James Anthem, a Professor at Galt Alese, waits for the students of MZ-101: Fundamentals of Medical Zoology to enter.
The decontamination antechamber admits five of the sophomores into the lecture hall, the tiers of seats mostly vacant. The students carry with them their vesicles, tanks connected by tubes to respirators they’ve placed over their mouths. They take a puff of the mixture inside their vesicle, regarding the organic particles floating through the air like dust motes. While they do, Anthem doesn’t make it obvious he’s doing a headcount and arrives at thirty—ten less than last week.
“Apologies,” James Anthem tells the class, “but this medical zoology campus was intentionally built outside Kaskit’s enclosure.” He gages the clumsy barely-adults, one puffing from his vesicle for the tenth time. “Spare your gas! You only need a few inhalations this whole lecture!”
Anthem ascends the lecture hall’s stage and digs his boots into a substrate of soil encased in a dish up to his ankles, ten feet in diameter. He takes a jar from a table and shakes it, rattling inside what appear to be pustules the size of eyeballs. “This is a sample I gathered outside Kaskit’s enclosure,” he says, “and today will be your most gruesome lesson at Galt Alese.”
The students flinch, a wave of repulsion and straight backs. Pencils scrawling seconds earlier are now idle on notepads or clattering to the floor. Anthem wags the jars, triggering the pustules inside to swell, bulge, and, almost all simultaneously, pop. Pink and red fluids splatter against the insides of the jar, leaving behind a bloody mist. It dissipates to reveal worm-like organisms sprouting from the pustules, sporting gaping mouths with concentric rows of teeth. They grip the sides of the glass, crawling up to the lid, trying to chew their way to freedom.
Anthem clears his throat. “Aside from the worms in this jar is the raw ground’s ‘gift’ to us—the strands.” He sets the jar down in the soil. “The strands are parasitic entities that live inside the raw ground and escape from it into the air. Once airborne, the strands search for hosts—other organisms, and anchor in their cells, touching one or several of the organelles inside. By doing so, the strands rewrite our DNA and change our physical characteristics—enhancing eyesight, strength, stamina, metabolism, or very much lowering each of these traits, and so many more. We usually name the strands after animals with those characteristics—Ape for aggression, Ox for strength, etc. If no such animal exists, we name the strands after a concept.”
Anthem approaches the edge of the stage, taking in the curiosity of the eyes arrayed before him. “Ox strands float around the air inside this jar, but all strands have the sole purpose of finding a host—eventually.” He gestures to the jar with his foot. “The worms here host the Ox strand, but a strand is never content with just one host.” He looks among the crowd of concerned faces as if asking for volunteers. “Well?”
Their gazes fix, and their silence tells everything. Anthem holds his students in a stranglehold.
The worms continue to pound the sides of the jar until it rocks, tips over, and settles in the soil. While this happens, Anthem takes another jar from a table on the lecture hall’s stage. Imprisoned inside are muted teal-colored pustules, they too ready to burst. He swipes the Ox jar from the substrate and holds it against the new one. “The Corvidae strand increases spatial memory and awareness.”
The worms in the Ox jar laze like kelp, watching the pustules in the Corvidae jar intently. As if on a cue to introduce themselves, the Corvidae-infused worms sprout from the pustules, turning their ends to the Ox-infused worms in the other jar.
“Notice how the worms in both jars are curious of each other but otherwise docile. This is because the Ox and Corvidae strands are a harmonious combination.” He places both jars on a table, the worms turning their interest from each other to the students. “This is akin to how strands behave in the cell of their hosts.”
Anthem waits for the students to observe the friendly worms.
“Any living organism could be a host,” he continues, “but some strands are very particular. These would consider us very fruitful candidates, and every day you breathe the air outside Kaskit, many strands plant themselves inside you.” He paces the lecture hall’s stage. “As you speak, tens of strands live within us.” He shakes the jars, and still, the two worms do not snap at each other or try to escape. “The genetic makeup, the organ diversity, and the amount of space in a human being’s body is generally sufficient for hundreds of strands to coexist, thankfully.” He moves to the substrate and sets the Ox and Corvidae jars across from each other in the soil. “This, however, is not true in all cases.”
Enraptured, the students lean forward, never taking their eyes off the demonstration, even to record notes.
A table in a corner of the stage holds a third jar. Anthem raises it to the audience, showing them the solitary pustule occupying most of the jar’s bottom. It pulses a sickly orange.
As Anthem places the third jar in the substrate, the Ox and Corvidae take notice. They turn their focus from each other to the new arrival, pressing themselves against the glass.
“This is a concentrated sample of the Ape strand,” Anthem says, pointing with his foot toward the third jar. “Malignment occurs when as few as two strands disagree with their direction to shape their hosts. Right now, these three samples are debating which direction to take me. This discourse never really stops.” With his foot, he pushes the third jar between the others. “All strands involved wrest for control, simultaneously pulling the host’s physiology and mental systems in different directions.” All three worms pound their prison walls, the Ox and Corvidae like predatory birds against the Ape.
