Things weren't going well.

Some of the bodies the wyrms had eaten were beginning to share their spirits with the group, forcing Mrs. Elbock and Kurt to work double duty to calm them as they relived the trauma of their final hours.

But that was just the beginning of the troubles.

Panicked, aching wyrmsong resounded through the science building's halls. Shattered glass and unusable machines broke all over again as angry wyrm claws shoved them out of the way.

It was hard for Karl to watch. Maybe even harder than the fungus' devastation. Even Geoffrey had turned away.

Hope died the hardest.

Dr. Nowston slithered over the roots toward one of the labs on the right side of the hallway.

It turned out the secret to not automatically absorbing the fungus into your body was just telling your body not to do it. So far, that was the one and only useful finding that had come out of their trip to the Polytechnic.

"Ibrahim," Dr. Nowston said, "… that's enough."

The clamor softened, followed by the sound of the debris being swept across the smooth floor and the rustle of Ibrahim's scutes as Dr. Rathpalla slithered out onto the hallway.

"There has to be something, Brand," he said. "There—"

"—I'm sorry, Ibrahim." Dr. Nowston shook his head. "I've already looked. Kurt has, too." He looked up at the monstrous tree. "The university gave its all trying to find a cure for the Green Death, just like we did. But… things just fell apart."

From what Karl had heard, the Polytechnic's researchers had been studying the fungus, only for the studies to go horribly, horribly wrong. They'd paid for it with their bodies and their lives.

Dr. Rathpalla lowered his head in shame. "What was I thinking?" he said, softly. "I'm a fool…"

"Please don't say that," Karl said.

Dr. Rathpalla clonked the back of a hand against the side of his snout. "Why shouldn't I? It was a miracle West Elpeck Medical Center lasted as long as it did. Anyone with half a brain trying to combat the Green Death would obviously turn to the nearest laboratory as their first recourse. We're just walking in the footsteps of the desperation that came before."

The psychiatrist lashed out, sweeping his claws through the air.

"Go!" he yelled. "Leave me!"

"Charles asked us to send someone to report if we found anything," Kurt said.

"Great!" Ibrahim said. "Then it should be easy. We haven't found anything, so we send no one, because there's nothing to report! Now, out!" He sprayed spores, spattering glops onto the walls that hissed and smoked as they ate through. "All of you, away! Leave me alone!"

Karl slithered forward. "Dr. Rathpalla…"

The psychiatrist roared. "Get away from me!"

Mrs. Elbock stared into Karl's eyes. "Karl…"

Karl shook his head and slithered out the door. He flew up the stairwells, not caring that he'd bashed into and busted the balustrade in several places. He needed to get out of this place.

He needed to see the Sun.

Karl took a different exit, floating over to the far end of the hallway and exciting through an open pair double doors at the front of the building. A short staircase descended from it in a broad spread that led out onto a plaza whose flagstone walkways would have once been surrounded by lush, green park-space—grass and scattered trees.

It must have been lovely.

But now, the fungus had taken over.

Karl raised his head to the sky.

But not you, he thought. Not the Sun.

The sky was aglow with sunlight, and to Karl's eyes, it was more beautiful than ever before. The Sun was even more of a miracle than what the Church taught it to be. It was like watching a river, clear as crystal, life's great mystery at play. It was almost alive, streaming lines and dust and spray.

Karl wondered what his life might have been like if he'd been born in this time—before the plague, of course—instead of long ago. Could he have become a doctor of the soul, like Dr. Rathpalla,? Or a sage, like Dr. Nowston?

That would have been fun. The two doctors certainly seemed to like their jobs.

Even now, Karl could feel knowledge trickling into his mind as the dead souls found their way inside him. He recognized bits and pieces of them: geography, chemistry, medicine, geometry; those were things he'd heard of, even if what he thought they were was probably very different from what they'd become in the future era. Others, though… others made of incredible words stacked together. They sounded like magic, and Karl could only guess at what they meant.

Molecular biology. Comparative embryology. Epigenetics. Nanoengineering. Macromolecular biophysics. Applied cybernetic. Magnetohydrodynamics.

He loved the sound of that last one: magnetohydrodynamics. It was like something a player might babble at a masque. Though Karl was still learning how to use his new body, he was sorely tempted to lose himself in studying these souls and their memories. There was so much to learn! But Karl kept his distance. It didn't feel right to him to indulge himself like that, not when Dr. Rathpalla was still in danger.

"You care for him a great deal, don't you?" Geoffrey asked.

Karl came to a stop in the middle of the wide, gently inclined stairway. Geoffrey had appeared of his own will, leaning against the rise of Karl's body as if he was a thickly tree.

Karl nodded. "He helped me, just like you helped me."

Sighing, Geoffrey crossed his arms and lowered his head. "And now you can't help him, is that it?"

Karl turned to face him and nodded. "Just like I couldn't help you."

"You can't save everyone, lad," Morgan said. "It's not your fault. It's just the way of the world."

