The next thing I knew, I was in bed again, with pillows at my back and flimsy bed sheets tangled up around my leather loafers.

But not Rale’s old bed—now Rayph’s. No.

A hospital bed.

Somewhere in between the fluorescent lights’ glow and sunset’s fading warmth filtering through the thinly curtained window, time started to find the meaning it had lost.

“Genneth?”

Turning, I saw Dr. Marteneiss rise from a chair by the slipper orchid atop the counter in the corner. A framed photo of Benundi sand dunes hung from the wall at her back.

How long had I been out?

Crawling back to the light after one of my panic attacks was arduous and exhausting. They always had been, and probably always would be.

Contrary to popular belief, the sum of all fears was not the atom bomb. The sum of all fears was a diagnostic manual for mental illness—and the more recent the edition, the better. In between the lines of mental illness lurked every dread, every nightmare, every creeping terror that had ever crawled out from the depths of the dark earth. It was a catalog of our brokenness and our fallenness. Its pages held the most frightful tales mankind could ever write. But it was a hidden horror, one you could only truly know once you’d lived through it. And once you had lived even a line of that text of nightmares, it stayed with you forever.

Heggy stepped forward and leaned over me. “Paging Dr. Howle?”

Things began to crystallize. My breathing slowly eased. I no longer felt like I was suffocating.

Blinking, I looked around. I could feel where trails of tears had dried on my cheeks.

If you needed an urgent reminder that your body had a mind of its own—and an agenda, to boot!—it would be tough to do better than by having a panic attack. They were something I had to deal with now and again. That was my lot in life.

My lucky bow-tie was my best (and really, only) defense against panic attacks. Dana had given it to me as a gift as part of my dress for the Caplin Dance in my junior year of high school. The theme was “Silly Style”, and the bow-tie fit it to a T. That year, I’d been asked out by Sadie Hawkins and was as terrified of what would happen if I told her no as I was of having a panic attack in the middle of the dance and flopping around on the floor of the gym like I was dying of strychnine poisoning. I wore the bow-tie to the dance, and, to my everlasting delight, nothing bad happened. It was a perfectly lovely evening, and the next day, over a burger and pebble cone at O’Malleigh’s, Dana demanded I tell her everything, though, I could only imagine how much more I would have been able to tell my sister if she’d lived through the twenty years it took for me to attend the high school reunion where I finally learned that Sadie had come out as a lesbian. Honestly, it explained a lot, and I really should have seen it coming. Just like I should have seen Dana’s decline coming.

That lunch on the day after the dance was the last truly happy memory I had of my sister. Past it was darkness. Darkness, and plenty of panic attacks. Prior to this one, the last one I’d—the last one that I remembered, anyway—the last bad one—was when Julette told me that her mother thought I was cheating on her with Ani. Then, there was the one before that, where—

—I groaned.

No, I do not want to think about that.

“Genneth!”

Tears glint on the mild crows’ feet at the corners of Heggy’s eyes. I couldn’t tell which was stronger: her concern, or her fear. Regardless, it did a heck of a good job at knocking me out of whatever funk I was in.

“Pah…” I stuttered and then coughed. “Panic attack.”

I inhaled, and then sputtered, and then tried again and actually got a good breath in.

Shaking my head, I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “How did I—?”

—Then, I remembered. It struck me like thunder.

Merritt. Invisible forces. Levitation. Peeling skin. Green flesh.

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

“What happened to Merritt?”

“She’s…” Heggy sighed. Her shoulders drooped. “I sedated her.”

“Heggy, did…” I whispered, “did I really see what I think I saw, Heggy? Did you see it?”

Our minds often played tricks on us. I’d dedicated a good portion of my life trying to clean up the cobwebs that misperception strung up between our thoughts. Now, though, I wanted nothing more than for one of those cobwebs to smack me in the face so that I would know I was “just seeing things”.

Dr. Marteneiss nodded grimly. The motion barely moved her curly golden tresses.

