The Wyrms of &alon

Decontamination followed the autopsy like night followed day. I was gasping for breath, trying my hardest not to rip the PPE right off my body. I was more than a bit worried that I’d have another panic attack, and spritzing myself with sanitizer did little to make the terror go away.

I was stuck in a waking nightmare. The unholy images of Frank Isafobe’s viscera flashed before my eyes. I’d halfway removed my PPE when copies of Frank’s spleen and open skull suddenly plopped into being on the floor of the changing room. My screams of horror drew Ani and Heggy, and I had to tell them I’d just had a panic attack in order to get them to calm down and drop the subject. It wasn’t a full lie, but it wasn’t the full truth, either, and I felt bad for doing it. A childhood spent having “lying is a sin” drilled into you would have that effect on a person.

Surreally, by the time I’d finished, I looked back, and the disembodied organs were nowhere to be seen. And, to make matters worse, my magic-sight (wyrmsight?) showed no indication that these horrific manifestations were in any way related to Andalon and her powers.

I decided I’d ask Andalon about that the next time I saw her, assuming there was going to be a “next time”.

I scrubbed my hands in the sink like I was about to operate on a member of DAISHU’s Board of Trustees. I’d rather die than let a single spore ride my body and find its way into someone else’s. I did such a good job of washing my hands that I’d rubbed small flakes of skin off the back of my hands, and was greeted by the sheen of minute, sable violet scales.

I shut off the faucet.

My breath caught in my throat.

Daring to touch it, I found that the scales were dry to the touch, no different from the purple breastplate that had blossomed on my chest. Like the patch on my chest, the small splotches of wyrm hide on my hands no longer lagged behind my will when I tried to move them. They were mine, and—unlike the rest of me—they felt alive.

Yeah, wyrm hide. What else could it be? What else could I call it?

Even though I knew to expect the lag to vanish, its sudden disappearance was still startling enough to me yelp in surprise at the first contact. After struggling with the lag day in and day out, I guess I’d grown accustomed to it. And now, I got to get unaccustomed to it all over again.

I groaned bitterly. “Hooray…”

After finishing the decontamination procedure, I donned a fresh set of PPE and joined everyone else for the walk back to our little meeting room in Ward E. On the way over, I couldn’t help but stare at everyone and everything around me, wondering if spores might have been hiding in plain sight, too small to see, but deadly all the same.

Once we arrived in the meeting room, we quickly took our seats. Ani and Dr. Skorbinka did not join us, however. They’d broken away from the group to get a bite to eat. Brand, meanwhile, had gone off to do… Brand… things. I loved him like a brother, but, for the life of me, half the time, I couldn’t understand what was going on beneath those sponge curls of his.

I sat down in an unoccupied swivel chair. “So, what now?” I asked.

“Now, we wait for Drs. Arbond, Lokanok, and Skorbinka,” Heggy said. “I don’t know about the two young’uns, but Cassius should be here momentarily.”

That was not the answer I would have preferred to hear. Inside, my stomach was doing somersaults—and not just because everything was coming up fungus.

I was hungry.

Steady streams of drool flowed into my mouth; it was my stomach’s tears as it cried out for food. It took most of my concentration to keep an outward appearance of relative calm. It was like holding in a full bladder, only worse. But I managed to shun the urge.

It helped that I was still haunted by my knowledge of cause and effect.

Kurt…

Even if I hadn’t ever encountered Andalon, it would have been obvious to me that Kurt’s startling transformation a mere half-day after having gorged himself on food had to be linked by the law of cause and effect. Of course, I had encountered Andalon.

You need to eat. Eat lots of stuff. Lots and lots!

I shuddered.

“Uh… what about Brand?” I asked.

As if by magic, my console pinged. I pulled it out from the pocket in my PPE gown.

I’d gotten a message from Brand:

I’ll be attending the meeting remotely.

I looked up from my console. “That was Brand. He’s attending the meeting remotely.”

Heggy smirked. “Lucky him.”

I didn’t need to wait much longer. Dr. Arbond arrived in short shrift. Jonan and Dr. Horosha put their consoles to sleep and set them down as Cassius took his seat in an empty chair to my right. The door opened again about a minute later as a conversation stepped into the room, carrying Ani and Dr. Skorbinka in along with it. Ani held the mycologist in her hand, talking to him through a videophone conversation on her console.

Ani walked up to the wall-console by the door and fiddled with it and her own. Her work PortaCon went dark, as the meeting room’s projection system whirred, powering up. The projection flickered onto the wall.

I was expecting the mycologist’s videophone call with Dr. Lokanok to be transferred from Ani’s console to the projector. Instead, two electric blue 3D holograms materialized in the room. In an instant, Dr. Nowston and Dr. Skorbinka sat alongside us, complete with holographic renderings of the stools on which they sat.

