The Wyrms of &alon

More than any other part of the hospital, you couldn’t stand in West Elpeck Medical’s basement levels without beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, the building was alive. It certainly sounded like a living thing. A backdrop of quiet noises played out everywhere, through all hours of the day, and never with any discernible pattern.

It made for an excellent distraction from Andalon.

Fluorescent lights buzzed and hummed. Pipes snaked their way through the walls and ceilings, at times embedded in the building like roots, bearing water drip-drip-dripping and gas lines that rattled, rumbled and puffed. Matter printers echoed in the distance like ghosts of departed fax machines, and every once in a while, you’d hear a noise or two clang in the distance, and you’d live the rest of your life never knowing the cause. When Winter Solstice came a-knocking—circumstances permitting—WeElMed’s basements were transformed into the hottest Cheldmas haunted house attraction in the entire Elpeck Metropolitan area. All it took was setting the hallway lights to flicker and blink out at irregular intervals, along with some rusty metal—sheets, steel rebar—and bits of trash, rubble, and dry ice—both real and fake—spread about as decoration and the transformation of the basement into the depths of hell was complete.

“Mr. Genneth,” she asked, “what is cut open?”

Closing my eyes—which still ached a little, by the way!—I shook my head.

“You thinked, But I couldn’t go back for seconds. I had places to be and bodies to cut open. So…” briefly, she glanced down at the ground before looking me in the eyes, “what’s it mean? What’s it do?”

“But I didn’t…” I started to respond, but then stopped myself.

I hadn’t said those words. I’d thought them.

At that moment, an idea came to me. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have given any consideration to an idea like that, but times—and people—were changing (psychokinetic powers, anyone?) so, weird ideas had more currency than usual.

Testing. Andalon, can you hear me? Testing testing testing.

Andalon tilted her head to the side. “What’s a ‘testing’?” she asked.

Holy fudgeballs, she could hear me!

“I can hear you!” she said, raising her arms in the air.

Finally, something useful! If I could talk to her through my thoughts, I wouldn’t need to worry about looking like I was talking to people who weren’t there.

“Why are you here now, you little troublemaker?” I grumbled.

She looked up for a moment, and then back at me. “Andalon does not know.”

I walked off in a huff.

Andalon hurried along to keep up with me. “Why are you sad, Mr. Genneth?” She smiled. “Be happy! I’m makin’ you wyrmeh!”

I forced my mouth shut and yelled in my mind. I needed to practice that, and there was no time like the present.

I don’t want to be a wyrm, Andalon! That’s why!

“Why not?” she asked.

Bec—

But I cut myself off.

“I don’t have time for this.”

I rushed ahead as fast as I could.

Arriving at 2Ba452, the first order of business was to follow the instructions for proper pre-autopsy preparation. Ordinarily, these would have been sufficiently far out of my area of expertise that I’d need the details spelled out to me, however, after just one day of adhering to PPE protocol, the drudgery of doffing used gear and donning a fresh set had been ingrained into my muscle memory. Old plastic off, scrub down, new plastic on—I knew the drill; though Andalon’s constant questioning threatened to derail me several times. There was one novelty, though: the headpiece that came with the autopsy PPE was studded with magnifying scopes that I had absolutely no clue what to do with. Fortunately, I wasn’t going to be on my own.

One of the things that TV shows failed to convey was just how cold it got inside autopsy rooms and morgues. Even with my undershirt, coat, and the PPE gown atop them, the refrigerated chill still managed to seep into my skin—and it only got less welcoming from there. The autopsy room itself was like the public showers of an old, abandoned gymnasium, except, somehow, it managed to be even less charming. The floor was covered in minute, square, off-white tiles that gave the room a wan complexion. The pallid, almost misty blue walls did not help, and the horizontal black stripes that interrupted them only added to the musty, morbid feeling in the air.

