Waiting for a call out had to be the worst part of Thea’s job. Wrangling a team of mostly older men was challenge enough, but with them all sitting around, waiting for a call about an accident or a tragedy across the radio, or an alarm that said the shores had been invaded and the day would end in war. It didn’t do anything for her nerves. It didn’t help that she despised hospitals even on a good day. She missed working on the front lines directly, of brushing away dust and constant dampness from the sea spray, being able to react directly to a scream of pain or a call for help, being able to act as was needed instead of just… waiting.
The only decent company was Alesander —he was the only one close to her age — but he had given into his yawns and was asleep in the chair across from her, his lanky body sprawled across the tiny chair in the break room and snoring softly. That left Jeremy, a whiny brat who thought he was older than his teenage years showed, or Sulvin, who’s moustache was older than her. The other’s had all disappeared somewhere around the hospital, probably to the staff cafeteria to get food or bother the nurses. As much as Thea enjoyed watching tired, overworked nurses spray chemicals in their face to get them to back off, her mind had wondered elsewhere today.
Getting to her feet, she left the little room, passed the nurses wrangling more donors for their blood drive and into the hospital proper, holding back her gagging as the smell of chemicals and blood hit the back of her throat. Though wide windows covered the halls to let in the harsh but cold winter sun, still burning orange against the thick air, it only drew attention to the starch white walls, the gas lights that burned in off yellow and the doors that did little to quieten the hospital noises, the whimpers and the restless sleep of patients on the other side. She had to remind herself that the hospital didn’t need any more volunteers; it needed trained nurses and educated doctors, but not volunteers, and her army training wasn’t enough. It left her to wander the halls, waiting for disaster like the ghosts that had to be hanging around. Not that she believed in ghosts. Some places just felt haunted, they felt violent history and sadness that sank into the walls, and she could do nothing about it.
She spotted the army officials easily, their green-grey uniform harsh against the white coats and dresses of the others around them. The nearest was a tall man with dark hair and a thin, scraggly moustache, looking like he could easily fold his body down into small compartments as though he was a shirt being shoved in a suitcase. He was deep in conversation with a doctor, her white coat rumpled and rolled up at the sleeves, her white dress beneath just as dishevelled. The soldier waved her away when he saw Thea. Thea had very little idea how the military ranks worked, but she knew this guy was high up there.
‘You the one who bought the sword back?’ he asked.
‘The rock?’ Thea asked. As much as she despised Ales’ disregard of the rules, he had a point about distancing themselves from this. The whole thing left a bad taste in her mouth.
‘Is that the story?’ the soldier asked.
‘It’s all I know about it,’ Thea said.
The soldier nodded, but the look on his face was cold and unflinching. Part of her remembered the old protocols of “sir” and “madam” and standing straight and doing what she was told, yet she wasn’t that person anymore, because someone had to take the fall for an act of sheer bad luck, and she decided she didn’t owe these people anything. She had to remind herself she wasn’t bitter about it.
‘Let’s walk, shall we?’ he asked her.
It wasn’t until they were out the back of the hospital, out into the garden that he spoke again. The garden itself was bare in the winter air, the trees only skeletons and the bushes around each one - breaking the garden into squares - were bare and dark and limp. Thea pulled a cigarette from her pocket and lit it, ignoring the soldier’s look of disdain as her tongue turned fuzzy and the smoke filled her lungs. She knew the army frowned on the habit, but it had been in their bloody tents she had picked up her first light anyway.
‘We’re going to need a list of everyone who travelled with you this morning,’ the soldier said. ‘Before that, I want to know what happened.’
Thea took another drag from her cigarette. ‘What is there to say? It’s a rock.’
‘You weren’t cleared to bring weapons back,’ the soldier said.
Thea flinched. ‘It was a rock. The guy wouldn’t let it go. He was borderline delirious. I figured he wasn’t hurting anyone as long as nobody tried to take it, so I left it. I didn’t know the sword was there until we had already pulled into the hospital. Now it’s your problem.’
‘Is that so?’ The soldier betrayed a smile.
‘What’s the big deal anyway?’ Thea asked.
He sighed. ‘It’s not the sword. The fungus that’s grown around it is… rather questionable.’
