The trouble wasn’t in figuring out where to go, but in getting there. I hobble-waddled down the hallway as quickly as I could, moving away from Ward 13 and the SHG. Through some windows overlooking the Garden Court, I caught glimpses of the evolving chaos. Vehicles were rolling out of Crusader Hill Tunnel and into the hospital’s courtyard. Soldiers and civilian refugees poured out of the transports. Aerostats hovered like vultures over the courtyard’s garden, landing one by one on the grass and the surrounding square ring of streets. Gunfire spat loud in the distance.

I needed to get to the Garden Court ASAP.

Ward 13 was in the Center-West Building, which had no direct access to the Garden Court. Instead, it only let out onto one of the side streets, and, the way things were looking outside, I did not want to approach this from the side.

I hissed. “Fudge.”

I drew on my powers to push myself head more quickly, progressing through the hallway connecting Center-West to the Central Wing in leaps and bounds, with Andalon following along, floating behind me, nervous and afraid. Once I reached the edge of the Central Wing, I saw the trickle of alarmed healthcare workers running down the stairs. I caught the words “Hall of Echoes”.

I figured Heggy was most likely there.

With all of the panic, no one was using the elevators at the moment, so it was a quick ride down to the ground floor.

Andalon flinched as we stepped out of the elevator and onto the ground floor.

Though I’d grown accustomed to the chaos the Green Death brought to WeElMed, the sheer panic now on display put even that to shame. Healthcare workers elbowed past frightened civilians who wanted to get a look. Everything was crazy, and the sight of all the dead and dying bodies resting in chairs or on the floor against the wall only made me feel more unhinged.

Both the crowds and the noise thickened as I approached the Hall of Echoes. I managed to get through thanks to a corridor several nurses had formed with their bodies to keep civilians at bay. Normally, the automatic sliding glass doors leading into the Hall of Echoes from the Central Wing should have helped to manage the traffic, but someone had gotten the doors stuck (or locked) in their open position.

On a normal day, before the world had ended, people and busybodies would have been sprinkled over all of the Hall of Echoes’ floors. Now, though, the upper reaches of the multi-story marble atrium were almost entirely empty, while the ground floor was a throng of people. Hoping to squeeze my way around the crowd, I darted off to the side, behind one of the great columns, propelling myself forward by pushing off its marble surface, with Andalon following along, floating—sprite-like—behind me.

“Mr. Genneth!” she cried, pointing in alarm.

I followed her eyes to my hands.

“Fudge!” I cursed.

For support, I’d braced myself against one of the structural columns; now, the palm of one of my hazmat suit’s gloves was covered in black infection ooze, courtesy of an ugly splotch of the stuff on the marble column. I pulled back with a yelp, rubbing off the ooze as quickly and thoroughly as I could, smearing it onto the marble, and then flicking the remaining dregs onto the floor with a sweep of gentle psychokinesis over my gloves.

I cursed beneath my breath.

Everywhere I looked—off to the side, or beneath frantic feet—I saw spatters and splotches of infection ooze and spores eating away at the alternating black and white marble. Walls, floor, and columns were marred by pits and gashes where the caustic stuff had bitten in.

“Watch where you’re goin’!” Andean said.

Nodding, I sped up my thoughts slightly, making reality play at one-fourth speed. The extra time made it easy for me to notice and avoid making contact with further splotches. I let time flow like normal once I’d made my way to the front of the hall.

From where I stood, on the right-hand side of the room, in front of the forward-most support column, I had a clear view of the grand wooden double-doors and the antique glass windows to either side of them. All the kickstands on the bottom of the door had been unlocked and dropped down. This braced the doors against the floor, keeping them fixed in their current, halfway-open position. Rows of hospital staff flanked either side of the opening, trying their best to manage the flow.

And there, in the middle of it all, near the rows of staff, stood Dr. Marteneiss, guiding the crowd like a traffic cop, only in the worst rush hour in human history.

“Heggy!” I yelled. My voice crackled through my hazmat suit’s speakers. The sounds joined the billowing din that bounced off the Hall’s tall arches.

Heggy turned toward me, but before she could say anything, Jonan’s voice cut through the noise.

“Dr. Marteneiss!” he shouted.

We both turned toward the sound. Jonan entered the Hall like a thunderbolt, armored by a bright yellow hazmat suit as he burst through the crowd. He carrying what looked like—

—Is that a megaphone?, I thought.

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“Mr. Genneth,” Andalon asked, “what’s a—”

—But then the megaphone screeched with hideous feedback noise.

“EVERYBODY CALM THE FUCK DOWN!” Jonan yelled.

The sound was ear-splitting. Andalon shrunk down, halving in size. She huddled up against my leg with her eyes closed and her palms smashed over her ears.

“So loud!” she said, in a mousy voice.

The sound was a shock to the system. For a moment, everyone stood in a daze.

As I looked up, I saw that Jonan had squeezed through a gap in the plastic cordon that blocked off access to the grand staircase. He went up several steps, toward the Hall’s second floor, and then turning around barked another command, along with a fair bit of more feedback sound.

“MOVE TO THE SIDES!” Jonan said, yelling into the megaphone. “MAKE ROOM! CLEAR THE WAY! AND STOP RUNNING!”

Amazingly, they complied. People parted to the sides. Outward-bound traffic toward the door slowed to a stop, freeing space for the incoming traffic to step in.

A voice shot up from the head of the parting crowd, rising over it like a passing wave. “Let’s go, people! Move!”

Heggy!

She clapped her hands, and the sound echoed over every head.

With room to maneuver, us healthcare workers could finally manage the situation, instead of the crowds around it.

