“No kidding. How do you communicate?”
Pauline explained the curious properties of broken fulgurite segments.
“You don’t even have to talk into it. It’s here in my pocket. Except I haven’t heard from Mersey for quite a while now.”
“You hear her voice in your head?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe the fulgurite isn’t close enough,” said Chance. “Try holding it next to your ear.”
Pauline didn’t think it would work, but she did as her brother suggested.
“Mersey?” said Pauline.
Is that … you? Pauline? I—
“Mersey, I found Chance. He came down to Saint Philomene’s Infirmary for Magical Creatures to save the place. There’s a madman somewhere in here threatening to unleash a lethal virus that will kill the entire population of one point eight million.”
Omigosh. Where is he? The madman?
“We don’t know. We thought maybe you could help.”
I did record a mysterious conversation about an hour ago. I couldn’t make any sense of it. I’ll play it for you. Just a sec.
Pauline found a sewing kit in the vanity drawer, and with a doubled length of strong thread, she made a necklace out of the fulgurite.
Here’s the recording, said Mersey. It’s not perfect.
It featured two new voices, one a plangent screech unlike anything she’d ever heard; the other was human. Strange sounds, whizzes and chirrs and whooshes, interrupted the conversation, which Pauline repeated word for word for her brother’s benefit.
“I’ve told you, we’re doing everything we—”
“—and I’ve been awake for three full days—”
“—be patient, we—”
“—the fever’s start—now—means I’ve got no m—than a few hours to live. You have to help me. My mind…”
“Will you at least tell me where you are?”
“I can’t—”
“—but how w—we find you if—”
“I’m not far. You radio me when she’s rea—and I’ll tell you wh—to go.”
“But—”
“And remem—, if I am harass—in—, I will turn this bug loose, Bittius.”
“Why would we har—”
“I am being harassed by demons every time I blink. Now good—”
“Please don’t—, Mr. Gr—”
Then, silence.
“Mersey, is that the end of the recording?”
That’s it.
“What were all those strange sounds in the background?”
No idea.
“Chance, who’s Bittius?” said Pauline.
“That’s the chairman of the infirmary board,” he said, leaning on the vanity, his head in his hands. “And Mr. Gr—is, I’m pretty sure, Mr. Green. Dave Green.”
“The one holding the virus.”
Chance nodded, squeezing his head between his palms. “Dave Green is dying of something called GIGI. It causes you to lose your mind before it kills you. It sounds like he doesn’t have much time left to live. And when he does go, he’ll somehow release the virus.
“Well, obviously someone’s got to stop him,” said Pauline. “And who is this she Dave Green referred to?”
“That’s Yryssy Ayopy,” said Chance, standing up and beginning to pace the small room. “The only one that can cure him. Except—”
“Except she’s in a coma,” finished Pauline. “And she can’t be cured without flerk, which, unfortunately, wound up in another being.”
Chance had never been so ashamed.
“But it wasn’t your fault, Chance,” said Pauline, stopping her brother in his tracks, taking him by the shoulders, and staring hard into his eyes. “Anyone would’ve made the same mistake. Look, all we have to do now is catch Dave Green and take away his vial of death.”
“Ha!” said Chance bitterly.
“Mersey, any ideas?” said Pauline.
I’m tuned in, said Mersey. If anyone uses those radios, I’ll hear. And I’ll report back to you.
CHAPTER 23
Pauline no longer heard her friend talking in her head. As much comfort as having a connection to the outside world gave Pauline, she still did not much like having a voice in the middle of her brain that spoke of its own free will. Just as Pauline breathed a sigh of relief, the door to the room opened.
In strode a creature that looked like a five-foot meerkat: furless, clothed in slacks and a tunic made from supple purple plastic. When it saw Chance and Pauline, it shrieked. And when Chance and Pauline saw the strange creature, they shrieked.
“Don’t hurt me,” the creature said, holding out its gnarled hands, which reminded Chance of the antlers of a small deer. “I’m just an old actor with a love of the stage, and I bear no ill will toward vampiresses or humans. Seriously. Er, you’re not contagious, are you? With something … unpleasant?”
“No. And we’re not going to hurt you,” said Chance, realizing he and his sister somehow had the upper hand. “Why don’t you sit on the couch for a minute.”
The creature tiptoed toward a ratty old divan missing a cushion and sat down. He smiled at the two Jeopards, who shuffled their feet and studied the floor, the lightbulbs, the makeup, the wardrobe, anything but the creature.
“Who…?” said Chance.
“Why, I’m Braig Toop, retired physician,” said the creature. “You probably have not seen many of my kind. I’m a Wreau. We Wreaux are members of the endangered species list.”
While the Wreau sat on the divan, moving only to chew a long, curling fingernail, Chance and Pauline conferred in whispers.
“What do we do with him?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had anyone afraid of me before.”
“I have an idea.”
Pauline turned to their companion.
“Mr. Toop, are you aware of the urgent situation this infirmary is in right now?”
“Please call me Braig. Do you mean the budget deficit? Or the diaper shortage?”
“I guess that’s a no,” said Chance.
“Not another plumber’s strike?”
