Interesting Question

Skinship is important to brain slug hosts. The more interested they become in an individual, the greater physical contact they desire—not just intimate contact, but touching, cuddling, hugs, even kisses. In this way, they seek to imprint more of their smell on that individual. To claim them more as their own.
—How To Talk To Brain Slugs, Chapter 2: Smell

The nude woman walked into the Cosmic Fill-Up just as Mel clocked in for his shift.

She was dark-skinned, so skinny her ribs were clearly visible. Lanky brown hair hung down to her shoulders. Mel couldn't quite tell her age; hard living had put lines on that face, but the skin was overall smooth. She had small breasts, with small dark nipples, and for a moment, Mel thought she was pregnant—but no, it was the characteristic swollen stomach of starvation. He had seen that once before, a couple of kids who were brought in due to neglect, quiet and hungry in a way that had been unsettling in how desperately thin and weak they had been.

Mel took this all in within a moment; then he saw, sticking out of the greasy locks of hair, a familiar small shape with three small sensory tentacles. But it was bright red—no, he decided, it was translucent but flushed with blood.

A brain slug. Although not like any he had ever seen before.

Mel glanced back at Ha-Yoon's office, but she wasn't there. He poked his head in and found the lost-and-found box. It was amazing how many discarded items accumulated over time. Hoodies, sneakers, t-shirts.

"Blair, Tomie!" Mel said as he walked toward the naked brain slug host. The two behind the counter stared at him. "Can you talk to her? She looks like she needs food—and clothes."

Blair, in her cleanly-pressed red shirt, freshly-shaven head gleaming, stepped from behind the counter. She approached the stranger slowly, and it seemed to Mel as if the dark eyes had trouble focusing on her. The shaven-headed brain slug host raised her left arm to offer her palm. Slowly, with shaking arm, the naked woman slid her palm into hers. For a moment, Blair's arm shuddered as if she were about to recoil, and her mouth actually twisted into a frown.

In a moment, Tomie was there, standing beside Blair, her hand grasping Blair's free arm.

Mel set the box down near the stranger's feet and began digging through it. There was a pair of grey sweatpants. Two mismatched sneakers, but both left and right, and about the right size, if she doubled up on socks. A blue hoodie that might have fit Mel himself, if he'd thought to ask for it. But whoever this was, they obviously needed it more than Mel did.

Tomie broke away from the stranger; there was limited clothing for sale at the Cosmic Fill-Up, but there were t-shirts branded with stars and the corporate brand, and packs of socks with reindeer on them left over from some Christmas promotion. The three brain slug hosts disappeared into the bathrooms, carrying the clothing, Blair guiding the stranger.

That meant that Mel was the only one to man the counter when the after-work rush came in.

People came in. Refueling their vehicles and bodies. Coffee, soda, cigarettes, THC gummies, snacks, cans of beer, bottles of aspirin. Amelia waddled in for her milk and coffee and smiled at Mel; he smiled back and struggled to keep up as the line grew and grew. He was on his feet, and his foot throbbed painfully. With a grimace, Mel tried to shift his weight onto his heel, but it was a distraction. One Mel didn't need right now.

Especially since he was pretty sure the older teens in the back of the store were trying to steal some beer.

He had seen them come in, avoiding the counter, making a beeline through the junk food aisles towards the beer freezer at the back. Like most places, the door had a scanner on the door to verify the individual's age based on the chip implanted in their hand. There was a manual override for anybody who didn't have a chip, but that required them to come to the counter and present ID. When Ha-Yoon explained the practice, she had muttered something about the global surveillance state, but Mel didn't know what that was and was afraid that if he asked, she'd try to explain it to him.

The teens were waiting for someone to go into the beer fridge. Mel knew what would happen; there were teens in high school who had done something similar. Grab the door, dash in, grab, and go. The only exit was the front door, near the check-out station. They'd have to run past Mel. But he was the only one here. No way he could stop them.

Mel kept checking people out, fetching receipts, and trying to do two people's jobs at once. He could press the big red button that would call the cops. But calling the cops on some teens stealing beer felt wrong. In no small part because they were Mel's own age, maybe a few months to a year younger. Except if he just let them go, they'd come back and try to do it again.

It was at that moment that Ha-Yoon emerged from the back room. She looked more tired than normal. From across the store, she caught Mel's eye, saw he was alone at the register. Took three steps towards him when Mel raised his voice above the crowd:

"Hey, boss! Coolant leak in the beer fridge. Can you lock it?" he called out, loud enough to carry.

Half the people in the line turned their heads towards the beer fridge. So did Ha-Yoon. The teens hanging out suddenly squirmed under the attention of too many eyes. The manager understood the reality behind the line of bullshit immediately. She pressed a couple buttons on her tablet and the fridge door locked, its electronic scanner went from green to red, and a digital sign: SORRY, OUT OF SERVICE flashed on its door screen.

The teens filtered out. Ha-Yoon made her way behind the counter, opened the other register. The line split, grateful that the wait time diminished. Within half an hour, the rush had passed, and Mel leaned against the rear wall-display that held the cigarettes and other restricted goods under lock and key.