Fudge…

“This can’t be happening,” I muttered, shaking my head and scratching my arm. “This can’t be happening.”

For a moment, I looked out the window to watch sleek vehicles stream through the street down below. Up above, an aerostat with a CBN News logo thrummed noisily as it hovered by.

I turned back to Dr. Marteneiss. “Where is Merritt now?” I asked.

Heggy tut-tutted. “Genneth… you damn near scared us half to death. Stop and think about yourself for once.”

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With a soft “Hup!” I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, ready to hop up onto my feet. Instead, I got mired in a wave of dizziness. Right as I reached out to steady myself, Heggy put her hands on my shoulders and held me steady. Her grip was like an acupressure massage. I swear, I felt my trapezius twitch.

“Just hold on there, kiddo,” she said, “hold your horses. You’ve been out cold for hours. You’re about as shipshape as my grandad after one too many beers.”

I gulped and then yelled. “What?!”

Ow.

Far too loud. Far too loud.

Reflexively, I covered my ears, but it was far too late. My ears rang for a couple seconds before finally settling down.

Dr. Marteneiss stepped back.

“Cool it, Genneth.”

More than once, Heggy’s eyes glanced over to the door—a heavy modern thing of metal, and gray-painted wood—as if she expected someone was out in the hallway and peering through the little window in the door with their ear pressed against the wood.

“Before we do anything… Director Hobwell’s been waitin’ for you to come to.”

Dr. Marteneiss pulled out the bed-side console and swiveled it around until it was at my eye level. She rolled a nearby stool under herself and sat on it before dialing up Hobwell’s office on the console.

As usual, the Director’s secretary picked up the call. Her name was Marietta. Sometimes, people who ended up in positions of power and influence weren’t fully aware of the nature of their position and the responsibilities and privileges that came with it. Marietta ate those people for brunch. She kept her curly hair tied in a bun at the back of her head. Ruby-red lipstick covered her plump lips.

“You’ve reached the Director’s office, how may I help you?” she, chewing gum as she spoke.

“Marietta,” Heggy said, “this is Drs. Marteneiss and Howle, we—”

—The secretary’s eyes bulged. “He’s up? Dr. Howle’s awake?” She got up and walked out of sight.

Offscreen, I heard a door open and Marietta bark, “Harold, he’s up!”

A male voice barked back: “By the Lassedite—finally! What room?”

“C5.”

For an instant, the screen flickered black as the Director transferred the call to his office’s console.

“Hello, Dr. Howle.”

Director Harold Hobwell was nitpickery in human form. I could imagine him as a newborn, fresh out of the womb, raising his finger in contention and firmly criticizing his mother for a needlessly bumpy birth. He had the air of someone who was getting low on their prescription painkillers, and had a face not unlike the underbelly of a hedgehog: plain and pale in the middle, framed stiff, spiny hairs in a mix of overstressed shades of dark brown and gray, shaped in the form of sideburns and a mustache as bristly as a used toothbrush. His hair’s chaotic grayscale was forever at odds with glasses’ stark, rectangular lenses.

The Director rapped the edge of his stylus against his desk, which was made of rich, beautifully varnished oak.

“You had us worried there for a while,” he said, with a scowl.

It was his way of showing his concern.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Scared and confused, mostly.” Sighing, I let my shoulders relax. “Honestly, there’s an argument to be made that it would be better to leave me unconscious.” I smirked in self-deprecation.

The Director nodded. “Dr. Marteneiss took the liberty of informing me about Mrs. Elbock’s… condition.”

“Speakin’ of which,” Heggy chimed in, “what are we supposed to call it?”

“What do you mean, ‘what are we supposed to call it?’” I asked.

“When she…” Heggy exhaled, “when she made things move.”

Right. That.

I wracked my thoughts.

“Psychokinesis,” I said, at last, “that’s the word we’re looking for. It’s the supposed ability to move objects at a distance by thought, and thought alone.”

