Chance ran for the chain. He began to climb. Halberds clanged on the walls, just barely missing him, and nets wrapped around his body, then slipped off and fell to the ground. Chance was nearly at the hole in the ceiling when a halberd pierced the hem of his shirt, barely missing his flesh, but pinning him to the wall. Frantically, he worked at the halberd with one hand. Two of the little round creatures began to climb up, each with a dagger between its teeth.
Only a few hours earlier, Chance had been lying in bed, his sister and Mersey Marsh in the room next door, his mother downstairs. They were still in bed, probably; it was only six a.m. there. There. Where was he now? How far away? How far beneath? He’d never be able to deliver the letter, the secret catholicon of flerk, which no one knew he had.
Hmm.…
He looked down at the climbing beings and shouted, “I have flerk! A cure-all! Just don’t kill me!”
Incredulous, high-pitched titters erupted from the little creatures below.
“Flerk! Sure you do! Ha-ha-ha! You can’t fool a Balliope, human!”
Chance looked over his shoulder. Bursting into the room were more of the spherical beings—Balliopes, evidently—except these were carrying pistols of some kind. One of them paused, leveled its weapon, and fired.
There was a chattery whir, then a sudden jinth! as a steel dart with wires tailing out of it stuck in the wall next to Chance’s head. Chance, sweating and in a panic, worked at the halberd pinning him. Another electrified dart stuck in the wall near his leg. Finally, the halberd came loose and clattered to the floor. Chance scurried up the chain and into the hole in the ceiling. Right behind him were the two dagger-wielding Balliopes. The chain was hooked to a manual winch bolted to the floor. He yanked on the hand brake and the chain began to unwind, eventually slipping off altogether and falling down the hole. There were screams below: the two Balliopes crashing to the floor. Nobody could climb up now. He was safe, at least for the moment.
He looked around. He was in a vast, dark open space, like a warehouse, lit here and there with faint bulbs hanging on long cords that were swaying in a gentle breeze of unknown origin. The ceiling was at least five stories above, almost invisible in the gloom. Ladders, ducts, beams, poles, ramps, chutes, chains, and ropes, all rusty or mildewy or dirty or busted, crisscrossed the huge metal cavern. Overturned barrels as big as hay bales sat motionless here and there. Near the center of the space was a kind of large, squarish column rising all the way to the ceiling, like a chimney. Chance ran toward it. They’d be there soon. Minutes. Seconds, even. He trotted toward the chimney thing, careful not to trip on the many obstacles on the floor—abandoned wrenches, oily rags, broken planks, concrete shards, wheelbarrows, unidentifiable garbage, even a chest of drawers, and, by the strange column, a skeleton. A full human skeleton, tatters of leathery skin stretched across the bones. It had obviously been there a long, long time. Chance was proud of himself for not shrieking. He was growing hardier. He was, of course, either dead, dreaming, or insane, but very hardy indeed.
Or maybe it was all real. If so, he would survive it. He would not become a forgotten skeleton. He would save the beings, even though he had not much liked the ones he’d met so far.
The column was five feet on each side and apparently completely seamless. It appeared to actually come up through the floor, rather than stand upon it. Chance walked around it.
On the far side was a pair of double doors. A very familiar type of door with a pair of barely illuminated buttons next to it, each covered in dirt and the entropy of disuse, but labels that could be read: UP and DOWN.
Up seemed the sensible direction. He pushed the button and heard a groan from somewhere way, way below. It sounded like a huge steel pipe being bent in half by an ogre—not an implausible scenario in this place.
Chance heard shouts and grunts and yodels: They were getting closer. In a far corner, a door opened, flooding the place with light that danced with the shadows of his pursuers, far more of them than before. The elevator doors yawned open and he jumped in, hit the CLOSE DOORS button, and scanned the bank of numbers.
Apparently, he was on the 1,509th floor. Wha…?! The tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, only has 174, and that’s if you count the maintenance levels in the spire and the two floors of underground parking! But fifteen hundred floors?
