I left Yuta’s room with a smile on my face. As much as it pained me to admit, for much of my career, the evergreen, sunshine smile I wore on my face was a courtesy for my patients’ benefit, and to help me cover up my own pain. But, this smile? It was the genuine article. This was a victory, gosh darn it, and boy did it feel good! And, considering it happened in the aftermath of my meeting with Mr. Himichi, it was quite cathartic, too.

My encounter with my hero had shaken me to my core. I could swear, I felt the Moonlight Queen’s hand at my back as I turned a corner and saw Heggy and Ani rushing down the hallway, wheeling a refrigerator unit that held none other than the first batch of Dr. Skorbinka’s mycophage. Obviously, I asked them what they were doing, and, just as obviously, they’d spilled all the beans, and then one thing led to another, and we made the decision to take the now-recovered, Darkpox-free Hoshi to see her father, having administered the mycophage to her as a prophylactic.

Apparently, Jonan had made chaos out of everyone’s schedules in order to set up time to work with Lark one-on-one. (To be fair, the idea of keeping schedules at this point was completely ridiculous, so Jonan’s manipulations were tantamount to sprinkling a pinch of salt into the sea.) The singer had a seizure, as did nearly every patient afflicted by the Green Death. The attacks came in waves, and, inevitably, when they passed, more of the patient’s memories would have been lost to the aether.

Unsurprisingly, Dr. Derric had managed to hack into the hospital’s database and put Lark at the top of the list of patients chosen to receive the first wave of mycophage treatments used.

To be honest, a lot of people were rooting for him, as was I. Lark didn’t deserve to die—nor did anyone else.

Now, if only Hoshi would be able to stay plague-free.

Time would tell—and far sooner than I’d expected, too.

As I walked down the hallway, moving away from Yuta’s room, Andalon fluttered alongside me, riding my good mood like a butterfly on the breeze. At this point, I wasn’t even going anywhere anymore, just traveling in circles, giving aid where it was needed—which was everywhere.

Suddenly, Andalon floated out ahead of me. To my surprise, there was a smile on her face.

She stuck her arms up in triumph. “Mr. Genneth,” she said, “I did it!”

“Did what?” I asked.

“You asked if there was anything Andalon could do to make the Green Def less bad.”

Suddenly, Andalon had my undivided attention like never before. But none of that mattered. All that mattered was Andalon’s news.

“Yes! Yes yes yes yes yes!” I clenched my hands into trembling fists. “What is it? What’s the good news?”

“I think we can make it stop,” she said. “I think it’s ‘cause Amplersandalon is helping.”

“Please, Andalon, what do you mean by stop? Use your words. When you say stop, does that mean you can cure people now?”

“What is cure?” she asked.

“It’s when the people who are sick stop being sick and become better,” I explained.

She shook her head.

“Fudge!” I hissed.

“When Andalon says stop,” she said, “Andalon means this.” She stepped forward, and then froze in place.

Alright, so she’s literally stopping it.

“Okay, okay. That means they’re not getting worse, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

I clasped my hands around my head. “This is a freaking miracle…” I muttered.

I felt giddy.

For the first time since getting put on Ward E’s CMT, I had something I couldn’t wait to share with my colleagues. Unfortunately, fate had other plans in mind.

My console pinged.

Pulling it out, I saw a message from Nurse Kaylin:

There’s a very angry Mr. Elbock here you see you by the Main Reception Desk.

Reading those words yanked my world back in time. I felt like a movie camera panning backward through the past few days of my life, a feeling which only worsened as my surroundings bled away.

My control of my hyperphantasia was definitely improving. The “Daydream Alley” wyrmware Greg had given me automatically created a progeny consciousness into which it then recentered my mind, letting a doppelgenneth take over my body while I dealt with the latest drama unfolding in my mind.

As my surroundings melted into a hyperphantasy of that night, a week in the past, I felt my body shift back to my default human form as my consciousness recentered. While my body kept walking down the hallway in WeElMed, Andalon and I now found ourselves standing on the lawn outside my house, drawn from the middle of dinner by a police car that had parked itself at the Elbocks’ house across the street.

The scent of the lavender flowers in Merritt’s garden tickled my nose.