Hands shoot up. Less than the week before. Always less. Anthem waves them away, walks to a curtained corner at the side of the stage, and wheels out a glass box from it. He moves it next to the substrate.
“Muttens!” a girl cries out. “Get him away from there!”
Evi Haricot is her name, an incubator-to-be, and that she’s even here is perplexing. Every day she sits in this classroom is another day she dangles her privilege over the men inside.
Yet, woman or not, she is still a student, and Anthem ignores her protests. He turns the glass box to its long side and shows the cat named Muttens. Orange with splotches of white, it stands with sprung legs, tail stiff. “I’ve injected Muttens, our fourth contender in the arena, with the Peacock strand and kept him in his own personal atmosphere for the last week. The Peacock strand causes Muttens to secrete pheromones, which signal sympathy directly to your limbic system.” Anthem dips his head to the jars. “As you can see, the Peacock is a very disagreeable strand, which is why it leads to malignment in most organisms.”
The three jars rock, the Ox falls over, and then the Ape right after. The worms shove their bodies against their prisons, straight in Muttens’ direction.
“Professor!” Evi barks. “Let him go!”
The little brat’s not wrong. “As you wish.” With the class’s attention trained on him, Anthem opens the cage.
Muttens steps out, sniffs at Anthem’s feet, then strides to the edge of the substrate. The creature watches the jars shaking, the worms enraging. Their glass faces crack. Then, they break.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The worms shoot along the soil, crawling over the lip of the substrate toward Muttens. The Ape worms reach first, jumping onto the cat’s right paw. Shortly after, the Ox and Corvidae worms break free and launch onto the creature’s skin. Muttens only has time to regard the three stains on its skin as if they’re landed insects. The worms, now glued to the cat’s skin, burrow in. Muttens convulses, screeches, writhes, and rolls onto its back. It swipes through the air, its mouth wrenching open as if forced by invisible hands.
“Stop! Please!” Evi Haricot is the most annoying sound in the world.
Anthem speaks over her. “Malignment can be as slow as days or fast as seconds.” Muttens gurgles. “Sit down!”
The girl stands on her chair and gestures wildly. “End this now! He’s just a cat, for Hells sake!”
By now, the strands from all three worms are poring into the cat’s cells. As this happens, its skin pales to dull green, and its white spots darken to coal. Its fur droops as the flesh beneath changes consistency.
Evi shrieks as loud as the cat. “Professor!”
Chairs shift as students turn away. Anthem doesn’t notice the figure peering through the lecture hall’s door. “Once malignment begins, it cannot be stopped! Nor can it be reversed in any way! There is-”
Evi runs onto the stage and bolts towards the shaking form of Muttens, but Anthem is quicker. He reaches out for her wrist and feels a moment of perversion when he grabs it. She is a foot shorter than Anthem and at least ten years younger. Yet, with the bit of resistance she can muster, she wiggles free and grabs the wailing cat. She raises it above her head, the two locking gazes.
What stares back at Evi, however, is not Muttens. Not anymore. Its fur has fallen off, leaving behind a thin membrane white as bone, with splotches of a deep black. Blood vessels have risen to rivers across the thing’s body, sinews of muscle pulsing underneath.
“Malignment is not pretty!” Anthem yells. “But it is one of the most interesting branches of study within medical zoology.”
The class does not hear him above the cat’s guttural groans. The maligned’s eyes are dark and black, fixed on Evi with a primal hunger tempered in the deepest pocket of the Hells. It opens its mouth, and from it sprout the worms that lived in the jars, their ends now covered in fur and tiny paws.
“It can’t hurt you!” Anthem cries. He should have thought of this before. Let the girl handle the subjects! Maybe then she will stop interrupting his lectures.
Evi doesn’t listen. She screams, drops the maligned, runs, trips, and almost falls off the stage. Muttens lets her go and trains its eyes on Anthem, the closest human life form. Its eyes are not entirely closed, and the worms jutting from its mouth still constrict, poised to strike. The Decree protects Evi Haricot, but Anthem has no security.
He produces a perfume bottle from his pocket, one every medical zoologist is trained to use but never hopes to. He sprays a few puffs in the air in front of him. The creature gets a whiff and sags but does not stop tiptoeing over.
Not once does Anthem hesitate. He hurls the perfume bottle at the cat, slamming it against its head and shattering it. Neutralizing agents splash before settling into a mist, washing over the cat. Then, like parchment thrown into the fire, holes form on the creature’s flesh. It shakes and collapses, continuing to erode until it is nothing more than a mass of black ash.
When the class has finally settled, when Evi has adopted some semblance of calm, Professor James Anthem claps his hands together. “Malignment is horrifying, and there is much randomness in the transformations, but otherwise, it is one of the greatest mysteries of our time.” He pulls Evi Haricot up by her arm. “Any questions?”
The remaining students look at each other, at the room’s clock overseeing the debacle, and outside to the campus grounds—anywhere except at Evi. The girl is as pale as the Lone Soldier when she stumbles to her seat.
