“Is it Sibs?” Yaya asked, glaring across the room. “This thing inside me?”

Doc didn’t answer. She leaned over the table as if waiting to hear more.

Yaya could oblige. She could talk without end if anyone ever asked. “Last month, my Sibs checkup, you ABP Frankensteins shot me up with something.

They put this thing inside me, didn’t they?”

“That isn’t my department,” Doc said.

“What’s your department then?” Yaya asked, her tone haughty. “Let’s have that talk we never had on Friday at Pandora’s Aquarium. The kind people usually have when they meet.”

“And you’re interested in what people usually do? I doubt that.” Doc would dodge questions and obfuscate answers the entire night, and then to the end of the world if needed.

Yaya didn’t have that long. “What do you do then? Door-to-door pelvic exams? Sibs checkup patrol?”

“Assessment,” Doc said.

Yaya shrugged. “Then assess me.”

Doc’s eyes seemed to shine across the room. “From what my colleague described, and what I pulled out of him? You’re unique. The double-zero virus is having a strange effect on your individual genetic makeup. No two people are identical, not even twins. Not even devoured twins.”

Yaya strained to make sense from that, but Doc’s words sounded like someone crumpling a paper ball to throw in the trash. “You have no idea what’s happening to me, do you?” Yaya asked.

Doc shrugged, white blazer crinkling at her shoulders. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Yaya wiped sweat off her forehead before it could trickle down her face and be mistaken for tears. “No answers, but you tinker in my life from start to finish.”

“We own half that life,” Doc said.

“Boo-fucking-hoo. You could have the half that’s this monster if I trusted you an inch.”

The voice hummed in Yaya’s head yet again. Hungry. She thought of punching her gut. She had to look to Doc like a frenzied animal batting at its cage bars, and maybe this tentacled thing felt the same about Yaya’s ribcage. Its twitching might put Doc on edge enough to help.

“What’s your plan with me?” Doc asked. “Any next step?”

“Waiting,” Yaya said. She pressed her free hand over her lower abdomen.

“That’s it?” Doc’s tone struck an unusual high note. “Sit with me and hope it all comes together, is that all?”

“You can’t expect me to have my life figured out. I’ve never existed before.” Yaya stirred, gut squirming. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

Doc drummed her fingers again. “You have to sleep sometime, Yaya.”

Yaya glanced at the bedroom. “So do you.”

A cold quiet sank between them. This apartment had felt welcoming on Friday night. Yaya wondered how different this evening might have gone had

she stayed a little longer on Saturday morning and eaten breakfast with Doc, gotten to know each other that way instead of through dentata-driven panic.

“Research can help you,” Doc said. She didn’t look at Yaya now. “You would have to come to the lab with me, agree to tests, but there’s a chance we can figure this out.”