The autopsy room was dominated by six chrome examination tables. The tables gleamed dully beneath the ceiling’s fluorescent lights, and ribbed, hand-held tubes stuck out from the tables’ sides, tipped with adjustable nozzles. Each table dead-ended in a sink, surmounted by a sliding metal tray filled with the tools of the anatomist’s trade: shears, scalpels, hammers, buckets—even saws. I tried not to think too much about the buckets and bristly scrubbing-brooms lining the walls, and the kinds of frightful muck they’d likely seen.

At the far end of the room, a glass wall with a glass door separated the autopsy area from what, by the looks of things, was probably a small pathology lab located on the other side. The body was on the examination table nearest to the glass door, sealed inside a black, swollen tick of a body-bag, the zipper still zipped shut. The bag was unnervingly large and bulged oddly in places. My comrades in arms stood in a circle around the table. The magnifying scopes clustered on their heads glistened like spiders’ eyes atop their heads.

One of them turned to face me.

“Genneth?”—it was Brand.

Custom and courtesy demanded that I respond to a statement like that, but at the moment, I was not capable of doing so, because I was staring at Dr. Horosha.

He was glowing. Minute motes of light surrounded Dr. Horosha in an ornamental cocoon. They swirled around him steadily, in an endlessly revolving veil. It hugged his body like a second skin.

Andalon… what’s going on here?

She frowned. “But, Mr. Genneth… you told Andalon to leave you alone.”

I sighed. Andalon had discovered grown-ups’ greatest weakness: our own words.

“Uh… Genneth, are you okay?” Brand asked.

I shuddered from embarrassment. “Sorry, I… I’ve just got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

Dr. Nowston nodded. “If you need a minute, we can wait. This is going to be pretty intense.”

“You know what?” I said, “you’re absolutely right. I’ll be right back.”

I rushed back out into the changing room. Andalon phased through the door after I closed it behind me.

“Andalon, why is Dr. Horosha glowing? He wasn’t glowing before.”

Oh God.

“Is this because of my eyes? Am—am I going blind?”

“Andalon does not know what blind is.” She raised and lowered her feet while holding her arms behind her nightgown. “It’s just like Mrs. BokBok. Just like that.”

“What?” I didn’t understand.

“But… you say Mr. Rosha has shimmery-wimmery?”

I blinked and stared, and then nodded. “Yes, he has… shimmery-wimmery.”

What else was I going to call the snowglobe of light-motes revolving around him?

“Wyrmeh use the shimmery-wimmery to make stuffs move and float. It’s using Andalon’s powers.”

I stammered. “B-But, I thought you said you didn’t know what the shimmery-wimmery was!”

Frowning, she nodded. “Andalon does not know that. But,” her frown turned upside-down, “Andalon knows what it’s for.”

Holy Angel.

“Suisei has powers?”

“Wow…” In my head, Andalon’s voice was nothing short of astonished. “Mr. Rosha has powers.”

Are you turning him into a wyrm, too?

“Andalon does not know.”

I was about to grumble again when the hair on my back stood up on end. I raised my head.

“Flibbertigibbet…” I muttered.

Two and two had suddenly come together, leaving me thunderstruck.

Now you can have fun with the shimmery-wimmery!

That was what Andalon had said.

Andalon raised her arms in the air. “That’s what Andalon said!” She nodded excitedly.

Focusing, I thought back to what I’d done last night, when I’d moved the bottle. I thought of the music moving out of me. I tried replicating my actions. The feelings had a life of their own. I’d set a process in motion.

The result was nothing short of extraordinary. Before me was a weird, twining, ribbony web of light.

A shimmery-wimmery.

It manifested at the same time as the music-thing I saw in my mind. It was blue and gold with hints of green, and filamentous, like metal wicker.

And I was the one who’d made it.

The rush of excitement/terror distracted me enough that the threads twitched and vanished, taking the feeling of their presence with them.

I could see the supernatural! Holy Angel. This was a game-changer.

“Andalon, I—”

—But when I looked at her, she looked tired and woozy.

“—Mr. Genneth,” she staggered about, “Andalon’s feelin’ kinda…”

And then she vanished, and my stomach twinged with a fresh wave of hunger.

I stamped my foot and cursed.

“Fudge!”

Perfect. Just perfect.

I groaned.