Ani handed the case back to me, and then the three of us continued on our way. About half a minute later, the hallway abruptly opened onto a broad, rectangular room that dead-ended in three sets of double doors on the flawless white walls opposite us. To the left and right, the room opened onto separate hallways that would take you to other parts of WeElMed’s third basement level.
Bizarre, digestive noises—interminable gurgles, groans, and hums—vibrated out from the sets of double doors on the left and the right, and, because of this, a stream of elevator muzak was constantly trickling into the room, as a way of drowning it out. A thin but steady flow of human traffic proceeded in and out from all three pairs of doors, and both the noises and the muzak got a little louder every time the doors swung open.
The double doors to the left and right would take you to Room 3Ba2: the Matter Printer Floor. Our destination awaited us on the other side of the central pair of double doors: Room 3Ba1, the Matter Printer Control Center.
As a result of being very old, WeElMed’s basements penetrated deep into the earth. Most of these were contiguous with the hospital’s sprawling urban footprint, and this included much of 3Ba—our third, deepest, basement level, where we had our morgues and various storage areas—but Rooms 3Ba1 and 2 however, were in a league of their own. In terms of floor space, 3Ba2 was the size of half a city block, and it needed to be, because it housed a factory floor’s worth of matter printers, and their ingredient tanks and incubation tanks, too. 3Ba1 was where you went to prime an incubation tank with the samples of the organic material you intended to replicate, grow, and print; 3Ba2 was where you went to pick up the finished product.
Waste not, want not.
Though smaller matter printers could be found scattered around the premises, they were on par with the models you could purchase for domestic use, such as the Mark 2 we had in the basement at home—a relic of the dowry Pel’s parents had given me upon our marriage. Matter printers were the successful, far more capable grandchildren of the old 3D printers from a hundred years back. A Mark 1 matter printer could do everything the old 3D printers could do, and at a fraction of the time, and for a fraction of the cost, and unlike its predecessors, the Mark 1 and its descendants lived up to the hype.
Then came the Mark 2.
In addition to doing everything a Mark 1 could do, a Mark 2 matter printer could work with substances other than plastic, such as glass, porcelain, metal, and a kind of sad, spongy-looking approximation of wood that became horrifically moldy whenever it got even the slightest bit wet. Any good primary or secondary school would have at least one Mark 2 on campus, and—in theory—any household could have one, too, though most folks just went to a local craft shop if they wanted something printed up.
The printers down in WeElMed’s third basement, though? They were Mark 3. The Mark 3 was the kind of thing yesteryear’s science-fiction writer might have dreamed up, though with a distinctly biochemical bent. They couldn’t build a house for you, or whip an aerostat for you to fly—they specialized in making small things, rather than big ones, but, the stuff they could print up? It was like magic. The Mark 3 could print organs directly from the stem-cell cultures; they could crystalize microchips—rigid or polymerized—by the sheet-load, and grow designer drugs like potted plants, and do pretty much everything in between. My understanding of the principles behind this miraculous process consisted of two pieces of knowledge: one, the actual ‘magic’ happened in the printer heads, rather than in the vats of raw materials (digested, incubated, and the like) that fed them, and, two, the process involved magnets and incredibly subtle electrical pulses.
The three of us stepped into Room 3Ba1 without delay. The transparent plastic windows that dominated the doors’ area gave a clear view of the room on the other side as we walked up to the doors. The control center was a big, white, laboratorious room with equally big, long plastic windows on the wall opposite the door that gave a grand view of the production floor and all its machinery, which was rows upon rows of tanks, vats, and printers, as well as the thick, reticulated sprawl of tubes that filled the room’s upper reaches. The tubes linked the printers to the vats and linked the vats to one another, as well as to the ports in walls and ceiling where the hospital’s waste collection network extruded its digested glop.
Not counting Ani, Jonan, and myself (or Andalon), there were half a dozen people in the room, two of whom were in full-body hazmat suits just like mine, save for the color. The room was the kind of place Dr. Nowston probably dreamed about, filled with tools of the trade, from freezers and centrifuges to the pneumatic tubes on the walls that shot samples into a freshly sterilized incubation tank in 3Ba2 to initiate replication and proliferation.
