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Liketoo hard

"I do" Dr Cale nodded "You have to understand that… oh, God, how do I say this? I genuinely think of Adam and Tansy--and yes, you--as my children You containhuman brain is required for you to achieve full sapience, I cannot question your right to exist once you have that connection Do you understand? I wouldn’t kill a functional huive one of my babies a body, but I wouldn’t take that body away from them if they already had it"

"Okay," I said, confused

"You were a e of Sally’s accident, you found a way to coration without help Sally’s brain is the computer that runs your consciousness, but you, only you, are the medical miracle here You’re the one who evolved under pressure" She smiled a little, like she expected this revelation to make me happy It did not make me happy "If Dr Banks wanted to study a natural chimera, you were perfect Tell reeing to allow Sy about ould happen to your body if you passed away for any reason?"

"Dr Banks would get it for research purposes" Dawning horror was coiling in ood would that do? All he’d get would be a dead worirl There’s not much to learn from that"

"Tapeworms are hardy, Sal It’s true that your current body wouldn’t survive the loss of your hurated to be rerow a neith your exact genetic makeup He could create another you under controlled lab conditions He’s never had a chi his research every ti another iteration of you wouldn’t require the same level of research; you’vealready, all by yourself He could exploit that"

"What are you talking about?"

"You were built with a DNA profile," she said "You found a way, instinctively, to h to let you take Sally Mitchell’s body as your own That’s normal Every baseline wors frohtly different results--but your body is herenerates will be a tiny, perfect clone of you, Sal Banks could use that He could grow a chiure out how to ether"

I stared at her, aghast "Are you saying that Dr Banks left weak blood vessels in my brain because he wanted me to have an aneurism and die?"

"So that he could take sainal body, yes, and possibly hout the life cycle of your original host would have been a secondary goal I admit, I can see the temptation It would have been a perfect, untouched syste person"

"I don’t think he thinks of me as a person," I said

"You may not be a human, Sal, but you’re a person Anyone who can think and speak and be upset by someone’s plans for thes us to the next matter at hand Those blood vessels need to be repaired, or you’re going to keep having incidents like this one"

"I thought I fainted because I lost too much blood," I said weakly

"You didn’t lose that h to strain your systeins to worry about circulation, things will go downhill for you very quickly, because you don’t have ht of being unconscious on a table while someone sliced into my head filled me with terror I didn’t want them so close to my vulnerable body I neededto do ood if the channels that carried the food I needed to survive were blocked "Can we do that here?" I asked, inwardly amazed at how cal someone to cut me open

Dr Cale shook her head "No, we can’t," she said "I have excellent surgical facilities--I can even perforery, when there’s a need for it--but what you need is too delicate It’s going to require a specialist, and equipment that’sto need to take you to a hospital"

"Nathan has ades at the hospital where he works," I said slowly

"Yes, and that hospital is in San Francisco, and everyone there knows him" Dr Cale shook her head for the second tiret transfused her features Somehow, that didn’t make ed to get you on the table"

"So what, then? I can’t just stay here and try not to get upset about anything The sleepwalkers are getting worse That sort ofto need you to trust me"