The Wyrms of &alon

Dr. Marteneiss inhaled and then swallowed hard.

Holy Angel, please, have mercy. Not another one.

Heggy looked to the soldiers standing guard. “I’ve got a Type Two case,” she said.

“Did you test for it?” the soldier replied.

Heggy glanced at the woman. The woman’s grip on her daughter’s lanky arm tightened, the way grips tended to do when they were searching for something to hold on to, to keep from being pulled under.

Heggy looked back at the soldier. “No need.”

The soldiers looked at one another, muttering in confusion.

Heggy could only imagine what Vernon was going to do with the transformees.

“Ma’am,” she asked, “is your daughter…?”

The woman shook her head. “She isn’t… I mean, she is—she has a cough—but it’s just her allergies. I couldn’t leave her at home. Marc… he… he’s already…” The woman struggled to breathe. She kept tugging at her collar, as if the clothes were too tight for her.

More words barked from the loudspeakers, but Heggy wasn’t paying enough attention to process them.

The woman stepped closed. “I—I can’t. I can’t be turning into one of those things,” she said, barely above a whisper, “I’m scared. Please, Doctor. Please help me.” She started to sob. “Please…”

She gestured at her daughter, as if the girl was a precious gem she was terrified of losing.

And, well… she was.

Heggy got up from her seat. Heat and moisture churned in the space between her face and her PPE visor. She turned to one of the soldiers.

“I—I’m sorry,” Heggy said. “I need to take a break. I…”

The mother looked on in confusion. “Wha…?”

Grabbing her console, Heggy turned away as she trudged out of the tent. She kept her gaze low, ignoring the line of eyes watching her as she passed. Her PPE felt snugger than ever. It was like a straightjacket, binding her tight.

Or maybe that was just the feeling of the fungus crawling through her body?

As she wandered back toward the cypresses in the garden, Heggy bent over and coughed.

It felt like she was hacking her guts out. She leaned against the tree trunk, panting for breath.

“Moonlight,” she muttered, feeling something icky slide down the back of her through, “what I wouldn’t give for a cigarette right now.”

Heggy’s every instinct screamed to rip off the helmet and breathe deep the crisp, fresh autumn air. But she knew she couldn’t.

Heggy lifted up her console and opened up the document Vernon had sent her. There was a message attached. She opens that first.

Dear General Marteneiss so Kirk Kirk Dempshire that Kirk is dead and I’m not far behind I don’t even know if we’re broadcasting anymore also I’m uh dictating this into my console because I don’t remember how to spell imagine that Period. Honestly I’m just sending out the final messages right now it’s hard to talk. I don’t remember writing this list but I had this list and you were on it so there you go Period I sent a message to uh what’s his name Henrichy before this one. I told him to go duck himself. I don’t know if you remember this but it was my first book it was the thing that made me famous and I have your family to thank for it. I wanted to uh the politicians told the book making people that I had to cut out content from my book because it made the country look bad period. I was the one who went out to talk to all those guys from the the uh the Prela and I I got lots of stuff. It never got to see the light so I thought you and yours deserved to see it period. You probably already know it but if you didn’t

aqwesrdtfghvjb

Oh fuck IT HURTS IT HURTS

Sent from Ilzee’s Console

Ilzee? Heggy thought. Ilzee Rambone?

But before Dr. Marteneiss could look further, microphone feedback screeched out of the loudspeakers.

“This is your final warning,” the speaker yelled. “Step back, now!”

The noise jolted Heggy to attention. Slipping her console in her PPE’s belly pocket, she looked around the corner of the tent, craning her head to see the source of the commotion.

Something was happening out in front of the Hall of Echoes.

A crowd of people was mobbing the fences that cut through Garden Court Drive. The black metal wireframe was starting to buckle under the weight. Hands grabbed and arms flailed as people tried to push their way through the small gaps between the fences or between the soldiers and their riot shields.

I guess this is it, Heggy thought.

