"Ah, sorry, we got a bit sidetracked," said the Doctor.

"If you're going to the tower you've got to go now. They've deadlocked all but the main two exits and they're stopping everyone who tries to leave without a key. Do you see any security guards in the waiting room?"

"Now we do."

"The staff has been ordered to stop seeing people for screening, so that crowd you're hiding in will be sent away in a few minutes."

"Where are you?" asked Camelia. "Do you know where the private security officers are headed?"

"I—" They lost him for a second. They couldn't tell if he had rung off or simply stopped talking, until they heard what sounded like footsteps through the connection. "I don't know! But we've got bigger problems to worry about," he said, breathless. "Outbreak. Seven nurses in the corridor."

"What?" exclaimed Camelia. "Which corridor?"

"Uhhhh, um, Corridor D?"

"Corridor D?" The Doctor turned pale. "That's directly connected to the basement . . ."

At first Camelia couldn't see what was so upsetting. Then it dawned on her. "When we dragged Braden out of that room . . . did we leave the door open?"

The Doctor blinked. "Doesn't matter," he said, rather unconvincingly. "Camelia, you know, we both know, an outbreak could happen at any time."

"Yeah, but did we leave the door open?" She looked at him sternly.

For a second, just a second, she caught a glimpse of horror and grief in his eyes; but he pushed it aside just as quickly with some visible effort. "Look, it doesn't matter right now. We need to get to the tower before this gets out of hand."

"Fine, lead the way."

Just then, the intercom crackled to life:

"Attention, all patients waiting to be screened for rhixis? . . . All patients waiting to be screened for rhixis . . . We are about to close the screening gate for maintenance. If you have not yet been stamped, please come back tomorrow. Thank you."

Groans. Protests. "Awwww!" "What?" "Come on!"

"Let's go," said the Doctor. "Now or never."

It wasn't ideal. The crowd was starting to shuffle back towards the exits and movement in any other direction was bound to attract attention. Camelia noticed one of the guards looking at them already as they headed for the corridor.

—Until, quite as suddenly, he was looking at nothing.

The man's eyes had begun to cloud over. He looked down in time to see his hands go scaly and green, and then all spark left him. His jaw went slack. From behind him appeared another infected human, a nurse, eyes dead and white.

It was incredibly surreal. There they were, thirty feet away from clear and present danger, and everything else continued on as though nothing had happened. The crowd was turned towards the exit and hadn't seen anything, they just kept mumbling and shuffling and pushing their way steadily out the doors.

The Doctor saw a nurse behind the screening gate. He put out his hand. "Don't!" he said, and she bit back a scream just in time. Good; he had no idea what a panic might do to them now, and he didn't want to find out.

Camelia reached for her pistol. "You think anyone would notice if I shot both of them? . . . Three of them? . . . Four of them?" She gulped. Two, three, now six more infected appeared in the corridor. She raised her weapon. "Doctor, it'll be easier while they're bunched together like this . . ."

"Just how much ammo've you got in there?"

"It runs out of juice after about fifty shots."

He looked over his shoulder. There were still a few dozen people left in the waiting room, but at this point they would just keep to their present course and leave the building, surely. Well, maybe not surely, but Camelia was right: The infected would be more difficult to neutralize once they were out of the corridor and had room to spread out. "Alright—"

A streak of light hit one of the greened men in the hallway, and he collapsed. Camelia hadn't fired, though—the bolt had come from further inside the corridor. Her key crackled to life.

"Well?" came Berin's voice. "Care to help me out? I thought one of you had a gun!"

Camelia answered by taking out four infected.

And, of course, people screamed.

Berin spoke into his key. "There's more of them going down Corridor B. I may not be able to get out until this hallway is cleared. And you might not be able to get to the elevator if you let the bodies pile up in the hallway."

Camelia: "Good point."

"Hold on!" The Doctor. "How did this happen?! This is a hospital! Aren't there precautions?"

"Of course there are! There are special sensors in all the rooms and corridors set up to alert staff whenever rhixis appears. I don't know how it got this out of hand so fast!"

One of the infected nurses rotated slowly and gazed blankly at him. She started to move toward him. He shot her down.

"We're almost to the elevator," said Camelia. "Can you sort of . . . I dunno, draw them back?"

Berin grimaced, but said, "Of course." He stamped his foot and whistled. The infected turned in the direction of the sound and began shuffling towards him. He backed away down the hall. "That good enough for you?"

"Yep!"

Berin had to back up another fifteen feet. Too far and the horde would lose interest and turn back to the Doctor and Camelia, too close and he was as dead as the lot of them. He aimed for an infected security guard. He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

Oh, come on! He tossed the weapon in disgust. "I'm out of power," he said into his key, eying the approaching infected as he did so. "The guard I took the pistol from must have—"

A flash of red, and the infected went down. Confused, Berin turned around to see who had fired and found himself faced with the soldiers from earlier. Their leader turned to him. "Sir, you'll have to come with us."

Berin stared at him. There was a mob of men and women infected with rhixis wreaking havoc in the middle of a public hospital, and they were concerned about him? "There are more in Corridor B!" he protested. "If you have to lock me up at least send someone to take care of it!"

"Do we look like containment?" The man waved ahead the other soldiers, who jogged forward to take hold of the technician. "Where are your friends?"

Berin said nothing. The man raised his eyebrows. "You think we wouldn't torture you to find out?" He shot a blast over Berin's shoulder that made him wince. At first he thought it was intimidation, till he heard a body drop behind him and realized the officer was just keeping the horde in check.

"Well?" he said. When Berin didn't respond, he nodded to the soldiers. "Take him upstairs. Back elevator; the stairs have been compromised."

Berin didn't resist but looked fiercely into the man's face. "Do whatever you like with me. I know what the chancellor's really doing up there. And soon I won't be the only one."