Kissing, Brain Parasites, and a (Mild) Nuclear Explosion by J. Needham
3600 words, ~14 reading time
Issue 8, Summer 2025
“You miss Ambrose. Just admit it,” my assistant, Fox, shouted over the blaring rock music while we dissected another alien. The government morgue was all sleek, clinical chrome, but Fox somehow made it feel like a gossip rag.
The so-called ‘Ambrose Situation’ had been Fox’s favourite topic for the past month since Ambrose left Earth. They’d been unable to drop it even when we were elbows deep in parasite-riddled alien brains, prodding pus-caked cranial tunnels for life-saving research.
“I do not,” I craned back to avoid the spray of yellow-green gunk when my fingers squelched into a still-juicy spot. I swooped my hand at Fox to grab my curved scalpel to slice a fresh tissue sample.
“That! Exactly that, Blair!” Fox yanked their goggles up, tangling it into spiky blond hair. “You do those hand gestures all the time for me to fetch things and it drives me clinically insane.”
“That has nothing to do with Ambrose. You’re my assistant,” I said. “Handing me things is literally your job.”
“Except you don’t tell me what to grab and still expect me to grab it. Like you’re used to talking without a language. I didn’t get it until Ambrose was here last time and all you had to do was look at him a certain way and he got you your favourite drink, a hand massage, and suture thread.”
I rolled my eyes under my goggles. “Fifteen years is a long time to be friends with someone. You pick up each other’s idiosyncrasies. That’s all.”
“‘Friends,’” Fox air-quoted with their gloves. “Yeah. Sure.”
I narrowed my eyes. Ambrose had certainly drawn that line in the sand before he left.
“You know… they’re still looking for scientists and surgeons out on the Western Aid Outpost, especially screening visitors for parasites,” Fox persisted. “You could always join him? I’ve always wanted to see the other edge of the Orion Spur.”
“No,” I said as I finished suturing the grey-skinned alien. “Whether the outpost needs help or not, Ambrose wouldn't offer the homecoming you’re expecting.”
Not since the end of our last meeting when I’d ruined his marriage.
I sighed and gently rolled—Xop, the toe tag stated—off the table and into the morgue’s chute. Fox gave him a salute, the same way they always touched spaceship hulls after disembarking, the same kind of idiosyncrasy I was beginning to learn about them. See? A few years spent together was all it took.
“Well, consider it. I’d be ready to leave in a second.”
Time slipped out from under us as Fox sanitized while I grabbed my outdated government holodeck to note my findings: the same oozing boils, necrotic flesh, and dehydrated, holey brain. Xop had been contained at Earth’s borders like so many other infected aliens, but had arrived from Andromeda. My hypothesis was right. The parasite was expanding its reach beyond any previous prediction.
“Bro, come on! You can’t be serious?”
Fox’s shout tore me from relaying the tissue sample results. I slipped from the office and caught them shouting at an armed soldier.
“You can’t cut our funding. We’ve only started to understand the sickness and you want to, what? Let it rampage?” Fox’s furious face turned to me. “They’re fucking firing us, Blair!”
The soldier didn’t so much as blink. “All funding has been cut for any off-planet concerns. There has yet to be a reported human case and with space ports closing, there won’t be.”
“Off—” I barely choked back my own rage and stormed over. “Every month we don’t solve how to stop these infectious parasites, more innocent lives are destroyed—whether you human-centrist assholes care or not. And your claim that humans haven’t been infected requires a yet. Even more reason to conduct research for that inevitability!”
“Not anymore.” The soldier shoved a chip at my chest and left.
Inside were my termination papers.
And Fox’s.
“What you said before,” I said as I offloaded research before my access was cut. “In a second, you said? Want to test that?”
Fox was already grabbing anything not nailed down. They put an entire microscope under their arm. “Oh hell yeah.”
The Western Aid Outpost was one of the few ports operated by humans, but we were still retina scanned and temperature-checked relentlessly upon arrival for any signs of illness. It was leagues better than Earth. Already, I was impressed.
Fox tapped the spaceship hull as we exited onto the artificial tarmac where Ambrose was waiting for us. The sight of his loose curls and familiar tilt of his shoulders from an old injury eased something tight inside me. Alright. I had missed him.
“You should have holocalled,” he groused as he strong-armed me into a hug.
“No homecoming, eh?” Fox mused, eyebrows dancing.
This was… not the welcome I was expecting. Last time we’d spoken—if I could even call it that—Ambrose left as I shouted at his retreating back. He never held onto his anger, it burned fast and bright, but I hadn’t expected this warm reception.
I grabbed the back of his jacket, digging my nails in and burying my nose. He still smelled of the tacky clove aftershave I’d bought him when we were kids. “Kind of short notice, sorry.”
