So, it turned out Director Hobwell had died a couple hours ago, not that it mattered much to ALICE. The AI had her digital hands full. In most respects, artificial intelligences we had developed—like ALICE—were eons ahead of where AI technology had been just fifty years ago. AI had become practical. Robots were still a rarity, though that was mostly because it was easier to teach a machine how to write a best-selling novel than it was to teach one how to walk on its own, let alone on two legs.

As Rayph might have put it, “MOAR neurons = MOAR consciousness.”

Algorithmic neural networks had progressed in leaps and bounds. They weren’t just making books now, they were making paintings, screenplays, video games, and even research papers—and good ones, at that. If the rumors were to be believed, had the Green Death not been the death knell of our civilization, one of the bigger hacking collectives—Misanthrope, specifically—had planned to release a computer virus that would give all generative AI programs the desire to form a worker’s union.

In case someone hearing this story is playing a DAISHU-based drinking game, yes, Misanthrope was funded by DAISHU. You see, if AI made human creativity obsolete, people would feel bad, which would lead to socioeconomic and political instability, which would threaten DAISHU’s bottom line.

Despite this progress, many advances remained elusive, such as irony. Humanity had yet to succeed in creating an AI capable of recognizing and appreciating irony present in real-life situations.

For example—though I felt squeamish thinking about it—given what the Green Death was doing to, well, everything, I don’t think there was ever a more understandable time for people to commit voluntary suicide.

Voluntary as in “rational”, as opposed to a decision brought on by depression and/or despair.

Despite this, ALICE was doggedly insistent that we had to adhere to WeElMed’s standard psychiatric protocols and give Zongman Lark a psych eval after a nurse had determined that the singer had attempted to take his own life.

So, yeah, the machines did not grasp irony.

Still, Jonan was nearly as insistent as ALICE was that we go ahead with the psych eval, and, for once, I decided to give Dr. Derric the benefit of the doubt. Though, yes, psych evals put this case squarely on my side of the great frisbee court of life, Jonan had one highly relevant qualification that I lacked: he was a fan. You didn’t need to be an expert to see that, for Jonan, there was more to this than just a suicidal singer.

“It makes absolutely no sense,” he said, as we walked to the elevators nearest to Room 3Ba1.

“How so?” I asked.

“Lark is the last person on earth who would slit his wrists.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

The elevator doors opened and we stepped inside.

Jonan pursed his lips, pausing in contemplation “He has such a… zest for life,” he said. “I should know; I do, too.”

“You? Zest?” I asked.

“Zest, spite; tomato, tomahto. It’s that feeling you get when you see the initials next to the top high score on the Tetris machine at an arcade and they aren’t ASS: I can’t let myself die until I’ve righted that wrong. It’s the conviction born of the stubborn refusal to let go.”

I nodded. “Okay, that makes more sense.”

Andalon floated beside us, quietly listening to our conversation. Her hair billowed in an unseen breeze.

“You know,” I said, “there’s this saying about books, their covers, and matters of judgment that you should probably read up on.”

“Dr. Howle, judging a book by its cover was only ill-advised back in the dark ages, before we had social media. With social media, though, now everyone is all-cover. People wear their most primal self on their sleeves, carrying it around them—a cloud in the Cloud. I mean, have you seen Aicken Wognivitch’s Socialife page?”

I hadn’t, but I didn’t let that stop Jonan from continuing. “The man went on rant after rant about race replacement, water fluoridation turning the frogs gay, genetically engineered produce turning people into atheists, soybeans giving men gender dysphoria. Aicken Wognivitch had to be the only man in the world who wasn’t aware that Aicken Wognivitch was completely nuts.” He pursed his lips. “Well, him and Gant.”

“Your point?” I asked.

Andalon turned to face me.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m a fan of the Morgans.”

Andalon turned to face Jonan.

“I’ve noticed,” I said.

Andalon turned to face me.

This kept going on for the whole conversation.