“No, no,” said Pauline. “Do you know who Dave Green is?”
“Never heard of him. Sounds human. A friend of yours?”
“No, not a friend. But he is a human.”
“Humans have always gotten a bad rap down here. Well, not always; it was many years ago when a human showed up here accidentally—she had, by pure chance, fallen into a breached freight pipe. It turned out she was carrying some kind of germ that infected about a third of the population, several hundred of whom died. Since then, humans have been criminalized, even though we’ve long since found a cure for the disease. It’s too bad.”
Braig explained that he had grown up in the infirmary. His mother was a dentist, his father a podiatrist, and both had lived in the hospital their whole adult lives.
“They got married in a mineral spa on the water-therapy floor,” Braig said. He grinned pleasantly. So did Chance and Pauline.
Nobody moved for a moment. Brother and sister glanced at each other.
“What have we got to lose by trusting this guy?” whispered Chance to his sister.
“Everything,” she whispered back. “But he’s also our best chance.”
“Braig,” said Pauline, “everyone in Saint Philomene’s Infirmary for Magical Creatures is in serious danger.”
And the two Jeopards told him everything.
“So,” said Chance, “what do we do? Any ideas?”
The strange Wreau leaned back on the divan and closed his eyes. He stayed that way for a long time.
CHAPTER 24
Braig leaped up in one swift motion.
“I do have an idea,” he said. “I need to make a call first.”
The telephone sat on a small table half hidden under a rack of costumes. He dialed a number. “Hello?” someone answered.
“Muge, Braig here.”
“Oh, hey, Braig, whassup.”
“You know, livin’ the dream.”
“What can I do for you?”
“A little favor. Check the computer directory and find out where a patient named Yryssy Ayopy is.”
“Yryssy … Ayopy … let’s see … ah. Here she is. Location: Classified.”
“Oh great.”
“What’s the big deal?” said Muge.
“I need to know where she is. It’s critical. Life and death.”
“Serious?”
“Like a heart attack.”
“All right. Let me call you back in a bit.”
Twenty interminable minutes later, Muge called back.
“Found her. Room 2250.984.”
“Great! How’d you figure it out?”
“Easy. A quick search of the directory reveals only six beings here whose locations are classified. I made a list of these and ran it against the lists of occupied, unoccupied, and abandoned rooms, which account for all the rooms, except for, of course, six. I just called the room phones in all these “classified” locations. Five answered, all male. Logic dictates the sixth room, 2250.984, belongs to Yryssy Ayopy, Geckasoft, female.”
“Muge, I owe you a roast Loyoy dinner.”
“What’s this all about, anyway?”
“I hope you never have to find out,” said Braig. “But do yourself a favor. Get out of Saint Philomene’s. Now.”
“What for?”
“Trust me. Get out. I mean in the next ten minutes.”
Braig hung up.
“Chance,” he said, “any idea who performed the surgery on Mrs. Rurriery?”
“I remember a nurse saying the chief of surgery would be operating on her.”
“Chief of surgery?” said Braig. “Feargus M’Quiminy? I find it hard to believe he’d be participating in something as routine as kidney boulders. But let’s find out.”
Braig called directory assistance. They put him through to Feargus M’Quiminy.
“Big Chief here,” said M’Quiminy.
“Feargie, Braig Toop.”
“Who?”
“Br—”
“Wait, don’t tell me. Doctor, Wreau, specialist in blood, lymph, and ichor, rather ordinary sort, avocational actor, retired, old?”
“Er … yes,” said Braig, shifting uncomfortably on the ratty old divan. “That’s me.”
“What can I do for you, Toop?”
“I understand you performed a boulderectomy on a certain Mrs. Rurriery today.”
“And why is this of concern to an antique retired nonsurgeon of modest professional acumen?”
“Well, with your permission, I’d like to, er, interview her.”
“Denied. Good day.”
M’Quiminy hung up.
“Well,” said Braig, “he’s forcing our hand. Chance, I’ll need your help. But first, we must disguise you.”
“How?” said Chance.
“We’re going to turn you into a Euvyd, a very human-looking nonhuman. They have a pair of bright blue ears that stick out somewhat; translucent hair, like fiber-optic filaments; and a forehead run through with black, spidery veins. Now the ears are no problem—there’s plenty of blue makeup here—but what to do about the rest?”
“Hey,” said Pauline, “why not just wrap his head in cloth and dab something red on there to look like blood? So he looks like a Euvyd that’s been in an accident? That would cover his hair and his forehead.”
“A grand idea.”
And so Pauline painted one of Chance’s ears with sky-blue eye shadow, and Braig painted the other. They dressed his head in a large magician’s handkerchief and made it gory with a tube of stage blood.
“Excellent,” said Braig. “Now, all you need is a Kippetore hair shirt and a pair of galligaskins. And I happen to know we have both here in this room, as I played the role of Mogte in The Late Great Golden Euvyd last year (we could find no real Euvyd with sufficient acting ability to play the part) and I had to wear exactly that outfit. Look, here it is.”
Chance donned the baggy leather and the uncomfortable Kippetore hair shirt.
“Good,” said Braig. “Now we need some rope. About ten feet.”
