They spun like marionettes to face me.
“The black stuff on them. What is it?” When they didn’t answer, I held up my ID and badge and said, “Special Agent Nell Ingram, PsyLED. Is the black stuff a previously unidentified mold? With spores? And is it spreading like...” I almost said,Like cancer?But I stopped. “Like normal?”
The woman sat, moving as if exhausted, nearly falling into a beat-up old desk chair. The man poured her a cup of coffee from a scorched pot and she took a sip. Made a face. Drank it anyway. “God, this stuff is awful. I can’t talk to you about the patients. HIPAA rules.”
“I’m not interested in the patients. I’m interested in the black stuff. It has no rights.”
The doctor sipped and considered and said, “Okay. I can do that. Yes, it’s a spore-forming fungal form, which is why we have a negative pressure unit in each of the rooms and ultraviolet lighting at the doorways, and we’re enforcing strict universal precautions, a protocol similar to the one that CDC issuedduring the Ebola outbreak of 2014 and 2015. But nothing we’ve tried on the fungi has slowed the progress. The state lab thought at first that it was aStachybotrys atra, because it grows on media with a high cellulose content. But its chemical activity is different fromStachybotrys.It also grows on and in the skin, nails, and blood of our patients. And because it’s a spore former, it can live through most anything.”
“What about anticancer meds?” I asked.
The doctor opened her mouth and closed it, her eyes sharpening on me.
“I’m not a medical person of any kind, but it reads like and feels like something that’s been enhanced paranormally. Like a magic cancer attack. It has strange energies.”
“Reads? You’re not human,” she said, making it half question, half statement.
“No,” I said. “And the black stuff isn’t pure mold.”
“I’ll pass your suggestion on to the specialists.”
I frowned, but that was probably all I was going to get. “Okay. Thank you. Is it contagious? Have any medical workers come down with it?”
“Not so far, but our precautions are stringent.”
I backed out of the room and eased away. And as I did, the lights flickered. Steadied. Flickered again. Alarms sounded everywhere. Coincidence was a rare occurrence, and I was beginning to think flickering electrical systems in places where the power was supposed to be stable wasn’t coincidence. Things were getting worse.
***
Back in my car, I called JoJo. When she answered I said, “I’ve read the patients at UTMC with a P 1.0. I’ll put the readings in my report, but mostly they all redline. And they all have mold like the neighborhood does, like the pond does. Suggestion. Send an RVAC over the GPS coordinates where the deer were infected and see if there’s mold there. If so, then we might be able to use the mold to track the working.”
“Sending a req for a remote-viewing aircraft flyover.” I could hear the soft taps of her fingers on the keyboard. “What else you got?”
“Rick hinted that I should read the employees at LuseCo, the same way I read the land, and since I was at the hospital, I triedit on one patient. She felt like a cancer mold, which means nothing to me at all except they’re under attack. Do you want me back at LuseCo?”
“LuseCo entrenched and called in lawyers. We’re trying to get warrants and full access, but they seem to have protection from people in high places. I’ve called Soul, but she says they have a state politico on the board. We’ve been kicked out.”
“I thought Homeland Security overrode all the political games.”
“That was yesterday.” She sounded hard and angry.
I decided not to pursue that topic. “And Rick?” I asked.
“Close to the full moon. Later.” She disconnected.
Not sure what I should do now, I drove back toward HQ, stopping only long enough to pick up a few groceries for supper. Reheated roasted pumpkin and greens would only go so far. As I drove, the traffic lights flickered. Traffic began to back up, snarling at intersections, leaving some roads empty while others were full. The last of the sunlight glinted off the power lines in a rainbow hue, shifting from red to blue. It reminded me of the lights underground. Something was seriously wrong.
THIRTEEN
In the break room, I poured a glass of tap water and opened a Subway sandwich, tuna, heavy on the veggies, and started eating. It wasn’t Yoshi’s, but it was pretty good.
JoJo followed the smell of food and dropped into the chair beside me. “If you tell me one of the sandwiches in that bag is for me, I promise I’ll worship you as the goddess of all chicken. Or cattle. Or pig.”
I hid my pleasure by taking another bite, and in spite of good manners, answered while I chewed. “I’ll pass as a recipient of idolatrous worship, but there’s Black Forest ham, sliced beef, meatball, and two chicken breasts, all foot-longs. They had a special.”
“Praise Jesus and dance on the head of a pin.” She pulled a meatball sandwich out and added, “That’s what my gramma used to say, God rest her soul.”
I swallowed and said, “What we don’t eat today can go into the fridge. And my mawmaw still says things like that.”