Once again, it was time for her to clean up other people’s messes.

Heggy marched across the garden, past white tents, trampled flowers, and lines of desperate civilians. She approached the clustered vehicles, loudspeaker equipment, and twin walls of soldiers that make the checkpoint the military had set up to control flow of people into and out of the hospital.

One of the soldiers yelled.

“Back off, fucker!”

A man had been trying to squeeze his way through the barrier, and the soldier had dealt with him by punching him square in the jaw. The blow knocked the man back, and the crowd recoiled with him. Ignoring the burning in her chest, Heggy ran over as quickly as she could.

If Vernon and his men weren’t going to protect their honor, then Heggy figured it fell to her to do it for them.

Without skipping a beat, Heggy grabbed the soldier by the shoulder and manhandled him real good, turning him around so that he could see her.

It caught everyone off guard—the soldiers, most of all. They turned, ready to mete out punishment. From the looks on their faces, Heggy could tell that they’d been expecting to see a rioter who’d jumped the fence, not a doctor.

“What the hell are you doing, doctor?” the man demanded, scowling at Heggy.

“‘Bout to ask you the same thing!” she said.

The crowd watched on, quieting down, even—bemused by the unexpected turn of events.

A man in the crowd spoke up. “We’re dying here, doctor. And then the General says you have something that might be a treatment, but you’re fucking holding it back!”

Another voice joined in. “Not even the end of the world is enough to get the system unrigged!”

“Down with imperialism!” shouted another. “There will be justice! Justice!”

It was a critique Heggy had heard many times before; I should know, I’d given a similar one to her, myself, over many a cafeteria meal. But, just like then, Heggy knew it couldn’t be true.

At least, she thought she did.

Now, though…

“Gant said they got the cure in there, and everyone said it was a lie, but Marteneiss set it straight. It’s true! It’s all true! They’re gonna hold out on us until we bow down or die!”

“No,” Heggy yelled, “those are—”

She wanted to say “lies”, but she couldn’t, because that wouldn’t be true. Not quite.

Dr. Marteneiss’ next words made her weep. “There’s no cure!” she said. “If we had one, we’d be sharing it—because that’s what doctors do!”

Gasps rippled through the crowd, though just as many voices hardened and fought back, instead.

“Like I would trust you, lady!”

A hand clamped down on Heggy’s shoulder.

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

Turning, Heggy saw one of the white troopers. The bands on his shoulder indicated his rank: Sergeant.

“I’m Dr. Heggy Marteneiss,” she replied.

“M-Marteneiss?” The Sergeant’s tongue stumbled under the weight of the name.

“Has everyone here forgotten everything about everything?” Heggy snapped. She stabbed her thumb against her chest. “Listen, bucko, I was a Lt. Colonel—combat physician, no less. I outrank you.”

“Please, help me!” someone yelled. “My whole family is sick! We can’t wait! Help us, please!”

“Everything’s fucking broken, Dr. Marteneiss,” the Sergeant said. “Telling these poor folks otherwise is only going to stoke the fire.”

“What you’ve been doing isn’t any better!” Heggy yelled.

“I’m not going to let the government inject poison into my veins!” someone screamed.

“Clearly, you’ve been out of service for a while, Dr. Marteneiss,” the Sergeant said. “I have my orders, Doctor, and I intend to follow them. All hell would break loose if I didn’t, not to mention my stipend.”

The crowd ranted and raved, louder and louder.

“No, it’s DAISHU! It’s DAISHU!”

“It’s the atheists! The God-killers!”

Heggy wanted to reach out and tell the Sergeant that there was more to giving and receiving authority than serving the bottom line, but she didn’t know how to put it into words—it was something she hadn’t really considered before.

The crowd started to churn.

“I’m scared!”

“Let me in!”

But then a fresh crop of screams broke out, over by the tents in the gardens.

A woman shrieked in heartbreak.