Even without looking, Karl knew that Morgan had appeared in front of the building's wide-open double doors. But as he turned to face the rifleman and replied, Karl's gaze tilted upward as something odd caught his eye.

The stones above the entrance had words carved into them. That was nothing strange to Karl; in this future, words were everywhere. But these words?

Prestingham Hall of Sciences

"Geoffrey…?" he asked.

The once Lord of Seasweep looked up in curiosity, as did Morgan after him. Even Bever popped into being, just to look up and gawk at it.

"Isn't that the name of your house, Karl?" the axeman asked.

Karl nodded. "Yes, but—"

—Just then, Mrs. Elbock slithered out through the doorway.

"There you are, Karl. Dr. Rathpalla was getting worried. You slunk off without telling anyone."

Karl noticed Mrs. Elbock was singing a low, swaying tune beneath the sounds he understood as words.

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She must be sharing.

And, wouldn't you know it, Mr. Elbock appeared alongside her. "He's not the only one," he said.

Mrs. Elbock pressed her claws together, as if she was praying. "Storn, I said I was—"

But Mr. Elbock smiled and wrapped his arms around his wife. "—And I will tease you about it till the end of time. I deserve that much."

"Karl…" Geoffrey said.

Karl whipped his head around. "Yes, sir?"

Geoffrey nodded in Merritt's direction, and then pointed up at the building's name. "Perhaps you should ask Mrs. Elbock about the building."

"Is something wrong?" Merritt asked.

Karl hadn't been broadcasting his spirits, so Mrs. Elbock couldn't see who he was talking to.

"No, I…" But Karl stopped himself and looked up at the letters carved into the stone. "Do you know anything about this building or its name?" He posed the question rather meekly.

Mrs. Elbock pressed a hand against her chest, "Oh, me? No." She glanced at her husband. "But Storn, you're—"

Mr. Elbock crossed his arms and smiled. "I'll tell you everything you want to know about my alma mater." He raised a fist. "Go Tigers!"

"Storn's college days are one of the few topics that will make him lively."

"There are others," Storn said. "Finance. Fiscal policy. A good frisbee game."

"I hope you'll include our children on that list, one of these days" Mrs. Elbock said.

Storn nodded solemnly. "They know I love them."

"Do you know why the building is named Prestingham, Mr. Elbock, sir?" Karl asked.

"Yes, there's an old story about it." Storn straightened his vest's neck. "The Polytechnic goes back to the start of the Second Empire, you know. We needed a place of learning and accomplishment unmoored from the stuffy old Church, to go along with the Resurrection. The Prestinghams are an old money family. They were involved with financing the university's construction and first endowment, though most people know them because they own the Suns, which—in my humble opinion—are Elpeck's best ultimate frisbee team, no matter what anyone else says."

Karl's throat tightened. Or, at least, something in his neck did.

I still have… family? After all this time?

He didn't know how to feel about that. He would have been happy for them and happy to meet them, had the world been in better shape. At the same time, it made him melancholy, because—obviously—they wouldn't know who he was. Why in the world would anyone remember a nobody like him?

"If you want to know more about the history," Storn said, "there should be an exhibit on display somewhere inside, though you could just as easily ask Genneth, though… he does have a tendency to ramble on."

"An… an exhibit?" Karl asked. His spines perked up.

Mrs. Elbock nodded. "I saw it on the map. I'll sing it to you."

A moment later, an image of the building's internal layout thrusted itself into Karl's mind. He made a second awareness to hold it, off to the side of his usual field of vision.

"Um… if you don't mind?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, pardon me," Mrs. Elbock said, as she slithered out of his way.

Entering the science building's main entrance, Karl took a left and slithered down a hallway, and then took another left once he'd reached the corner, and then slithered through the museum's still-intact double doors. There were plaques beside the door that said something about the Prestinghams and "funding", but Karl didn't have the patience to stop and read it, not after what he saw through the windows in the doors.

He took pains to open the doors as gingerly as he could, using the backs of his claws to push them open. It made him really conscious of how much bigger he was now, compared to the human he'd once been.

Slithering into the museum was like a homecoming. Here, Karl felt more at home than anywhere else in this strange, wondrous world of tomorrow. And why shouldn't he? They had pieces of home on display!

The wagon had been the first thing to catch his eye. Karl could recognize one of his father's covered wagons anywhere. The patterns painted on the cloth and the chassis identified them as Prestingham make.

For as far back as anyone could remember, the Prestinghams had been wainwrights: makers of wagons. It was only with Karl's grandfather that a Prestingham finally stood up and aspired for something more.

"Why settle for making the wagons when we can use them to transport goods?" That was how Markus put it. "We won't just cut out the middleman, we'll kick him into the dirt!"

Under his father's leadership, the family business made more money transporting goods with their wagons than it had ever made building them.

Karl remembered how big they seemed, back when he was little.

Now, the vehicle seemed to be no bigger than a writing desk. He could wrap his body nearly all the way around it.

They even had the yoke, bit, and reins, though they had metal frames supporting them, instead of living, breathing horses—not that Karl would have wanted any horse to be in place like this.

