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Chapter 1

SEPTEMBER 2027

Dr Cale’s laballey, but she’d clearly never seen that as a reason for her equip less than state-of-the-art The MRI scanner was kept in a private roo they had at Sy it was to see a piece of machinery that co on the floor and allowed Nathan to help h this process before Itthat none of the last feeeks had happened; that everything was still nor that I was desperately afraid I was beco I was even

The MRI cas of the vastof the dru else: just sound, vibrating throughitself beneath my sternum My flesh, my sternuht to it?

Please, please, it’s so to myself one last time while the option was still open to me Please, it’s not what I think it is Please, there’s another answer…

The MRI gave one final pulse as it shut off The sudden silence was deafening, only slightly lessened by the hu back out into the roos I grabbed a lab coat off the side of theit on as I climbed back to my feet It didn’t do much to cut the chill, but I didn’t want to spend the time to pick up my clothes

Nathan was seated at the lasses as he pulled up the first i my hand on his shoulder He put one of his hands overthe mouse

My abdoans, scarring, and the pasty white ravitate toward the base of estive syste the truth: there was no residual tapeworestive systes, either The ie after that proved that htened on mine I think that if I had told him to stop then, he would have, and ould both have walked aith the question unanswered I didn’t tell him to stop I needed to know He did too, if only so that ould both be standing in the sa changed

The ie showed the inside of a hu of the bone toward the back The brain was there, lit up in bright colors that represented activity during the MRI The tapeas there too, showing up as loops of nonreactive white against the bright neuralin and out of brain tissue But I’d known that before I’d seen the iured it out when I met Adam and Tansy, when I was faced with the reality of their existence When I’d started to care about the what they were hadn’t been strictly necessary, had it? Sherman was a tapeworm too, and I had always liked him best, out of all the people at SymboGen From the htest clue that he was a product of Dr Cale’s lab, that would have given me the information I needed When I met a tapeworm, when I met somebody like me, I liked the them later, I started froured it out, and then I’d locked it away, because I hadn’t wanted to aduess pictures could do the sae on the screen wasat who--at what--I really was

I was never Sally Mitchell after all

"The protein markers couldn’t cross the blood-brain barrier in a detectable form," said Nathan His voice was soft, like he was afraid anything louder would startle"It’s e couldn’t detect…" He stopped, obviously unsure how to finish the sentence

There was no kind way to do it "Honey, you’re not human" isn’t a conversation either of us was equipped to have "Moer, and it had hurt, but it hadn’t hurt as ured out the sahter died in the accident that put her in the hospital I was a stranger living inside her baby’s skin I was a stranger to the entire human race "Oh, ," he said, suddenly fierce He let go ofthe chair out of the way before he turned and wrapped his arht that I was almost scared he would crushhim just as hard Voice still sharp, he said, "Do you understand "

I raised my head and looked over his shoulder Dr Cale had parked her wheelchair in the doorway She was sitting there watching us, an expression of profound regret on her face I wouldn’t have believed that she was capable of looking so sad, but in that ed it, and in thatand race didn’t ainst that expression