Though I wasn’t a specialist in cellular biology like Brand was, I’d always found the topic fascinating, and having Brand as a friend did a lot to keep me well-informed on the subject. I also liked to think that my mind was more flexible than the average joe’s. And yet, as the image in the light microscope congealed before my eyes, I honestly didn’t know what to think.

I was looking at a wall of violet-stained cells, clustered together in rows and columns. They were like the itty-bitty pieces of a composite fruit, with the cells’ nuclei playing the role of the dark seeds. But they weren’t what caught my attention.

Much of biology’s beauty lay in the connections it bore along with it. To the eye, a man might seem different from an ant, but under a microscope, I think most people would have been hard-pressed to distinguish one from the other. Life was but a variation on a theme, played out over expanses of time too vast for the mind to comprehend. But this…

This was something different.

At first, I didn’t know what to make of the dark shapes scattered across the sample like a watercolor painting of chunks of broken tile, made from tiny black-silver-green sticks arranged in morasses that resembled clusters of iron filaments bound to a magnet. The sticks interlocked with one another to form aggregates with a diamond mosaic pattern. The aggregates were hairy, festooned with microscopic tubules strangely webbed. After a second, the tiles shuddered. The interlocking sticks flowed before my eyes. They weren’t just moving; they were replicating as they moved. They broke into the adjacent healthy cells, flooding them with their alien contents. The newly infected cells changed right before my eyes, splitting into identical sized daughters, filled to the brim with the dark, glistening sticks. The cells’ membranes stiffened, forming a diamond shape just like the others as it took its place beside them. The tubules slowly spread to cover the new addition. And where there weren’t healthy cells to invade, the diamonds swelled, splitting in two all on their own.

Virus was my first thought. Viruses lay at the boundary between biology and chemistry. They were “living” molecules that invaded healthy cells and repurposed their machinery, transforming them into factories to manufacture more virus particles. But the things in the microscope were also some kind of cell, or at the very least something not unlike a cell.

Maybe it was instinct—I don’t know—but… the sight sent a shiver down my spine.

I turned to my friend and his colleague as I stepped away from the microscope.

“That’s NFP-20, right?” I pointed at the sample fixed between the glass plates. “I thought we were dealing with a fungus. But, that—”

“—We don’t know what it is, Genneth.”

“Not quite, Nowston Brand,” Dr. Skorbinka said, pulling up to the counter. “Given current knowledge, fungus is least wrong classification.”

The mycologist glanced at me.

“All of us have seen growths upon patients, and within patients. You wish to call NFP-20 not-fungus? Very well. What shall we call it?” He started counting with his fingers. “Shall we call it plant? Yes, NFP quasi-cells have stiff walls, like plant, but,” he shook his head, “no photosynthesis. No central vacuole. Maybe we shall be daring and call it animal? Animal cells do not invade other cells.”

“Actually,” Brand interjected, “there are—”

Dr. Skorbinka shoved his finger in the pathologist’s face. “—No, stop. Is irrelevant.” He turned back to me. “Shall we call NFP virus? No, too big. And virus not have cells. Perhaps Bacteria?” he added, only to shake his head again. “No: also too big—and nowhere complex as this.”

Actually—as Brand had once told me, and would probably have told me now were he and I and Dr. Skorbinka not all scared out of our minds—there were some sulfur-eating bacteria that were large enough to be visible to the naked eye. But I digress.

“So,” he finished, “fungus it shall be.” He furrowed his dark, bushy eyebrows. “Fungus is among us, as you say.”

Brand nodded. “It gets worse, though.”

Please no.

“I’ve run pretty much every test I can think of, but I still can’t tell what this damn thing’s trophic modes are.” Brand tapped his fingers on the countertop, though the click of his fingernails was muted by his white, cherry-scented gloves. “Well… it might be more accurate to say that I can’t tell what their trophic modes aren’t. And, as you see,” he pointed at the sample, “these are some hungry little fuckers.”

I followed Brand’s fingers, and—to my shock—the dark spot in the middle of the sample had visibly grown just over the time we’d spent talking.

“I’ve had to throw out prepared slides by the dozen because NFP starts eating away at the glass after it’s finished with the remaining human tissue.”

At this point, I reached for an empty stool and pulled it up to the counter.

My legs were getting sore; I’d been standing for hours on end.

Dr. Skorbinka steepled his fingers. “Growth can be maintained by feeding NFP.” He pointed at his head, making scissor motion with his index and middle fingers. “I snip snip hair and put it in sample, and sample grows.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Brand glared at the mycologist. “Yeah, it grows too much.” He turned to me. “This is freakazoid biochemistry,” he shook his head, “and I’m at a loss to explain it. It makes no sense. NFP-20’s ‘cells’ have no discernible nuclei, no organelles. And it only gets stranger.” He gestured at the microscope, and then at several of the imposing machines scattered throughout the lab. “Mistelann and I, we go test their chemical composition, and everything comes up wrong. No starches; no chitins.”

“One could write textbook about cellular biology and metabolism of NFP-20,” Dr. Skorbinka said. “Textbook would be thousand pages, and only three not blank.”

“What wouldn’t be blank?” I asked.

“The ones with the pictures on them, for sure,” Brand said, “and page after page describing those pictures in detail, and maybe a page about how the tubules have an electrical potential gradient, and then as much wild speculation as the writer could manage to stuff in before the editor got tired and just gave up.”

