I turned down the hall, opposite Ani’s direction, muddling among my thoughts. As much as I enjoyed Dr. Lokanok’s company and the light that she brought to my days, a dark cloud forever gloomed our interactions.

Part of the reason Rale’s death hit me so hard was because its tragedy hadn’t occurred in isolation. It happened at the worst possible time, at a moment when the family I’d worked so hard to build seemed to be cracking open and falling apart at the seams.

My wife had accused me of cheating on her with Ani. Rale died two weeks after that. Two weeks to the day. I didn’t blame Pel then, nor did I blame her now. It was her parents talking, not her. The paranoia, the conviction that every single human being was a slimy, twisted booger dipped in sin, hostile intent, and selfish dreams—that was all the Revenels. Pel was worried about Rale’s surgery, her father was dying, and she was troubled by all the time I spent at work, trying to help other people in the hopes I’d be able to make up for the fact that I didn’t really know how to help myself. And Ani—who I was mentoring at the time—just so happened to be an easy target.

I never should have invited Ani over to the house for dinner.

(Again, let me emphasize that hopelessness is my forté. My entirely unwanted forté.)

Even though Pel only brought it up that one time, and even if I’d mostly forgiven her for it, it was still hard for me to put into words just how deeply her accusation had hurt me. Amazingly, even after the accusations were made, Ani herself didn’t bear my wife the slightest ill-will. “We all have flaws,” she’d told me, “the Angel helps us learn to overcome them.”

She made it seem easy to have faith, and I envied her for that.

Once again, my thoughts had brought me to a standstill. At the rate I was going, if this trend kept up, I wouldn’t be surprised if I started having full-blown out-of-body experiences.

I paused for a moment, half-expecting Andalon to reappear, but she didn’t. By pure happenstance, as I waited for her, I caught a glimpse of something I evidently wasn’t supposed to have noticed.

One of the defining features of a modern hospital was that any corridor—no matter how short—had to have framed artwork hanging from it. This also applied to individual rooms. Most were paintings, usually of pleasant landscapes, often generously watercolored, but rarely impressive enough to be worth giving more than a passing glance. One such painting—an impressionistic landscape of birch trees in autumn—happened to be mounted very close to the double-doors which lead back to the main reception desk. A suave young man wearing a white doctor’s coat stood in front of the painting, using the sight of his reflection in the glass to guide his hands as he fine-tuned the style of his glistening, back-combed strawberry-blonde hair. He couldn’t have been more than thirty years old—and if he was, I’d buy a hat and eat it.

He flicked a finger across his bangs, and then muttered softly. “Perfect.”

Stepping away from the wall, he turned toward me with a snit-eating grin on his face. You could make pigs fly with the amount of confidence he had in his steps, which made it all the more amusing when the color rapidly drained from his face as he stopped and realized that I’d been watching him groom himself. I could almost hear the sound of gears turning in his mind. He looked around—weighing, I imagine, whether or not he should jump ship and abandon his plan—whatever it was—but then something caught his eye and his demeanor instantly reset to its prior swagger.

I had a sinking feeling my ID badge was the cause of his confidence’s second wind.

I noticed he wore spats. My father-in-law had worn spats.

All of this pointed to a bad omen, like an augur dove getting eaten by a hawk or splattering to death against a passing car. I might have been dead, but I still knew how to read people—studying and practicing psychiatry tended to help with that—and this guy spelled trouble.

The young doctor strutted toward me, brandishing a polished smile. I scrambled backward, not wanting to get anywhere near him—and not just because I still didn’t know how my condition—Type Two—spread.

“What’s got you spooked?” he said, with a chuckle.

“The pandemic!” I said.

He smirked. “You must be Dr. Howle.”

“I am well-known as the doctor with the bow-tie, yes,” I said, dryly.

“I’m Dr. Jonan Derric,” the young man said. He bowed with a sweep of his arm. “And I would be honored if you gave me the privilege of assisting you. Consider me your first, and most qualified volunteer.”

I eyed him warily. “Assist me with what, exactly?”

“Along with Drs. Heggy Marteneiss and Suisei Horosha—our recent acquisition from Noyoko General—you,” he pointed at me, “Dr. Genneth Howle have been assigned to lead the Crisis Management Team charged with coordinating Ward E’s response to and management of this frightful pandemic.”

I narrowed my eyes. “How would you know about that? I was under the impression that the meeting was supposed to be more clandestine than not.”

Why else would Hobwell have taken such strict security measures?

Dr. Derric clicked his tongue. “You could say I’m on the up-and-up.”

He winked at me!

“Anyhow,” he continued, “I heard that you’re looking for some lieutenants for your CMT, and I’d like to submit myself as a candidate for one of those positions.”

