My Roommate Is Possessed By A Brain Slug

"...the new government program provides a universal basic income that covers your rent-controlled apartment, all utilities included," the social services agent said. "There is a catch, however. You've got a roommate."

"I've had roommates before," Mel Arkwright said. "At the orphanage."

Snapshot of a life: Mel Arkwright. Three years old when his birth parents died in the last great epidemic. Never adopted. Foster programs never worked out. At 18 years of age, the government's responsibilities for schooling, housing, and feeding Mel ceased. Anyone still in the program when they hit the magic age was basically on the street with, if they were lucky, a high school diploma, no money, no relatives, and no job. Mel didn't like to think of the unlucky ones.

Eighteenth birthdays were no tearful goodbye parties. The s were very clear about options, and the lack thereof. Military recruiters were busy. Those who had grades or sports skills could take out loans and grants, try for college or a trade school. Those with true special needs might get placed in a group home, if they weren't there already. At 5'8", skinny, with short-cropped brown hair and brown eyes, neither handsome nor pretty, neither booksmart nor developmentally disabled, Mel felt like the median of humanity.

No special treatment for him. Orphans like him hit the streets instantly homeless every day. Slept rough. Worked any shitty job they could get. More than a few ended up in jail, or on ****, and either road could lead to the other. Sex work...Mel had heard the , Mrs. Gaunt, talk to a cop about that once. Apparently, if you're hungry enough, you'll do anything. Which meant no planning, no precautions. Lot of disease, more than a few pregnancies. Gaunt had seen the young women who'd left the year before drop off babies.

The idea of that kind of cycle, of orphans birthing orphans, generations raised on abandonment, had haunted Mel's nightmares for weeks. Still came up, from time to time.

Except here in Seacouver, the federal government was trying a new program to reduce homelessness. Rent-controlled apartment and a monthly check that basically covered the rent and maybe food if you were careful. Mel's time at the orphanage had been spent in a series of overpacked rooms, listening to the sounds of three to five other kids. Minimum.

The agent, a tired-looking Black woman named Ashante with graying locs and a world-weary smile, looked Mel in the eye.

"Her name was—is—Jordan Carmichael. 23. She ed the Seacouver Hive six weeks ago," Ashante said quietly.

Mel processed that.

He had been eight, in the youth rec center, watching cartoons on the big TV when the ancient trickster spirit that was Bugs Bunny had been pre-empted for an emergency broadcast bulletin. They called it the Exodus. Thousands of ships spilling out of the sky, refugees from some distant and complicated cosmic calamity. The planet Earth's bio-diversity had increased to the order of several million new residents from over a hundred species. They were tired, sick, exhausted—but they had technology. Some set up little fiefdoms; most negotiated treaties with governments, corporations. The technological boom that followed had been miraculous, supposedly.

It was hard to see miracles when you're eating government-issued American cheese singles on Wonderbread for lunch five days a week.

His last social studies class before graduation had covered the brain slugs. The teacher, Mr. Callahan, had been pretty excited about it. When they were first discovered among the refugees, they seemed like every science fiction trope of the evil parasite. Slimy creatures that attached themselves permanently to a host and took over the major brain functions. Puppeted the bodies around as part of a collective hive mind. That had caused a lot of excitement until the scientists had pointed out that the brain slugs weren't trying to assimilate everybody. They were pushing for legalization.

People had fought back. Sometimes violently. Mel had seen the dead-eyed hosts, holding placards in front of City Hall. Most of them wore clothing that hid the pulsating, jelly-like critter attached at the back of their neck; Mel had only ever caught glimpses of the things. They wanted...well, basically to exist. The right to add humans to the collective. The whole thing sounded weird to Mel, like a combination of hippie commune and one of those UFO cults where everybody wore tinfoil hats. The appearance of actual extraterrestrials had given all of the UFO religions a real shot in the arm, even the crazy ones.

After years of legal action, vigilante groups trying to "rescue" folks that had already ed—mostly the homeless, the crazy, and suicidal—the government had finally recognized individuals' rights to willingly the collective. To let your body be parasitized by an alien creature in exchange for it handling all your biological needs.

"Yeah, okay," he said. "She's, uh, not going to try and make me or anything, right?"

"No, absolutely not," the agent said quickly. "They're not like the Jehovah's Witnesses! The hive collectives are strictly voluntary, and they don't proselytize. Most people think of the hives as these big communal structures where everybody lives together, controlled by some central hive mind, but reality is that just like humans evolved on a savannah as endurance hunters, brain slugs evolved as apex symbionts, opportunistically taking advantage of what hosts were available and using their adaptations to make the most of the environment. Which isn't spectacular for humans in urban environments. The practical reality is that rent in the inner city is high and the collective tends to minimize the needs of individual hosts. On their own planet, they'd fabricate a structure in the wild, on a starship they'd colonize some unused space. Here...well, many of them live on the street. Most of the hosts are gainfully employed in some fashion, they need a safe, secure environment to rest when they're not out making money for the collective."