It was about that time that Tomie and Blair emerged with the strange brain slug host, now clothed in the motley costume that Mel had put together. They sat her down at a table, Blair sitting with her and holding her hand as Tomie pulled food and drink from kiosks.

"And where have they been?" Ha-Yoon asked.

"Helping a customer," Mel said, and gave a brief version of the evening's events.

"Shit," the manager said. "Must be a feral."

"Feral?" Mel asked.

Ha-Yoon pursed her lips, as if trying to decide how to answer. Then she didn't have to.

Detective MacElroy had stepped up to the counter. Turban in place, which is what had given her that appearance of being so tall on their first encounter. She should have looked ridiculous in it, but she wore it naturally as she leaned against the counter, staring at the three brain slug hosts. Her voice was low and conversational in tone.

"The Seacouver Hive and the Greater Pacific Northwest Collective and all the other major and minor hives have agreements with the government. They don't just drop on people's necks while they sleep and take over. They agreed not to do that. Only, not every brain slug signed up to that agreement. There are a few brain slugs that are cut off from the rest of their kind—maybe their host died, and the brain slug gave birth, and there was no one to guide them. Or they're part of a solitary hunter lineage. So you get wild brain slugs, just following their instincts and find somebody to latch onto. Most of them are discovered fairly quickly, but if it's someone that society won't miss, like a homeless person or somebody in a **** addict—you can get a feral host. The brain slug equivalent of a kid raised by wolves. Just following their basic instincts, piggybacking on whatever knowledge they can glean from the host's brain."

"That's . . . fucking scary," Mel said.

MacElroy nodded. "It's sad. They have no support network, no family; they don't know how the world works or what laws they break just by existing. And once a brain slug attaches itself, it's permanent. There's no backsies. Involuntary integration means the government can charge them with ****."

Mel looked at the stranger now with even more pity than before. It was eating now. Maybe for the first time. Tomie and Blair were with it, maintaining contact. Teaching it how to eat. A piece of the puzzle slid into place.

"That's why you're here," Mel said. "You were tracking her?"

The brain bat nodded. "Some immature brain slugs deviate fairly heavily from the main lineage. If they're deemed non-viable, they're abandoned in the wilderness. Most don't find a host; those who do find a host still have an uphill struggle. On their own, no one to teach or guide them. This one managed to attach itself to a coma victim. Walked right out of a very badly managed long-term care facility. Wasn't reported immediately, but we got word of sightings—"

"What's going to happen to her?" Mel said.

MacElroy stroked her chin.

"Interesting question," the brain bat said. "The Seacouver Hive that your roommates are a part of is what they call a singular hive. They're all North American Brain Slugs of a certain lineage. Like an extended family. The Greater Pacific Northwest Collective is a plural hive. Multiple subspecies. Great Horned Brain Slugs, North American Brain Slugs of various lineages, some other subspecies, all working together. They can—absorb, I guess is the right word—different sub-species into their hive mind. It's not easy or automatic. The ferals are used to doing things on their own; they're often scared and confused, sometimes violent. Joining the collective means giving up a degree of individuality. But if the Collective accepts them, that provides a degree of legal protection, as well as physical care and social support."

"Adoption," Mel said, automatically.

"Essentially," MalElroy said. "If you had raised the alarm, called the cops, the regular police might have gotten here first. My compatriots on the **** are sometimes quicker with ****, especially if the subject is incommunicative and resists efforts at restraint. This could have been a very bad situation. The Collective doesn't always reach out on its own, they don't have that moral imperative. But you asked them to intervene, so they did. Now—well, now she has a chance. You may well have saved her life."

Mel stared at the stranger, an aching relief in his chest as he released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

MacElroy left them to sit opposite the three brain slug hosts. Mel couldn't hear what she said to them, and then the brain bat placed her hand, palm-up, on the table, and Tomie took it, and there were no more words to hear out loud.

"Sorry about all that," Ha-Yoon said. "Autumn has an anal fissure, and I needed to get in contact with James to get her ointment."

"Anal fissure?" Mel asked, and instantly regretted opening his mouth.

"Autumn has always wanted to be fisted. And we want her to achieve her dreams. But I told her to go slow, and she wouldn't listen to me and tried to do it herself—"

Mel listened as Ha-Yoon described her lovers, the importance of patience and lots of lubrication with anal sex, how critical it is to support what your friends and lovers in achieving their goals, and the varying things you can do when one hole is off-limits for a while. It was a topic that Mel's manager could happily discuss for hours, and did.

Either Tomie or Blair stayed with the stranger throughout the shift, sitting with her and holding her hand as she ate, or seemed to stare out into space as the other brain slugs initiated her into the lore of their kind, or whatever was happening, while the other ran the swifter around or changed receipt paper or the thousand other tasks that had to be done.

As dawn was about to break, Mel clocked out—and then his hand went to the piece of paper in his pocket; Rachel's message. He went to the condom display and pulled out the exact same brand and size as Jordan had bought—which he noted were some hypoallergenic material with no spermicide—and Tomie checked him out.

He stared at the stranger, wearing her used hoodie and new Cosmic Fill-Up t-shirt. She yawned, and that nearly set Mel off to yawning too.

"Good luck," he told her, as he stuffed the box of condoms in his pocket. "I hope it works out for you."

Then he turned and walked into the dawn.