Leaf looked back at the television. A senior military officer was being interviewed. A general. Behind him, Leaf could see the tanks that had rolled past her. Now they were moving into positions facing the hospital, and other troops were preparing positions between the tanks. Leaf held out her hand, palm up, waited for the television to calibrate on her, then lifted her finger. The volume came up and she could hear what the general was saying.
‘We don’t know what it is. It may be related to enFury, the waterborne psychotrope that caused so much trouble in Europe two years ago. But it’s clearly widespread in the hospital and, as we have just seen, some of the infected are no longer capable of rational thought and are highly dangerous. Our task is to contain this outbreak. We will carry out our task, by whatever means are necessary.’
‘Has there been any further communication from Dr Emily Penhaligon?’ asked the unseen interviewer.
‘Dr Penhaligon and her team are trying to slow the effect of the bioweapon by various means, and are profiling it and computer-modelling agents that will counter it. We are doing what we can with our people and the FBA’s inside the hospital to ensure that the labs and the upper isolation wards remain sealed from the rest of the hospital, where the infection is widespread.’
‘General, is there any information on how the bioweapon was deployed, and by whom?’
‘It’s clearly a terrorist action,’ replied the general. ‘I have no further comment at this stage.’
‘A number of commentators have said that it is most likely to be –’
The sound suddenly went down again. Leaf turned her head to see Sylvie wiggling her fingers. She’d just put down two steaming cups.
‘The television noise annoys me so,’ said Sylvie. ‘Drink up your tea, dear. We must have a little talk.’
‘Thanks,’ said Leaf. ‘But I don’t want to –’
‘Oh, I don’t want to know what you were doing climbing out of the underworld,’ said Sylvie. ‘But I think we should call your parents. You do have parents? Well, then we should call them and let them know that you are here and will be sitting out this quarantine with me.’
‘I can’t do that.’ Leaf had just realised what she did have to do. Or rather, had thought of something that might offer a way back to the House. ‘I have to go somewhere.’
‘You can’t go anywhere,’ said Sylvie. ‘Not by foot and not by car, even if I was silly enough to drive you. No civilian traffic of any kind allowed.’
‘I have to get to a house in Denister,’ said Leaf. She told Sylvie the address. ‘As quickly as I can.’
It was Arthur’s home she wanted to go to. The House might be above the hospital and essentially unreachable, but Leaf remembered something else Arthur had told her, long ago in his hospital room. It was only yesterday to everyone else, but Leaf had been months at sea in that time. Even so, she clearly remembered Arthur talking about his phone. A phone in a velvet box that could be used to call Denizens in the House.
‘That’s out of the question,’ said Sylvie, rather severely.
‘It’s incredibly important,’ Leaf insisted.
‘Why?’
Leaf was silent. She couldn’t tell Sylvie the truth. The old woman wouldn’t believe her and it would only make things worse.
I can’t tell her, she thought suddenly. But perhaps I can show her.
‘Do you have a window that looks towards the hospital?’ Leaf asked.
‘Yes, upstairs,’ said Sylvie. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
Leaf hesitated for a moment. Sylvie was very old, and a shock might kill her. But Leaf needed the old woman’s help. Arthur was depending on Leaf to get the pocket back to the House so it could be destroyed. Not just Arthur but everyone else too. What if the Skinless Boy kept spreading its mind-control mould everywhere? There might be other things the Nithling could do as well …
‘I want us to go upstairs, then I want you to look at the hospital through these glasses. It’ll be a shock, I warn you. But after you take a look, I’ll tell you everything.’
Sylvie looked cross, but then a smile slowly undid her frown.
‘You are being very mysterious, and I’m sure you’re also wasting my time. But what do I have to waste but time? Come on.’
The window that faced the hospital was in Sylvie’s bedroom, a spare, tidy room with nothing personal about it. The old woman crossed it quickly and pulled back a drape.
‘There’s the hospital,’ said Sylvie. ‘Complete with helicopter gunships, I fear.’
Leaf looked through the window. There were three sharp-nosed helicopter gunships doing slow orbits around the hospital buildings, about six hundred feet up. She pushed the glasses farther up on her nose, then quickly took them off. It made her head hurt to see the helicopters apparently flying into the solid buildings of the House, and then come out again.