With all the people in close quarters, it took a bit of effort to keep myself from noticing their consciousness-auras, mostly because I kept constantly thinking that I would notice them, and, as usual, my worries quickly turned into self-fulfilling prophecies. Fortunately, I discovered that I could stare at my two holographic colleagues as much as I wanted without seeing any kinds of shimmery-wimmeries except the ones being made by the projector.

Also, the fact that lifeless holograms didn’t have the aura supported my theory that the aura was related to consciousness or the nervous system.

“For a second there, Dr. Lokanok,” Heggy said, “you had me gettin’ a little worried.”

Ani bowed her head apologetically. “I’m sorry, I was just…” but she cut herself off, shook her head, and sighed.

Just like her mentor.

“After what just happened,” Ani said, “I just had to talk to Dr. Skorbinka some more, even if it was only to calm my nerves.”

“So,” Dr. Arbond started, puffing out his chest, “How’d the damn autopsy go? Again, ‘pologies for not being there on time.”

Heggy slid a small jump drive toward him. “Here are the images. Dr. Nowston also went ahead and prepared a full holorecording. You might want to give yourself a crash course in it over the next few minutes.”

“Wise words,” Dr. Arbond replied. Pulling his work-console out of his PPE, he slid the drive into one of the ports on the device’s back side.

I could see the images’ reflections skip across his eyes as he absorbed the autopsy down to the last detail.

“So,” Brand said, “what’s on the agenda?”

It seemed safe to assume Brand was broadcasting from his lab in the basement. The real Brand Nowston scooted his stool forward, and, in our little meeting room, his holographic presence followed along with his motions in real time.

“Dr. Derric here was just insinuatin’ ever-so-gently how fricken’ terrifying that autopsy was,” Heggy said. For once, her face showed the strain of her age.

We’d all been shaken by the experience.

“You can say that again…” Ani muttered, nodding as she took her seat.

Dr. Horosha clasped his hands together. “If I may…” He glanced at Heggy, who nodded brusquely. “Clearly,” Dr. Horosha continued, “NFP-20 is an extraordinarily aggressive pathogen. That being said, we have yet to ascertain whether the systemic neoplasms we observed in Mr. Isafobe’s body post-mortem formed while the patient was still alive, or if their formation began only after his death.”

Ani shook her head. “Forgive me if I’m being impudent, but… why does it matter when those growths form?”

Dr. Horosha nodded. “If they form during the infection process, surgical intervention may be of use in treating them.”

“I think it’s pretty clear that the growths are forming while the patients are still alive,” Ani said, “I mean… you can see the filaments growing beneath their skin. It’s… horrifying…” With a shudder, she shook her head. “The only comparable condition I’ve ever heard of that’s even remotely like it is, maybe, metastatic pancreatic cancer—but that comparison makes no sense in this context. Cancer isn’t contagious!” Ani banged her fist on the desk in frustration, and then lowered her head in shame. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t let myself act out like that,” she said. Light glinted off her round spectacles.

“Actually,” Brand said, “there have been documented cases of transmissible cancers—just not in humans.” He nodded excitedly. “Amazingly, there’s a germ line of canine urogenital cancer cells known to spread from one dog to another through sexual intercourse. During coitus, the cancer cells separate from the tumors and become intermixed with the seminal and/or vaginal fluids. This allows the cancer cells to pass from one individual to another, and upon adhering to the tissues of a new host, they can continue on dividing. Genetic studies suggest the canid that originally developed the cancer lived thousands of years ago. Moreover, the cell line has evolved dysfunctions in the makeup of its desmosomes, to reduce cell-to-cell adhesion and make fragmentation and subsequent infection more likely.”

Comments like these were why lunches with Brand Nowston were almost guaranteed to be unforgettable.

Jonan blinked in astonishment. I think he realized he might have met his match. “How do you know these things?”

Brand shrugged. “I read around, here and there.”

“Motherfucker!” Cassius cussed like a boiling teapot—albeit at a whisper.

“Is everything alright, Dr. Arbond?” Ani asked.

Cassius looked up at Dr. Lokanok. Stress weighed on his face. “Is this real, what I’m seein’ here?”

“I’m…” Ani nodded, “I’m afraid so.”

“Shit,” Cassius hissed. Immediately, he returned to watching the autopsy footage.

“Anyhow,” Dr. Horosha said, clearing his throat, “Dr. Nowston, are you suggesting NFP-20 might be a variety of cancerous fungus?”