“That still leaves whatever was happening to the skin on her shoulder,” Heggy said.

Rubbing my eyes, I pinched the bridge of my nose with my fingers. “Angel take me, I don’t think I’m ready for this.”

“Welcome to my world,” Hobwell said. He clicked his tongue and tapped his stylus on his desk again. “Right now, for the time being, we’ve placed Merritt back on suicide watch as per your original order—sedated of course—and with strict instructions for the staff to avoid any unnecessary contact with her for the time being.”

“Heggy said you were waiting for me,” I asked him. “Why?”

The Director pursed his lips, making his mustache pucker. “Dr. Marteneiss informed me about the impossibly high concentration of cases of Nalfar’s Syndrome here at WeElMed, and your theory about a possible contagion.”

“Yes, and…?” I asked.

“And…” Hobwell said. He lowered his voice and leaned in close, “that puts you and Heggy in the vanishingly small group of people who are presently aware of this… outbreak.”

“What?” I said, trying not to yell.

“Disease Control Central issued a policy advisory just this morning. It’s been confirmed that a novel respiratory illness of unknown origin has begun to spread amongst the population. The thing came out of nowhere. You must have noticed it, this cough that’s been going around?”

“Respiratory illness?” I shook my head. “That’s… that’s not what this is about!” Shaking my head made me feel lightheaded. If I didn’t know better, I would have said my brain was rolling around inside my skull.

“DAISHU Health has given the go-ahead to inform the public about the outbreak starting tomorrow morning,” Hobwell said.

“Wait—what?” I stared at him, and then at Heggy. “Why wait?”

“Because we need time to properly lock down the airports. Otherwise, there’d be a rush, and there would be no way to guarantee border security.”

I sputtered in response, but Heggy cut me off with a glare.

My head trembled. It felt like the room was spinning.

“You’ll hear more on this come tomorrow, but we’re currently operating on the theory that the two are one and the same—the cough, and whatever is happening to Mrs. Elbock. You were just the first to notice it.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I whispered.

“Only because you know about the psychokinesis. That puts you in a very, very select group of people, Dr. Howle. If you hadn’t been, both us would almost certainly be dead before the evening was through. You know how DAISHU is.”

Hobwell’s gaze veered off to the side for a moment, even as he continued to speak.

“At the moment, the full scale of this outbreak is still crystallizing. It will take a couple more days before the long-term trajectory becomes apparent, but, so far, it looks like we’re headed for a pandemic-level event, assuming we haven’t reached that stage already. DAISHU has prepared health guidelines to be announced by the DCC aired with the news tonight. Certain details are going to be withheld from this announcement. For the time being, the situation needs to be kept on a strict need-to-know basis. I don’t need to tell you what happens if you blab.”

Queen’s Law. I couldn’t begin to imagine how most places would react if their people saw what we had seen. But, in this country? In Trenton?

Riots would be the least of our worries.

I shook my head. “There has to be something I can do, sir.”

“And there is, Genneth, there is. Take the night off, Genneth. Spend it with your family. Cool off. Take a breather. You’ll need it.” The Director’s eyes met Heggy’s. “You too, Dr. Marteneiss. I think we’re all going to need it for what’s to come, and who knows how long it might be before any of us get another chance. I’ll need the both of you here first thing in the morning, ready for anything.”

I stammered. “But, sir—”

“—Genneth, it’s either that, or you get sniper-rifled at a distance at some point in the next few days. And that’s not a threat, that’s a fact.”

Then the call ended and the screen cut to black.

I turned to Heggy. “What… what do we do?”

“We do what we can where we can.” Heggy said, nodding. “Trust the chain of command.”

By chance, I happened to catch sight of the time at the bottom right-corner of the screen.

I rose to my feet, and my stomach to my throat.

“Oh no. No, no no no no no.”

“Genneth?”

“Rayph’s play!”

I ran my hands through my hair. “I’m going to be late!”