Chapter 3

Jeremy opened the door to his dorm room and then closed it softly behind him. With an external calm he was far from feeling, he took the vial of microchip dust out of his jeans pocket. Turning his fingers up, he looked each tip, bringing each one up to his eye to peer at it for long seconds. There were no specks of blood or pinpricks. With a deep breath, he dipped his finger into the vial and touched the microchips.
Across the room, he heard a buzzing against the window. Distracted, his head swung in that direction. When he looked back at his finger a drop of blood was already falling onto the chips. Still holding the vial and watching his finger, he walked to the window.  The loud buzzing sounded again.

He took his finger out of the vial and craned his neck to look behind the partially open venetian blinds. A black wasp with yellow striped legs charged out of its hiding place to dive bomb his head in quick, furious movements. Jeremy jerked away and dropped the vial. White powder spilled on the floor as it rolled away.

“I am going to get something to kill you,” Jeremy declared, turning aside from the wasp to reach for a magazine. He kept one eye on the circling insect.

The wasp hovered over the room, buzzing Jeremy when it flew near. Then, it dove out of sight.

Magazine rolled up in his hand, Jeremy inched forward. His eyes swung back and forth, looking for the stinging insect. Step by step he searched the room. Where had the wasp gone? He looked behind the window blinds. He looked around the table. He skirted the beds.

He spotted it under the bed. The wasp flexed its wings in the microchip dust next to the vial. Jeremy lifted his arm fraction by fraction.

It saw Jeremy lift his arm and rose in a storm from its hiding place. Hanging in mid-air just out of reach, it seemed to stare straight at Jeremy. Its eyes flashed lime green, and then they turned bright orange.  The wasp’s eyes flashed the colors twice more.

Jeremy gasped for breath. “Synmites,” He whispered, his jaw dropping slack. He fell heavily into a chair, staring at the wasp. Once more, its eyes changed lime green to orange.  It wasn’t possible. How could it be possible? Jeremy scrambled under the bed to look at the microchips – they were gone, only a few flecks of dust remained. Had the synmites attached themselves to the wasp in some way? Were they hitching a ride on the outside of the insect? Surely they couldn’t be inside the wasp. The bacteria they had used for the synmites weren’t infective - except, Rachel had added common cold and chicken pox DNA. What if the synmites were infective?

The black wasp, its yellow legs held close to its body, buzzed his head again as if to remind him of its presence. He swatted at it mid-air and missed. It had to die – he needed to see if the synmintes were on it or in it. It flew once around the room and bumped against the window and then its buzz began to oscillate wildly, hitting random notes like a madman playing a whining guitar. “Zayyyyyy zaaaaa zeeee zouuuuu tet,” It buzzed over and over again, adding new clicks and sounds as it flew through the room like a kamikaze pilot, bumping the window harder each time it moved past. Jeremy leaped around the room, trying to swat it, but the wasp moved faster. It kept up its refrain, now refined to, “Zeee Zouuuuu tet.“  

Exhausted, Jeremy plopped into a chair and waited for the insect to calm down so he could kill it more easily. His mind was in overdrive. No bugs talked, not even synmite bugs. It would be ridiculous to think it was saying, “Me out”. How could it have gotten the synmites much less learned to talk English?

 His gaze wandered around the dorm room. It had white walls and blind covered windows, with stackable furniture and stand alone desks. Empty, crumpled up soda pop cans were on the floor, paper plates and food wrappers overflowed the corner trash can. When he got to MIT two years earlier, his mother had made sure his college room matched – mostly in shades of deep brown and lime green. There were dirty clothes that had fallen off the chair onto the beige, institutional tile floor and there, crumpled up in a corner, was the jacket he had worn yesterday when he visited Tristan, the same jacket which had held the vial from the failed experiment where the synmites had escaped.

“Zzzouuuu tet,” the wasp sang again, each time it sounded the buzzed word became more insistent and clearer in its intent.

“No way,” Jeremy replied, “You have the synmites. I won’t let you out.”

The agitated wasp flew in erratic zigzags. With seeming intent, it turned on Jeremy charging him with its full inch of aggressive, stinging fury. At the last moment, it veered off, circling the room once more.

Brian, Jeremy’s roommate, opened the door and walked in. As usual, his nose was stuck in a book. As soon as the door opened, the wasp made a straight-away swoop toward it, buzzing Brian as it flew past. “What was that?” Brian asked ducking as the madly buzzing insect flew past him.

“Don’t let it get away!” Jeremy yelled, racing after the wasp. The rolled up magazine was still in his hand.

As if programed, the wasp flew down the hall toward the light from the student common area. Several students stopped to watch as it flew once around the room, gasping and moving aside as it buzzed them.

“It’s only a wasp,” a pretty blonde with long hair said and walked to door. She opened it wide, ignoring Jeremy’s yells.

The wasp doubled its speed and flew out the opening. Jeremy ran out to door, watching helplessly as it flew up into the bright blue sky. Shaky, he plopped on a nearby park bench, panting from exertion and the cold, hard knot of fear which had lodged in his chest. It had gotten away.

His brain ran the probabilities – what would happen, would the synmites spread it to other wasps? What would the consequences be? There was no good scenario for this and he berated himself for not thinking about consequences before today. Now, it might be too late.

Fear hurled through his body, nauseating him. How was he going to keep this hidden? A film of sweat covered his face and ran in rivulets down his cheek. He looked at his finger tips. He could never admit to anyone that he knew what was going on. As if in slow motion, he raised his gaze to stare at the still open door through which the wasp had flown. The pretty blonde was staring at him. Concern wrinkled her brow and darkened her bright blue eyes. What was going to happen to him?

When had the synmites escaped? How much had they infected? Had the synmites been there all along? Had they been invisible? Had they only escaped when he opened the vial or had they escaped through the metal? He needed to talk to Tristan.

“Are you OK?” the blonde asked.

“Yeah, fine,” Jeremy said walking back into the dorm. On the big screen TV, the news announcer reported, “Today, the DOW plunged nearly 3000 points, but trading rallied and gained back 997 points before closing. Investors are hoping for a rally early tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, that’s bad,” one student shouted at the TV, “Stop messing with my college fund.”

Another student threw a pillow at him. “It’s not just your college fund it’s a lot of people who can’t afford to live as well when our dollar is devalued.”

“Then they should have gone to college, like me”

“What if they couldn’t? Don’t be a snob,” the blonde student inserted herself between the two young men.

“Bring it if you think you’re so smart.” The first student offered.

Jeremy tuned out the conversation. He needed to find Tristan.