Fox beamed. “We were fired!”
“Fired?” Ambrose pulled back. His brows knitted, gap-toothed smile faltering. “Shit, Blair. You can’t be serious. Those ungrateful bastards… you were doing important work.”
I shrugged. “I was hoping I could do it here instead.” Then, trying not to seem as desperate as I felt, "If you can find a place for us. I know we’re imposing but Earth is shutting down their ports.”
“I’ve got you. You know I do.” He grabbed my shoulder tight in his calloused hands. He’d risen to sheriff of the outpost and it wasn’t a cushy desk job. “Don’t worry.”
“You know I’m never worried.”
His look said he knew better. And he did. Presumptuous and correct asshole. I grinned back.
Ambrose led us through the aquaculture fields under the large glass dome, explaining the features of his home with pride. The panels on the dome to collect solar flares. The bio-filters and temp check airlocks. The aquaponics were a new feature, increasing the self-sufficiency of the outpost. He waved at a few workers dressed in green who were dunking blue lettuce-like plants into the tiered water wells.
Around us, humans and aliens lounged around holodecks with hot drinks in hand or traversed the spoke tunnels leading across the station. Back home, the Western Aid Outpost sounded like the Wild West. Like everyone was gambling or blasting holes into the infected that gained access aboard. I expected a gritty space station, not a high-budget university campus.
Ambrose had asked me to come once before and I’d turned him down. Now, I wish I hadn’t.
“We have notable scientists stationed here that you’ll love. I’ll connect you with them shortly.” Ambrose waved over a few by the medical bay tunnel. “We're short on sleeping spaces since they’re still constructing the new residences. You both can stay with me.”
“Won’t your wife be ticked off that you’re inviting us to crash?” Fox asked, and I wanted to liquify and disappear into the aquaponics. Be sucked up into a lotus root or rice.
“She’s, uhm,” Ambrose coughed, face turning red, “already moved back to Earth. We separated recently.”
“That’s major balls,” Fox commiserated and then stared behind Ambrose’s back at me, like I was supposed to do something with that information.
Ambrose had my credentials transferred to the head of the outpost, Commander Kellan, before we’d so much as eaten dinner. I was terrible with paperwork, so it was hard to feel anything but gratitude. Then he’d gone the extra mile, making a pit stop on the way to buy the ingredients for his secret pickle brine skewers that I adored.
A homecoming indeed.
Fox and Ambrose got along great, just like last time. As they chatted, I sat on his dollied armchair—no doubt a neighbour’s hand-me-down to replace a chair Pris took—with the holodeck on my lap. I reviewed recent research between skewers.
These were my two favourite people in the same room. Ambrose patiently taught Fox how to play Star Swing, an old school card game, as they answered all the questions for me about the trip over.
It was only seeing them side-by-side at Ambrose’s polycarbonate ‘wood’ kitchen table that I realized how much they knew me, freeing me from the necessary small talk that made my skin prickle.
After a childhood of solitude, it felt strange to be known.
In return, I told Fox to take the guest room when they yawned for a second time (once was always a warning with them, two was moments from crashing). As Ambrose got Fox set up, I fished out a gift from my bag.
“I like them,” Ambrose said the moment we were alone.
“Doesn’t shut up,” I said, moving toward the galaxy-facing balcony without asking, “but in a good way. Kid worms into you like maggots. This is for you, by the way. Fresh off Earth.” I wagged the box of Lucky Strike cigars to lure him onto the balcony and watched Ambrose’s face ignite into his signature blinding smile.
Ambrose smoked a Lucky Strike beside me, not bothering to angle his puffs to the built-in vents, because he knew I liked the smell but my lungs were too shit for it. I breathed the peppery smoke. His voice rumbled, “Sorry about the sacking but… I’m honestly glad you’re here.”
“Are you?” I tried to keep the disbelief off my face, but failed. I couldn’t look at Ambrose so I leaned over the fiberglass to see how far the stretch of distant galaxies went instead. “It’s not like we left on good terms. I dumped way too much baggage on you to get you to stay. Suffocated you.”
Ambrose’s pinched expression meant he didn’t agree, but he knew better than to shove platitudes at me. “You surprised me is all.”
“No shit." My getting drunk and begging my married friend of over a decade to stay on earth, move in, and love me like I loved him? I groaned and hung my head. It was tacky. Tasteless. Even if it was true. Even if it destroyed his marriage.
I felt the heat of his palm as it hovered over my neck. He’d never been unsure about touching me before. “I didn’t have to let you down so harshly. I honestly didn’t mean to.”
I winced.
“But Blair, I—” Ambrose’s watch flared to life, the harsh blue light carving out his features. “Ugh, sorry. Always on call. Got to take it.” Station Sheriff. I understood.
