Noah cleared his throat. “Around.”
She raised her eyebrows. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the mysteriously absent doctor, would it?”
“Why would you think that?”
Brian peered closely at his friend. “Please tell me you didn’t eat that guy.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
Leah looked around at the other students seated in the room, searching for weakness. Her eyes came to rest on Violet. “Tell me, has Noah been up to questionable activity in the past half hour?”
Noah turned to Violet pleadingly, but the girl ignored him. “Oh, he ate the doctor. One hundred percent. He admitted it himself.”
Noah glared at her. “Seriously? I told you that with implied confidentiality!”
She shrugged. “Should’ve made it explicit.”
“Where is the doctor now?” Brian asked.
Noah looked down. “Dead.”
His friends stared silently at him. After a few seconds passed, Leah rubbed the bridge of her nose and shut her eyes. “It was bound to happen eventually. Did you at least hide the remains?”
“Yeah.” His thoughts went to the vats, and he straightened. “Actually, while I was out, I found something you guys will want to hear about.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Brian scolded.
“Please let him change the subject,” Clarissa quickly interrupted. “We don’t need to know the exact details of how it went down.”
Noah glanced between them and shook his head. “I’m not just changing the subject. Insight is storing all the dust they’re vacuuming out of us. They’ve got these huge vats they’re filling up. I think they’ve figured out how to use it as a sort of energy source.”
“Well, that doesn’t bode well,” Leah said, tilting her head. “Although I’m not surprised the dust can be used as energy. Our bodies obviously aren’t currently using oxygen to produce energy; maybe the dust has taken up that function.”
“I’m sure the doctors already have it figured all out,” Noah muttered. “We can ask them when they next stop by. Speaking of which, how did you convince them to let you all stay?”
“Oh, it was easy,” Brian said with a shrug. “We went through this whole plan of bartering with them, but looking back on it, I doubt we even needed to bother. They put up zero fight when we asked to stay.”
“What did you trade? Not the pendant, right?”
“Of course not.” Brian inclined his head towards May. “We showed the attendant the pictures we took of the tomb, and told her we believe it’s related to the source of the dust. She brought us to the doctor- I guess his name is Phil, apparently- and from there we were able to convince him to bring us to you.”
“Why didn’t you get the treatment while you had the chance? I can tell you’re not cured.”
“Phil said that we would just get infected again. He still hooked us up to the vacuum and had it run for a minute, which I guess makes sense if the ulterior motive of this whole operation is just collecting dust.” He shrugged once more. “Not that I care. If we know where the dust is being stored and you have that keycard, it should be a simple matter to sabotage them.”
Noah sent him an amused glance. “Sabotage?”
“Sure.” He grinned. “Why not? I’ve always wanted to give Insight a kick in the pants. Let’s sneak over and blow some shit up.”
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Clarissa looked at Brian in surprise. “Can I have your number?”
Brian blinked at her, then a smile broke across his face. “Of course.”
Noah turned away from them to shake his head in mock weariness at Leah and May. “Did you already send them the pictures?”
May nodded. “Phil gave me an email. Apparently the translation work will be outsourced to a friend of Insight. We made the doctor promise to tell us if they successfully translate the images, but who knows if he’ll actually follow through on that.”
Noah found himself genuinely curious about what they would find, but was hesitant to get his hopes up that it would turn out to be anything interesting. “It better not be the recipe to the dead guy’s favorite dinner or something.”
Leah shrugged. “It could be anything from that to an instruction guide on how to create the dust from scratch.” She paused. “That would actually be pretty terrible if we accidentally gave Insight something like that.”
“Let’s just hope for the best,” Noah said. “They might fail to translate it at all. Or it could end up taking them over a year. It’s probably best not to worry about it too much.”
“Do you want to sit down?” Mark asked from across the room. “There’s a bunch more chairs, if you want.”
Leah and May glanced over, and both shook their heads. “It literally makes no difference to me whether I’m standing or sitting,” Leah said. “Were you very recently infected? Are you not completely numb yet?”
“Oh, I can’t feel anything,” Mark muttered. “That’s half the problem, though. I’m afraid I’ll topple over before I realize my center of gravity is off.”
“That hasn’t been an issue for us,” May said. “And we’ve been infected for over a full day.”
Noah stretched out on his chair. “Speak for yourselves. I’m enjoying my seated position. I’m saving precious mental energy that would otherwise be subconsciously devoted towards balance.”
Leah scowled at him. “That’s not a thing.”
“Sure it is. I’m a bio major; I would know.” Noah looked over at Brian, who was grinning at something Clarissa had just said. “Hey, did you ever figure out what the pendant you’re carrying around actually does?”
Brian glanced at him. “No. You know as much as I do about the thing. It just sits there and looks pretty.”
“Can I see it?” Clarissa asked.
“Uh, sure.” Brian carefully lifted the chain up around his neck and handed the entire necklace to her.
Clarissa let it drop heavily into her hand, then flinched in surprise. “It’s really hot!”
“You can still feel temperature?” Leah asked, raising her eyebrows. “Did you literally get infected right before stepping on the bus?”
Clarissa shrugged. “No idea. Maybe I inhaled some dust while I was waiting in line on the fields.” She peered closer at the pendant, holding it up to let it dangle in front of her eyes. The flat silver square spun slowly on the chain, small waves and imperfections on its surface catching the light. “It does look kind of pretty, for a metal square, I guess. You said it’s supposed to do something?” She clicked it open before Noah or any of his friends could react.
They all tensed, expecting dust to explode everywhere, but nothing happened at all.
“It’s empty,” Clarissa said, disappointed. She flicked it closed and held it back to Brian.
Before he could recover from his shock and accept it, she suddenly let out a cough. Dust blew out between them.
“Sorry,” she muttered, wiping her mouth.
“Don’t worry about it.” Brian took the pendant and began to lower it over his head, only to stop and stare at it in wonderment.
“What?” Noah asked, leaning over curiously.
“Look at the dust,” Brian whispered.
The small cloud Clarissa had produced was slowly being drawn towards the metal square, funneling towards the bottom of it before disappearing. The room went silent as everyone noticed the strange phenomenon and stared.
Before long, the entire mass of dust that had been darkening the air had been entirely consumed by the pendant. It looked no different, hanging there innocently like it wasn’t secretly harboring a biological weapon.
Clarissa looked around. “Is that supposed to happen?”
“No clue,” Leah answered. “We’ve only seen it release dust, not absorb it. Can you open it back up?”
He sent her a nervous glance. “What? You sure?”
She nodded. “I know it’ll probably just let everything out, but let’s see what happens.”
Brian depressed the small locking mechanism, allowing each half of the box to swing open like a book. As expected, the dust it had collected immediately began spewing into the air.
Brian frowned and quickly shut it. For a few seconds, nothing happened, but then it once more began steadily clearing the air, drawing the dark airborne particles inexorably toward itself.
“So, it’s a storage container for dust,” Leah said. “An ambient air cleaner.”
“Good to know,” Brian said, placing it back around his neck. “Not sure how useful it is, but it’s a neat trick."