Sir Thursday

Eight

"HEY, ISN"T THAT Emily's kid? He's supposed to be in Exclusion on Level Twenty!"

It was a doctor who shouted, pointing at the Skinless Boy, who ignored him and disappeared through the cafeteria doors. Leaf hesitated, then hurried after the Nithling. Behind her, the doctor shouted again, and hospital security guards started to move through the crowd. But they were on the far side of the main atrium and it would take them minutes to get through the throng.

The cafeteria's serving bays were shuttered, but the room was full of people sitting around or slumped over the tables. They were nearly all hospital staff too. The Q-zone must have been clamped down just as the shift changed, Leaf realised. So all the staff going off-shift had been trapped here and were trying to rest in the public areas. There were few non-staff because visiting hours were in the afternoon. The Skinless Boy was already on the far side of the cafeteria, not using the crutch, walking faster than any human could with a broken leg in a cast. It still touched people on shoulders or backs as it went by.

Every touch would be spreading the mould, Leaf thought. In a matter of hours, or however long it took, the Skinless Boy would control the minds of hundreds of hospital workers. It would have a brainwashed army under its control.

The Skinless Boy turned left past the serving counters and pushed open a door. It didn't bother to look behind, but Leaf slid sideways to put some people between her and the Nithling, just in case. When the door closed behind it, she ran the rest of the way across the room, listened for a second, then opened the door and went through.

Even though she'd heard receding footsteps, Leaf still feared the Skinless Boy would be there, waiting, its hand outstretched to strike her as it had struck the doctor, or simply to infect her with its mind-mould. But it wasn't. Only an askew door at the other end of the corridor showed which way it had gone.

The door was more than askew, Leaf found when she got there. It was still electronically locked on one side, but the Skinless Boy had peeled back the other side, ripping the hinges from the wall. No alarm had been triggered and the door would appear locked in the hospital's security centre. It was an ingenious way to evade security.

That probably meant the Skinless Boy already had access to the thoughts of some of the hospital staff, Leaf figured.

Otherwise it wouldn't have known to be careful. It had been on Earth since at least five past seven the night before, so it could already have spread the mould to lots of people.

There was another twisted door farther along, then two more on the fire stairs. Leaf followed the Skinless Boy very cautiously, listening for its footsteps. At the peeled-back door that led to the Lower Ground Three floor, she stopped and peeked around, rather than going right through.

The Skinless Boy was in the corridor, outside a door that she felt must be close to the linen storeroom the Atlas had recorded as being its lair.

The Nithling stopped and suddenly looked back towards the stairs. Leaf froze, hoping it hadn't seen her.

For a moment, she thought she was safe. Then the Skinless Boy hissed – a sound Arthur would never make – spun on its heel, and came sprinting down the corridor towards her.

Without thinking, Leaf ran down the fire stairs, because that would be quicker than going up. She'd only jumped down four or five steps when she realised her mistake. All the doors going down would be locked. There would be nowhere to go.

She was trapped, and in seconds the Skinless Boy would be on the stairs behind her. Panicked, Leaf tried to go even faster, tried to jump too many steps at once – and fell.

She fell headfirst, hit a step hard, and slid down to the next landing.

The Skinless Boy stopped five steps above her and looked down. It saw Leaf lying still, blood trickling from under her hair. But her chest still rose and fell, indicating that she was breathing. The Nithling hesitated, then it slowly walked down the remaining steps and extended its hand, brushing its palm against the back of her outstretched hand. Satisfied, the Skinless Boy returned back up the stairs, eager to commune once more with the sorcerous scrap of material that was the source of its identity.

Leaf returned to a consciousness dominated by pain. Her head really hurt and there were aches and pains all down her left side, from ribs to ankle. She was disoriented, for a few seconds thinking she was back aboard the Flying Mantis.

Have I fallen from the rigging? she thought. But it wasn't the deck beneath her, it was a concrete floor. And it wasn't Pannikin shouting at her. It was … a loudspeaker.

Leaf rolled over and sat up very gingerly. A voice was booming through the stairwell, coming out of the emergency speakers that dotted the ceilings of each landing.

"… check for indications of the bioweapon code-name Greyspot. The indications are grey spots on the hands, neck, face, or other exposed areas of flesh. If you have the grey spots, do not approach anyone else. Move immediately to Level Three for treatment. If you had the grey spots but they are now gone, move immediately to Level Five for treatment. If you do not have the grey spots and did not notice them previously, stay where you are. Avoid skin contact with all persons. Do not attempt to leave the hospital. This hospital is now zoned as a Red Biohazard Area under the Creighton Act and anyone attempting to leave will be shot and flamed."

The voice was followed by a loud pulsing tone, then the same message started again.

Leaf touched the sorest part of her head, at the back. Her skull was intact as far as she could tell, but when she looked at her fingers, there was partially dried blood all over them.

She rolled her hand, looking at the blood and feeling sick. Then she froze, staring not at the blood but at a small patch of skin behind her knuckles. The skin was brown, like every other part of her that had been exposed to various suns aboard the Flying Mantis. But right in the middle there were three small grey dots.

Suddenly everything came rushing back. The Skinless Boy turning to chase her. Her fall down the stairs.

Then … while she was unconscious, the Nithling must have infected her with the spores. It would only be a matter of time before the Skinless Boy would be able to read her mind and make her do whatever it wanted.