“No! No! I won’t! I won’t go!” she screamed. “Sally! You can’t take me from her! Sally!”

Other voices clamor. Outrage seethed.

Heggy rushed over as fast as she could, as did several soldiers. She nearly stumbled as she caught a glimpse of the screamer.

Oh God…

It was the woman from before. The one with the little girl.

Heggy hadn’t even gotten her name.

Dr. Marteneiss’ heart nearly leapt out of her chest as an invisible hand tore a chunk off the end of one of the white tents. The metal frame groaned as the torn segment turned over and fell to the ground. People scattered and screamed, and then… everything fell apart.

It happened so quickly.

A child screeched in terror. Heggy stopped, turning to help, but it was too late.

Little Sally, in her fright, had run around the back of the tent to where people were laying down to die. Other adults gathered around and saw it for themselves, drawn by the child’s cries. Panic spread like wildfire. Chaos spread and multiplied, and Heggy was powerless to stop it.

“Please, ma’am, you have to calm down!”

The voice was like a lightning bolt, flashing in the chaos.

Ani.

Dr. Lokanok had come out of the clinic tent she’d been assigned to. She stood beside Sally’s mother, pleading with the woman—devoted to her duty, even in the heart of the storm. Sally’s mother stood like a sprinkler, slowly turning round and round.

There was no wind, but the grass and shrubs around the woman began to stir.

“Ani!!” Heggy yelled.

The memory of what Letty Kathaldri had done to the soldiers and nurses in the hallway outside Room 268 was fresh in her mind, and she wasn’t about to let Dr. Lokanok get sliced in half for having dared to do the right thing.

Darting forward, Heggy lunged at Ani. She grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled, right as blades of psychic force shot up and out from Sally’s mother. The air cracked with sonic booms.

“Sally!” she screamed. “Sally!”

The blades of her power were viscous mirages that sliced through tents and trees. Black lattice walls teetered and fell as fences were torn through. A crescent force carved a furrow through the ground, lopping off the limbs of anyone in its path.

Heggy pulled, throwing herself and Dr. Lokanok onto the ground, rolling off to the side.

The air exploded with feral howls. The scattering lines of people twitched and coiled as their wills were overwritten.

The feralism spread out from Sally’s mother, starting from the dismembered bystanders who’d been caught in her attack.

“Zombies!” a soldier screamed.

Gunfire broke out as the soldiers fired on the crowd.

Sally’s mother ran in terror.

The next thing Heggy knew, she was back in the Costranak jungles once again, surrounded by danger and madness. A half-dormant part of her mind lurched awake. Clambering off Ani, Heggy crunched down low, avoiding fire and running civilians as she chased after Sally’s mother.

Heggy took in as many details as she could.

There was fresh blood splattered on some of the tents. Bodies were scattered on the ground, and not because they’d laid down for a rest. Commands blared through the loudspeakers. Heggy turned back, and saw the crowd-sea raging to surge over the barriers. The spooked souls were seizing the day.

In the middle of the madness, Heggy noticed something. The turning spread in waves. Had she not been in the middle of the Garden Court, she might not have noticed it.

The waves emanated from injuries and violence.

A mind-blade whisked passed right over Heggy’s head. It trailed suction in its wake. The blade sliced open several people’s torsos. Seconds later, those injured bodies turned feral, and the condition spread, propagating outward. Where the bullets struck, spasmodic movements rippled through the crowd as if a stone had been dropped in a pond.

It was reactive, the turning.

It was like the fucking fungus was defending itself.

She had to calm the mother, before she killed them all.

Mustering everything she had, Heggy sprinted over to the woman while she gasped for breath in between shouts. Heggy grabbed both her hands, and held them tight.

“Stop!” Heggy begged. She squeezed the woman’s slender hands. “You’re hurting people.”

Sally’s mother wept. “Y-You tried to take me… take me away from my Sally…”

“Look at what you’re doing!”

And then, down in the garage, something exploded.