“What is it Commander Kellan?” he asked, his voice harder.
A holographic projection of a femme alien with purple skin and five horns appeared in front of us. “We received your upload of Dr. Blair Carthen’s credentials and findings. I understand that he and his research assistant are currently staying with you? We’re impressed by his work. There’s a body we’d like him to look at.” Commander Kellen’s eyes flicked to the side. “Urgently and discreetly.”
Well, that wasn’t good. Ambrose and I exchanged a look.
I leaned into his shoulder, so my face would be included in the shot. I instantly recoiled at how bloodshot my eyes were. My braid was barely holding on too, black hair slipping onto Ambrose’s shoulder. Space travel always made me look like a decomposing cadaver, which was fitting. “Of course. Be there soon.”
Ambrose was already stubbing out his cigar. “No need to wake Fox. I can help. Like old times.”
This situation had nothing in common with our ‘old times’.
Years flying scrappy deliveries until we could afford our own ship, then using it to pursue Ambrose’s dreams: him helping shot-up crafts, and me tending to their wounded. A little space cowboy of us. This situation wasn’t a leg with a laser hole blasted through it.
A dead human woman dressed in green was laid out on the table covered in necrotic flesh and boils oozing yellow cottage-cheese pus.
“You understand the urgency and discretion now,” Commander Kellan said. “We were too late in administering the antidote but we’ve had our team examine samples and you seem the most qualified on this station to dissect, if your Earth-bound credentials are true.”
“Every word. Blair is incredible,” Ambrose said.
His praise turned my ears red. I ignored it and pulled on a pair of gloves.
We knew from research that the bodies stopped being infectious after death, as the parasite exited the body to find a new host, but I wouldn’t risk anything. This was already unprecedented as there were no reported human cases—even with exposure. Something was different.
When Commander Kellan left, Ambrose came beside me on the chrome table. Scalpels, bone saws and more had been left for me in an orderly fashion. Without asking, Ambrose began re-ordering them the way I had always preferred.
I held my hand out, fingers pinched and Ambrose responded, placing—not a scalpel—but the needle I’d wanted to lance the boils. “Uhm…thanks,” I mumbled. I hated that Fox was right.
“Any time, B.”
It took hours of thorough investigation, utilizing the station’s testing equipment, and Ambrose calling around to string together a timeline.
“She was in the agriculture team but had a mission to one of the cave planets a few days ago,” he explained after his last call. “Maybe a cave fungi?”
“Could be a strain of lyssavirus. I saw something similar off-planet. Brain inflammation. But this presents exactly the same as the usual parasites and she would have been scanned before arriving. Human or not, there’s no way she would have cleared checkpoints like this.”
“No, my crew are thorough,” Ambrose insisted.
Which meant she had to have picked it up inside.
“Closer look?” Ambrose echoed our old saying and handed a bone saw. Admittedly I was pretty slice-y in my younger years. “Just to be sure?”
“Closer look,” I agreed.
I dug the scalpel in, then used the bone saw to crack through her skull only for the woman’s brain to deflate the moment it was exposed to air. It was poxed with holes.
“That’s…not good,” I managed before a small creature fired out of her brain and latched to my face, sticky and squirming up across my cheek. I tried to yank it off only to be bitten. “Fucker!” I yanked at it again and it writhed out of my fingers and burrowed under my goggles. I flung them off as the creep scurried upwards.
“Hold still.” Ambrose snatched my chin. It screeched and tried to bite at Ambrose’s fingers, but he only grunted and endured the thing’s sharp teeth to pry it off my face and trap it.
“Little monster tried to climb into your eyelid,” he said and shook the jar.
I hung my head over the eyewash station and blasted my eyeballs. “Ugh. At least we know the point of entry. Usually it’s the ear, so this is new.”
Ambrose looked at the bug. “Where do you think it came from?”
I dried my face, took the jar, and tilted it. “This one looks a little different from the others I’ve seen. Flat, oar-shaped legs. Hmm.”
“What are you thinking?”
“For a parasite dying to drill holes in my brain, it’s shaped like an amphibious bug. Maybe that’s why it was drawn to my eye? Closest wet spot?” I shook it, watching the creature squirm. And shook the bottle harder because I was admittedly a bit of a dick to things that tried to swiss cheese my head.
I took Ambrose’s cup of water off the desk and submerged the bottle, ignoring his protests that he wanted to drink it. Within the water, I eased the cork back, letting it fill half way before recorking. I tilted the bottle horizontal and watched as the little critter skittered around the top of the surface tension.
I stared between it and the green outfitted corpse.
Bingo.
“Call up Commander Kellan and tell her to raze all the newest shipment of aquaponic plants.”
