The Wyrms of &alon

It really was distressingly easy to get a gun in Trenton, though that was no surprise to Suisei.

Some things really did never change.

The transformee Howle had mentioned—Henry—was still in the security office, waiting for the aid Genneth had promised him. The fact that the first words out of Susiei’s mouth were “Where are the guns?” made Henry acutely confused, but, once Suisei explained who he was and that Genneth’s promise would be honored in full, the transformee became much more willing to answer the question.

When you had as many problems to deal with as Suisei did, getting the people who were shooting at each other to stop shooting at each other almost always took precedence.

Suisei ignored the stains and scratch marks as he darted down through the security offices’ hallway. He flung open the door to the armory and burst inside, immediately gladdened to see some familiar faces.

The Brock 12. The A3-Norm.

And then he saw the Ushi-Oni 7. It left him with a twinkle in his eye.

“Nice to see you, old friend,” Suisei muttered.

He savored the act of curling his fingers around the semiautomatic’s synthetic leather grip. It was like the first bite of chocolate after years stranded at sea.

Simply delectable.

A brief shake told him it was already loaded.

Good, he thought.

Yes, unlike his old Ushi-Oni, this one wasn’t pataphysically tuned. It was just a gun—but, at least, it was a familiar one.

Then he undid the safety and ran like hell. He dashed down the hallways at blistering speeds, channeling the tuning’s he’d put on his shoes. The speed-tuning was one of the only webs he’d managed to keep stable. All the others had come apart at the seams, sometimes while he was in the middle of weaving them.

Working by hand could be so tedious at times.

Suisei’s white coat fluttered as he ran. Nurses yelped in alarm, leaping out of his way. Unfortunately, the bodies of the dead and the dying were far less nimble. Suisei tried to avoid stepping on them as best as he could, but a few legs still ended up getting crushed beneath his powered feet.

The jolts the impacts sent through his legs made speed-bumps seem welcoming by comparison.

Well, at least they didn’t scream.

Suisei made his assessments on the fly, glancing at the wall-mounted consoles as he ran. It wasn’t security camera footage; someone had hooked a professional-grade camcorder to the IT network, broadcasting live footage of Garden Court from the vantage point of one of the windows on the Administration Building’s upper floors.

For a moment, he wondered, and then he saw Jonan’s face pass by the camera, and his last remaining doubts were banished.

Dr. Derric really was a force to be reckoned with. Thanks to Jonan’s latest ploy, Suisei had a clear view of the situation out in the Garden Court.

It was beyond a nightmare. The military cordons had toppled like cardboard in the wind. The waves of people pouring into the central courtyard were equal parts victim and vermin. So much gunfire flashed from the ground, walls, and rooftops, you’d have thought the city lights had come on early. Blood and black ooze misted the open air. Green spores bobbed in the viscosity of the sunset breeze. Falling bodies marked the diseased autumn leaves, only to rise again as mindless revenants.

And then a transformee flew past the camera.

No, not a transformee, Suisei told himself. A wyrm.

“Shit,” he said, muttering in his native tongue.

He sped forward even faster. A crowd screamed as he made the turn into the Hall of Echoes.

Once, a couple days ago, someone had made a valiant attempt at setting up cordons in the Hall. Whatever remained of this effort now lay crumpled on the floor, trodden underfoot. Some people ran about, but most were too sick to do even that. Instead, they lied down and cowered in place, piling against the walls, or huddling in niches, beneath the grand staircases, or behind the desks that had been set up in the Hall to deal with the patient surge. Others lay in the middle of the floor convulsing with seizures or coughs—or both—spewing out black and green.

Outside, gunfire blazed.

And, of course, the soldiers were also using laser beams.

How tedious, Suisei thought.

But the windows.

He gasped in shock. A shiver ran down his spine.

And that was saying something.

Angel’s breath, he thought.

For centuries, the grand wooden doors at the head of the Hall of Echoes had served as the hospital’s main entrance. Tall windows were set into the wall on either side, their lozenge-shaped panes supported by a lattice of transom and mullion. The glass was drenched in gore, as if the skies had rained crimson and ink. Hands and limbs knocked on the windows, flailing, smearing blood and death across the lower panes, rattling the windows with every blow. Some of the limbs just fell apart as people tried to charge the windows. Bullets burst the infected bodies open. Limbs tore off along the lines of ulcers.

Soldiers posted by the massive marble columns built into the Hall of Echoes’ walls flocked toward the entrance. They’d made a barrier with their bodies. They yelled as one, with voices raw and hoarse.