“Beds!” a familiar voice yelled. “We need beds, now!”

It was Ani.

I didn’t even bother to ask what was going on.

In seconds, Heggy, Ani, and Jonan, Nurse Kaylin, and many other recognizable faces clustered around the grand doors. The cordons blocking the stairs clattered to the ground as civilians pushed their way through, moving out of the way by going up a floor. Outside, people gathered on the agèd, scallop-paved street, clamoring to get in. Voices yelled, and there was shoving aplenty.

“Out of the way!” someone said. “He’s bleeding out, goddammit! Let us through!”

I walked up to Heggy. “I’m sorry I took so long,” I said.

“Better late than never,” Heggy replied. For an instant, she stared in astonishment at the massive, bulging backpack-like compartment at the back of my electric green hazmat suit. If I’d been human, it was where the oxygen tanks should have been, but, instead, it was where I was storing my ever-lengthening tail.

“C’mon,” she said, “use that big backpack of yours to help me clear the way.”

I nodded, and then we got to work. Andalon stayed by my side, having returned to her normal size, though—all the while—she kept casting nervous glances at Jonan’s megaphone.

For me, it was an honor to see Heggy in her element. Dr. Marteneiss was strong, and sturdily built. Half was lifestyle, but the rest of it was genes.

And good ones, too, not like the inbred horrors of Trenton’s defunct aristocracy.

She was a slab of energy packaged in human form. Her PPE helmet barely kept a hold of her waves of curling, blond hair, and as we plunged into the crowd, her vigor showed itself in full.

She looked over the crowd as we waved them in. “Who’s bleeding out?” she shouted.

An arm stuck out. “Here! Here!”

I heard a voice from behind: “Bed, incoming!”

Heggy and I grabbed the arm and pulled, backpedaling into the Hall.

“BACK THE FUCK UP, PEOPLE!” Jonan yelled.

Andalon squeaked as she shrank away in terror.

It reminded me of myself as a kid. Kid me was terrified of loud noises, especially unexpected ones.

“BACK THE FUCK UP!”

He lowered the megaphone as he turned to Ani. “Take it away, Ani.”

Ani dashed toward the open doors, fully decked-out in PPE. As usual, it fell to her to apply the compassionate touch.

“Everyone, listen to my voice!” she yelled, speaking loudly and clearly, despite her bulky rebreather mask. “I’m Dr. Ani Lokanok. We know you’re scared, but, right now, you need to stay calm and keep still.”

Surprisingly, it helped.

“I got you,” I said, “I got you.”

We pulled a whole bunch of folks in.

Ani continued her supplications. “We need to sort cases by severity and priority.” She exhorted the crowd. “Stand back. Please, stand back.”

The crowd parted further.

The people who’d shouted about the man bleeding out turned out to be a cadre of private security guards. Their faces were hidden behind dark visors. They carried the injured man—the guy bleeding out—amongst themselves. They shouldered the burden as one.

“HOLY SHIT!” Jonan yelled, accidentally megaphone-loud.

All over, people winced. Cries of alarm and confusion rippled through the crowd.

“THAT’S ZONGMAN LARK!”

Okay, I guess it wasn’t an accidental use of the megaphone.

This time, though, quite a few people knew what he meant, and stopped and turned their heads.

Wait, what? I thought.

I knew the name, I just couldn’t believe it.

If this had happened last week, I would have had to deal with my shock and the panic of the patients being treated outside, in the Garden Court, but the Genneth Howle of last week hadn’t had access to the power of slo-mo.

I quickened my thoughts.

“What’s a zongman?” Avalon asked.

Not what, Andalon, I thought-said. Who. He’s a singer.

With time slowed to a crawl, I could borrow some to process what I was seeing: uniformed, visor-wearing bodyguards carrying a Tchwangan man on a stretcher.

This was Zongman Lark, one of the four Morgans—the stand-up comedian turned super-celebrity rhythm-and-blues singer. His comedy background helped give the Morgans the flippant, absurd edge that propelled the group to fame, starting with their hit single, Epicanthic folds.

My culture associated a variety of stereotypes to people with epicanthic folds at the corners of their eyes. The song made fun of them.

According to legend, the peoples of Mu and western and central Tenmay were supposed to be, by turns, studious, imperious, coldly calculating, strict, august, mystical, and prone to forming business associations. Like most stereotypes, such ideas were caused by ignorance, though travel was a sure-fire cure.

Mr. Lark was a living contradiction, which was probably why he fit in so well with the Morgans. He’d gone from being just another downtrodden Tchwangan immigrant to a pop music celebrity when someone at Sunlight Records made the inspired decision to group the struggling comic-slash-musical-theater performer with the three other members of what would become the Morgans. The idea was (and I quote), “To appeal to the ironic sensibilities popular with the youths”. The music industry’s advertising campaign made Lark out to be the plucky underdog of the group; the class clown, if you will, but a debonair one, with a prominent nose, piquant cheeks, and jet-black hair that brought him to within an inch of suave.

But, for once in the singer’s career, things had turned deadly serious. There was nothing funny about the man on the bedding. His white, bell-bottom pants were wrinkled and stained, a match for his similarly pale, buttoned-up shirt. The buttons were in disarray, his collar flared. His early-stage Type Once NFP-20 infection had taken some of the color out of his oaken-hued skin, but he’d yet to crash and burn, for it wasn’t the fungus that was to blame for his current peril, nor was the stain the result of the stinking, sickly sweet green-speckled black effluvium that kept oozing out of patients’ orifices. No.

It was blood.

He’d been wounded.