They looked. No rope.
“Hey,” said Chance, opening a small leather suitcase full of leather belts. “How about a couple of these? We could just string them together.”
“Yet another grand idea,” said Braig, putting on a surgeon’s costume. “Now, let’s go, Chance.”
“Wait,” said Pauline. “What about me?”
“I need you to stay here, my dear,” said Braig. “Would you get on the phone and try to find out where Dave Green is?”
“How in the world will I do that?” said Pauline, who did not want to be separated from her brother again so soon, or to be alone in a dark and spooky dressing room.
“I know you’ll think of something.”
“But … but what are you guys going to do?” said Pauline.
“We’re going to fetch Mrs. Rurriery.”
Then Braig, the Wreau, and Chance, the “Euvyd,” were gone.
CHAPTER 25
“Mersey,” Pauline said to the empty room. “I need you.”
Mersey did not answer. Could she be asleep? Had she lost her fulgurite? They had talked less than an hour before.
Pauline stared at the telephone, its round dial like an open mouth full of little circular teeth. She picked up the receiver, listened to the old-fashioned dial tone, then dialed zero.
“Directory assistance.”
“Uh, have you got a listing for a Dave Green, um, ghoul?”
“Please hold.”
Pauline listened to the distant clicks and chimes and hums of the subterranean telephonic grid until the operator came back on.
“Unknown,” said the operator, and hung up. Pauline immediately called back, hoping for a different operator.
“Directory assistance.”
“Uh, hello?”
“You again?”
“Uh, yes, can you connect me to an Oppabof operator?”
The operator laughed and hung up.
Pauline was not often stumped. In fact, this might have been the first time in her whole life a problem had been presented to her to which she could see no solution. How does one find someone hiding in a six-thousand-floor building?
Pauline thought hard. If Dave Green knew Yryssy Ayopy was in Room 2250.984, then he would not stray far from that floor. And if he didn’t know where she was, it would make sense for him to wait right in the middle of the building, where the shortest average distance to any place in the infirmary would be. Sir Amk Bittius IV would have thought of all this, too, and would have security personnel vigorously searching these areas.
Or maybe not. Dave Green did say that if he was harassed, he would turn the virus loose.
But if he did that, he’d certainly never be cured. So assuming Bittius was acting on the same reasoning, he probably did have security hunting Dave Green. They might not be able to do anything with him if they found him, but they would be better off knowing where he was.
Dave Green probably did know where Yryssy Ayopy was. After all, with the power he held in one hand, he could have pretty much whatever he wanted, crazy or not, and all he would’ve had to do was ask Bittius where Yryssy was. And Bittius would have told him.
Pauline figured Dave Green would be close to 2250.984. Pauline estimated this to be three hundred feet in any direction. That was a lot of ground to cover.
Pauline?
“Mersey, thank heavens!”
Pauline, I’m so glad you’re there! Listen, just a few minutes ago, I recorded another conversation between Dave Green and Bittius. You can hear the same whizzes and whirrs as before. Listen:
“Mr. Green, Yryssy Ayopy is, um, coming out of her coma, so please make your way to Room 2250.984.”
“You’re lying, Bittius.”
“Oh no, I’m not.”
“Then give her the radio.”
“Um, well, she’s n
ot completely conscious yet—”
“What a whopper.”
“Mr. Green, you’re not yourself, I—”
“From here on out, the only person I’ll take a call from is Yryssy Ayopy.”
“What could those background sounds be?” said Pauline. “Whatever they are, they’re the key to finding him.”
He sounds very ill, said Mersey. I think we’re running out of time. Is Chance with you?
Pauline explained that Chance had left with their new and untested acquaintance, Braig, to find a certain Geckasoft, Mrs. Rurriery.
“I can’t stay here anymore,” Pauline said, jumping up from the vanity and looking around for anything she could take along on her journey through the 2200s. “I have to at least look for Dave Green.”
But where?
“He must be traveling by stairs or air ducts. So I’m going to start looking on the 2,280th floor. Or, that’s to say, the space between the 2,279th and 2,280th floors.”
But he could be on 2,250 just as easily.
“I think they would’ve searched that floor already,” said Pauline, going through the pockets of some of the costumes. In the pocket of the softest fur coat she’d ever felt, she found a handful of change. Clahd. Tarnished silver ten-clahd pieces, dull bronze five-clahd coins with holes in the center, a scatter of bluish-black clahd pennies, and a single one hundred–clahd piece as large and thin as a Pringle and made of pure gold. Pauline dumped it all in her front pocket, except for a single ten-clahd piece, entirely untarnished and mirror-shiny, which she kissed once and dropped in her back pocket for luck.
“Mersey, when this is all over, I hope you’ll tell me about Josh.”
Mersey was quiet for a second.
I’ll tell you everything.
Having someone speak directly in your brain amplifies every tonal nuance, and Pauline noted her friend’s dejected tone.
Signing off for now, said Mersey.
Pauline left a note in lipstick on a vanity mirror in case Braig and Chance came back:
Looking for DG between 2,280 and 2,279, working my way up.
Saint Philomene's Infirmary for Magical Creatures Page 11
