A healthy, properly formed human hand had five fingers.

That was a fact.

The only objects that existed beyond the atmosphere were the Sun and the Moon.

That was also a fact.

I’d seen Aicken’s ghost, and Andalon was almost certainly more than just a figment of my imagination.

That…

Ugh…

“Denial” wasn’t really the right word for what I felt. “Apprehension” did a better job of it. It was less “this can’t be happening” and more “I acknowledge that this is happening to me, and it scares the Angelicals off of me, and—more than anything else—I desperately want to understand how this could be possible,” along with several spoonfuls of dread that made my sweat-slicked collar seem a size and a half too small for my neck.

Throughout the brief elevator ride up to the fifth floor of the old wing, I was in a daze, and not even the poor excuse for “muzak” playing softly from the speakers in the elevator could dislodge me from my funk. I caught the darker side of my inner child wondering whether or not I’d be able to do a repeat of what I did to move a car with my mind. Maybe I’d move a cup next, like Mrs. Elbock had. Immediately—horrified—I banished the thought, feeling almost physically repulsed.

One of my neck muscles spasmed.

Correction: fully physically repulsed.

I squeezed the side of my lucky bow-tie.

C’mon little buddy… work your magic.

Please?

I let my head hang low as I let out a soft whimper.

The upper floors of the old wing were, by far, the most richly furnished parts of the hospital. Yes, many of the original occupants of this Republic-era construction likely adhered to ridiculous doctrines such as phrenology, criminological physiognomy, or antacids as treatments for stomach ulcers, but, however wrong they may have been, they sure knew how to be wrong in style. The old wings’ upper floors housed the majority of WeElMed’s bureaucratic, financial, legal, and administrative offices, and the furnishings were downright palatial. The hallways here were richly filled with sheeny wood panel floors, and antique desks and tables with secret drawers and sliding panels and the patina-greened metal lamps and lacquered scents of an old university library. The rugs on the floor were replicas of the Dalusian patterned originals, several of which could be seen on display in glass cases along the walls, next to other artifacts of the hospital’s long, storied history: the reading glasses of Humbert Pentwell, the discoverer of the first medical antibiotic; the stuffed body of Lassie, the first living creature to be given a successful heart transplant surgery; the pump Dr. Sondheim invented to create the negative pressure needed to perform thoracic surgery for the first time, and so on, and so forth.

For visitors with more macabre inclinations, specimens from the hospital’s anatomical museum could be found on display up on the sixth floor. One of the most haunting items in the collection was the skeleton of George Crancy, who, in life, had suffered from fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, an extremely rare congenital disease caused by a genetic mutation which transformed the body’s repair mechanisms into bone manufacturers. Any tissue injury or inflammation Mr. Crancy suffered would be replaced with bone, effectively dooming him to slowly transform into a living statue.

As Heggy liked to say: Medicine ain’t for the faint of heart.

I finally arrived at the conference room. The sight of a pair of police officers standing guard on either side of the door did not help with my feelings of anxiety and apprehension, though, I suppose it could have been worse. At least they were wearing face-masks. Seeing them, I stopped walking, but then one of the officers held out his console. I obliged by waving my chipped hand over the sensor, doing it as quickly as I could to avoid being too close for too long. My ID information appeared on the screen with a beep. The two officers looked it over.

“Alright,” one of them said, “you can go in.”

Nodding at his partner, the two men stepped off to the sides, far enough away that I could get into the door without violating the new teen-foot social distancing rule.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“What was that for?” I asked.

“Just a run-of-the-mill clearance check. You’ve got full clearance, so there’s no problem.”

I stared at them for a moment.

“And if I didn’t?” I asked.

The other officer patted the gun holsters at his waist. “Tasers, or maybe bullets,” he said, straight-faced.

I almost took a deep breath, but decided against it. If the beefed-up security was any indication, a world of regulations and bureaucratic rigidity awaited me in the conference room beyond the door. It spoke to how broken I felt that I was honestly looking forward to that rigidity. Maybe that would put some sorely needed sense and structure back into my life.

I stepped inside.

