Then one of the officers slammed a stun baton across the back of her head, and Chave finally fell, crumpling to the plush carpet like an expensive toy discarded by a selfish child. Silence hung over the cafeteria, broken only by the sound of breathing, and muffled sobs from a few of the executives. Dr. Banks kept his hands on my shoulders, pressing down hard, as we looked at Chave’s body lying on the floor.

“She said my name,” I whispered. “Why did she say my name?”

No one answered me. Out of all the things that had happened since my arrival at SymboGen, somehow that seemed like the most dangerous one of all.

INTERLUDE I: EXODUS

The broken doors are open—come and enter and be home.

—SIMONE KIMBERLEY, DON’T GO OUT ALONE

We are our own judge, jury, and executioner. And we have been proven guilty.

—DR. RICHARD JABLONSKY

October 23, 2015: Time stamp 10:52.

[As before, the recording is perfect, and the lab is a gleaming miracle of science. The only difference is in the woman who stands in front of the camera. Her lab coat is rumpled, her hair in disarray. She looks like she has not slept in weeks.]

DR. CALE: Doctor Shanti Cale, final Diphyllobothrium symbogenesis viability test results. Those bastards. Those goddamn bastards…

[She stops, visibly composing herself.]

DR. CALE: Steven—Doctor Banks—has decided that we’re finished with laboratory testing, and can move on to live human subjects. I mean. Officially move on to live human subjects. He’s wrong. He’s not listening, but he’s wrong. Do you hear me, Steven? You’re wrong. And you’re going to pay for it. Not me.

[She produces a petri dish from her pocket, holding it up so that the camera can see. There is a white nutrient goo at the bottom. Any other contents are too small to be seen.]

DR. CALE: You can’t destroy all the evidence. I know you’re going to try, and I want you to understand that it is not possible. By the time you find this recording, I will be gone. Instructions have been left to tell you where to wire my money. You want your skeletons to stay buried, Steven? You want this house of cards to stay standing? You leave me alone, and you stay the hell away from my family.

Leave us the hell alone.

[The film ends there. Dr. Shanti Cale disappeared shortly thereafter. There are no records to indicate what she may have removed from the lab, or even whether she is still alive.]

[End report.]

STAGE I: IMPLANTATION

SymboGen: because good health starts within.

—EARLY SYMBOGEN ADVERTISING SLOGAN

Oh, won’t this just be the most fun we’ve ever had?

—DR. SHANTI CALE

I suppose this is when you ask me about the original trio. I met Richard in grad school, and we knew immediately that we had something special. Still, we were incomplete until we stumbled over Shanti. We were the Three Musketeers of bioengineering, and with us working together, there was nothing we couldn’t do. Maybe that’s why we started taking on bigger and bigger challenges. We truly believed that it was impossible for us to fail.

Some people will try to tell you Shanti was the brains of our operation, but they’re just talking trash for the sake of sounding like they know something I don’t want people to know. Shanti was the smartest of the three of us, but that’s like saying one firework is brighter than another. They’re all blazing too damn bright to look at. Isn’t that what matters? Burning so bright you paint the sky?

Shanti was the one who refused to admit there was such a thing as going too far. Richard was the one who reined her in when it looked like she was going to run right over the edge of the world. And me? I was the one who made everything work. Without me, SymboGen would never have existed. There are probably people who would say that was a good thing, too.

I have to admit, there are days when I think it would be a good thing. I might even be willing to give it all back if it meant I still had my friends. But you can’t go home again.

—FROM “KING OF THE WORMS,” AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. STEVEN BANKS, CO-FOUNDER OF SYMBOGEN. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ROLLING STONE, FEBRUARY 2027.

One of the more interesting realities of the SymboGen Intestinal Bodyguard™ campaign was the way the scientific team responsible for its development was handled. Dr. Banks appeared on talk shows and at scientific symposiums, lecturing on the wonders of their discovery. Dr. Jablonsky spoke at early functions, but quickly stopped making public appearances, choosing instead to focus on the scientific aspects of their work. Only one woman was involved in the Intestinal Bodyguard™ project: Dr. Shanti Cale, a photogenic, intense blonde whose early audience-acceptance scores were unbelievable. She would have been the perfect spokeswoman. Instead, she vanished without a trace shortly before the company’s IPO. Rumors of bribery have circulated almost since the date of her disappearance, but have never been proven. Whatever her side of the story, she has not been heard from, and the SymboGen brand is now well established worldwide.

As the face of SymboGen, Dr. Banks was the perfect blend of approachable and intelligent, the quintessential wise scientist. Perhaps the decision to put the other researchers behind the curtain was just one more piece in selling the unsellable.

—FROM SELLING THE UNSELLABLE: AMERICAN ADVERTISING THROUGH THE YEARS, BY MORGAN DEMPSEY, PUBLISHED 2026.

Chapter 8

AUGUST 2027

Security pulled me out of the chaos in the cafeteria and escorted me back down to the labs, ignoring my attempts to resist them. If I could take any comfort in my removal from the scene, it was this: I wasn’t the only one. Everyone who’d come into direct contact with Chave before she collapsed was being taken underground. The guards packed us into the elevators, maintaining a two-to-one ratio between security and people who didn’t have the right to carry guns inside the building.