“Staff of Polytechnic and WeElMed not idiots,” Dr. Skorbinka said. “There is talent here. Too much talent to not have noticed NFP craziness. They keeping secrets.” He looked at me. “You knowing biomechanics of virus?”

“Yes,” I said, “the concept—not the molecules, though. I was never much good at organic chemistry.”

“That is sufficient,” Dr. Skorbinka replied. “These entities in samples—what you saw in microscope… these clearly cells.”

Brand scoffed at that. “There’s nothing clear about it.”

“They have membranes, they have plasm,” the mycologist continued, “of these, virus have none. Cells of NFP-20 behave and reproduce like viruses, yet also replicate like cellular organism. Yet even this fails to describe them. Virus use cells as hosts; cells die when duty fulfilled. But NFP,” he grimaced at the sample in the microscope, “they like evil spirits—or missionaries,” he added, with a snort. “They take possession of cells. They use cells. They change cells.”

By now, I was twitching my thigh like mad. There was no sunshine here. Only darkness. I grimaced: hunger burned in my belly. I felt like I was staring into the mouth of an abyss.

I guess I’d been holding out hope that Brand would have been able to make sense of what was happening to the world. I’d been holding out on the hope that there was going to be a rational explanation for all this; for all that I’d seen; for all that was happening to me.

People didn’t just start developing powers, growing tails, or seeing the souls of the dead. I wouldn’t have put it past DAISHU to have developed something like this in secret, for Angel-knows what sordid purposes. There had to be a reason for all this, right?

Or maybe I was just as crazy as Dana was, near the end.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “What do you want me to do?”

“Mostly, Genneth,” Brand said, “we just want you to do your job.”

“What?” I stopped. “I don’t follow.”

Dr. Nowston turned his stool to face me, spreading his legs slightly and letting his arms rest on his slacks. “Ever since the pandemic was declared, I’ve been spending all my time going through every damn resource at my disposal to try to understand what was happening.”

That was Brand Nowston for you.

“But there’s nothing,” he said, waving his hands and shaking his head, “not a trace. The more I read and think and test, the harder it’s gotten to try to explain what’s right in front of me. Like Mistelann said… everything about them is wrong. No discernible organelles—”

“—No ribose sugars,” Dr. Skorbinka interjected.

Clearing his throat, Brand looked me square in the eyes. “The only conclusion I can make that doesn’t scream wrong is that these cells… they aren’t from here.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“They’re foreign,” Brand said.

“Foreign?”

Brand scoffed. He raised his voice—a rare moment of anger. “Goddamnit Genneth, are you really going to make me say it!?” He stood up and lashed out with his arms. “Fuck!” Walking off to the side, Brand briefly paced around before settling into a leaning posture against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest.

He bore into my eyes. There was fear in him.

“This isn’t from our world,” he said, gravely. “This isn’t our kind of biology. This isn’t any kind of biology.” He shook his head “This… this is something else. Maybe it’s from the Moon, or the Sun, or from a place beyond the Night, like in those mangas of yours.” He pointed at me, and then—trembling—pointed at the sample on the microscope. “If you told me this shit came straight outta Hell, I think I might actually believe you.”

Brand turned his back toward us. His head drooped. He tapped his gloved fingers on the countertop several times. He propped himself up with his arms on the countertop like an Expressway trestle as he took a deep breath. Finally, with a sigh, he turned around and locked eyes with me one last time.

“I need you to give it to me straight, Genneth.” His voice cracked. “I want your opinion—as a doctor of the mind, as someone who can appreciate what he sees in a microscope, and,” he shuddered, “as my friend.” He blinked. There were tears in his eyes. “Am I crazy? Please… I need to know.”

I swallowed hard. I knew my opinion. Once I’d realized I was dead, that part was easy. No: what frightened me was the thought of what Brand would do with the truth if I handed it to him hook, line, and sinker.

“You gotta understand,” Brand said, preëmpting me just as I was about to answer him. “This has been staining my thoughts. Just last night, I had a nightmare about it. I’d sneaked some samples here and there before we did the autopsy, and I was scared, but then we did the autopsy, and now… now…” He shook his head. “Shit, I don’t know what to do now, Genneth, and,” he shuddered, “it scares the hell out of me.”

I stood up from the stool. “What would you do if I said you were crazy?” I asked.

“Get a tall glass of beer, see a silly movie, and get a good night’s sleep.” He laughed nervously.

It was a relief to hear that.

“Maybe do some drugs,” he added, “and hope I don’t wake up.”

Fudge.

I cleared my throat, trying to hide my shock.

“And…” I looked my friend in the eyes, “if I said you weren’t…?”

Brand stared at me. Sweat glistened on his forehead.

“I’d take these findings and scream them from the rooftops—well, with a mask on. Then I’d steal an aerostat and some supplies, and fly out into the middle of the ocean until I found an island no man had ever set foot on, and I’d settle down there and make a home for myself and watch humanity’s end credits played out on the dying sky.”

Just then, my work console pinged, angrily shaking my coat-pocket. I pulled it out and turned it on with a tap.

Dr. Howle, report to the Suture for floor duty. Incoming emergency patients; darkpox suspected. For safety, please exercise caution, and adhere to all containment protocols.

Both of them looked at me. Sighing, I shook my head.

“Duty calls,” I said.

“More important than this?” Brand gestured toward the microscope.

“They’re suspected darkpox cases.”

Both doctors reacted in unison: “Fuck.”