“I have one,” says a redheaded boy amid a sea of mostly empty seats. “Will we be here tomorrow?”
The boy knows the sea of empty seats grows every day. Ten more of you yesterday and twice as many last week. “As I said yesterday,” Anthem begins, “that depends on your standings. But do not fret. You are my best and brightest pupils. You’ve made it this far, haven’t you?”
These words hang while the sophomore mix of curious souls regard each other, their books, and their uncertain futures. Their fears are jarred, ready to uncork. Anthem can tell they’ve never stopped thinking about their impending fate. He hasn’t either.
The students file out when the lecture adjourns, leaving Anthem to sprinkle extra neutralizer into the substrate to eradicate all the strands and maligned. He sweeps up the ash on the stage’s floor that was once Muttens, thinking of how he’ll procure the next cat.
“They can’t take us all,” says one student as he leaves.
“Has to be some of us left to learn,” says another. “Right?”
These are the exact words uttered yesterday by boys now far away, by boys probably dead.
Alone, Anthem slumps back, letting uncertainty lower him onto the floor of the lecture hall’s stage. He imagines the soft patter of the footsteps outside and does not perceive the heavier ones. He rises as three men enter the lecture hall through the decontamination chamber. Two of them are campus security halberdiers, fully armored. A third man walks between them, and all three stop beneath the lecture hall’s stage.
“Professor Anthem?” The third man asks. “Is this air going to kill me?” It’s sarcasm, but there’s an edge to it.
Anthem sighs upon recognizing the voice. “If it’s safe for the sophomores, it’s safe for you.”
Recruiter Kordan walks up the stage, taking a puff of his vesicle anyway and stopping at the sight of the substrate and the ash that was once Muttens. “Is this your doing?”
“The neutralizer’s doing.” Anthem keeps his back straight. “The subject got a little too close to one of my students.” She got too close to it, more like.
The recruiter must have seen the girl outside. “She’s on a secondment from the Second Signature herself. Do you want me to inform the Second Signature of the trauma her pupil has experienced?”
“I am sure the Second Signature’s pupils could use more exposure to a maligned environment. Maybe then they’d appreciate their privilege.”
Kordan is tall and fits into his green military uniform like he was born in it. He looks around the room, perhaps to find a blunt instrument to beat Anthem’s head with. “This doesn’t look like a maligned environment.”
“The entire world outside the Second Signature’s enclosure is a maligned environment, and even places inside.” Anthem shakes his head. “Whatever strands you breathe now may one day kill you. That’s the reality. The girl may be a little shaken, but she is fine. Better to expose her early to the things, I say.”
“Tell the Second Signature that.”
“I would if she manifested herself in front of me. Do you want to get her?”
Kordan shakes his head. “It’s still disrespectful.”
“Interrupting my lesson is more…” Anthem wants to continue the tirade, but the recruiter’s hard stare tells him to stand down. He rises and lets loose an exasperated sigh. “How may I be of assistance, oh great one?”
Kordan smirks as if prepared to rebuke any quip. Tucked inside the recruiter’s armpit is a folio, torn at one edge and creased along its center. Anthem will never forget what it contains. “Tomorrow’s numbers,” says Kordan, and hands it over.
Half of Anthem’s mind blanks as he tears open the folio and reads the report inside. He pauses, unsure if the numbers are correct. “This is all of them.”
“It is. The situation in the Hyrnlak Archipelago is worsening, and I’m afraid we need every able-bodied man we can muster, regardless of their strandular composition. You’ve been reading the headlines, I’m sure.”
Anthem hasn’t read them, only hearing of the situation through others, and even then, he makes sure not to pay attention. Ignorance is bliss, someone once said, and all you can hope to manage is what’s in front of you. How useless that sentiment is now.
“They’re good students,” Anthem says. “They’ve all made the Dean’s List. The transcripts are on my desk. Let me get them.” He turns to go.
Kordan holds up a hand. “I’ve received them, Professor.” His other hand rests on the sheath of some bladed weapon. “The decision’s been made.” Without entertaining anything else, he turns to the decontamination chamber. “Oh, and read the entire document clearly, Professor. I… am sorry.” He leaves with the two campus guards in tow.
Sorry for what?
There is a name at the end of the list; one Anthem had missed on his first scan. He reads it over in his mind, then out loud, and over again until he is sure this is not some lucid nightmare nor a strand-induced hallucination. When he’s sure he is conscious, he slumps to the floor next to the substrate, flecks of ash dotting it that had once been maligned. He’ll be seeing more of them soon.
Professor of Medical Zoology at Galt Alese. Chapter House XIV-V of Kaskit. JAMES ANTHEM.
The elder of the Twin Pales rises, pulling its sister along and bathing the empty lecture hall in orange light. Anthem isn’t sure how long he lies there, staring at the report that is his death sentence. The hallway outside is barren, and just days before, he had walked Galt Alese’s passage with his head down to silence the chit-chatter of the passing students, their constant bickering, and the clomping footsteps of campus security.
Now, James Anthem welcomes any sound at all.