‘The kind that kills you or the kind that has you seeing giant bugs?’
‘We’re not sure,’ the soldier said. ‘Which is why we need the list of everyone you travelled with, so we can monitor for anything that might be off.’
‘I see.’ Thea didn’t know if she believed him or not. It was plausible enough, but she doubted higher-than-grunt ranks in the military cared about some poisonous spores when they were standing in a hospital. ‘So what’s the sword about?’
‘Some old relic the boys dug up.’ The soldier shrugged. ‘I have other stops to make. Seek me out in about an hour, Miss Sherrard. I want that list.’
Before Thea could answer, he turned on heels and marched back into the hospital. Thea watched him go, then noticed her cigarette had burned into a long line of ash. She sucked in the last of it, then flicked it into a nearby bin. She knew that sword was bad news, and part of her wished she had forced it out of that soldier’s hands, even if it meant grappling the man and dragging him by his ankles. The earful she’d get from doing so would be a nightmare, but she hated bringing weapons back even more. They always bought trouble, no matter how reliable their holder.
Biting back on her disdain, Thea pushed back into the hospital, mentally counting where all the other officers would be. The least she could do was warn them before other soldier’s came bursting in to throw weird questions at them. She imagined at this time, Sulvin would be asleep in the lounge, and if Ales wasn’t still sleeping, he’d be somewhere in the hospital. Jeremy usually went home to his family, and the others… the cafeteria.
Trying to weave around the nurses and doctors rushing around, Thea pushed down the halls and into the main part of the hospital, where the space opened up and the roof disappeared to reveal winding staircases and balconies that climbed the three stories of the front hall. The walls darkened into a sandy brown and age stained the iron bannisters around each level. The bustle was looser in here, the men and women wearing more casual suits and dresses, the older with bustles on their back as though they had stepped out of forty years ago. The receptionist behind the counter in the middle of the room was unbothered by the people around her, instead her focus was on some pulpy romance book Thea had seen around. In the far corner, in a set of worn and over-stuffed chairs, Ales sat with Elsbeth, chatting with the older woman.
Both paused as she approached, and Elsbeth fixed her with a warm smile.
‘How are things?’ she asked.
‘Hey, Beth,’ Thea said. ‘Can I talk to both of you for a second?’
Her smile faded, and Ales straightened in his chair. Slowly, Thea recounted the conversation with the soldier, and knew she didn’t have to point out how weird it was by the look on both their faces. After she was done, Ales fell back in his chair.
‘Huh,’ he said. ‘That’s just a big load of bullshit if I ever heard it.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Thea muttered.
‘I got up close and personal with that thing,’ Ales said. ‘The fungus was growing from the moisture in the rocks, not from the sword, and rust mould is a thing but I didn’t see any on the sword. Besides, we weren’t around it nearly enough for it to do damage.’
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Thea nodded in agreement, kicking herself for not even considering that. ‘We weren’t even in the same part,’ she added. ‘The front with me an Sulvin was blocked off, and you all hang off the outside.’
‘It’s the sword,’ Ales said. ‘What is it about that thing that’s got everyone worked up?’
Thea shrugged. ‘Don’t know, don’t wanna get involved.’
‘Are you gonna give our names up?’ Ales asked.
‘I kinda have to,’ Thea said. ‘Figured I’d at least warn all of you first.’
‘Yeah, alright,’ Ales said.
‘What’s this about a sword?’ Elsbeth said. ‘You guys bought a sword back with you?’ She turned to Ales. ‘You didn’t tell me that.’
Ales shrugged in that weird one-shoulder jerk he did. Most days, Thea couldn’t tell he was classed as handicapped — and he went for her throat whenever she bought it up — but the weird little motions he made to work around his bad shoulder always bought it rushing to the surface. He caught her staring and glared, and she turned away.
‘Nothing to it,’ Ales said. ‘One of the soldiers dragged a big rock in with him, and he wouldn’t let it go.’
‘Huh.’ Elsbeth’s face pinched, her expression turning distant. Ales shifted next to her, his eyebrows knotting together.
‘Do you know something about it, Beth?’ he asked.
‘About a rock with a sword in it?’ Elsbeth asked. ‘With a description like that, how could I? Excuse me.’