It would learn everything. It would totally control her.

Leaf struggled shakily to her feet and started climbing the stairs, only managing to keep her balance by gripping the handrail. The warning message kept repeating, echoing around the stairwell, making it even harder for Leaf to think.

She had to get the pocket and find the House. Dr Scamandros would … might be able to cure her.

By sheer force of will, Leaf managed to get her pain-wracked self back up to Lower Ground Three, arriving at the same time the recorded message stopped blaring out through the loudspeakers. She rested for a few minutes on the landing there, gathering her strength and her thoughts.

But she couldn't think of anything to do other than to go to the linen storeroom and try to find the pocket. This would be hopeless, if the Skinless Boy was there. But if he wasn't, and she could get the pocket, then …

Leaf shook her head, wincing as pain shot down into her neck. She didn't know what she would do if she got the pocket, but it was the first step. One step at a time, she told herself. One step at a time.

She took that step, slowly walking down the corridor to the linen room, her hand trailing along the wall for support. She passed the door that she had thought the Skinless Boy had been about to enter, but it had no sign, so she kept going. The next door said it led to a stationery storage area, so she kept going to the next. It said it was the electronic parts storeroom. Leaf was about to keep going to the next door, till she suddenly wondered why the first door had no sign. Every door in the hospital had a sign. Why not that one?

She turned around and went back. Sure enough, there were faint marks of glue where the sign had been ripped off the front of the door. But why would the Skinless Boy bother to do that?

Leaf put her head to the door, holding back a gasp as she misjudged slightly and sent yet another stab of pain through her neck. That also triggered a moment of panic as she wondered if she had a cracked vertebra or something. But her head moved well enough, and the pain felt like it was in the muscles that ran up the side of her neck to the chin. She ignored it and listened again.

She could hear something, but it didn't sound like the Skinless Boy. It sounded like a woman talking quietly. Leaf kept listening and didn't hear anyone answer. It sounded like the woman was talking to herself.

Leaf turned the handle and pushed the door open just a crack. Looking in, she saw shelves and shelves of folded sheets, pillowcases, and other linens. There was also a trolley and, leaning back on it, a nurse who was holding a long, whippy piece of plastic that Leaf recognised as the sign from the door.

"You can't come in here," said the nurse.

"Why not?" asked Leaf. She made no move to open the door wider, or to shut it. The woman didn't look entirely normal. There was something about the way she was slouched against the trolley. As if some of the muscles in her arms and legs weren't working together.

"He told me not to let anyone in," said the nurse. "And to find a sword. Only I couldn't find a sword. Just this."

She brandished the sign.

"I just want –" Leaf started to say, but the nurse held up her hand.

"Wait, he's telling me something … "

The nurse's head went back, and Leaf saw something else that wasn't right at all. The woman's eyes didn't have any white in them anymore, or any colour in her irises. The white had become a pale-grey, and her irises were entirely black.

Leaf didn't wait. She threw the door open, charged the nurse, and pushed her back onto the trolley. It crashed back into a shelf, which partly toppled over, burying the nurse under a cascade of blue-striped towels.

As the woman struggled to get out from under the avalanche of linens, Leaf dragged more things off the shelves and threw them on top of her. Pillows, blankets, towels – everything that came to hand. At the same time, she was desperately looking around. How could she find a small square of cloth in a room full of linens?

She would only have a minute, or perhaps seconds. The nurse was bigger and stronger than her, particularly with Leaf in her injured state. Since the Skinless Boy knew what the nurse knew and could see what she saw and heard, there would probably be more of its mental slaves coming. Or the Skinless Boy itself.

The glasses. I could use Dr Scamandros's glasses.

Leaf frantically checked her pockets. For a terrible second she thought she'd lost the glasses case, but it was just the unfamiliar arrangement of the pockets in her alien jeans that confused her. The case was in a narrow pocket almost behind her thigh and not much above her knee. She got it out, snapped it open, and flung on the glasses.

The linen room looked quite different through the crazed lenses, but not because the view was all blurry and cracked. In fact, to Leaf the glasses were perfectly clear, but she could see strange fuzzy colours in things that hadn't had them before. Sorcerous auras, she supposed, or something like that.

Quickly she scanned the shelves and was immediately rewarded. Most of the colours overlaid on the various items of linen were cool greens and blues. But one shelf stood out like a beacon. It was lit inside by a deep, fierce red.

Leaf sprang at it, pulling away a rampart of pillowcases. There, behind this linen wall, was a clear plastic box the size of her palm that had formerly been used to store sterile bandages. Now it had a single square of white cloth in it, but with the aid of the glasses, Leaf could see rows and rows of tiny letters across the cloth, each letter burning with an internal fire.

She snatched the box and backed away, pausing to tip another shelf full of towels over the nurse, who was staggering to her feet.

Leaf was out the door and in the corridor when the nurse got her head free and shouted after her, her voice a strange mixture of a woman's and a boy's. Whatever she said – or the Skinless Boy said through her – was lost as the door slammed shut on Leaf's heels.

Though Leaf couldn't hear the exact words, she caught the tone. The Skinless Boy knew she was infected with the mould. Sooner or later, it would control her mind and she would have no choice but to bring the box and the pocket back.

After all, there was nowhere for her to go.