“Improbable,” Dr. Skorbinka interjected. “Malignant neoplasms such as those which cause cancer in animal species do not occur in fungi.” The mycologist perched his legs on one of the rungs of his stool and hunched forward, steepling his fingers. “Macroscopic growth of multicellular fungi such as mushroom occurs near-exclusively through action of pressure of water upon fungal cells. Mushrooms and such do not grow, they inflate.” He made wafting gestures with his hands. “Cells fill with water. Cellular division occurs prior to inflation; fruiting bodies are pre-formed with total number of cells. Such a growth mode does not provide opportunity for emergence of cancer.”

“I think the most important takeaway from the autopsy is that NFP-20 really is unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” Brand said. He pointed his hand at his holographic colleague. “Dr. Skorbinka and I are preparing a variety of growth media in an attempt to culture fungal samples from the cadaver. Hopefully, a microbiological investigation in a laboratory setting will tell us stuff that might have gotten lost in the mess of the actual infection process.”

Jonan lowered his eyes to me. “Do you have anything to add, Dr. Howle?”

I was almost certain he was smirking, as befitted someone with his level of self-aggrandizement. I imagined he might even have been subtly throwing shade over my profession.

“Actually… yes, I do,” I said. “Though I’m no neurosurgeon, I can say with confidence that the state of Mr. Isafobe’s brain as we found it in the autopsy was unlike anything I’ve ever heard of. Not even neurological nightmares like prionic spongiform encephalopathy, primary amoebic encephalitis, or parasitic conditions like neurocysticercosis can cause this kind of damage.” I shuddered. “The brain was… liquified. That… that just doesn’t happen.”

It was Jonan’s turn to stare at me in surprise, and a sliver of pride flared within me. “In layman’s terms, those are self-replicating zombie brain proteins, brain-eating amoebas, and pork tapeworm larvae that got stuck in your brain, respectively. Still,” I shook my head, tapping my fingers on the table, “that doesn’t get us anywhere close to the level of damage we saw in Mr. Isafobe.” I tilted my head toward Dr. Horosha. “In that regard, Dr. Horosha had an excellent point. It troubles me that we don’t know how much of what we just saw happened in vivo, and how much of it occurred post-mortem.” I took a deep breath. “Because if that happened in vivo…” I lowered my voice to a whisper, “God help us.”

Clearing my throat, I locked eyes with Jonan. “Also, for what it’s worth, last night, I spent some time working alongside Dr. Derric with his private collection of patients, and Frank Isafobe was among them.” I bit softly into my cheek. “I was there when Mr. Isafobe died. He had been in a deep, unconscious state since having experienced a massive seizure earlier that day, so there was no way of telling how severely the infection had compromised his nervous system during its final stage. That being said, he was exhibiting decerebrate posturing, and that’s an indication of coma-inducing levels of brain damage.”

“Actually,” Jonan said, eyes narrowing, “I’ve been going over Frank’s bioindicators from the past twenty-four hours, and, after seeing his autopsy—even if some of the fungal growth happened post-mortem—I think the most likely cause of death is septic shock, along with multiple organ failure brought on by a cascade effect jump-started by my immunostimulant therapy regimen.” Jonan briefly closed his eyes and groaned. “Of the five patients that currently received my hare-brained treatment protocol, two are dead and three remain in critical condition.” He shook his head. “In all cases, granulocyte stimulation therapies only accelerated the fungus’ growth.”

“What about the antifungals?” I asked.

Ani shook her head. “It’s too soon to tell.”

“As for Isafobe,” Jonan continued, “it looks like the granulocyte stimulation therapy caused a massive proliferation of NFP-20, which then triggered a cytokine storm, and the combined effect was simply too much for his body to handle. So, I think we can attribute most of the growth we saw in the autopsy to post-mortem activity on the part of NFP-20.”

“It may be that NFP-20 is preparing for production of fruiting bodies in order to spread spores to new hosts,” Dr. Skorbinka said.

“Maybe you’re right, Mistelann,” Brand said, “or maybe there’s a whole other reason for it, or maybe both.” He shrugged. “Only time will tell, I guess.”

“Anyway,” I said, “I just wanted to point out that, going forward, there’s a strong chance we’re going to see profound neurological symptoms in NFP20 patients. And,” I sighed, “let me tell you, if we’re going to be dealing with patients who are losing their minds, it’s going to make working with them a waking nightmare for everyone involved.”

Ani slapped her gloved hand on the tabletop. “Okay… let’s…” she made gestures of reassurance with her hands, “let’s try to be more optimistic here, people,” she said. “We’ve learned a lot, and will probably learn a heck of lot more in the coming days and weeks. Now,” she nodded decisively, “what I want to know is: how can we use this information to better treat the victims of this disease?”

Heggy nodded in affirmation. “Don’t we all?”

Ani rose from her seat. “To that end, I think I might have something promising.”