Parasite (Mira Grant) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

INTERLUDE II: NUMBERS

Lies are truth in tattered clothes.

—SIMONE KIMBERLEY, DON’T GO OUT ALONE

Money speaks louder than morality.

—DR. STEVEN BANKS

January 07, 2016: Time stamp 13:22.

[This recording is rough, and the lab is a tangle of mismatched equipment, scavenged machinery, and dented metal furnishings that were likely acquired from some other, richer facility. The camera is focused on a pale woman lying on a hospital bed. An IV needle is hooked to her arm, and her hair does not appear to have been brushed in some time.]

DR. CALE: Doctor Shanti Cale…

[She stops, coughing.]

DR. CALE: I’m sorry. Doctor Shanti Cale, postoperation report. I appear to have survived the surgery which removed the D. symbogenesis mass that had formed around my spinal cord. Only time will tell whether I am going to walk again, but the signs are not currently positive.

[She stops to cough again before looking wearily at the camera.]

DR. CALE: I am making this record because I don’t know if Steven is still looking for me, and something has to survive. When things inevitably go wrong—and it is inevitable; I’m living proof of that—we’re going to need this. We’re going to need proof that someone knew. Someone tried to warn him. And yes, sadly, so far, I have failed.

[She sighs, closing her eyes.]

DR. CALE: Turn off the camera. I’m tired.

[The recording stops there.]

[End report.]