Brand insisted on examining me. Again.

“Did you miss something during round one?” I asked.

“It’s more that you weren’t moving much,” he said, kneeling beside me. “Now, though, you are, and that gives me a chance to see your physiology in action!”

With all the help he’d given me, it wasn’t like I could say no.

If you’d walked into the room and saw the fascination in his eyes as he watched me, you wouldn’t have known there were zombies outside the building. He was looking at me like I was the Angel Himself. Could he have been more tactful about it? Sure. But he wasn’t, and that was just who Brand was. He treated everyone like he’d known them since preschool. It was another one of his personality features that put some people off, but, as his friend, I was more than willing to forgive his indiscretions.

Still, even I had my limits.

“Could you stop… petting it?” I said, glancing back at him.

Dr. Nowston complied, taking his hands off my tail, though not unreluctantly.

I was “sitting” on the ground, by which I mean I’d propped up my upper by using my legs like kick-stands for a bicycle. It worked well enough, as long as I didn’t move, though I left little crumbled bits of thigh and femur on the vinyl as my weight dug my legs into floor. Meanwhile, my tail stretched out behind me. I was trying my best to keep it still, in order to make my intentional movements clear when I did them. Brand had been asking me to curl it left and right, and the like. Even so, as I waited, it twitched occasionally, like a restless leg.

Brand glanced at the information he’d been typing into his PortaCon’s Notes app.

“Genneth,” he said, “this isn’t human tissue.”

“I noticed.”

“But you felt it,” he replied. “And it’s acting with your body’s homeostasis mechanisms, rather than against them. It’s like those mind-controlling protists in ants, directing you to feel and do things you otherwise wouldn’t do.”

“Tochukaso?” I asked.

“No,” Brand, waving his hand dismissively, “not the video game fungus. I’m talking about a different mind-controlling parasite. It’s not a fungus, it’s a trematode—the lancet liver fluke.”

“There’s more than one zombie ant parasite?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” he replied. “Biochemical alteration of host behavior is a surprisingly popular evolutionary niche among endoparasites of arthropods. There’s this one nematomorphic worm that infects grasshoppers, making them…” he shook his head, “—actually, no, let me stay on topic.” He looked at me. “What was the topic again?”

“Ant-controlling liver flukes.”

“Ah, yes.” Brand nodded, eyes widening. “So… as I was saying… this liver fluke.”

I nodded. “The liver fluke.”

“When it comes to parasites, not all hosts are created equal. Some parasites’ life cycles require them to move through several different hosts. The primary host is the one they end up in the end; it’s where the parasite reproduces. The secondary hosts are those it infects along the way. Though cattle are the lancet liver fluke’s primary host, their life-cycle requires them to go through ants, first—and with a pit stop inside of a snail, before that.”

“It’s the circle of life…” I muttered.

Brand pointed at me. “Exactly. The liver flukes’ eggs get released into the cows’ manure, and then a snail comes along and eats an infected cow pie. After maturing a bit inside the snail, the snails excrete the flukes in little balls of slime, inside which the parasites have encysted themselves. Ants get infected by eating the slime balls.”

“How does it get back to the cow?” I asked.

“The parasites alter the ant’s brain to make the ant climb up a tall blade of grass and clamp onto it with its mandibles. Every night, from dusk ‘till dawn, the parasite makes the ant hang from the top of a tall blade of grass, waiting for a cow to munch on it and thereby bring the cycle to a close.”

“The night?” I asked. “Why not during the day?”

“They actually aim to get eaten in the morning, but they can’t stay out all day in the Sun because the heat would make the ant desiccate.”

“Okay, but… what does this have to do with me?” I asked. “Are you saying I’m an ant?” I felt disgusted and flustered, and yet also somehow… flattered? “How is this helpful?” I asked. “Or relevant?”

“NFP-20 is like the liver fluke. It changes both its victims and their behavior. But you can feel your parasite.”

To prove his point, he pinched my tail.

“Stop that!” I winced. (It wasn’t that it hurt, it just felt really freaking weird.)

The sensation had hardly faded when I had an epiphany. I shuddered.

“The connection goes both ways…” I muttered.

I didn’t want to believe it.

The Reflex Arc. It was Neurology 101. Afferent and Efferent. When touch receptors detect stimuli—say, Brand’s hand pinching me—the neurons hooked up to the receptors send afferent signals to the brain. There, the information is processed, and efferent signals—the reply—are sent to the appropriate part of the body to mete out the intended response—in this case, me wincing and asking Brand to stop. Any theory of consciousness worth its salt needed to take these connections into account. It had to explain the mysterious magic that lurked in between biochemical reality and the stuff that thoughts are made of.

“So, my mind is integrated with the fungus?” I said, thinking aloud.

“Yes,” Brand replied.

Well that was definitely a sobering revelation.

Wait.