The conference room looked more like a movie set than a real place: bright, silent and austere in its every design. It was a pocket of modern design stuffed into the fifth floor of the prestigious old heart of West Elpeck Medical. And—now that I had entered—it was fully occupied, too. Heggy, Director Hobwell, and several other imperious professionals sat around the long, elliptical table in the middle of the room in abstractions of interior design that kinda resembled chairs, if you squinted hard enough. Tablet-sized consoles were built into the table-top by each seat. The wall opposite the door was a giant console screen in its own right. A hushed hum emanated from the machinery within it, as well as the projectors and the like hidden beneath some automated moveable panels in the middle of the ceiling. Everyone wore transparent F-99 masks, which meant I could see the gravity written onto each and every face’s somber expressions.

The mechanical hum was the only sound in the room until Hobwell finally spoke up.

He turned to face me.

“Take your seat, Dr. Howle.”

I did, but not before spritzing it and the nearby part of the table with my sanitizer. The cushion was by far the most hospitable thing in the room.

One of the doctors looked at me, perplexed.

“What are you doing?”

“Probably being neurotic,” I mumbled, with a shake of my head.

Clearing his throat, Hobwell rose from his seat and spoke: “Now, we may begin.”

The Director ran a finger over one of the softly glowing buttons embedded in the table’s edge. The console in front of him telescoped up and out of the table to form a sort of podium.

“Greetings, all,” Hobwell began. “I’m sure most of you have heard the news by now, one way or another, so… let’s just cut to the chase. Here’s what we know so far.”

He tapped the podium. A map of the world appeared on the wall.

“Several days ago, seemingly everywhere—all at once—medical facilities across the world began reporting the appearance of a novel infectious disease of unknown origin. To get a sense of the scale of this thing, take a gander at this map.”

The map zoomed in to a high-atmosphere view of Trenton.

“The red spots indicate major urban areas with confirmed cases of the disease.”

Red dots popped up all over the map. Elpeck, Seasweep, Angel’s Rest, Allanenn—and those were just some of the Trentonian Metropolitan areas involved.

“Beast’s Teeth,” someone muttered, “it really is everywhere.”

Hobwell snorted. “Oh, you poor sweet child…” He tapped the console to zoom out to a view of the globe.

Red spots broke out all across the world. Chaba, New Bazkatla, Vulkop, Noyoko, Tinesh…

“Holy shit,” someone whispered.

“Exactly,” Hobwell said, sternly. “We’re in for a real bumpy ride. Having consulted with upper management, the decision was made to gather a select group of trusted personnel to coördinate WeElMed’s response to this disease and the pandemic that is emerging around us, even as we speak. Most of the protocols for this contingency were put in place long ago, but we need capable personnel such as yourself to adapt, improvise, and flesh out our response to the pandemic as more information about the disease becomes known.”

“What do we know about it?” I asked.

“The Cartin Center claims to have identified the organism responsible for this disease as a previously unknown type of pathogenic fungus,” Hobwell explained. “In lieu of a species name, the current official name for it is NFP-20, and we’re using that designation to refer to the disease it causes as well—though, as our friends in Noyoko have told us, the talent at DAISHU’s media divisions have already given it a common name: midorinoshi.”

“The Green Death.”

The words came from a tall, lean laboratorious looking Munine man seated opposite from me. His short, raven-black hair was a sharp as his brow was soft. He had impeccable poise and features that, despite their softness, bore an almost aquiline intensity. If you told me could set people on fire just by glaring at them, I would have believed it. His Trentonian was flawless. Trentonian was my one and only tongue, and he handled it more elegantly than I probably ever could. I swear, his white doctor’s coat was a shade brighter than everyone else’s—Hobwell’s gray slacks, brown blazer, and blue tie notwithstanding. The white matched nicely with his genteel necktie’ diagonal stripes of black and gold.

“Who are you?” someone asked.

Director Hobwell looked over the rest of the room. “I was planning on introducing him later on, but I suppose it was inevitable that that, too, was going to get fucked up.” He sighed. “Everyone, this is Dr. Suisei Horosha. He’s an infectious disease specialist currently on loan to us from Noyoko General.”

“What’s the occasion?” Heggy asked.

“My superiors say we could use his help,” Hobwell replied. “The way they tell it, he’s the best of the best, and I’m inclined to believe them.”

Dr. Horosha raised his hand dismissively. “Please” he said, shaking his head, “there is no need for flattery.”

“Fine by me,” Hobwell said, with a snort. He tapped the console on the podium.

The image on the screen changed to a close-up shot of a patient’s forearm, displaying a truly repulsive wound.

I gasped in horror.