Chance shook his head vigorously. Focus! The elevator only went to the 1,212th floor—all the other numbers went up; Chance guessed that the lower the number, the closer to the surface of the Earth he was. If each floor was ten feet, Chance calculated he was almost three miles beneath the surface of the Earth. This was impossible. Wasn’t it? He hit the 1,212th floor button. The elevator rose, slowly picking up speed.
What if they were waiting for him on 1,212? Chance decided to get off sooner. He waited until he was just below the 1,290th floor, then hit the button. The elevator jostled and rattled to an uneven stop.
The doors opened.
CHAPTER 14
Pauline sat in the kitchen and began to call all of Chance’s friends. Vishy Chandry, Randy Kane, Jessamyne Zee, Harold Boyd, Jamal Rice, others. None had seen him.
Pauline knocked on all the neighbors’ doors up and down her street, then down the parallel and cross streets. Hours later she walked home, where she found an old, rusted-out El Camino she immediately recognized as the property of a certain cousin of hers. What was he doing here? She groaned. Then she thought, Maybe he’s with Chance!
She ran inside to find Pye McAllister sitting at the kitchen table, eating her new box of Count Chocula.
“Where’s Chance?”
“No idea,” said Pye.
“And what are you doing here? No offense.”
“Your mama called me this morning and asked me to come by and watch y’all.”
“Why? She said we didn’t need a babysitter.”
“She said she’d heard a noise in the house a couple nights ago, and it made her nervous, and that she would feel better if I was here for the duration.”
“I’m too old for a babysitter.”
“And yet here I am.”
Pauline tried calling Mersey, but only reached her voice mail. She didn’t leave a message.
Pye burped grandly, got up, and lay down on the couch to play Death Galaxy Throwdown.
“Polly, I’m still hungry. Why don’t you make your old cousin Pye a cheese sandwich?”
“You haven’t seen my brother since you got here?”
“No. Sandwich?”
Pauline hurriedly unwrapped three slices of American cheese, spread some mayo on a couple slices of wheat bread, added lettuce and tomato, and brought it to him with some chips on a paper plate.
“When I’m finished,” said Pye, “I’m gonna nap right here, so don’t disturb me.”
Pauline ignored him. She picked up the three plastic cheese wrappers and threw them in the recycling bin. She picked up the bin and hiked out to the alley. She was about to dump it all in the big blue barrel when she noticed a strange thing in the bin she was carrying. A stamp. Affixed to a letter. It was a postage stamp like none she’d ever seen before. On an envelope with strange addresses. No letter inside. She brought it into the house.
Did this have anything to do with Chance? She ran upstairs and dragged out her laptop. Searching Saint Philomene’s Infirmary for Magical Creatures brought no hits. She also searched Patient 251987, Fallor Medoby Dox, and Pipe C330649. She experimented with variant spellings, word orders, etc. She looked up infirmary in foreign dictionaries and searched those spellings: L’infirmerie de Philomène, Philomene ambulanta, Philomene je ošetřovna, Philomene է հիվանդանոց, Philomene en erizaindegira, Philomene в лазарета, Philomene Krankenstation, Philomene , Philomene の診療所, Philomene ιατρείο του, Philomene ir lazarete, Enfermería de Philomene …
Why she hadn’t tried Spanish earlier? It brought her directly to a website Mersey Marsh would have loved: hospitalprofunda.com. It was all a
bout a mythical subterranean hospital named Enfermería de Philomene that treated only supernatural creatures. The place was unique, and if you happened to be a fairy with a broken wing, or a Daredevil who’d come down with chicken pox, or a poltergeist who was hearing voices in its head, or Odin out with hammertoe, then you were obliged to go to the Enfermería de Philomene, the only place in the world where treatment was available.
Humans, reported the website in twenty-four-point type dripping with blood, were not welcome.
Pauline harrumphed. She felt like she was reading one of Chance’s dumb fantastical comic books.
The website’s owner, Mateo Peña, a ham radio operator from Rincón Oscuro, Texas, a small town at the edge of Big Bend National Park, claimed to live directly above the hospital and occasionally intercept radio signals from the place. There was even a channel on the website, but there was nothing but static now.