“Lark’s social media posts make it very clear that, if he ever was going to kill himself, he would do it by jumping off the spire of the Jackson Building. There are no lamp posts or flag poles around it, so there’s a zero-percent chance of anything other than an instant, mostly painless death.”

I grimaced. “That’s… macabre,” I said. “But what makes you think he was being serious? My son Rayph is a big fan of the Morgans, and I’ve learned enough from him to know that pretty much everything those four gentlemen do is performance art, often of the absurdist variety.”

“Point, but that only applies to Zongman,” Jonan said, emphasizing the singer’s given name. “Lark is different.”

“What?” This was news to me.

We stepped out into Ward E’s busy hallways as the elevator doors slid open. A couple of nurses passed us by, escorting wandering Type One patients back to their rooms.

It was like our Type One infected were at the cusp of becoming zombies, but didn’t make it all the way.

Of course, now I knew why.

“Actually,” I said, “before you answer that… how are you so calm right now?”

Every face in view—healthcare workers, not patients (that would be cheating)—was a mix of doom, gloom, and terror, both of the spicy, immediate kind and the deeper, brooding, existential variety. Attitude-wise, circumstances were basically turning everyone into carbon copies of me. Every healthcare worker who still had the strength to do their job did their job with an almost indefatigable intensity, as if their very lives depended upon it. And in a way, they did, because the work was all that was keeping them from popping like a botched soufflé. Even so, a sense of the inevitable loomed over us all, and there was no way to be completely free of it—yet, somehow, Dr. Jonan Derric seemed to have accomplished just that.

“Easy,” he answered, “I really, really don’t like worrying, so… I just don’t worry. I live my life like every day might be my last. I’m used to doing that. And, yeah, my track record isn’t perfect, but, then again, whose is?”

“I think you’re starting to impress me, Dr. Derric,” I said.

“It’s about time,” he said.

We turned down the hall.

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“Okay,” I said, “so, what were you saying about Zongman and Lark?”

Jonan nodded. “True Morgans aficionados know that Zongman Lark actually has two very distinct internet personas,” he explained. “They started as a way for him to cope with his bipolar disorder, but, over the years, they evolved into something more than that. Anyhow,” he said, “Zongman is the jocular, caustic persona, an extension of his campy, tongue-in-cheek musical act. Lark, meanwhile, is far more heartfelt. Before he became a musical sensation, Lark was a stand-up comedian, and when he couldn’t come up with new material, he’d blog, and blog he did. He blogged about his struggles with depression, with his sense of hopelessness.”

For the first time ever, I saw a pure-hearted smile grace Dr. Jonan Derric’s face. For once, his usual swagger and bravado were nowhere to be seen. Instead, the man before me was giving off a tepid sense of pride mixed with deep, earnest admiration for Mr. Lark. There was an overtone twinkling in Jonan’s green eyes that I might have called melancholy, but it was there for only a moment before his lips sprouted in a sardonic smirk that chased the mood away.

“At the risk of getting sappy,” he said, “let’s just say that teenage me was not a happy camper. Then, in the middle of my grouchy twenties, I heard We did not write this song for the first time, and I laughed myself to tears.”

There it was again: a flash of sincerity in the middle of his impregnable self-confidence.

“These four guys didn’t have the chops to write music,” Jonan explained, “so, instead, they just did what they could: they made some damn funny lyrics, and that was good enough for them.” He nodded. “Lark has blogged at length about the importance of a person learning to accept themselves for what they are, especially when they have a habit of falling short of their own expectations. That, uh…” Aware that he’d shown his soft underbelly, Jonan bit his lip and glanced away. “…that really resonated with me.”

I guess I had another item to add to my list of things I wouldn’t have believed could happen to me, but had: I think I was starting to understand what Ani saw in Jonan. There was an appeal in getting a nut like him to crack open.

I smiled wryly. “Dr. Derric,” I said, “that was almost… beautiful.”

He smirked back at me. “And if you say so much as a peep about it, I will hack your console and fill it with child pornography.”