I had to admit, I was genuinely impressed by Dr. Derric. I didn’t show it, of course, and Derric almost certainly wouldn’t have appreciated it if I had. Talk about a specimen of megalomania! Normally, to find a case like this, you had to go to an international conglomerate’s Board of Directors, or—worse—talk radio. And yet, here it was, right before my eyes: the Will-to-Power, made flesh. Or, perhaps he’d sold his soul to a Norm.

Did I think deals with demons were bunk? Probably. But it never hurt to ask.

I exhaled sharply. “Have you ever visited the Cranter Pit, by any chance?”

“Doc, if you could get this,” Dr. Derric said, gesturing at himself with a smirk, “by slaughtering a couple goats, throwing their severed heads into that big pit and calling up demonic powers, everyone would be doing it.”

Cranter Pit was this great big pock-mark in the earth—a lake-bellied bowl with eroded cliffs—that sat in the middle of a flat, grassy plain about a hundred miles due east of the city, and in defiance of all known laws of geology. Many Old Believers still adhered to the doctrine that the small lake at the center of the pit was the gateway to Hell. According to legend, an animal (or, if necessary, human) sacrifice offered there would summon a Demon Norms up from Hell, to whom you could offer your soul in exchange for worldly power, glory, revenge, good looks, true love, or any other major creature comforts.

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In other words, exactly the kind of thing someone like Dr. Derric would do at the drop of a hat.

I asked him in jest, yet there was a part of me that always wondered. Scientists were utterly at a loss to explain how the pit had formed, something that my Sessions School teachers had always liked to trumpet at us, especially when they could point to the pits on the Moon, and cite them as the Triun’s footprints. Geologists said the pit was many millions of years old, and that the ones on the Moon were perhaps even older than that. Physicists argued the pits were the result of a large impact of some kind—perhaps some kind of large rock—but that made no sense; you’d have to have giant rocks magically appear out of nowhere in the Night, to then fall to the Moon or the earth.

“Wait…” Jonan narrowed his eyes at me. “Don’t tell you believe that snake-demons grant you wishes bullshit?”

“Enough of this,” I said, stepping around him. I grumbled in embarrassment, even as I kept my distance. “I’ve got work to do.”

The “Pit Problem”, as atheists called it, was probably the biggest stumbling block for combatting myth and superstition. Experiment after experiment confirmed that the pits could be created by large objects impacting the earth and Moon at high speeds, but there was no way to explain where they came from, not without appealing to the stuff of fantasy. To this day, studies of the origins of the Earth, Moon, and Sun remained highly controversial; the Church claimed them as objects of theological inquiry, not science. Some folks went so far as to argue that the Night was an illusion, and that there had to be more to it than just emptiness, but… what evidence could anyone offer in support of that? It was pure fantasy, exactly the sort of things that logic and reason were supposed to bring us beyond.

It was a great mystery; maybe even the greatest mystery of all. Its intractability had always bothered me, and the fact that there was nothing I could do about it only bothered me more.

Shaking my head, I turned away from those thoughts and walked through the double doors back into the reception area, only to stop as a nurse passed me by, pushing an elderly man in a bed.

I stepped back, not wanting to get too close.

“Hey, Doc, wait—now wait a minute!”

From the sound of it, it was clear Dr. Derric wasn’t used to getting anything less than exactly what he wanted.

Snorting in aggravation, I turned around, even as I skittered away to keep my distance.

Jonan scratched the nape of his neck. “Okay, alright,” he said, “I admit I might have come on a little too strongly. But”—his dirty-blonde eyebrows perked up—“in all honesty, Dr. Howle, I feel strongly that I am the ideal candidate for the junior positions on the CMT—assuming there are still open slots.”

I decided to humor him—for a moment.

I frowned. “Give me one reason why I should—”

“—Say no more.”

Jonan pulled a glossy, oblong, darkly colored device out from his breast pocket, about the size of a middle-aged pencil. He stepped toward me, and I mirrored him, stepping away to keep my distance. Turning, Dr. Derric pointed the device at the wall beside the door as he pressed something. A red LED at its tip blinked twice, and then light streamed out from it in a breathy whirr, projecting an image onto the wall—Dr. Derric’s CV, of all things.

Given how much of a liking to Jonan I’d not taken, the impressiveness of his resumé was practically dispiriting. Had this been his first move, it might have amused me. Now, it just left me feeling wary. I didn’t know which made me feel more ill-at-ease: the fact that he had a holographic projector on hand—and those were not cheap to come by!—or that his résumé was animated.

“As you can see,” he said—but I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy gawking at his record.