Mel clocked it. "So this program isn't really about helping folks like me, it's keeping the streets from crawling with brain slugs."

She gave a shrug. Mel considered his options.

"Where do I sign?"

The light on the electronic doorlock turned green as Mel waved his key. There was the chunk of bolts moving aside. It opened, and he stepped inside, his clothes and few other worldly possessions in a trash bag slung across his back. He took in the apartment at a glance and a sniff.

A central room that was living room and dining room all in one. Two bedrooms. One bath. A kitchenette with fridge and electric stove. Some sort of closet. Bigger than a dorm and better than he could have afforded on his own. It smelled faintly of pine-scented cleaning chemicals, the ones that never actually contain any pine but have that back-of-the-throat feel like you jammed your head in a Christmas tree. There was a flatscreen television bolted onto one wall, tuned to a blank blue screen, and a couch facing it. On the couch was what had been Jordan Carmichael.

She was a few years older than Mel, and a few inches taller. Pale skin that seemed slightly waxy in the glow of the TV. Soft blue eyes. Straw-colored hair that had once been shaved on the right side, but which was now growing out, down to her shoulders. He wondered at that for a moment. What it was like going in for your last haircut, before they put the slug on you. She was dressed in athletic pants and a wifebeater, her small breasts clearly outlined against the white fabric, her toes still carrying the chipped paint from the last time she'd painted them.

Something wiggled behind her head. Soft and gelatinous. She turned to face Mel, but the face was slack, the eyes cold and distant. There were little studs in her ears, five on each side. Placed there and never taken out, Mel guessed.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Mel. Your new roommate."

Nothing. She blinked. He blinked.

"Just, uh. Gonna get settled. Put my stuff away. Okay?"

The fridge contained one half-gallon of milk, a brick of ultra-firm tofu, unopened, and a dozen eggs. Groceries would very quickly become a priority, as Mel didn't want to eat her food. The closet turned out to be a linen closet, with two white towels and hand towels, neatly folded, both of which he figured were hers. Ashante had shown him the coin-operated washer and dryer five floors below, at street level.

Both bedrooms had a simple iron-framed single with boxspring and mattress. One of them was made, and had stacks of neatly-folded clothing on the floor. The other was still in plastic, the sheets in flat plastic rectangles on top, and contained nothing else except three dead cockroaches. Mel moved into his room and flushed the bugs. He didn't even bother to make the bed at first. Just laid down on the crinkly, plastic-covered mattress and listened to the hum of the air conditioning.

His own place. No one to tell him lights out, or when he could go to the bathroom. No frenzied jerking off in secret so the others wouldn't give him shit. Or trying to keep away from the more violent assholes in the group showers. Mel's hand slid down the waist of his jeans, almost hard just thinking about the delicious freedom of just having his own space for the first time in his life.

The tip of his index finger touched his foreskin...and then his eyes opened.

Jordan was standing there. At the doorway. Looking at him with those dead eyes.

Quickly, Mel took his hand out of his pants and rolled off the mattress.

"Not bad for the price, right? The whole pre-furnished thing, I mean," he said as he opened up the sheets and began to spread them out to make the bed. "I mean, it's basic, but maybe when I get a job I can hit up a thrift store or something. Get a dresser, maybe a chair."

She stood there, never actually crossing the threshold into what he now thought of as his room. Watched him make the bed. Unpack his clothes, which he sorted out into little piles much less neat than hers. Mel licked his lips, a nervous habit, as he felt her stare at him. Unconsciously aware of the bare neck presented between the collar of his t-shirt and his short-cropped hair every time he bent over.

Finally, with nothing left to do, he walked back over to the door. Standing up, he could see how frail she was, which accentuated her height. The wifebeater hung off her shoulders, and he could trace her collarbones. Maybe it was the cool air in the apartment, but her nipples seemed stiff, tenting out the fabric.

"I'm, uh. Gonna turn in now," he said. "Gotta go pound the pavement, bright and early. Look for a job, y'know?"

He offered her a smile. She didn't take it. The slack face gave back nothing, no response at all. No recognition she'd heard or understood his words.

Except he knew something had to. The thing that pulsed softly, just visible on the back of her neck, if he leaned to the side. The thing she had willingly sold herself to, so it could do the thinking for her. Mel couldn't repress the shudder that went through him, which had nothing to do with the cool air in the apartment.

"G'night," he said, as he closed the door.

Day one of Mel's new life. She hadn't said a single word.