Closing my eyes, I shook my head, banishing the image and sending myself back into my body.

I wish I could have dealt with my guilt that easily. Then again, you know what they say: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I let out a big, long, “Fuuuuuuudge…”

After spending three seconds in Thick World standing like an idiot, I slowed down my perception of time. At this point, meeting Storn was basically an impromptu boss encounter, and I didn’t want to make things worse by going in unprepared.

Where to begin?, I thought.

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“Mrs. BokBok,” Andalon said.

Yes. That’s how this whole mess started. Merritt came in and asked me to kill her, because she thought she was a zombie—which, of course, I didn’t. Instead, I’d had her sedated and put on suicide watch, and, unfortunately, I’d gotten distracted and had failed to notify Storn that, at least for the moment, his wife was, as the kids these days would have said, terminally kookoo. Though, obviously, the fault for that lay with me, I liked to think that my situation was at least somewhat understandable, both because of how bizarre her condition had been, and because there was a little bit of a mass shooting later that same day, and—as is well known—mass shootings have a tendency of interfering with one’s prior obligations.

“What happened next?” Andalon asked.

Storn arrived home that evening, only to find that his wife was missing. So, he’d called the authorities, and after the deeply humiliating experience of apologizing for my goof, I’d promised Storn I’d make up for it.

My words played in my head with perfect fidelity. I could even hear the police car’s siren.

I managed to set her up for an MRI first thing tomorrow, so, if there’s anything abnormal, we’ll know about it soon enough, and I promise, I will let you know.

“Wait,” Andalon said, floating up off the ground. “If you promise to do something, doesn’t that mean you’re supposed to do it?”

Yep, I thought-said.

“But you didn’t do it.”

Also yep.

That ship had sailed—only now, it was coming back to port.

If it weren’t for Andalon and her quest, I would have been happy to let Storn rip my head off my shoulders. It would bring peace to both of us. But it was not to be.

Worse, no matter how much I thought about it, I kept coming back to the same conclusion.

There was no way around this.

So, returning my perception of time to normal, I started off on my death march to Ward E’s reception area. Much to my dismay, I made good time, and soon stood at the mouth of the corridor, facing the reception desk and structural columns at its center. The thought of what—and whom—I was about to confront made me lower my gaze in shame. Unfortunately, that only made things worse, giving me a clear view of the people huddled on the floor, up against the hallway walls, coughing, moaning, weeping, and dying. With desperation, they talked as much as they could, whether to themselves or to the people beside them, trying to keep hold on to as many memories as they could, but every once in a while, they’d twitch and spasm as a little bit more of their soul got ripped out of them.

I couldn’t help but look up and turn away, and—just my luck—that brought me face to face with Storn Elbock’s waiting eyes.

My long-time across-the-street neighbor stood by the reception desk in a hunched-over pose, clutching his cane in both hands as he leaned into its support. I was used to seeing him play at being an old codger—mostly when he wanted to be left alone—but he wasn’t pretending anymore. He wobbled every few seconds, his posture constantly teetering on the brink of collapse. But, more than just not looking good, Storn looked angry.

These two things were almost certainly related.

Patches of his gray, buzz-cut hair had fallen away, and there was a striking collection of fungal filaments branched beneath the skin of his neck and collar. It was like a dead tree reaching into a pallid sky.

I adjusted my bowtie before daring to open my mouth. It did not help.

“Hi, Storn,” I said, “I—”

The next thing I knew, I was on my back like an overturned tortoise. Apparently, despite his age and a Type One NFP-20 infection, Mr. Elbock had a killer right hook.

He must have been trembling in anger.

I didn’t blame him for that. Fortunately—though, not for guilt—I’d been expecting that, and had erected a force shield around my body while I’d fidgeted with my bow-tie, so, the pain I was feeling didn’t come from the middle of my chest, where he’d punched me, but from my back and tail as I fell on it.

Also, my self-esteem.

I screamed like a little kid.

It said a lot about how worn down everyone was that it wasn’t until after Storn’s follow-up punch that anyone did anything about it, and even then, it wasn’t the healthcare workers that did it.

I heard boots clomp on the vinyl floor.

Looking up, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a couple of soldiers coming out of a nearby hallway. They held their guns at the ready.