The soldiers squeaked the door open with a great heave. It was like a dam had burst. People scrambled to get inside, but the soldiers stood their ground. Flanking either side of the thin opening, they kept the rabble at bay as VIPs trickled in. Most were hospital personnel or General Marteneiss’ subordinates, a few were patients. The people behind them beat their backs, sticking their arms through the gaps. The sounds of the battle outside swept in through the opening, filling the Hall of Echoes with a typhoon of violence and death.

The hospital staff were completely outclassed. They skittered about like rats, desperate to help however they could. Physicians bobbed in place like buoys in the bay. In trying to be everywhere at once, they ended up going nowhere.

But only at first.

As more and more people trickled in, order and purpose built their artifices. Groups of doctors and nurses spurred to action, conquering fear and disbelief.

High up, a window pane shattered, shot through by a bullet—and not one of Suisei’s. Shards of glass rained onto the floor.

A familiar voice roared: “Horosha!”

The word bounced off the Hall’s arched marble ceiling.

Suisei looked up. “Dr. Marteneiss?”

Dr. Horosha could barely make out Dr. Marteneiss’ face from within her PPE. She trundled through the fortified entrance, carrying a wet waif of a woman, shielding her with her embrace. The woman was distraught beyond words. Her body might have been in the hospital, but her thoughts certainly weren’t.

Oh, he realized.

He could sense the invisible energies swirling around her body.

The woman was a transformee.

Suisei rushed forward to help, but then wood groaned. Soldiers screamed, scattering from the door.

The torrent had come.

He felt it an instant before it struck. It was like plastic spiderwebs pressing against his face, blown forward by a merciless wind.

There were transformees out there. They were using their powers, and they knew what they were doing.

Suisei’s blood ran cold a split second before he saw the first few bodies getting launched into the air.

“Run!” he yelled. “Run!”

The crowd should have scattered down the street, but instead, they focused on forcing their way inside, knocking down soldiers and one another. Flailing bodies clambered over one another, zombies on patients on soldiers on zombies.

Suisei could hardly believe his relief when he felt the transformees’ presence move away.

Oh good, he thought. They just want to kill everybody.

That meant they weren’t organized, and that meant they could be dealt with.

In theory.

Skidding to a stop on the marble floor, Suisei widened his stance and then raised his gun and fired. The pataphysics for guided bullets were simple enough that he could make them on the fly, at no detriment to his spore-repelling electrostatics. Unlike slowing a fall or launching himself from rooftop to rooftop, guiding bullets to their targets didn’t require modulating forces. You just plotted the path and pushed.

He fired four bullets in quick succession. They curved through the air, following his chosen paths around fleeing civilians, right into oncoming zombies’ skulls. The dead zombies toppled backward from the impacts, knocking into the zombies behind them, and slowing them down.

Somewhat.

Suisei’s shots echoed in the Hall, enough to draw even more screams.

“Move,” he yelled. “Move!” He pointed at the stairs to the second floor and the doors at the back of the Hall.

Suddenly, the sounds of gunfire coalesced.

Suisei gulped.

The soldiers out in the courtyard were just firing at the people heading into the hospital. Zombies, soldiers, citizens, doctors—it didn’t matter.

Inwardly, Suisei groaned.

This is why only people who could guide bullets ought to qualify for gun ownership. If soldiers couldn’t not shoot the people they were supposed to defend, what were they good for?

Gritting his teeth, Suisei fired another volley of guided bullets. He guided two at a pair of zombies who’d leapt over the backs of the doctors running ahead of them. The zombies were still midair when his bullets pierced their skulls midair. Their lifeless corpses hit the floor with wet, oozing thuds.

Suisei emptied the clip and pulled out a fresh magazine from one of the pockets inside his coat. It had been a while since he’d reloaded an Ushi-Oni 7, but he trusted his muscle memory to see him through.

Heggy yelled. “What the hell!?”

Suisei looked up.

Some of the people pouring into the Hall had suddenly stopped moving.

No, not just them, Suisei thought. All the zombies.

For a moment, they stood as still as rods.

All at once, the zombies turned and ran out of the hospital, ignoring the humans around them.

Outside, the soldiers kept firing, and the zombies…

The zombies were running into the line of fire. Then they stood in place, side-by-side and—assuming they still had them—locked arms with one another. They made themselves into meat shields, soaking up bullets.

Baffled, Suisei muttered in his native tongue: “What the hell?”