If Dr. Horosha’s arrival left me startled, the fellow accompanying him had me staring slack-jawed, horrified yet awestruck. I recognized the man as a member of E Ward’s custodial staff. He even still had his ID badge on—which gave his name as Larry—though, even if he hadn’t, his blue-gray denim uniform would have marked him as a janitor. I recalled seeing him the day before yesterday. He’d been a giant of a man, and he’d only grown more as a transformee. Larry was positively gigantic, burly beyond belief. Yet, somehow, he also had some of the worst teeth I’d ever seen in a human mouth.

But, as big as Larry was, his arms—well, his arm—was even bigger. In overall appearance, Larry’s left forearm was pretty much like my own, claws and all—though buffer, and slightly larger. But Larry’s right arm… it was like Maryon’s, only worse. His right arm had gone full wyrm, both in form and size. The godly limb erupted from the side of his torso in a ten-foot-long column covered in tiny scales the color of bloody vomit. His palm was the size of a chair cushion—and a big one, at that. His tendons were iron cords that overwhelmed his shirt, bursting his sleeve open at the seams. He used his arm like a giant pogo stick; with his arm pressed down on the floor, and his thumb and two fingers splayed out, he hopped forward on his three claws, leaving his legs dangling over the floor.

Meanwhile, Dr. Horosha remained preternaturally calm, even as he narrowed his eyes at me.

As I looked him over, thinning my wyrmsight, I noticed that, for once, our infectious disease specialist had lost some of the cryptic aura that was his trademark: he was slouching. It was entirely uncharacteristic of him. And the more I looked, the more I noticed. His breaths were a little labored. His mote-veil seemed fainter than before. I double checked with my memories, both this morning’s autopsy and yesterday’s. The motes had been brighter this morning, and even more so yesterday morning.

“Are you going to make this difficult for us, Dr. Howle?” he asked.

“No,” I tried to let out a nervous laugh, but what came out sounded more like a pitiful squeal. “I—I…” I stammered. “I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”

Dr. Horosha took a deep breath, straightening his posture. “Good.” Pausing, he made the Bond-sign. “In that case, I hope you will not mind if I preëmpt any pointless prevarication.” He sighed. “I have known you were a transformee since our first encounter. The energies swirl around you, just like all the others. Please refrain from trying to convince me otherwise. It will not work, and will waste precious time.”

Feeling oddly embarrassed, I flicked my tail to the side, curling it around my leg.

He was definitely calling me out.

“Secondly—” Dr. Horosha continued, meshing his fingers.

“—How polite of you,” I mumbled.

I tried to avoid interrupting people if I could, but, right now, I was too shocked to keep to my scruples. For a moment, I just stared at him, blinking occasionally, smiling meekly while fidgeting my lucky bowtie with my human hand.

“You do that quite often,” Dr. Horosha said.

“Do what?”

“Fiddle with your bow-tie.” His eyebrows raised. “Is it some sort of tick?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No,” I mumbled, “it’s one-third superstition, one-third nostalgia, and one-third neurosis.”

Dr. Horosha nodded. “I see.”

My tail swished back and forth behind me—a new neurosis to add to the mix.

I looked Dr. Horosha in the eye, trying my best not to cry. “What just happened?” I pointed at the three unconscious transformees.

Larry cleared his throat. It sounded like he had a woodwind chorale jammed down there. “So, Dr. H,” he asked. He pointed his smaller arm at the unconscious transformees. “What are we gonna do with these three?”

Dr. Horosha pressed his palms together and bowed slightly at his companion. “Larry, you can carry the three of them back to Headquarters. Genneth,” he turned to face me, “you should accompany us.” He made the Bond-sign once more. “I swear in the name of the Holy Angel that most of your questions will be answered in short shrift.”

Andalon appeared beside me, floating up out of the floor.

“Can’t Mr. Sushi answer all the questions?” she asked.

She had a point.

“Most?” I asked. “Why not all?”

He nodded. “Most.”

Slowly, with a shrug, I staggered to my knees.

Larry walked over and picked up the three transformees, which he did by lowering himself to his feet and then scooping the three transformees up in his giant arm, grasping all three of them at once, like they were just a bunch of breadsticks.

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Man-eating breadsticks.

I followed Larry and Dr. Horosha down the hall, feeling like I was sleepwalking the whole way there. Actually, it would have been wonderful if I was just sleepwalking, because then I could wake up and this would all be over.

The way Larry carried the three transformees was almost funny. He was half man, half tow-truck. He let his arm trail behind him, the back of his hand softly scraping along the floor, his claws locked fast around the three troublemakers. Quincy’s tail drooped between Larry’s fingers like a rotten noodle.

“It’s alright, Dr. Howle. Dr. Horosha is a good man. I trust him.”

Larry must have noticed my bewilderment. I smiled sadly. “I wish I had your faith,” I said.

“Eh, I’m an agnostic,” he replied.

I craned my neck back, astonished. The janitor said it aloud, plainly, the same way you might have ordered a beef sandwich at an O’Malleigh’s drive-thru.

“How can you just say it like that?” I asked. “Like it’s no big deal?”

“You find your path,” he said, “I’ll find mine.” He nodded. “And if you need help, just ask.”