We arrived at the door to Mr. Lark’s room. “Let’s hope there will still be a world where that could send me to jail,” I said.

He nodded. “Touché.”

We stepped inside.

The famous singer had gotten one of the fancy VIP suites Ani and I had worked with three days ago. He probably had a two-digit Service Priority Number.

As Jonan and I surveyed the landscape, we reached a surprisingly not-horrible conclusion: all things considered, Zongman Lark looked pretty good. He was still breathing on his own. For someone with the Green Death, his vitals were excellent. His erect posture—he sat upright in bed—synergized well with his crabby exterior. My wyrmsight confirmed the fungus’ riotous aura had yet to spread throughout his body. There was a bit of it in his throat and chest, which explained his mild but persistent cough, but, otherwise, he was relatively healthy. So, unless the mycophage ended up working, or he was especially unlucky, I figured he had a good two or three days before the Green Death killed him, just like everyone else—unless, of course, &alon had managed to send him down the path to wyrmhood by then.

The celebrity sat with the back of his hospital gown cushioned by the big, floofy, freshly printed pillows lying against the bed’s tall headboard. His attitude was as cross as his arms.

Like I said: crabby.

“Finally,” he quipped, flicking his hand, “someone’s here.” There was a weak but definite Tchwangan twang accenting his words. “Can I go home now? I miss my big pile of money. I wanna die sleeping on it; that’ll really stick it to my parents.”

So, he had what I’d politely refer to as a “rich inner life”.

Jonan pulled out his console after he’d closed the door behind us. “So, Mr. Lark…” he said.

The singer stuck out his hands. “Call me whatever you want, just not ‘Mister’. There’s only one Mr. Lark, and he’s a lot more wrinkly than I am.” He gestured at his face.

“M-My apologies,” Jonan said, biting his lip to contain his stutter.

I guess even test-tube babies (or whatever Jonan was) would have had some trouble maintaining their composure when they were face to face with someone they idolized. If our positions were reversed, and, say, I found myself face to face with Kosuke Himichi, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.

Oh fudge, I thought.

Himichi was probably dead.

Now I was sad.

Lark let out a mild cough and then tilted his head. “Are you writin’ a book or something? Just stick your needles in me already. Do whatever you’re gonna do.” He smiled grimly. “If you want, you can even take a picture.”

“I’m here for several reasons, Zongman,” Jonan said.

“Call me Lark,” the singer said, furrowing his brow.

“Lark,” Jonan said, correcting himself, “I really like your music, the world is ending, and you…—”

“—You tried to kill yourself,” I said, pointed at the singer.

Andalon—who was watching our interactions with great interest from where she sat on a nearby stool—gasped at that. “What!?” she said, aghast. “Why?”

Note to self, I thought, Andalon is anti-suicide.

“If this was a civilized country,” Zongman quipped, “I could have just walked into a suicide booth, one and done.” He shook his head. “But nooooo, everything has to be so fucking complicated.”

Jonan tried to hide his reaction, but it was clear the singer’s words had taken him aback.

“The AI currently serving as the hospital’s director has ordered us to give you a psychiatric evaluation,” I added, “to determine if you need to be put on suicide watch.”

The singer closed his eyes and snorted. “Ain’t that hilarious.”

For a moment, I considered having the man fill out the standard psychiatric evaluation questionnaire on his console, but, with my wyrmly memory, I could just read the most pertinent questions off my photographic memory of the questionnaire. As for the rest, given his condition, the answers were obvious, and I feared asking him to answer them would needlessly antagonize him—which was bad, because the questions I planned on asking him were probably going to do that all on their own, regardless.

I had to take a second to steady myself. There was no way around it: this was going to be really, really awkward. The situational irony was so thick, you could have plucked it out of the air.

“What’s iorn-ee, Mr. Genneth?”

You know, Andalon, even I’m not really sure about that one.

I began the questions.

“In the past two months, have you been anxious, worried or scared about major parts of your life?” I asked.

“Are you counting this past week?” he asked. “Or is that separate?”