Brand had taken me down here on more than one occasion, the most memorable of which was when he showed how a biopsy of a malignant tumor would be cultured and then studied, in order to determine the proper course of treatment.
As would be expected, the place was littered with consoles, with their screens being particularly numerous at any one of the handful of tables scattered around the room, as well as the countertop along the walls.
I recognized Dr. Skorbinka by his orange hazmat suit—that, and the fact that the mycologist made a beeline for us as soon as we entered the room.
“You have arrived!” he said.
I handed him the mycophage case without delay, which he snatched out of my hands with raptorial zeal.
“Come, come,” he said. He beckoned us with two flicks of his head.
Dr. Skorbinka led us to an available table. Even with my tail, I had no trouble sitting down: all of the seats around it were stools. Dr. Skorbinka stood at the head of the table, while Ani and Jonan sat together, across from me. Andalon, meanwhile, sat beside me, atop an empty stool, unseen to the world.
“It is good that you are here,” Dr. Skorbinka said, as he set the case down on the table.
He ran his hand over the case’s chip-scanner; the case clicked, opening with a hiss. Faint mist spilled out from the case’s maw, dribbling onto the table. Fully opening the case revealed its precious contents: several tiny, reed-thin phials set in black insulation material, alongside a console chip and a small refrigeration unit. The refrigeration unit’s thermometer indicated the case’s contents were just above freezing.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Mycophage…” Dr. Skorbinka said, his eyes wondrous and wide.
The mycophage had a dusky, olivine color that, to my surprise, glistened as Mistelann lifted one of the phials up to the bright fluorescent light to scrutinize it.
“Assuming it even works,” Jonan said, “how do you plan on achieving the industrial scale of mass production we would need in order to make this into a practical treatment?”
It was a good question. A cure that couldn’t be mass-produced was little better than no cure at all.
“I’ll admit,” Jonan continued, “I’m not familiar with mycophages, but, if they’re anything like bacteriophages, cultivating them is not going to be a walk in the park.”
The mycologist set the phial back into the vapor-misted case. “It is for this very reason that your presence here gladdens me, comrades.” He looked us in the eyes, one by one. “But, to answer your question Derric Jonan… we shall cheat.”
Pulling out the chip, he inserted it in his PortaCon and closed the case, which clicked as it locked itself shut. Mistelann’s console chirruped as it loaded the data.
“In research environment,” he said, “standard method for production of mycophage is through infection of suitable fungal host. If we do this method, we will be dead before it is finished. So, as I said, we cheat.” He placed his hand on the case. “These are not just any samples we have received. These are crystallized.”
Though Mistelann’s rebreather unit obstructed my view of the lower half of his face, I imagined he was grinning.
“For what is virus but giant molecule?” he asked.
Jonan started to laugh. “I…” He shook his head incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”
“Uh, crystals?” I asked. “Forgive my ignorance, but—”
“—Believe it or not,” Ani said, “if you have a couple milligrams’ worth of virus particles—which, mind you, is a lot of virus—it’s possible to get them to form crystals, just like sugar or salt.”
“How?” I asked.
I knew individual virus particles could have bewitchingly geometric shapes, but… crystals?
“Like Dr. Skorbinka said,” she continued, “at the end of the day, a virus is just a giant molecule. And if the molecules just so happen to have the right geometric and electrochemical properties, you can arrange them as a crystal.”
Andalon watched this all very attentively, though, by the look on her face, she didn’t understand a word of it.
“Then why does Dr. Derric seem so flustered?” I asked.
Jonan glared at me. “He’s going to print the fucking crystal.” He turned to Dr. Skorbinka. “That’s what you’re planning, isn’t it?”
Mistelann nodded. “Guilty as charged.” He looked over his shoulder at the windows on the back wall, and to the production floor beyond them. “Substance resolution level of Mark 3 Matter Printer is sufficient for mass fabrication of macromolecular structures. Crystal is like tree: you plant it; it grows.” He looked at his console. “Samples of mycophage crystal will be seed for crystallization of new synthetic copies. First, I will need to upload mycophage’s chemostructural data to matter printer computer and configure production protocols, but once this is finished, automatic manufacturing will commence in earnest.” He looked at the three of us. “Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.”
Ani nodded. “We can find some people for you, absolutely.”
