The Wyrms of &alon

“Angel’s breath,” I said, “what happened to her?”

The mother glared at me, but half-heartedly, too tired to be angry. Instead, with a soft, hopeless moan, she turned to her daughter.

“She…” her voice sputtered. She ran her fingers through her daughter’s hair and looked up at me. “She was lobotomized. It… it was after her boyfriend—after he…”

—But she couldn’t finish the sentence. Lowering her gaze, she let her hand rest on her daughter’s shoulder.

Much to my surname’s dismay, I was not a notable howler. So, in those rare moments—such as this one—when I did howl, everyone noticed.

“Lob—Lobotomized!?”

Ani’s head shot up. “Genneth? What are you doing here?”

Suddenly, the mother found her tongue: “We need to get an abortion for our daughter’s pregnancy.”

Her husband hissed. “Babs! You can’t just go around saying that we—”

“—I’m sorry, Ma’am,” Ani said, “but, like I was saying, we’re in the middle of a developing crisis right now, and you need to—”

“—No!” Babs balled her hand into a fist. She glared at her husband. “I’m done waiting, Jed. I’m done with being on the sidelines. No more! No! More!” She wept. “I just want it to be over.” She turned back to her daughter. “I know I can’t get my little girl back, but… I…” her head shook, “I won’t…” But then her voice cracked. The spirit that had flashed in her evaporated and she cradled her head in her hands. “Oh God… Please, Holy Angel… help us. Help me. Give me the strength to know the right path, and to choose it, and make my peace with it. Please.”

Heggy stepped forward, brimming with authority. “Okey-dokey,” she said, with a doleful tone utterly at odds with her words. “I think we all need to calm down a little—well… a lot.” She gestured assertively. “First off, as I hope y’all probably already know, hospital policy on abortion is pretty labyrinthine.”

Jed the husband shook his head and pursed his lips. “I don’t understand. How can you people not value human life?” He turned to his wife. “Babs, please, don’t—”

“—I don’t, Jed. I don’t. I don’t know what to do, because I know what I want and”—she shuddered—“I know just as well that I can’t have it.”

Groaning, Ani turned around, shaking her yellow-gloved hands in stress. “Please, everybody, just… everyone just stop and take a deep breath. It’s too early in the day to be this controversial”—Ani shook her head—“ugh, I mean, confrontational. But,” she sighed, “yes, you’re right, Mrs. Plotsky”—(that was always a good way of putting things)—“all I wanted was for you, your husband, and your daughter to go to Ward F. The biggest risk to your health right now is NFP-20 and the tension in your family, not your daughter’s pregnancy. I’m not saying it’s not important, just that it doesn’t need to happen—or not happen—right here and now. You don’t need to be in Urgent Care, not when we’re in the middle of a pandemic.”

“Yes, well…” Mrs. Plotsky said, “I—”

—Ani pressed her hands together, as if in prayer. “Please,” she pleaded, “try to understand.” She looked over to me. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have colleagues I need to speak to.”

With that, Ani walked off toward us, as did the Plotskies, though the ill-fated family continued through the doors and down the hall.

“What’s going on here?” I asked

“I’ve got half of an answer for you,” Ani said. She shook her head. “Of course, that’s nowhere near enough.”

Ani Lokanok followed the way of the warrior—the positive-energy warrior; mistress of the prayer emoji and positive vibes. She was winsome in every way, forever unjaded, with high-cheekbones, lush, long dark hair, and eyes with curves like a sculptor might have carved. She was a professional ray of sunshine, plucky and earnest. She seemed more like a make-believe character who only existed on a TV medical drama—as if she couldn’t be real, and was probably just a model with acting skills who was hired to play doctor—only Dr. Ani Lokanok wasn’t make-believe. And she wasn’t playing, her simple, round, almost-(but not quite)-comically-large glasses, notwithstanding. It was as clear of an act of self-debasement as they come, like if a rose had a mohawk. It was her way of sticking it to her dad.

“Didn’t you hear the news?” Ani said. “It’s a pandemic! Can you believe it?” Her eyes widened.

“Yes,” I nodded. “In fact—”

—Ani kept on talking. “I know it’s just a matter of time before we get our official orders for what to do and how to prepare for what’s to come, but… that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t start doing whatever we can do right now to try to get ahead of the curve. That’s what I’ve been doing, and it’s been a real mess, let me tell you. I’ve been hopping around like a crazy person working with the nurses to try and resolve as many non-plague cases as possible and move as many non-plague patients out of Urgent Care as possible to make room for when the surge comes—and, let me tell you it’s coming, no doubt about that!” Ani raised her hands and squeezed them into nervous fists. “There wasn’t enough time to pass out PPE to everyone. I’m wearing it to deal with any infected patients who wander in while giving everyone else time to get themselves suited up.”

Yes, she was sunshine, but of the high-strung variety.

“Ani,” I said, but she kept on going.

“Infectious diseases cause enough trouble,” she said. “I don’t want to have to be the one to turn patients away or tell them there’s nothing we can do for them because we didn’t wisely ration our supplies—”

“—Dr. Lokanok,” Dr. Horosha said, interjecting rather forcefully. His words gave silence some breathing room, during which he cleared his throat. “Director Harold Hobwell has assigned Drs. Howle, Marteneiss, and myself to lead the Crisis Management Team tasked with presiding over Ward E for the duration of the current crisis.”

“Angeltide!” Ani exhaled deeply. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?” She smiled. “It’s about time! I could really use the help. There’s so much to be done—and, as you can probably tell, Mr. and Mrs. Plotsky weren’t being very helpful.”

“At present, I am more concerned about ensuring widespread distribution of PPE among Ward E’s personnel,” Horosha said.

Ani nodded in agreement. “You’re absolutely right. The only reason I haven’t been leading that charge was because, as I said, I felt I’d make more productive use of my time escorting as many patients out of Urgent Care as I could to help make room for the surge. But it’s been going about as smoothly as cleaning out a musty old garage—”

—Further down, a nurse yelped as she was pelted by an amber stream of what I could only hope was vomit.

Ani sighed. “You always keep finding more. Still… at least we’ve managed to clear a good portion of the beds that were previously in use. And we’re bringing in more by the minute.” She glanced up at the clock at the wall. “I just hope it will be enough.”

“Dr. Lokanok,” Heggy said, “we need to gather as much of the Ward E staff as possible for a protocol review.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Ani said. “Just make sure you let Nurse Kaylin know you mean everyone.”

“Wouldn’t an announcement be good enough?” I said.

“Nurse Kaylin got in trouble for ‘unleashing the tiger’ too often; now she’ll only do it if directly told so by a superior. And I think this is as good a time as any.”

“Doctor!” a nurse shouted.

“Ugh!” Ani winced. “There’s too much to do. If you three could help me out here, it’d be amazing, and I think we might actually have a chance of getting things settled down!”

Heggy nodded at me, and then at Ani. “Sure, what’s on your plate?”

“Everything.” Ani rolled her eyes. “There’s a patient with a cerebrospinal fluid leak three beds down who needs to be rolled out, an immunocompromised asthmatic with a corticosteroid allergy, a racist grandpa with probable internal injuries who starts screaming whenever ‘slant-eyed parasites’ try to touch him—such as yours truly. It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet of stuff that nobody wants.”

“Doctor! He’s seizing!”