Host Chapter Twenty One

Another question I’ve been meaning to get to. As a commenter pointed out, why can’t Eve just disconnect from Jackie Otis? Presumably it would be rather debilitating to be subject to the same limits as heir host. The aliens should be able to do things like shut out pain or ignore muscle weakness. Instead it seems that being possessed weakens the host.

Now Jackie Otis’s body is made of carnival glass. Standing up for more than five minutes wears this girl out. She sleeps for long periods, sometimes even twice in one day. Next someone will turn on an air conditioner nearby and she’ll freeze then shatter into a hundred pieces.

Jeb continues his tour from the last chapter. ‘If you look to your left you’ll see our tattoo shop and coffee station. Over to the right is the garbage room and past that is our cemetery. And we’re walking, we’re walking. Be mindful of the vampire bats fluttering past your faces. They’re not indigenous, we imported them specifically to convince the aliens that no one would want to live here.’

The Doc and Ian talk about things that Jeeve doesn’t understand. Oh yeah, there’s a big surprise. They could be conversing from such subjects as DNA sequencing to making Sun Tea. There isn’t much she does understand beyond the fact she shouldn’t be alive.

When they come to the hospital Jeeve starts sounding as paranoid as the guy who sits on the corner wearing tin cans, because they’re thicker than foil, and shouting about the cabal taking away his patents. She thinks they lured her there in order to knock her out and dissect her. It’s about three seconds away from becoming the madness journal from a survival horror game.

Day 16, Jared brought me food again. I can hear him sharpening a shiv in the other room as he imagines the taste of my succulent flesh. I’ll have to be on guard again tonight.

Day 19, Jeb keeps commenting on the dark circles underneath my eyes. He says I should get some rest. That’s just what you’d like me to do old man. I’m not falling for your mental games this time.

Day 36 I nodded off again and found a bug on my arm. No doubt it was sent to watch me and then report back to Ian when it saw me sleeping. I killed it and ate it to gain its essence. Now I am stronger and Ian will know I’m on to him when the insect doesn’t return.

Doc asks if she knows anything about alien medicine. She doesn’t but she knows how theirs differs from ours. See their medicine cures disease rather than just treat symptoms. I am simultaneously insulted and annoyed, thanks Otis I forgot how that felt. They discarded all human ‘medicine’.

So what Otis? Are the aliens of the exact same biological makeup as humans? They’re carbon based just like we are? They’re comfortable with the same pH levels as us? The same oxygen content? Do they use iron in their blood?

The reason I ask is that just among species on earth our physiology is rather markedly different. Veterinarians, for example, could tell you about some of the different drug tolerances and side effects birds versus dogs experience. Thus how would the aliens have any medical knowledge that would work on humans?

Oh and as far as ‘treating the symptoms’ goes, I suppose an appendectomy simply treats the pain one feels in the gut rather than getting rid of the problem. That goes double for chemotherapy which only makes people feel like the cancer is gone, rather than do anything about it. Silly hoomans and their rock-bangingly simple medicine.

If the alien’s ‘medicine’ is so great then how come they leave scars when they insert an alien into a human? Just curious Otis.

The tour ends and Ian and Doc go to talk about cars or whatever somewhere else. Jeb leave Jamie with the gun and tells him to keep an eye on her. This causes Jeeve to panic because somebody could get hurt, namely Jamie. Jeb asks if she’s not more afraid that he’ll turn the gun on her and she says she doesn’t want him involved.

Jaime gets distracted by Jeeve throwing a pebble into the corner. When he goes over to investigate, she hides under the bed and he wanders in to investigate. She knocks him out and steals the level six keycard which allows her to recover her gear and get back to disarming Rex.

Or he strike up a conversation asking about the planet she was on before. She tells him about living as a plant and a white bat with four hearts. Then Otis decides she has to give her book an air of legitimacy by talking about the Roswell incident. Yes Otis, the actual crash was declassified years before you wrote this but it still might’ve been aliens.

The aliens started off by possessing Spiders which have twelve fingered hands on every leg, four legs per segment, one mind per segment and three minds. Also their fingers have six joints and they’re about as heavy as a cow. Why the aliens bothered taking over humans when they have those is a mystery to me. Oh right, because these aliens are just so peaceful.

Jamie starts crying, they hug and then he recoils when he realizes he’s hugging something more grotesque than a clown puppet. Jeb comes back and decides that her name is too long so Otis goes and changes it because she got tired of typing a silly name over and over. I’m still calling her Jeeve, Eve and Jackie Otis though.

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