and stuffed them into her oversized shoulder bag.

"Good-bye, Jeanette," she said, more from reflex than anything else, as she headed for the door.

Jeanette said nothing. She still stood where Kate had left her in the kitchen, staring at the wall, her brows knitted.

11

"Take another breath, Jack," Kate said. "Deeper this time."

Clad only in damp boxer shorts, he lay sprawled on a rumpled double bed. Jack didn't respond so she had to be satisfied with listening to his tidal respiration.

Kate pressed the diaphragm of her stethoscope more firmly against the perspiration-beaded skin of his mid back. She hadn't realized how sleekly muscular her brother had become. His almost total lack of body fat left the muscles close to the skin. The way he dressed gave no hint that this sort of body moved within his clothes. Men in Jeanette's end of town who had bodies like Jack's tended toward tank tops and skintight muscle shirts; their object was to attract attention; Jack's seemed to be to deflect it.

She strained to hear the crinkling cellophane rales that would signal fluid in the alveoli. She heard none.

"No sign of pneumonia," she said.

Gia sighed. "Thank God."

Not necessarily good hews, Kate thought. Means we're dealing with something else. And if Jeanette had told the truth, that something else was most likely the contaminant virus.

"What do you think it is?" Gia said.

Kate looked at this pretty blond woman and thought back to the night—Lord, had it been only two nights ago?—that she and Jack had come over. Kate might have found herself attracted to her if not for everything that had been happening. She remembered how she'd been struck by the easy camaraderie between Jack and Gia, the way they laughed with each other and, when listening to Gia speak of Jack, how deeply she cared for her brother.

And now she saw the near panic in Gia's eyes, and thought, You're so lucky, Jack, to have someone who loves you this much. Don't ever lose her.

She decided to tell Gia part of the truth. "It's most likely a virus."

"Is it catching? Vicky's been in and out, helping me. Bad enough Jack's this sick. But Vicky's so little. What if—?"

"She should be fine."

Kate had met the dark-haired, blue-eyed child on the way in and her pigtails had made her ache for the days when Lizzie had been that age. Life had seemed so simple back then.

"I hope so," Gia said. "I've had to change his T-shirt three times. Finally I stopped. He pulls the covers over himself when he chills and throws them off when he sweats."

"That's part of the infection-fighting process."

But why is his system fighting it when mine didn't?

Kate felt a tug in her mind, a nanosecond of scrambled thoughts, and then a question leaping out before she could stop it.

"Has he ever been sick before?"