Fitchtide Medical School Valedictorian, Class of 2016 AAF, I read.

My own application to Fitchtide didn’t even make it pass the first screening round. Yeah, it was years ago, but… still…

“And I’m only thirty years old, I’ll have you know,” he said.

I did the mental math. Four years of residency plus four years of medical school.

He got accepted to medical school when he was twenty-two!?

The more I read, the worse it got. He even had publications.

No way…

He was a co-author in Rongen’s landmark 2017 study on remyelination in adrenoleukodystrophy!

The things we could do with stem-cells and gene editing these days were as astonishing as they were terrifying.

The list of Dr. Derric’s accolades just kept going.

I was beginning to suspect that Jonan Derric’s nature went deeper than mere temperament. This was neurosis at work. It had to be.

With my left hand, I straightened my glasses and fidgeted my bow-tie. Meanwhile, I kept my right hand behind my back, repeatedly flicking my index finger across my thumbnail.

“Genneth!”

Turning, I saw Heggy and Dr. Horosha approaching us from behind. I stepped away from all of them, making sure to keep more than the recommended ten feet distance between us.

I was NOT going to take any risks.

“There you are!”

“Have you found any candidates to assist us with—” but then Dr. Horosha noticed my hanger-on. “Who is this?” he asked.

Heggy stared at the projection on the wall, and then at Jonan.

“Well lookie here.” She grinned. “You’re the yuppie who bested me for last year’s Britling Award for excellence in service.”

“Yes, I am Dr. Jonan Derric,” Jonan said, with a nod, “and thank you for your kind words.” He smiled. “ Dr. Marteneiss, I presume?”

“Yes.”

For his next trick, Jonan bowed to Dr. Horosha pressing his palms together in the traditional Munine gesture of humbled submission.

“O ai dekite kōeidesu, Horosha-sensei.”

Dr. Horosha raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Excellent pronunciation.”

Jonan pressed his thumb down on the button on the projector. The whirring noise ceased as the image on the wall vanished.

“As I was just telling Dr. Howle, I believe I’m the perfect fit for the open junior leadership position on E Ward’s Crisis Management Team. Service in a Coordinating Management position in a crisis is exactly the sort of accomplishment the big-wigs look for when they’re doling out promotions. At this point,” he shrugged, “it would be flat-out irresponsible of me not to take advantage of such an opportunity to demonstrate my capability and adaptability as a medical professional. I’ll have you know, I’ve been keeping a close eye on recent news and have taken to recording observations about our incoming NFP-20 patients. To that end, I’ve prepared a small presentation which I hope will be of assistance as you iron out Ward E’s battle-plan for dealing with the Category 5 medical hurricane that’s about to slam into us at Mach 2. I’d be happy to share it with you.”

I pressed my gaze toward Dr. Marteneiss, hoping she’d swoop in and intervene.

“No,” Heggy asked, smiling wryly, “who are you, really?”

Quietly, I sighed with relief.

Thank you!

“Are things moving too quickly,” I murmured, “or is it just me?”

But she kept her eyes on Dr. Derric.

“You’ll have to do whatever we say,” Heggy said.

He nodded. “Of course.”

“It will likely be unforgiving.”

He nodded again. “I expect nothing less.”

She glanced at the two of us. “Any objections?”

I cleared my throat, and—

“—All I am asking for is an opportunity to succeed,” Jonan said.

“I like him,” Dr. Horosha said, with a mild smile.

“Then welcome to the team, Dr. Derric,” Heggy said, saluting the probable miscreant. Jonan returned the salute—and with enthusiasm.

Noise came from behind the doors. “Out of the way!”

We did as we were told. Doors opened and wheels rattled as a squadron of sleek hand-trucks chock full of supply crates swarmed into the reception area, with Dr. Lokanok at the lead.

“The supplies have arrived,” Ani said—but then she furrowed her brow. Something had caught her off guard.

“Jonan?” she said.

With a nod, Dr. Derric tapped two fingers on his temple like he was flipping the brim of an invisible hat. Then he winked. “Hey girl…” he said, breathily, with a click of his tongue.

It was the sort of thing a person only did if they were in a losing battle against their own raging libido, insane, or, Angel forbid… in a romantic relationship.

“Unfortunately, Jonan,” Ani said, pointing at the plastic visor on her face, “you and I are gonna have to work under a no-kissing regimen for the foreseeable future,” she said.

“Darn,” Jonan said, swinging his forearm. “Ah well.” But then Ani smirked at him, and Jonan returned her smile with a grin of his own.

Oh no. Not him.

Please, not Ani. Not Ani and…

Oh no. Oh no no no…