I couldn’t figure out what else to say. I was mystified. How could he be so cavalier about life’s most important questions of all so casually?

I let the issue slide. I was already freaked out. No need to make it worse.

It took about ten minutes to get to our destination. Dr. Horosha had led us to an off-limits area at the edge of Center-West, to a Ward that had been under refurbishment, at least until the plague hit.

Working at West Elpeck Medical brought many certainties with it.

There would always be newcomers wandering around, unsure of where to go.

If there was a reasonable place to put a restroom, a restroom would never be built there.

And, somehow, somewhere, within WeElMed’s sprawl, someone would be (re)constructing something. Sometimes it was a room, sometimes it was a hallway; other times, it was a whole ward. But, no matter what the situation, (re)construction was indicated by strips of striated, black and yellow warning tape, accompanied by a chipper sign bearing the following words:

For your safety, access to this area has been restricted to approved personnel only. Sorry for the inconvenience! We’re hard at work making WeElMed the best it can be!

Whatever console happened to be nearest to the warning tape would be configured to display the project’s estimated completion date, along with ravishing, idealized 3D renderings of what the (re)construction would look like when it was finished. The sign itself had a component that inserted directly into the door’s locking mechanism, so that you could only open it if you had the proper clearance. Of course, like everything else these days, if you had the proper clearance, you showed it by scanning your chip over the console’s sensor.

The short hallway Dr. Horosha led us to dead-ended at a pair of double doors—a Ward entrance—covered up in those familiar stripes of black and yellow. The construction sign seemed perfectly lock-tight, but then Dr. Horosha walked up and pushed it open without the slightest difficulty. I only understood why when I looked at the doors from the other side after stepping through. Someone had scooped the locking mechanism out from the door, right down to the doorknob. All that remained was a broad, smooth-rimmed pit in the mix of plastic, metal, and synthetic compounds that made up the door. What I’d seen of the sign’s locking mechanism out front was a literal façade; an eggshell-thin barrier, and nothing more.

On the other side of the doors, the hallway opened up into the central area a hospital Ward—Ward 13, a Number Ward. The place was like the old fairy tale: the Lady-in-the-Mists. The princess of a mighty kingdom had been put under an enchantment, trapped in slumber, her kingdom cursed to slumber with her. It was a place where time had come to a stop, arrested by the faerie mists.

Like the Misty Kingdom, Ward 13 was frozen in time, trapped in the middle of a renovation, never to be completed. Sections of the walls and ceiling had been removed, rectangular panels pulled out and stacked behind the main reception desk, leaning against the structural pillars. Many of the sections bore substantial bite-marks. WeElMed’s technological nerves and ganglions were exposed where the panels had been removed from the wall. Some were old models, yet to be replaced, while others were shiny and new. The fluorescent lights overhead shined at half-strength, if they shined at all, and electric cables dangled from some of the openings in between them, where ceiling panels had been removed.

Construction equipment littered the scene—rotary tools, power saws; the works. There were step ladders left alongside walls and big bundles of wire still sealed in their plastic packaging. Translucent plastic tarps hung at odd intervals, covering up entrances to fractured rooms and half-finished hallways.

Despite its appearance, Ward 13 wasn’t empty, and—thickening my wyrmsight just to be sure—they were all transformees, just like me. Except for Dr. Horosha, each and every one of them had the familiar violet and ultramarine runic circuitry running thick through their bodies. As for Horosha, There wasn’t a trace of the circuitry on him, and, curiously enough, no one else seemed to have noticed.

Larry trod off down the hall with the three transformees in tow. He whistled as he went.

I thinned my wrymsight, not wanting to be overwhelmed. What I was seeing with my ordinary vision was already more than enough for me to be literally taken aback.

I stood off to the side, counting the faces.

It was hard not to stare, especially at the faces that I happened to know.

Suddenly, Andalon materialized at my side and dashed out into the middle of the room in a spurt of pure exhilaration. She spun around on the spot.

“Look at them, Mr. Genneth, all these ghosts!” She waved her arms through the air. “They’re all safe!”

What? What are you talking about? I asked.

Andalon blinked. “Oh.” She smiled.

I had a gut instinct that something bad was about to happen.

“Here you go!” Andalon said.

For a second—just as I’d predicted—everything was horrible. I felt like I was going to vomit. I shut my eyes and tried not to moan. Eventually, I opened my eyes, and my jaw went slack when I did.

There were about a dozen people in the room who hadn’t been there a moment ago. Looking at them made my head hurt, as if my mind was biting off more than it could chew—though, in fact, it was all Andalon’s doing.

“Now you sees them, right?” she asked.

Yes, yes, I see them—now, please, make it stop. It’s too much!

“Oh, yeah,” Andalon nodded, “it feels bad ‘cause you’re not wyrmily enough yet.”

Blessedly, the ghosts vanished. Afterimages echoed in my field of vision for several seconds. I saw flashes of the spirits some of the other transformees in the room had been talking to.

Ow.

Andalon glanced down at her bare feet. “Sorry.”

I took a deep breath.

Andalon… these ghosts, they’re safe? That’s what you said, right?

She looked back at me and nodded vigorously.

Why? I asked. What have they been doing that I haven’t?

But then a familiar voice inserted itself into my mental conversation.

“Oh! Dr. Howle? Fancy seeing you here!”