Ambrose stared at me. I lifted an eyebrow, our quiet code for ‘Do you doubt me?’ He shook his head and went to the phone.
“Tell her,” I called over my shoulder as I carried the bug to the testing stations, “that wherever they got those new plants from... that’s where the human-infectious variant is originating. We’ll need to tweak the antidote and update screenings.”
Ambrose’s smile grew blinding again. “Stars. You’re just…”
“A genius? Wish you could crawl into my eye and eat my brain, too?”
He tugged gently on my ear before smoothing it with the pad of his thumb. He left to dial the holocomm, his smile tempered into something almost shy. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“Well if they weren’t going to offer you a job in the morning, you’ve secured it now.”
Ambrose and I lingered on the tunnel’s exit to the central dome after having passed another set of screenings. It was shut tight, as were all other eight limbs extending out where other nosey early risers gathered to watch. Workers in pressurized hazmats had decreased the oxygen level and were razing the aquaponics and exterminating the critters that crawled out. The fire lit up Ambrose beside me in gold almost as lovely as the sunrise breaking across the dome’s artificial sky.
His head tilted back against the wall, exhaustion clear on his face. “Man, I feel like dog shit.”
“I think the clinical definition is ‘too old for all-nighters’.”
“Us? Old?” Ambrose mused.
“The horror,” I deadpanned. I reached up and placed a cool hand on his neck. After his nod, I started to rub there, half expecting his foot to tap like a dog. He always got headaches thanks to the busted shoulder.
After a moment passed, his tension melted and his eyes drooped. “You did good work today.”
“We did good work. Solving the mutation’s origin is only the first step. The sickness itself is still out there, and stars know those mutated bugs probably got a few other people. We’ll have to do more brain scans.”
His eyes cracked open. “Or brain surgery, your fave.”
“Slicing up skulls is a favoured pastime.” I snorted. “But beyond that, this place is probably my best shot of doing good work again. I’m thinking of asking Fox if they want to stay. At least for a while. They’ve got no family back home, I’m all they’ve got.” But I didn’t want to overstep, I’d done enough of that already. “Look, I promise we won’t stay at your place long. We’ll will grab a place the moment more accommodations open up—”
Ambrose stilled. Beyond the sealed door they were razing another patch, firelight reflecting off his serious expression. “Why not? Stay with me. Both of you.”
My hand slipped to his chest. “I’ve clearly caused you enough grief as is.”
He rolled onto his good shoulder, staring down at me. “It wasn’t your fault, you know? The stuff with Pris and I.”
So we were back to this conversation.
“I said I loved you and you freaked out. You’re married and, drunk or not, it was low of me to do. And I should have known you would tell her—you can’t keep a secret to save your life. Never have.”
I expected a small huff at the call out but instead he tilted his head. “No, I didn’t need to tell her anything. The moment I stepped in the door Pris knew something had changed. She just called out what I already knew.”
“Which was?”
“I freaked out because I made vows to Pris. But… she’d already been debating leaving me. Things hadn’t been working for a long time, B. Took too many trips earthside, cooked pickle brine skewers on her birthday when she hated them, too stuck in the past than focused on our future. Pris was… is good. She always deserved someone who was going to love her head-on.”
“Well, then I certainly didn’t help the situation. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not. She’s not. You shouldn’t be. Realizing you loved me and that I’ve been in love with you was just the final push we needed to end things.”
“Wait, what?” I blinked.
“I think I’ve always been in love with you and didn’t want to face it. Not until you forced me to.” I could feel Ambrose quivering under my hands. I stroked his neck again to calm him and felt him take a wobbly breath. “I didn’t want to ruin the friendship, yanno’? You’re everything to me, Blair. Loving you is just inherent. So it was hard to separate what kind of love it was. My love for you just… is. If that makes sense?”
I squeezed the dip in his shoulder and nodded. “Yeah,” my voice cracked, “it does.”
Ambrose’s hand cupped over mine. “I don’t think being in love would change anything between us. Do you?”
Hope seized in my chest. I squeezed his shirt. “No. No I don’t. Fox said it in a way. To know me, to really know me, is to know you.”
Ambrose flushed deep red. “That’s… wow.”
“Good, aren’t I?” I nudged my boot against his. “Very romantic.”
Behind us, they detonated a mild nuclear blast in the main dome to kill any remaining lifeforms. We’d be stuck in the medical tunnel for at least another hour before they neutralized it.
“So I’m learning, even after all these years.” Ambrose cupped my chin and, amongst the artificial dawn, leaned a fraction above my lips, waiting. I nodded and let him kiss me.
It didn’t feel any different kissing Ambrose. It wasn’t a new love, but a very old one.