“Brand would jump at the opportunity,” I said, “assuming he isn’t already deeply engaged in something.”
Which, knowing him, he probably was.
“No,” Dr. Skorbinka shook his head, “you misunderstand. I do not require assistance with computer things. I require assistance with people. More specifically, I require assistance with keeping strangers out. This work is highly specialized, and there is not enough time for explaining of procedures to strangers.”
“I understand,” I said.
I went ahead and sent messages to Suisei and Heggy, letting them know to keep people away from the main matter printer lab.
“What’s Mr. Misty talking about?” Andalon asked, leaning over me and the table.
Uh… it’s complicated, I thought-said.
Andalon stood up on the stool. “Andalon wants to know,” she said.
Why? I thought-asked.
“‘Cause Mr. Genneth wants it to work,” she replied. “I can feel it.” She pressed a finger against her head. “I can feel your thinks in here. You really, really wants it to work.”
As much as it pained me to admit it, she was right.
You’re right, Andalon, I thought-said, I do want it to work.
Was it going to work? Probably not. But I still wanted it to. I wanted to believe—no, I had to believe that modern scientific knowledge had something useful to say about the Green Death. If it didn’t, our struggles here would be for nothing, and I couldn’t accept that.
We’re already keeping the zombies at bay, I thought-said. That’s progress. I gulped.
I looked Andalon in the eyes.
Please, Andalon, I thought-said, lowering my head in prayer, if there’s anything you can do to make it work or help slow down the Green Death’s progression, please, do it.
“Why not use ALICE?” Ani said, rather excitedly. It wasn’t super loud, but it was enough to pull me back into my colleagues’ conversation.
Dr. Skorbinka nodded. “Is already in plan.”
“Okay, so,” Jonan said, “what’s the timetable going to be for this? And what’s the treatment protocol? What are the logistics, Mistelann?”
“We will adhere to dosages specified in experimental trials from Stovolsk,” the mycologist replied. “If dosage proves insufficient against Green Death, we will adjust.” He turned to Jonan. “As for your question, Dr. Derric, Computer Boss gave me permission for wave of one hundred dosage units. Production limits will be raised if they succeed.”
Ani shook her head. “Ugh,” she groaned, “why play pussy-foot at this stage? We should be going all-in.”
“Sure, we could go all-in,” Jonan said, “but, mind you, that would mean no more morphine, no more anesthetic, and no more wound epoxy, not to mention no new bedsheets. We can’t keep recycling organic compounds forever, and, though we could start distilling corpses for molecules, I’m worried what the damn spores will do to the machinery.”
“What are you saying, Jonan?” Ani asked.
“I don’t like being pessimistic Ani, but… we need to be real here. If the mycophage doesn’t work, I don’t think you’d be very happy if going all in on it meant that you no longer had supplies to use for palliative care. Our patients are already dying, but, as it is, at least we can keep those deaths from being total, undiluted agony. Ani, do you really want to jeopardize our ability to do that? Is it worth the risk?”
Behind her translucent F-99 face mask, Ani bit her lip.
Suddenly, Jonan’s console pinged. “Well,” he said, whipping his PortaCon out to take a look, “it seems duty calls once again.”
Ani’s console pinged a moment after, as did mine.
Checking it, I found a very angry message from Nurse Kaylin waiting for me.
“Please send any assistance you can find my way,” Mistelann said.
“Will do,” Ani said.
“I will keep you updated on progress,” the mycologist replied. “If I do not reply, I am either dead or zombie.”
Ani closed her eyes and groaned. “Please… don’t say that.”
“It is truth. At times like these, truth is all we have.”
Ani and I started to walk off, only for Jonan to call out to me.
“Actually Dr. Howle,” he said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you for your assistance.”
“What for?” I asked.
“An impromptu psych eval.” Dr. Derric looked me in the eye. “I’ve just been assigned Zongman Lark’s case. It seems the singer tried to kill himself.”
Dr. Skorbinka let out a sardonic snort. “I wonder why…”
As I got up from my stool, Andalon floated over to me.
“What you asked, Mr. Genneth,” she said, “I think I can do something.” She clenched her hands into fists. “I’m gonna try. Andalon’s gonna try.”
It was the best news I’d heard all day.