Pushing myself off the floor and sitting up as best as I could, I waved my arms and yelled.

“Don’t shoot!”

Storn came at me with a third punch, but I managed to dodge it with a gentle plexus push off the floor on my right. The little psychokinetic burst sent me rolling onto my side, out of the way of Storn’s fist.

Livid, Storn screamed as his blow bounced off the vinyl floor. “You bastard!” he yelled.

Rifles clicked as the soldiers took their aim.

“Sir,” one of them said, “step away from the doctor.” The techno-visor obscuring his face made him quite intimidating.

As did the gun.

Storn backed up as the soldiers approached me. One of them offered a hand to help me up, which I grabbed.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Are you alright, doctor?” he asked.

I glanced at Storn, and then at Andalon. She was watching from off to the side, with her hands on her face and her eyes peering through her fingers.

Turning to the soldier, I sighed. “No,” I said, with a shake of my head, “but that’s my fault, not Storn Elbock’s.”

I looked back at Storn for a second time and nodded slightly. “I… deserved that.”

“No kidding,” he growled.

“Just so you know,” I said, “Merritt isn’t dead. She’s—”

Scowling—his sickened veins bulging on his neck—Storn lunged at me with a yell. The soldiers managed to hold him back, with one of them walking up to stand between the two of us.

I pleaded for peace. “Gentlemen, please!”

The soldiers looked at me askance, but only for a moment, because Storn hadn’t stopped writhing in their grasp. His vest and shirt sleeves rustled against their carbon-fiber breastplates and gauntlets.

Some angry looking, harshly coughing nurses glared as they walked around us.

“I can take you to see your wife, Storn,” I said, softly, looking him in the eyes. “She’d want to see you.”

Storn stopped. He stared right back at me. “If you’re trying to make me forgive you, don’t. It won’t work.” He nearly spat out the words.

Briefly, I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. “I know,” I said. I lowered my gaze. “I’m not asking for your forgiveness, just that you stop punching me.”

Storn exhaled sharply. “Fine.”

Andalon floated over. “Is everything okey-dokey?” she asked.

Not yet, I thought-said.

Storn and I turned to the soldiers.

“That’s enough,” I said, “you can let him go.”

Stepping away from him, they did. One of them had set Mr. Elbock’s cane on the reception desk, which Storn picked up with an irascible grasp.

He paused for a moment, stifling a wicked cough. “Lead the way,” he said, in a mordant jibe.

And lead, I did. I took him down the least-overfilled hallway, toward the operating theater where Merritt and Dr. Arbond were still sequestered.

I didn’t say anything to Storn for the first minute of the trip. There were too many people around, and, knowing the conversation we would inevitably have was going to be as painful as it was personal, I’d rather wait until we were out of public view before we opened this latest can of wyrms. Ward E’s staff had enough problems to deal with. I didn’t want to foist my own failures onto them, too—well, not more than I already had.

There was my guilt, again.

Eventually, we came to a good place to talk: a niche in a corridor’s wall, bearing pairs of vending machines, water fountains, tables with chairs, and potted plastic plants. It was obvious a transformee had been snooping around recently, within the past day. Not only was the vending machine utterly empty, about a quarter of it was simply gone, and in its place was a big hole eaten into its left side. I could only assume a framed painting or paper sculpture had once hung from the naked hooks jutting out from the wall. Some of the metal looked like it had been suckled by hungry mouths. The fake plants were thoroughly ravaged, with only leafless, branchless, leafless stalks sticking out of the wood chip soil, most of which was already gone. Tiny black indentations had been etched into the floor here and there, no doubt burnt into the vinyl by a transformee’s saliva spores.

The scariest part? I had no idea where these transformees were coming from. I wanted to think it was just the self-help group’s transformees, or maybe others like them, but part of me worried it was something more.

Andalon? I thought-asked, what do you think about it?

She gave the scene a studious examination, and then turned to face me and give her report.

“This was done by a wyrmeh,” she said, with deadly seriousness.

At this point, I didn’t even bother to roll my eyes. I just went with it, and made a mental note to deal with the mystery of the wandering wyrms at the next available opportunity.

Unfortunately, right now, I had to atone for my sins against my neighbor.