Before either of them could reply, she got to her feet and marched straight for the hall leading around to the more intensive part of the hospital. Thea rushed after her, and Ales made a noise of protest before following. Thea struggled to keep up with the woman’s long strides, mumbling apologies as Elsbeth barrelled through people without any break in her pace.
‘You can’t just barge in there,’ Thea pointed out.
‘Of course I can,’ Elsbeth said. ‘I’ve got two legs that work perfectly fine.’
‘I don’t think any of us should get involved more than we have been,’ Ales said, matching Thea’s pace and weaving through the crowded hall much easier than Thea herself. ‘This sounds messy and weird.’
‘You’re both welcome to wait here,’ Elsbeth said. ‘I didn’t say you had to come with me.’
‘What are you doing, Beth?’ Thea demanded.
‘I want to see the sword.’
Ales grabbed Thea’s arm, pulling her to a stop and leaving Elsbeth to storm into the wing where the soldier was being kept, disappearing behind one of the curtains that closed the area off to the rest of the hospital.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t,’ he said. ‘We don’t need to march in there and get caught up in the middle of this.’
‘I’m pretty sure we already are,’ Thea muttered. She pulled her arm free, but didn’t follow after Elsbeth. Her skin prickled with the same sense she had gotten out in the field before the huge airships came through. Usually, it was followed with explosions. She tried to shake it off, but the feeling got worse.
A yell sounded from beyond the curtain, followed by a scream and a crash, and Thea leapt into a sprint, charging for the curtain at the end of the hall, and ripping it open. The room was a mess, the wide space broken apart by a crooked cot, the sheets dishevelled and tangled on the floor. The soldier stood on the other cot, over his companion, the rock raised over the other man’s head. Elsbeth stood with two nurses, the two women trying to talk him down while Elsbeth stood and watched.
‘You!’ One of the nurses snapped at Ales, who jumped. ‘Help us restrain him! One of you get over here!’
Thea shoved Ales aside and ran up to meet the nurses, shooting an angry look at Elsbeth didn’t so much as flinch. The soldier standing on the bed recoiled, wobbling dangerously. His companion in the bed stared with wide eyes, paralysed in his fear.
‘Stay back!’ the standing soldier snapped. ‘It’s mine! It belongs to me!’
‘No-one is going to take your rock,’ Thea said.
‘It’s a sword!’ the soldier cried. ‘It’s my sword!’
‘Nobodies going to take your sword,’ Thea growled. ‘Come off the bed before you hurt yourself.’
‘You’re lying! You’re all lying! It’s mine!’
Thea glanced at the nurse, who had rolled up the sleeves of her dress, and she gave a small nod to Thea. Whatever she could say, the nurses probably already did, and the call for help was a call for force.
Movement brought her attention back to the scene as Ales eased around the other side of the bed, his footsteps light as he crept around the other side of the soldier. He nodded to the nurses, then in one quick motion, lashed out and grabbed the soldier’s leg. With a yell, the soldier leapt back and slipped from the bed, the rock slipping from his grip and falling towards the other soldier’s head. The other soldier yelled out, but Ales caught it before it could connect, his fingers digging in to the stone and his eyes wide. Thea caught the soldier with one of the nurses, her muscles straining as the man struggled to free from the grapple. The second nurse pulled out a hyper-dermic, but the man only found a new wave of energy and turned worm-like in Thea’s grip, slippery and wriggling and powerful against her grip. Thea swore and the nurse shifted her grip as the other readied the needle, but the soldier wasn’t focused on any of them.
‘You can’t have it!’ he screamed. ‘It’s mine! Give it back! Give it back!’
Ales slowly lowered the rock onto the floor and leapt back, holding his hands up at his chest in surrender. ‘There might have been some truth about those mushrooms,’ he said.
‘Those mushrooms aren’t psychedelic,’ the nurse with the needle said.
Thea exchanged a look with Ales, who took another large step back from the rock. He then pulled at the strap holding the other soldier’s leg down and offered his good shoulder to help the man out of the bed. The soldier took the offer and struggled upwards, and Thea almost lost her grip on the madman as a new wave of frenzy overtook him. The soldier leaned heavily on Ales, and Ales flinched in clear struggle, but held on anyway.
