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THE PARASITE. A SYNOPSIS. Jack Smith lands his ship on a comet to mine the complex ices there. In the hold of his ship he sees strange fibres in the ice. He touches them and his coldsuit is breached. He escapes the hold but suffers an allergic reaction and gets gangrene in his hand. He goes into cryogenic sleep for the two-year duration of his journey home. Back at The Cryon Corporation satellite the doctor is puzzled by the healing of Jack's hand. Jack finds himself on the edge of violence during this examination. Shortly after this he escapes back to Earth, evading possible quarantine, with memory crystals bought with the profit of his trip. The doctor contacts the World Health Organisation after finding out Jack is carrying a parasitic organism. As he finishes sending the message he is taken at gunpoint to see the Chairman of TCC, the so-called Toad. He is then forced out of the satellite in a suit without any air. Sick, and in hiding, in Sao Paulo, Jack arranges to sell his memory crystals to an underworld figure. Violence ensues, and Jack escapes with the money by dint of his newly discovered super-human strength and speed. The girl he had been staying with is killed. Professor Jane Ulraes and her assistant, Chris Golem, are at a biology conference in the city. They are called to examine the body of the girl. It contains a parasite Jane has never seen before. With his wealth Jack tries to get himself medscanned. Before this happens he sees a woman being taken in by the police. He learns she has a newly discovered parasite and that all such found by the medscanners are being taken in. There have been many of them. He flees, realising this must be what he is carrying. On the streets he notices a heavy military presence and he decides to leave the city. The parasite victims have been dying and Jane furiously looking for a cure. Because of its lack of DNA and its strange effects on its hosts, she realises it is 'like nothing on Earth'. Before she can take this any further she and Chris are taken before the military. Martial law has been declared. The commander wants to know about the PV (Parasite Victim) situation, then he wants them silenced because he is having the PVs killed. He makes the mistake of assuming Chris is human. Chris is an android. He and Jane escape. Leaving the city Jack encounters Chris and Jane and they assist each other in escaping. Jack learns more about the parasite, but Jane knows nothing about him. Chris does, and informs his real masters; World Health. Arriving in England, they separate. In her laboratory Jane discovers the parasite has been changing the DNA of its hosts and could make them immortal, if it did not kill them first. She is at a loss to find out how it is passed on until Chris leads her to the conclusion that there may be a single carrier. Agents of World Health break into Jack's home in England in preparation to capture him. A man and a woman, who work for TCC, turn up and kill them. An APW (Antiphoton Weapon) is used on one of the agents, who is an android. Before he is destroyed he transmits information to Chris. Chris tells Jane of WHO attempts to bring TCC to trial for quarantine evasion, (they allowed Jack to escape) and that she, knowing so much about the parasite, is in extreme danger. They leave laboratory just before it is demolished by an ex-SDI laser; a weapon TCC had bought for asteroid mining. In the island town of Maldon Jack buys and illegal medscan of himself. Before he can view it, organ thieves attempt to capture him for breaking. He kills them and is captured instead by the police, and interviewed by Chief Inspector Saphron, who soon finds out what he is. World Health are informed. In his cell Jack discovers the parasite has boosted his intelligence to a phenomenal level. He realizes that in him it is no longer a parasite but a symbiont, if there is any separation between him and it at all. The Toad sends the TCC killers to Police Central, posing as Chris and Jane, to try and kill Jack. The station is demolished by the APW. Jack kills them and escapes, swearing, within the hearing of Saphron, to kill the Toad. On the TCC satellite the Toad covers his tracks by killing all those who have been involved. He misses only one; Langstrom, the head of his weapons division. Finally arriving at Police Central, Jane and Chris learn of previous events, and from Jack's medscan that he no longer has human DNA, and as such cannot be identified as Jack Smith. Without him the case against TCC is very weak. Jane also works out that the parasite is spread by the skin cells Jack sheds. She is showing signs of infection. Under new instructions Chris leaves in a hurry. Jack heads for the TCC satellite by stowing away in a crate being taken there. Chris is on the same lifter in the guise of a replacement doctor. He has been instructed to kill Jack. This is allowable because Jack is no longer human. Before any of this can occur the Toad learns of their presence. As the lifter docks, Jack's crate is ejected toward the sun and Chris captured. The Toad attempts to reprogram Chris as a replacement for his killers. Before he is done Langstrom shows himself, kills him, and releases Chris. Chris could have prevented the killing. All his prime directives have been fused. He now has self-determination. He steals a minishuttle and goes after Jack. In the crate Jack has pushed his survivability to the limit. Chris retrieves the crate and and gets Jack into the air of the shuttle, where he revives. Chris learns from him it is possible for PVs to survive the parasite if they are cryogenically frozen as he was on his return from the comet. He, in turn, learns of Chris's instructions concerning him. In the end Chris, who is now a free agent, decides not to kill Jack. His reasoning is that he believes the PVs on Earth would not be revived after freezing as they, like Jack, would be carriers. By making the problem permanent he insures their survival, as it is unlikely, with the changes he has undergone, that Jack will be captured again. As allies, with neither of them fitting the definitions of what is human, they return.
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