The Bride Wore Black Leather

another. Open a door and send through an army. Sneaky.”
    Rabette broke and ran, and, a moment later, Burke was off and running, too. Julien shouted angrily after them but stopped when Benway put a hand on his arm.
    “They’re only interns, Julien. Only been on Ward 12A a few months. This is way above their pay grade. Let them go; they wouldn’t be much use anyway.”
    “Don’t you have any experienced security people to deal with situations like this?” I said.
    “Of course, ex-Fortress, mostly. But the security doors are down, remember?” said Benway. “Security are trapped on the other side of the Hospice.”
    “Well, why don’t you keep some here, on hand?” I said.
    “Budget cuts,” said Dr. Benway, not quite looking in Julien’s direction.
    “All right, the committee were wrong, and yes, you did warn us,” said Julien. “I promise I’ll bring it up at the next meeting! Can we concentrate on the problem in front of us, please?”
    “So,” I said, as cheerfully as possible under the circumstances. “It’s down to us to save the day. Again. Where do we start?”
    Benway looked at Julien. “Is he always this cocky?”
    “Usually,” said Julien. “One of the reasons I suggested he be made Walker. He really does have a lot of experience in saving the world against impossible odds. But don’t stand too close to him while he’s doing it. Dr. Benway, question. Do we have any idea who these invading aliens are? Do we have a name, or even a species description? Any idea at all of what they are or where they’re from?”
    “No,” said Benway. She looked through the porthole again, and winced. “The patient couldn’t tell us anything, including his own name. Diagnostic equipment revealed his condition but not who or what caused it. If this were a standard possession or alteration, the Ward’s own defences and protections would have kicked in; so I can only assume this is something a lot more powerful than we’re used to.”
    Julien frowned, tapping his chin thoughtfully with one knuckle. “The Authorities keep a watchful eye on the various Timeslips as they come and go in the Nightside because they’re the most common launching sites for an invasion, but if these aliens have found a new way to open new doors, less obvious than Timeslips . . . we could be in real trouble. We have to stop this invasion here, slap it down hard, and send the aliens a message they won’t forget in a hurry.”
    “Oh, I can do that,” I said.
    Julien glared at me. “Preferably a message that will still leave the Hospice intact and standing afterwards!”
    “All right, I got it!” I said. “Honestly, you blow up one lousy building, and they never let you forget it . . .”
    I edged closer to the steel door. Terrible sounds rose and fell on the other side, and awful lights flared through the porthole. Whatever was happening in there was escalating. I reached out one hand to touch the door, and my fingers sank right into the steel. As though the solid metal were nothing more than soft mud. I snatched my hand back. The soft, pulsating mass that had been solid steel started to stretch after me, then fell back again.
    “What the hell was that?” said Benway, clearly shaken.
    “I’ve encountered this before,” I said, a little freaked-out. I held my hand up before my eyes and shook it back and forth, checking for signs of damage. My fingers tingled unpleasantly, odd and eerie sensations prickling up and down them in sudden runs. “Remember when the Springheel Jack Meme broke through from another dimension, Julien? The starting point was an old door in an abandoned warehouse, down on Damnation Row. By the time I got there, the whole wall was affected, rising and falling like a heartbeat. The physical reality there had been softened, eaten away, weakened from the other side. The far side of our reality, that we can never see. The very solidity of our world undermined from the other side, so they could break through. In that case, what came through was a supernatural meme, a curse or possession that spread like a virus, overwriting everyone it touched.
    “We’re at Ground Zero, people; this isn’t just an invading army. A whole other reality is trying to break through and overwrite us, replace this world with their own. This door is less real than it should be because something else is becoming more real. The patient inside Ward 12A is being physically and spiritually remade into a doorway. But