‘It wasn’t real,’ the soldier mumbled. ‘What we saw up there. It wasn’t possible.’
‘It was!’ the madman screamed. ‘You liar! It did happen!’
The soldier shook his head. ‘He tried to take the sword out. He tried to break the rock away, and… and this…’
The second nurse finally got the needle deep into the madman’s neck, and after one final squirm, he fell limp against Thea’s hold. The second nurse sighed. ‘Can you get him next-door?’ she asked Ales.
Ales nodded. He hoisted the soldier further onto his shoulder, but barely made it around the bed when the madman awoke with a start, straightening and throwing off his hold with a single twist of his shoulders. Thea swore and the nurse screamed. Backing up fast, Thea rushed for the case with the hyper-dermics, praying that the last one had been a dud, when a hand in dark gloves pressed onto her’s and stopped her.
Thea froze. She had never seen the man standing over her, but he was impossibly tall and average in an uncanny way. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, wearing simple round glasses, his mousey hair combed to one side, and his suit was dark and simple and well pressed.
‘Your skills are about to be needed elsewhere,’ he said.
‘What?’ Thea asked.
The man only gave a soft smile. ‘Duck.’
Thea threw herself down automatically, and her knees hit the ground as the rock under the bed exploded.
Screams echoed around her as something slammed into the roof and massive panels crashed down. Thea threw her hands over her head as more shouts and screams tore through the air around her, joined with tearing plaster, large flecks of stone and dust raining down and beating against her back. A high-pitched whine shrieked in the base of her ears, blocking out the world around her as a dull pain thundered through her skull.
Something struck the side of her head and she cried out, and everything else froze.
Slowly, her entire body shaking uncontrollably, she lifted her head and saw the remains of the room around her. One of the nurses huddled in the far corner, the discarded bed serving as a shield, while the other stood in the doorway, her face pale and her hands covering her mouth. Thea touched at the side of her head, then whimpered as her fingers came back bloody. Glancing around, she spotted the soldier, against the wall across from her and grimacing in pain, and Ales had pressed into the corner next to him. His face was pale, and his gaze was focused on the mess in the middle of the room.
Not only had the panels in the roof fallen, but a wooden support beam jutted out of the floor amongst the rubble. Thea could see the pieces of rock spread throughout the mess, as well as the sword, now free from its stony prison and lying on the floor. Next to it, trapped beneath the rubble and unmoving, was Elsbeth.
Thea cried out and stumbled towards the woman’s outstretched arms, picking up the sword and throwing it to one side, before gripping the panel that sat heavier than she first realised. Her nails cracked against her hold, but she couldn’t make it budge. She reached for the limp hand hanging out, but as much as she tried, she couldn’t find a pulse.
Elsbeth was dead.
Thea jerked back as though the woman’s skin burned, then doubled over as a bile taste hit the back of her throat, turning her vision fuzzy.
‘Thea?’ Ales voice was small. Thea wondered if he had ever seen a dead body before. He said her name again, though it shook hard enough to sound like a wounded animal. She tried to breathe through her nausea, her brain spinning too much to try and think of anything to say. The sight of the old woman’s body made something in her chest twist painfully, but she knew Ales saw her as a friend.
A heavy thud shook the ground beneath her, and Thea finally forced herself to look up at Ales, only to realise with a start he wasn’t there. Instead he lay on the floor, unmoving.
A new rush of adrenaline shoved her into motion as she struggled to her feet and stumbled over to Ales. She was aware of one of the nurses joining her, but the edges of her vision were dark and sound came from the other end of a long tunnel. Ales lay in a crumbled heap, blood collecting across his shirt with one of his suspenders snapped clean off. With numb, shaking hands, she rolled him over, noticing a large piece of the rock sticking out of his side.
Hands grabbed her shoulders and ripped her back, and Thea yanked herself away. She wasn’t going to lose Ales too. She had to help, she had to do something. This was all insane, and she couldn’t let Ales be a casualty of this bullshit. The hands tugged at her again, but she knew how this worked. They’d pull her aside and tell her it would be okay, and it always meant someone was dead. Ales wasn’t dead. She could still help. She could still do something.
Strong arms wrapped around her and hauled her from the body on the floor, and Thea cried out, but something sharp pricked into her arm and everything faded into nothing.