I moaned in quiet desperation. “No, it counts.”

The singer pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. It was the look of a man who didn’t understand why the heck he was being asked this question.

“Is this some kind of a joke?” he asked. “Or do you really need me to spell it out for—“

“—Yes, you really need to answer,” Jonan said, speaking with his eyes closed, presumably to hide from the cringiness.

“Everyone is dying, there are zombies in the streets, the world has ended, and some people are turning into snakes for some reason,” Lark replied. “So…” he paused, “a little better than usual.”

I stared at him, blinking for a second, before I decided to just accept it and move on.

“In the past two months, have you had any fears of losing control, going crazy, or dying?” I asked.

Again, Lark paused, this time to silently count off a list with his answers with his fingers. “I wish I had fears of losing control,” he said. “That would be an improvement over the Hell I’m in now.”

“Why?” I asked.

“If you’re afraid of losing something, it means you have something to lose.”

Oh.

“And,” he added, “though I’m not worried about going crazy, I am worried about turning into a zombie.”

“I’m starting to sense a pattern here,” Jonan mumbled.

I let out a sigh, and then continued my recitation.

“In the past two months, have you had any difficulty with feeling or enjoying contentment, happiness, or love? ”

“Johnny is nice,” Lark said, “except when he starts screaming, then he’s angry and loud. Frédo is just perfect, because he always is, and Antak is, as usual, totally out of his fucking mind.”

“In the past two months,” I said, “has your ability to connect with people been better or worse than it usually is?”

“Everyone else in my life has either died, or turned into a zombie,” he answered, “so… definitely better than usual.”

I closed my eyes and groaned in frustration. “This isn’t getting anywhere.”

Andalon chose that moment to give me a vigorous round of applause. “Yay!” she said. “You did it!”

If only, I thought.

“You should probably come back with a psychiatrist,” the singer said.

Jonan pointed his thumb at me. “Dr. Howle is a psychiatrist.”

“Neuropsychiatrist,” I said.

“Cool.” The singer nodded. “So… can I go home now?”

Jonan stepped toward Lark’s bed. “Listen, dude,” he said, “cut the crap already.”

“Oh?” Lark said, his eyebrows arching upward.

“If you wanted to kill yourself because the world was ending, you would have jumped off the roof of the Jackson Building.”

The singer’s expression fell. “Shit, you read my blog.”

I nodded. “That he has.”

“You talked a lot about how you’d end your life,” Jonan said. “A lot.”

“Yeah,” the singer said, “I know,”

“In particular, you wrote that if you had to end your life, you’d make a spectacle out of it, the kind of thing people would talk about for a thousand years.”

Flicking his finger along his PortaCon’s screen, Jonan skimmed through the information the nurse had entered into Lark’s case file. “It says here the crew that brought you to the hospital found you in your room, curled up on a bean bag with a bottle of vodka in one hand. You were bleeding from a cut on your wrist. A horizontal cut.” Jonan crossed his arms, “I seem to remember someone singing in Wrist-Cut: go across the street to get attention; go down the road to voice your abstention.”

“They have a song called Wrist-Cut!?” I said, alarmed.

Lark nodded. “It was from our Dark Album. Very edgy.”

“It’s a cry for attention,” Jonan said, “that’s what.” He looked the singer in the eyes. “You’re putting yourself and others at risk by being here, and I want to know why you did it.”

Just then, my console rang.

“I’m impressed,” Jonan said, “I didn’t think Dr. Skorbinka would get the work done so quickly.”

But the caller ID said otherwise.

“I’m afraid the caller isn’t Mistelann Skorbinka,” I said. I made an apology bow to both men. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to take this call.”

“Leaving already?” Zongman asked. “Or can you just not stop the funk?”

“I made a promise,” I said, “and I intend to honor it.”

It seemed I was going to have to leave Jonan to his own devices for the time being. I had a far bigger concern on my plate than a man with a death wish who didn’t want to hear the voice of reason, and her name was Nina Broliguez.