Pauline hunted for a contact link on the website so she could write to Mateo, but there was none. Infuriating. She scoured the website instead. There was a vast amount of information. Most compelling was the infirmary’s mail delivery system—a worldwide network of large underground pipes. Had Chance, by chance, broken into one at the bottom of his hole to China? And was he now stuck inside one of these pipes?
Pauline ran outside and climbed into the hole. Chills seized her at the sight of the chipped and broken pipe.
“Chance!”
Nothing. She climbed out of the hole, ran inside and past Pye, dozing on the couch, and bounded upstairs.
* * *
She wrote an e-mail.
Dear Mersey,
Chance is missing. I’m in a giant pipe at the bottom of the hole Chance dug. I think he’s in the pipe. I’m going after him. Don’t come after me. Don’t let anyone know. Call over here and tell Pye (he’s babysitting) I’m sleeping at your house. And if I’m not back, do it again the next night, and the next. Go to hospitalprofunda.com. It will tell you everything.
I miss you.
Love,
Pauline
She loaded her pockets with supplies—mini flashlight, phone, batteries, peppermint candies, twenty bucks, and a pocketknife. She began to put on her sneakers, but there was something in the toe of the left shoe. Pauline stuck her hand in and withdrew an object not unlike a pretzel stick.
The missing piece of fulgurite.
She tucked it into a jeans pocket and ran downstairs.
She woke up Pye and told him she was spending the night at a friend’s house. He grunted once, twice, and rolled over.
And Pauline was off.
CHAPTER 15
Chance looked out the elevator doors of the 1,290th floor of Saint Philomene’s Infirmary for Magical Creatures onto a polished white hallway that was just like a regular hospital’s. Across from him was what resembled a nurses’ station; it was, however, free of nurses. He peeked around the corner. Empty, in both directions. The hallway seemed to go on infinitely. Along both sides were closed doors, each of which was numbered: 1290.344, 1290.345, and so on. In front of many doorways, monitors stood beeping and chiming. Chance gingerly stepped into the hallway. Not a soul. He ducked behind the nurses’ station.
Computers!
Chance dragged a wheeled chair over and sat in front of a monitor. He could barely fit between the armrests. The monitor and keyboard were also small—he had to use the tip of his pocketknife to type. He studied the screen. Ah, there: site search. Chance typed in infirmary directory, then Fallor Medoby Dox. No results found. He tried just Fallor. Nothing. Chance took out his letter and read it again.
Aha.
Alas, there is not nearly enough to save 1,800,000 beings, my dear Simon, but, in your hands, it could save the one capable of saving the all.
Chance typed in Simon, which resulted in 5 hits:
—Simon Certainpants (Pixie)
staff, anesthesiologist, geriatrics, room 3299.124
—Crash Simons (Vampire)
staff, bass player, phlebotomists’ lounge orchestra, room 2460.981
—Simone Uiough (Revenant)
staff, lunch lady, cafeteria 4449, meat line
—Simonetta Treathm-Popthm (Harrow-Teaguer)
staff, Keeper of Perishable Organs, rooms 800.100–800.110
—Simon Sleight (Deviklopt)
patient, detainee, (treachery), cell #299, basement
That last one. Chance remembered the number 299 from the envelope.
That’s whom Chance was delivering the letter to.
Maybe this would all work out, and Chance could be home in time for lunch! Or dinner? He had lost track of time.
Except Saint Philomene’s Infirmary for Magical Creatures appeared to be at least 4,449 floors deep, and who knew how much farther down the basement was. And he happened to be going to meet a prisoner. A Deviklopt, whatever that was. It certainly didn’t sound like a being he wanted to spend much time with. It also sounded like he might be untrustworthy. But someone, Fallor Medoby Dox, whose very name comported loyalty, trusted Simon Sleight enough to place the welfare of everyone in the infirmary in his hands.
Chance returned to the site search and typed in basement directions.
Before the results registered, a loudspeaker blared and Chance fell out of his chair, landing hard on the white linoleum floor.
Attention.