Animals deserved to be happy and free, not… whatever &alon did with them.

And there was so much more to see! It was so strange. To the people of the future, the things on display were pieces of history. But to him, they were just a part of his life.

Karl saw the suit of armor Markus kept on display in the mansion's foyer. And—speaking of writing desks—he saw his father's writing desk, hidden behind glass for protection. Markus' ledger lay on the desk, open for anyone to read. Karl remembered how angry his father would get whenever anyone interrupted him while he was writing in his ledger.

Karl was making his way around to the other side of the wagon when he saw something that stopped him in his tracks. It was in a glass-covered frame in a recess in the wall.

And the thing was him.

Karl's face—his human face, along with neck and shoulders—stared out at him from behind the glass. They weren't very good—his face was a little shaky and misshapen—but Karl had no one to blame but himself. It was one of the reasons why he preferred to draw trees or animals or buildings or even stones by a pond; they were so much easier to draw.

Human faces were such a challenge.

Yet, here it was, that awkward self-portrait. Someone had gone to the trouble of preserving it across the ages and putting it up on display. Fortunately enough, a lengthy plaque on the wall next to the picture explained everything.

Karl's mane twitched with every word he read.

Untitled Self-Portrait, by Karl Prestingham (c. 1647 AAF). Oak gall ink on paper.

Elpeck Polytechnic would not exist were it not for the gracious contributions of the Prestingham family, beginning with Markus Prestingham's generous donation of 700,000 groats in 1647. Markus' decision to support the Polytechnic was made to honor his son, Karl, whose self-portrait is displayed here. Karl was one of several soldiers deemed Missing In Action following the Battle of Lightsbreath in 1625. Like with the other disappearances attributed to that battle, Karl's death was never confirmed, nor was any body ever found, though there are endless stories as to what truly happened, spurred on by House Athelmarch's involvement in the battle. The truth, whatever it may be, will likely never be known.

The earliest incarnation of Elpeck Polytechnic's Hall of Sciences dates back to the laying of the cornerstone of the Hall of Natural Philosophy in 1648. Markus himself partook in the ceremony, during which he made a speech, reproduced below, per the wishes of the Prestingham family.

It was the Will of Paradise that I was pick'd to live in an Age so fulminant with Change as this one, and to have been granted the secret and precious Joy of supporting the most Noble & Just cause of Trenton's Crusade against the aliens that have befouled our fatherland for too many an ignominious generation. From the beginning, I saw the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory in whose verity I would find an End worthy of the Means & Pains by which we attain'd it. I made myself its discreet & willing Slave, at great cost to my Health, Vitality, & Temperament; yet now, with the great Day of Victory come and gone, I fear I may have sacrificed too much.

Karl, my youngest Son, died in service to our Cause, vanish'd without a Trace, as if the Almighty Angel Himself deigned to reach down with His many-splendored hand and Translate the boy to Paradise, like the Lass in days of old. He was ever a queer child, more at home in the stables or the riparian brume than in the Houses of Society & Discourse perused by Worldlier Men such as I. I was hard-hearted with him, far more than any Sage & Well-Temper'd Parent ought be. He was a Gentle soul, a life ill-used to the age in which he was born, where Passions & Brutality reign'd as fiercely as the worst of the Mewnee Tyrants.

All of my elder sons had given of themselves to the Cause, and though their Devotion mov'd my heart, it yet kept me wide-eyed and waking on many a long and covetous Night, terror-stuck in rumination over all that I stood to lose, ungracious toward a Sleep which would bring me nothing but Demons. It was my most earnest wish that Karl not follow his brothers' footsteps down the warpath. My nerves could not have endured it, nor could his. I feared for this, and feared for him, and yet I fear I feared too much. Fear begets Anger, opening a Doorway through which a great many Sins do come, souring the hearts of Men, turning us toward Bitterness & Strife. I was Weak, & Callous, and utterly Intemperate, and all who knew me suffered for it.

Karl sought to Prove himself, as all young men are wont to do. He wished to prove himself to me, I think, as much as to the world, and so it was that he turned to War, in hopes he might catch something of that brutal institution's primal Glory, and though, as I sit here, I know that I cannot undo the march of Time, I can, I pray, still grant my Son his final wish.

I, Markus Prestingham, being of sound mind and even temperament, do here bequeath the better half of my vast Fortunes to the temple of Learning whose Cornerstone we now lay. It is my Dearest & Most Precious Wish that this Endowment shall work in the name of NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, that future generations might Know, Revere, & Cherish the truths of this World as Earnestly as my unlucky Son. With the Godhead's righteousness, this Polytechnic shall be a place of Nurturing, that all potentials untapp'd and unplumb'd might be given a safehaven where they might to Prosper and Grow.

May this Testament of mine stand for as long as the Walls we now build, and may the Angel, in His endless mercy, vouchsafe to me my Son's forgiveness, in whose Loving Memory I build this hopeful future.

Markus Prestingham

And Karl wept, shedding sizzling spores onto the floor.

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