“Brand, you’re wrong.” I pulled my tail around me. “I’m not the ant,” I said, “I’m the parasite.” My words ended in a whimper and a gulp. “Am I even myself anymore? Am I dead?”

Brand nodded with gusto. “Brilliant!” He dashed out more notes on his console, mashing his thumbs onto its touchscreen keyboard. “We’ll absolutely have to look into that.”

I glared at him. “Brand…”

His posture stiffened. “Oh. You, uh… you meant it… rhetorically.” He grimaced. “Does it help if I remind you we’re still completely in the dark about the true nature of consciousness? It’s one of the world-riddles, you know.”

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“World-riddles?”

“Yep,” he replied. He listed them: “The ultimate nature of matter and force; the origin of movement; the origin of life; the semblance of teleology in nature; the origin of subjective perception—which is part of consciousness; the origins of language and intelligent thought—also part of consciousness; and, of course, the existence of free will.”

“I’m well aware of the philosophical and neurophysiological quandaries that plague theories of consciousness, Dr. Nowston. I’ll have you know I’ve written a couple papers on the subject.”

It wasn’t often that I got to tout my research. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to be publishing anything else anytime soon.

I stared at my claws.

“You’re really wrapped up in this, aren’t you?” Brand said.

I nodded. “Everything comes back to Andalon. I feel like I’m being tested. I want to be able to believe her, because—darn it!—I need something to be able to believe in, now more than ever.”

“We can believe in one another,” he said. “Why not that? I mean, we’re all friends now. It’s official.”

Dr. Nowston wriggled an eyebrow in wry amusement.

There was a long pause.

“For starters, because there’s more than one Angel?” I said. “Also, to get away from theology for a moment, I’m terrified that it won’t cut it to just believe in other people. What if it’s not good enough? Really, what’s the point of believing at all if belief can’t save us?” I sighed. “Andalon has upended everything I thought I knew. All the old debates are percolating to the surface, and the only consistent lesson I can take away from it all is that I want to be able to help people—as does Andalon.”

“Really?” Brand asked.

“Yes.” I nodded. “I’ll swear by it. You know me, I’m good at catching liars. And she isn’t one of them.”

“I’ve been thinking about Andalon, myself,” Brand said.

“And what have you been thinking?” I asked.

“Personally,” he replied, “I think the Night is some kind of massive structure, built by somebody far wiser or stronger than us—hopefully both—so, I haven’t got much to say about the whole ‘the prophecies are fulfilled’ bit, but… I think Andalon is a parasite on the fungus. I think she’s a hyperparasite: a parasite’s parasite.”

“Dr. Skorbinka said the same thing,” I said.

“How? Did you tell him?”

I tilted my head side to side. “Yes and no. I told him I had reason to believe the fungus was supernatural—”

“—That much is obvious,” Brand said.

I nodded. “Again, Dr. Skorbinka said the same thing. I also told him I had reason to believe that Type Two—i.e., Andalon—was at war with the disease we know as the Green Death. I didn’t explain how I knew it, but I lucked out; Mistelann didn’t pursue the issue further.”

Brand smiled faintly. “Great minds think alike, I guess.”

“But, please,” I said, “continue.”

“So, you might say I think Andalon is a ghost in the fungus. Not like the ghosts of the dead, but… not unlike it, either.”

“How so?” I asked.

“She manipulates it,” he said. “I think that would go a long way to resolving your existential dilemma. Andalon—well, Ampersandalon—is acting as an intermediary between your consciousness and the fungal tissue of your wyrm-body. Just like the liver flukes alter the ant’s behavior, Andalon is altering the fungus’ behavior. And it’s not just the fungus in those of the infected who turn into wyrms.” He pointed at me. “Your necromancy is another example.” He scratched the top of his hazmat suit’s headpiece. “I guess you could say you’re one of the lucky ones.”

I shook my head. “There’s nothing ‘lucky’ about this, Brand.”

“You could be dead, and possibly—maybe even certainly—uploaded into a wyrm,” he replied. “And don’t even get me started about the philosophical problem about whether or not an uploaded copy of a person’s consciousness is still the same person, or even contiguous with the mind they had back in their body. And that’s only if you assume the process underlying the spirit transference actually transfers our cognition. It might just be a really convincing replica.”

Dr. Nowston furrowed his brow in my general direction. “Aren’t you supposed to be the expert in this sort of thing?” he asked. “Haven’t you already considered these questions?”

I nodded. “I have, though… I’d prefer to hold that off until this is all over.” I gazed down at my transfigured body. My neck was long enough that I could turn my head around to give myself a full view of my body spooled out around and behind me. “This wyrm transformation has more than satisfied my daily recommended dose of existential crisis.”

Brand snorted. “That’s fair. You do what you gotta do to keep going, otherwise you’re lost.”

“But…” I was really hoping I could change the subject. “Can your hyperparasite theory explain why none of the other transformees can interact with Andalon the way I can?”

Brand scratched at the part of his helmet beneath his chin.

