The Wyrms of &alon

I stared at him. “Wait, you mean… you’re going to tell them about… that?” (“That” being Merritt’s psychokinetic powers.)

“Tell us what?”

Director Hobwell sighed. “Dr. Howle here has had the distinct, um… I guess we call it privilege… of treating one of the earliest-known Type Two cases of NFP-20. And from what he and Dr. Marteneiss have seen… dealing with it is going to require some extraordinary measures.”

He cleared his throat. “Currently, our DAISHU liaison has told us that their labs, in coordination with the Cartin Center at the Polytechnic, the Stovolsk Mycological Institute, and basically every other research university under the sun where fungus nerds are known to dwell are still at work trying to learn more about NFP-20 and how to deal with it. For Type One cases, it’s pretty cut and dry. For the conceivable future, your main vocabulary words are going to be triage, process, and containment. The goal is to sieve out from the rest of the pack anyone who is infected or likely infected. For the time being, we’re putting a hiatus into effect regarding any and all new elective or non-essential surgeries and treatment plans. We’re going to treat the conditions of our remaining non-infected patients as efficiently as possible, so we can get them home as quickly and infection-free as possible.”

“If possible,” Dr. Horosha added, grimly.

“But what about Type Two?” one of the others asked.

The Director hid his apprehension behind a stoic front as he nodded in acknowledgement.

Tapping the console on his podium and a button at the table’s edge, the console screen on the wall returned to its abstract screensaver display, and the podium slid back into the table.

“What I’m about to tell all of you stays between us,” Hobwell said. “Don’t tell anyone else about it unless you feel that doing so is absolutely necessary—and, if you do, please, for the love of God. Let. Me. Know. I’ve already got enough problems to deal with.” The Director cleared his throat rather vigorously.

“What is it?”

“As crazy as it sounds,” Hobwell said, locking eyes with me, “at least one patient with the Type Two infection has displayed psychokinetic powers.” Lowering his head, the Director shook his head and scratched at the front of his mask. “I can’t believe I just said that,” he muttered.

“Psychokinesis?” said the doctor who’d mentioned the box jellyfish—Dr. B’zool, according to the ID tag on her coat. She stared a thousand-mile stare of a toxicologist who was completely out of her comfort zone.

As was I.

“She can move things with her mind,” I said. “She can push things, pull them… make them float.”

My thoughts drifted back to the incident earlier this morning by the Expressway off of Seacrest Boulevard. Like with my memory of Dr. Worms’ lecture, for a moment, I could have sworn I was at the scene of the crime all over again; that I was sitting in the driver’s seat, watching the car passing in front of me screech as an invisible force shoved it out of the way.

The little voice inside me—otherwise known as “hope”—tried to argue that it was just an accident, and had nothing to do with Merritt’s physics-defying powers. Unfortunately, my inner sense of hope had been permanently crippled after Rale died. Its arguments simply weren’t that convincing anymore.

“Okay, okay… what’s going on here?” According to his ID tag, the speaker was Dr. Joast, of internal medicine. “Is this some kind of joke?”

The fellow who’d rightly called Nalfar’s terrifying—Dr. Haxwuatl—stood up from his seat. His aggrieved voice snapped me back to reality.

I cleared my throat. “I wish it were.”

“Dr. Howle is no liar,” Heggy said, jumping to my defense. “And I should know: I was there. I saw it with my own two eyes.”

“No.” Dr. Joast shook his head. “No.” He laughed weakly. “I’m…” He clenched his jaw.

“Dr. Joast?”

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Joast replied. “Whatever this is—”

—But then he stormed off, leaving the room without another word.

Director Hobwell spoke after an awkward silence. “What about the rest of you?”

The only person who said anything was a Dr. Richter. “If it’s true, I’ll believe it when I see it. If it’s not… I’d honestly be fine with that, too.”

Hobwell sighed. “This brings me to the last point. I know many of you are specialists. However, for the time being, you’re all being transferred to Emergency Medicine. Consider it wartime conscription. You’ll be split into groups of Crisis Management Teams—CMTs—each of which will oversee a cohort of nurses and physicians in one of our Wards. Dr. Richter, Dr. B’zool, Dr. Haxwuatl, you’ll be in charge of overseeing Ward Q.”

Hobwell continued listing names,

“Lastly,” he glanced at Heggy and I, “Drs. Howle and Marteneiss, you’ll be working alongside Dr. Horosha in Ward E.” He looked everyone over. As of this moment, your chips are being updated with the additional permissions which are the purview of your new roles.”

“What, exactly, are we supposed to be overseeing, Harold?” Dr. B’zool asked.

“Your primary charges are triage, case organization, case prioritization, and establishing and directing treatment protocols for the infected. Your main focus is to be on incoming patients presenting symptoms of NFP-20, but I suppose you’ll also have to deal with the usual fare of daily emergencies. You have all been given clearance to recruit a handful of emergency physicians, surgeons, or other specialists to help coördinate everything. These will be your middlemen, so that you don’t end up bogged down working on individual cases, assuming that’s something that we can prevent.” Director Hobwell sighed.

“How do we deal with people with magic powers?” Dr. Haxwuatl asked.

“I’ll leave that to the discretion of each individual CMT—at least until the legal department gets back to me with their suggestion for our best course of action.” Director Hobwell nodded. “You’ll find everything you need to know has been sent to your devices. As team leaders, feel free to ask around for help. Loop in anyone you think might be useful.” He clapped his hands on the podium. “Never forget: all we can do is to do all we can. Now, get out there and beat this thing.”

People started to leave the room.

“What are you going to do, sir?” I asked.

“Give this same damn briefing all over again, all day long, a handful of groups at a time.”