“I'll be happy to answer your questions in a moment,” Schwartzman said. “Let me just get Dr. Reynard started.”
“I want to see this syndrome you're talking about,” the medical examiner said.
Schwartzman sighed. “I don't believe your authority extends to the living. Wait here.”
The medical examiner scowled, but he didn't follow as Schwartzman led Heather to a room sliced into small sections by green curtains.
“I had them moved together,” Schwartzman said. “You get to work. I'll try to pacify our country doctor before he forces me to make a big federal case out of this mess.”
Heather took a deep breath and stepped through the first curtain.
A girl with thick, dirty blond dreadlocks occupied the bed. Her hands were swathed in bandaging.
“Hi there...” Heather looked at the chart. “Allison. I'm Dr. Reynard. How are you feeling?”
“Radiance,” the girl said.
“Excuse me?”
“I told them, I go by Radiance. That's my true name.”
“Okay...Radiance.” Heather strapped on a pair of latex gloves. “I just need to look at your hands.”
“Why's everybody so interested in my hands?” Radiance asked. “Do I have some freaky disease or what?”
“Let me have a look, and then we might know something.” Heather gently unwrapped the bandaging and removed the padding underneath.
The girl's fingers were covered in thick, leaking blisters, swollen pustules, and dark, knotted tumors at her knuckles. The combination of symptoms did indicate Fallen Oak syndrome.
“Do you have any other infected areas?” Heather asked.
“Just my hands.”
“Did you touch anything unusual? Come into contact with any strange people or animals?”
“I was at the big show last night,” Radiance said. “You know, the festival? I must have touched a lot of people. Made out with one dude. And then the riot, that was a lot of people running into each other.”
“Does anything in particular stand out?”
Radiance looked at the floor. “I don't remember much, man. I was pretty much wasted last night. Like everybody else, you know what I mean?”
“Were you drinking?”
“Yeah...stuff like that.”
“We're trying to track the spread of a certain pathogen,” Heather said. “So any information you can give me would be a big help.”
“Is it serious?” Radiance looked at her hands. “Am I gonna die from this? Seriously, you have to tell me.”
“It looks like you'll be fine,” Heather said. “But I need some samples.” She opened her field kit and took out a cotton swab. “Can you hold still for me?”
“Whatever,” Radiance said.
Heather took swabs from the running infections on each of the girl's hands, dropping the Q-tips into test tubes for later study.
“I have to ask whether you encountered a particular person,” Heather said. “An eighteen-year-old girl. Very skinny. Long black hair. Blue eyes. Named Jenny. Does that bring up any memories for you.”
“Oh. Her.”
“You remember her?”
“Yeah...” Radiance looked around nervously, fidgeting in the hospital bed. “I do.”
“How did you come into contact with her?”
“She's the one with the disease?”
“Possibly.”
“Well, it was crazy,” Radiance said. She looked Heather in the eyes. “You know, I'm totally nonviolent. I really am. I don't even eat meat.”
“Okay. But...?”
“But this girl—it's like we all went crazy.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“This girl was at the middle of everything. That's how the riot really started, you know? Everybody attacking her.”
“Why did everybody attack her?”
“Because....” Radiance was looking at the floor again. “Because somebody told us to.”
“Who? And why?”
“I don't know why, man. It was just like a voice from above. A voice from the heavens. Saying this girl, you know, you have to stop this girl.”
“Jenny?”
“If that’s her name, yeah.”
“Stop her from what?”
“Stop her from, like, evil. It's hard to explain.”
“And then what happened?”
“Then everybody went after her.”
“Just like that?” Heather asked. “A voice from somewhere told you to attack her, and everybody listened?”
“You don't understand. Everybody was scared shitless, man, and it all like focused on this one girl.”
“You're right, I don't understand that.”
“It's like she was the problem, man. And stopping her was the solution.”