“Maybe you’re more sensitive to it, or are somehow more compatible?”

“That’s not a good enough answer!” I yelled, only to sigh and then immediately apologize for my outburst.

“I dunno man,” Brand replied. “I’m just spitballing here. This is crazy stuff. At this point all I can say is that believing in a God—or an Andalon—is no crazier than believing a benevolent hyperparasite is trying to fight back against a fungus from a world beyond our own.”

My console buzzed from where Brand had placed it on a nearby table.

Without thinking, I used my power to whisk my console through the air. I aimed it at one of my cushions, which caught it and held it aloft.

“You’re getting pretty good at that,” Brand said.

Raising my arm, I scanned the cufflink of my sleeve along the scanner and unlocked it.

“Fudge,” I muttered. “My shift is going to start soon.”

Brand stared at me like I was a madman. “You’re still following a schedule?”

“Aren’t you?” I asked.

He shook his head. “NFP-20 has put most of the logistics staff in the grave, along with everyone else.”

A moment passed in silence.

“You know,” Brand whispered, “this is,” his voice broke, “this is the end of the world.” He forced out a rough laugh. It was a scarred, haggard sound.

The sound of a broken soul.

He slowly shook his head side to side. “Fungus and wyrms. What a way to go…”

“Brand…?”

My friend shrugged as he forced himself to smirk. He cleared the tear-slime from his throat.

He sniffled “Sorry about that. It’s just…” he sighed. “It’s tough, Genneth. It’s real tough.”

I looked him in the eyes. “You’re stronger than you know,” I told him.

“That…”

At first, I thought he was shivering but then I realized he was nodding.

“Genneth…” he met my gaze. “That means more to me than you could possibly know…”

His voice trailed off. I could almost feel his thoughts wandering over me, but then Brand caught himself and cleared his throat once more.

“Now, how about we get you suited up?” he said, getting up into a crouch.

I furrowed my brow. “Aren’t you worried I’ll just screw up again like before?” I asked.

“A little, yeah,” he said, “but… I’m still going to help you. ‘Cause that’s what friends do.”

He smiled gently.

And we got to work.

It took a long time to get me situated. Stuffing a wyrm-shaped person into a human-shaped hazmat suit wasn’t the easiest of feats, after all.

Brand did most of the work. It would’ve been a spectacular failure had he not been there to help me dress myself. My tail’s newfound bulk had made my previous arrangements obsolete. It took some experimentation—Dr. Nowston’s favorite pastime—before we found a solution.

I ended up having to fold my tail against my back, wrap it once around my torso, and then press the rest into the empty oxygen tank pocket in the back of the suit. I also had to scrunch up my neck just to be able to fit my head inside the helmet. In the middle of this, just as we were about to stuff my vestigial legs into the hazmat suit’s legs, Brand doubled back to the printer to whip up a pair of prosthetic lower extremities to stick at the ends of my thigh-stubs. I used my powers to slip my loafers onto the plastic feet. The end result left me feeling like a tricycle standing on tiptoes (tipwheels?), and looking like I was wearing one of those old-fashioned diving suits. I was ponderous, bloated, stout, lumpy as heck, and imposingly tall.

All I was missing was the diving bell.

Brand also fetched six synthetic corks and some plastic spherules. The corks were for my claw tips, while the spherules got poured into the hazmat suit’s gloves, to fill in for the fingers I no longer had.

By this point, people were going to start asking questions about where I was, but Brand refused to let me go until I could prove to him that I could, quote, “Walk without looking like computer animation gone wrong.” Ultimately, I managed to create a passable simulacrum of a human gait, using the fulcrum point of my underbelly—currently located in my hazmat suit’s waist—to make my body waddle forward. This made my legs flex and move. Closed psychokinetic weaves helped smooth the process. By the end, through my wyrmsight, I had made a girdle and a pair of boots from luminous, blue-gold filaments, wrapped around my torso and lower legs.

Brand told me my movements looked sort of rag-doll-y. However, as long as you weren’t staring at me for too long, you probably wouldn’t notice it. I was hedging my bets that everyone else was at least half as tired as I was.

Finally, the time came. I had to go.

Standing in the doorway to his lab, I locked eyes with Brand. I felt like I was stepping out of Divulgence closet at church. But I wasn’t at peace. I still worried, deep down, that I was tainted; that I was cursed by my inability to embrace the God that I couldn’t bring myself to believe in.

But, at least, I didn’t feel alone.

Even Andalon had made a new friend.

“Brand…” I started to say, but I was unable to find the words.

He nodded.

As I turned away and hobbled out the door, a terrible din shot out behind me. Metal crashed. Wheels rolled across the floor.

I spun around to find Dr. Brand Nowston collapsed onto the floor of his laboratory, twitching uncontrollably amidst spilled lab equipment, with his limbs splayed out beside him. Saliva frothed from his mouth, whipping up bubbles that pressed against his hazmat suit’s visor as his eyelids flickered.