Footsteps. Multiple footsteps, as though of a giant galloping centipede in jodhpurs. Getting closer. Chance ducked under the counter and crouched as far back as he could, among the computers’ wires and cables and power strips.
Attention: Perimeter breach, human, male, location floors 1,509 to 1,212, repeat: human, danger of infection, invoke all caution.
Infection? Chance gulped. It felt like there was a lemon in his chest.
Chance tried to bury himself deeper among the wires and cables. The footsteps thundered louder.
“Check every room!” something shouted. “Look under every sheet, in every closet, behind every monitor, up every air duct!”
Affirmative shrieks and yells sounded as the footsteps scattered down the halls. What were they? They didn’t sound like Balliopes. So far they hadn’t thought to look behind the nurses’ station.…
Suddenly, the overpowering fetor of boiled broccoli filled the room, and a brown patent-leather boot came into view. Then, a pair. And another pair, but these were in pink patent leather. From the tops of the boots emerged skinny but thickly furred legs—the same species as the ones in the mail room. Their legs were so close that Chance could have, if he had wished to, reached out and left a fingerprint on the shiny footwear. But he did not wish to do that.
The lemon in Chance’s chest began to climb up his gullet. This is impossible. He was shaking so hard he worried they would hear his bones rattle.
“He’s a slippery little human, huh, Kevin,” said a being, the owner of the pink boots before him. He sounded a little like Moe from The Simpsons.
“We just started looking, Dan, jeez,” said his companion, Kevin, in the brown boots.
“Lemme see the picture of him again,” said the something called Dan.
Chance heard paper being unfolded. Chance was tired of the sounds paper could make.
“Ew, his ears stick way out.”
Hey!
“And so dirty,” added Dan.
“What the heck do you know, Dan? You’ve probably never seen a human in your life. For all you know, they all look like that.”
“Not true. I did see one, for your information,” said Dan, stamping one pink boot in indignation. “Remember that old human lady, decades ago? I helped catch her. I was lucky I didn’t get infected with that horrible Oppaboffian bug she was carrying.”
Chance thought he might faint. If they just happened to glance under the counter …
“Darn right. Killed a bunch of creatures in Donbaloh, that bug. Forget what it was called.”
“How does one get to Oppabof, anyway?”
“Why? You wanna go live with t
he humans? Catch that bug you missed the first time?”
“Just curious, Kevin. Jeepers, don’t bite my head off. Besides, plenty of nonhumans live on the surface. Sowlths, barrow-wights, kelpies, vampires—”
“Okay, okay. Well, first you have to get a bunch of shots. Then you have to apply for a visa from the Office of Transportation—”
“No, I mean, like, secretly, you know, through tunnels and whatnot.”
“You’re kind of freaking me out,” said Kevin. “You know, if you leave, they’ll never let you back in again. Especially Vyrndeets like ourselves.”
“I’m just curious!”
“Fine,” said Kevin, leaping up to sit on the counter directly over Chance, his brown-booted legs swinging forward and backward, the heels rising only inches from Chance’s nose. “A map exists.”
“A map! Where?”
“I dunno, but I’ve heard it’s been circulating around Saint Philomene’s in a manuscript for centuries. It must still be around because folks do occasionally, illegally, venture up to Oppabof, outside the proper channels. You’d have to talk to Arbipift Obriirpt, who is, officially, a personal bodyguard to Feargus M’Quiminy—”
“The Chief of Surgery?”
“Yep,” said Kevin, pausing in his boot swinging. “But Obriirpt is also, unofficially, the guy that runs Saint Philomene’s black market in transplant organs.”
“What is he?”
“M’Quiminy and Obriirpt are both Harrow-Teaguers.”
“Gad!” said Dan, crossing his pink boots.
“‘Gad!’ is about right, my friend. Either one of them could pinch your head off with two phalanges. Anyway, if anyone knows were the map is, it’s him.”
Arbipift Obriirpt. Arbipift Obriirpt. Arbipift Obriirpt. Chance said the name over and over in his head so he wouldn’t forget it. Arbipift Obriirpt would be his ticket out of here.
A voice, neither Dan’s nor Kevin’s, shouted, “Floor clear!”
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