Part 1 (1/2)

Hideaki Sena.

Parasite Eve Sephirotto.

PROLOGUE.

Everything vanished suddenly before her eyes.

Kiyomi Nagas.h.i.+ma had no idea what had happened. The houses she pa.s.sed every day were reflected in the winds.h.i.+eld only a moment ago. Just ahead, the street took its familiar slope downward and bore slightly to the right, where a traffic light had just changed to yellow, before vision failed her.

Kiyomi tried to blink, but her sight did not return. No matter how much effort she put into it, nothing appeared. They had all gone away: the white sedan driving in front of her; the tail light of the bus waiting at its stop; the cl.u.s.ter of high school girls hastening along the sidewalk. Kiyomi looked down in her confusion to check the steering wheel. Then, she was truly shocked. The steering wheel was gone. In fact, she did not even know where her hands were. She could not feel the seat belt around her waist nor her foot on the gas pedal, for neither was where it was supposed to be. There was only darkness fanning out, continuing endlessly in all directions.

There was a churning around her, and she was floating in a warm, viscous liquid. She was naked. Her clothes had vanished without her ever noticing.

That dream again.

That dream she had once a year, on Christmas Eve, in which she felt herself writhing in some pitch-dark world without beginning or end. She'd always had that strange dream. This was the dream, and she was now entering into it again. But she did not know why she was having it just now. Like the stars' orbits, the dream always came to her with regulated precision. She never dreamt it on any other night but Christmas and had certainly never entered into it while she was awake.

Her body was changing profoundly. She lost all feeling in her arms and legs. Maybe they'd actually vanished. Head, torso, and hips gone, a body long and narrow like a worm's, she felt herself to be. Kiyomi shook and slithered ahead through the slightly sticky blackness.

What is this place? It was a question she had asked many times before. Her body seemed to recall this place, yet no matter how much she tried, Kiyomi herself could not remember. Once, in some far-off place, Kiyomi was just like this, not understanding anything, just squirming and swimming. That much was true. Had it been yesterday, a recent year, or in the more distant past? She could not tell. To begin with, it was not clear that time flowed in this vast gloom.

Kiyomi felt her body changing again. Something small divided slowly deep inside of her. At the same time, she felt a gentle constriction in her very center, and the ends of her body flowed quietly in opposing directions.

She was becoming two.

It was a strangely tranquil feeling. Time seemed to pa.s.s so gently, slowly.

Where am I? When is this? What am I? Such mundane concerns no longer mattered.

She wanted only to remain floating like this in the dark.

She gradually split in half. There was no pain. Rather, she was insensate and that was bliss. Everything sedate. No turmoil. Dividing like it was natural. Calm. All was calm.

Kiyomi let all her nerves relax as she slowly surrendered herself to the flow...

Her vision was then completely restored just as unexpectedly as it had abandoned her.

She clearly saw now her own two hands grasping the steering wheel. Kiyomi blinked, then looked straight ahead.

She was heading straight into a telephone pole.

PART ONE.

DEVELOPMENT.

1.

Until the phone rang that morning, it was the beginning of an average, uneventful day for Tos.h.i.+aki Nagas.h.i.+ma.

At 8:20 amTos.h.i.+aki parked his car at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The lot was still more than half empty. Briefcase in hand, he got out of the car and locked it. He looked up indifferently at the Pharmaceutical Center. Rising six stories high, the building was steeped in somber gray beneath the cloudy sky.

In the entrance lobby, Tos.h.i.+aki changed into a pair of sterile sandals, then took the elevator to the fifth floor. Double doors opened to reveal a corridor extending in both directions. Far back to the right was the lecture hall where he taught his course on Advanced Methods in Biofunctional Sciences. It appeared that most of the students and other staff members had yet to arrive, for not a sound could be heard. However, late mornings were not unusual. The other organic science courses were quite different, entire staffs a.s.sembling and seminars beginning at 8 am. Tos.h.i.+aki's course was an exception in that they wasted no time on finding fault with their students' time management skills. Instead, he and his colleagues stressed that what mattered was for the students to conduct their experiments and present the data.

As a mere research a.s.sociate, Tos.h.i.+aki made an effort to arrive by 8:30, but this was not a commitment required of him.

He opened the door to Lab 2, which housed his desk, turned on the light, and entered.

After hanging his coat, he placed his briefcase next to the bookshelf. Two chemical agent order forms had been written up and left for him on the desk by his students the night before: specifically, requests for the restriction enzymes EcoR I and BamH I. Tos.h.i.+aki attached the forms together with a paper clip and pinned them to the desk-side wall.

Looking over the notes he'd made the day before, he began to prepare for his experiment. First he left the lab and keyed open a door just down the hall which led into the Cultivation Room. The room's interior was imbued with a ultraviolet sterilizing light, which he switched to an ordinary fluorescent light as he stepped inside. He took two plastic culture flasks from the incubator and placed them under a microscope. He adjusted the focus and peered through the lenses, gazing at the cells at the other end. After ensuring he was satisfied with their condition, he returned the cells to the incubator, then removed a few implements from the autoclave and placed them into the clean bench.

Tos.h.i.+aki returned to his lab and removed several testing chemicals from the refrigerator. Just then, Sachiko Asakura, a second-year master's student he had been mentoring, walked in.

”Good mor-ning,” she enunciated pleasantly as she entered.

Tos.h.i.+aki returned the greeting like an echo.

Asakura put her coat away, revealing a figure shrouded in a white summer sweater and jeans. She had her long hair tied behind her back. Removing her sweater, she donned a white lab coat.

At nearly S'9”, Asakura was quite tall for a woman, shorter than Tos.h.i.+aki by only an inch or so. When she pa.s.sed by, she acknowledged him with a smile and a small bow.

Asakura's height was greatly accentuated in her long coat, and it was always pleasant to watch her stately figure as it fluttered about the lab during an experiment.

Tos.h.i.+aki informed her he would be in the Cultivation Room and, with that, left the lab.

Once the clean bench preparations were complete, he removed the culture flasks and commenced his work. The cells he was using, known as NIH3T3, were relatively common.

He had, however, introduced retinoid receptor genes into the cells of one of the flasks. Two days before, he'd placed each respective cell culture into a new flask and bred them; then, the following day, he'd added a dose of beta-oxidation enzymes into the indicator solutions.

Today, he planned on collecting mitochondrial data from both cultures. His expectation was that the activity of the beta-oxidation enzymes would be higher for the cells receiving the gene transfer than for the control cells.

Just when he began the procedure, there was a phone call.

Tos.h.i.+aki heard the lab phone, but his hands were occupied and Asakura was over there in the lab. He a.s.sumed she would take the call. After three rings, she seemed to have picked up the receiver; for a dozen seconds, the morning's peace was restored. But soon there was the sudden echo of rushed footsteps. Tos.h.i.+aki continued working, wondering what was the hurry. Not knowing why, he chanced a glance at the wall clock. The hands indicated exactly 9:00 am.

The lab door burst open.