Free Infinite Ground by Martin MacInnes

link common to each of the patients.
    Biological discovery was late due to several statistically unlikely behaviours eventually leading to mammalian infection. The sequence of hosts in the parasite’s life cycle is as follows: salamander faeces – ant – fish – salamander liver. It is disseminated across each predator’s body as its ex-host, the prey, enters the digestive tract. In a standard life cycle E. endilicitin develops from egg to maturity, but in the case of the human infection the developmental process was extended.
    E. endilicitin appears as a different organism according to its respective host environment. The first stage in the pre-life sequence is in salamander faeces deposited in mangroves. The ant relies on this as a regular protein source. Once settled, the egg begins to grow, drawing on internal glucose to develop in size and break into the nervous system. This stage is coterminous with a change in the ant’s behaviour. The infected ant, at dusk, deviates from its normal path: instead of returning to the colony it goes to the water’s edge. This is the stage at which E. endilicitin most frequently ceases; the anatomy of almost all of the ant’s predators is not conducive to the parasite’s continued growth.
    The vast quantity of ants originally infected, however, means that at least some parasites are able to reach maturity in being eaten by fish with a favourable internal environment. These fish, under the influence of E. endilicitin , become increasingly slow and sluggish, spending uncommon amounts of time visibly on the water surface, leaving them particularly vulnerable to predation.
    In turn, large salamanders – omnivorous and amphibious – consume the fish. The parasite is now 10,000 times its original size. In almost all cases this is the fullest extent of E. endilicitin ’s life, eggs being released into the salamander faeces. Remarkably, however, on several Indonesian islands, and due to a geographical quirk, salamanders, rarely preyed upon, are consumed by forest hogs at a stage in which E. endilicitin remains alive. Forest terrain is the typical habitat of both salamander and hog, although the former favours coastal edges; normally, therefore, the two species do not cross. But the inland rivers identified have unusually high saline content, caused by mineral deposits; effectively, the area simulates the sea edge, theatrically misleading the salamander. Following consumption of the salamander, the hog harbours E. endilicitin , prolonging its mature status. This unlikely series of events facilitates rare growth in E. endilicitin , leading to the emergence of a highly developed, outsize adult creature, and, in at least one case, to a raft of infected adult humans.
    The inspector began to suffer from increasingly vivid visions of an office worker destroyed at a desk. He had read a short newspaper report on a middle-aged employee rotting behind a partition for three days. Heart attack. According to the line manager, ‘due reports were automatically submitted via prompts set up in his account. We had no reason to believe he was not present and well; as far as we were concerned the work was being completed, and to a reasonable standard. There was no reason to query anything.’
    He kept thinking about this. He forgot the name. He couldn’t help but see the man as Carlos. He imagined how it could have happened, and dreamed, over several disturbed nights, of the details of the process.
    The employees taking naps of five to seven minutes, heads nestled in one of the loops of their crossed arms. The deceased ordinarily the first to get in and last to leave. The quip going, off-record, that he was in line for a promotion.
    The worker, dead at his desk, having felt unwell for some time. A manic form of claustrophobia. The land edge frustrating him. What, from a distance, seemed a smooth line being a mass of inlets whose true course