Noah stared at his phone in surprise, thoughts whirling. His first instinct was to immediately take him up on his offer, but he forced himself to take a moment to consider what the consequences of his dad’s help would be. If he and his friends weren’t able to cure themselves before leaving, his father would be in a vehicle with six infected people. None of them were particularly injured at the moment, but anything could happen between now and then. Even as things currently stood, Noah didn’t feel certain that he or Elias would be able to resist their instincts for the entire ride.
Worst comes to worst, we can all blindfold each other, Noah thought. Then we can all be cured once we get our hands on a vacuum somewhere. Assuming we don’t find one here, of course.
With these thoughts in mind, Noah finally responded to his dad.
“I’d need to check with my friends first, but that sounds great,” he said gratefully. “It’ll save us a whole lot of walking, at least.”
“Glad to help. But you have to promise to tell me everything in the car, alright? I don’t want to hear any details right now; I’m self-aware enough to know it’ll only make me worry more. But once we’re safe, I want to hear a step-by-step recounting of every single event since our last call.”
“Of course.”
“Great. What time should I show up to the party?”
“We’re leaving our rooms at midnight, so sometime around then? Maybe stay outside on the street until we’re ready to go. I’m not sure Insight would react kindly to a strange car idling outside their front doors for no apparent reason.”
“You got it. How many kids am I gonna be transporting?”
“If everything goes according to plan, six people.”
“My car is a five-seater, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“I know. But we can make it work, right?”
His dad sighed. “I sure hope so. Anything in particular I should bring? Food? Water?”
“None of that,” Noah said automatically, then paused. It was possible he would be cured by the time he saw his dad, and if so, he would probably appreciate the sustenance. “Actually, maybe you should. What would really be nice, though, is a vacuum.”
“A vacuum?” Laughter came over the line. “Whatever do you need that for?”
“To cure us,” Noah answered vaguely. “Just make sure it’s the kind with a nozzle. A portable model, preferably.”
“If you actually want me to bring a vacuum, I suppose I can pick one up this afternoon before I head over. You’re sure that’s what you need?”
“Yes. Trust me, you won’t regret having one. Even if we’re cured by the time we see you, it can be used to treat anyone else we come across.”
“Yeah, alright. Be careful, Noah. What we’re doing is risky; don’t make it more dangerous than it needs to be. Do what you need to and get out.”
“I hear you. See you soon.”
“See you.”
Noah smiled as he hung up. That call could have gone a lot worse.
He sent a quick message in the group chat to let everyone know they had a ride out of Insight, then double-checked that his alarm was set for a few minutes before midnight and plugged in the phone beside his bed.
He lay back, shut his eyes, and was asleep before any further thoughts could pass through his mind.
----------------------------------------
Despite going to sleep at around 2 PM, Noah soundly slept the day and night away, only waking when the alarm beeped at five minutes to midnight.
He sat up, feeling faintly wistful for some reason, and sat there with a bemused smile for several seconds before figuring the emotion was probably caused by the contents of his dreams. Not that he could remember what had occupied his mind as he slept.
Wistfulness was quickly spiked through by excitement as the plan for the next hour or so came to the forefront of his mind. He glanced at the door, wondering if he should go out in the hallway yet. It was probably safer to wait right up until 12 AM.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
He didn’t dare close his eyes as he waited, because excitement or not, he certainly would have drifted back to sleep. Instead, he held his phone in his hands and watched the time slowly tick forward, attempting to mentally prepare himself for whatever the night would bring. It would be foolish to assume nothing would go wrong, but the best he could do for the moment was run through the somewhat vague game plan and try to think of possible counters to the most likely complications that may arise. Most of his ideas came down to eating the problem.
He reminded himself that he had a tranquilizing weapon in his pocket, for whatever good it might do. Perhaps if he cured himself and no longer felt up to the task of removing problems by means of consumption, the weapon could take up the slack.
Although, now that he was thinking about it, it would probably just be easier to wait to cure himself until he was off of Insight premises, even if an opportunity for him to be treated arose before then. He recalled Heinrich mentioning something about weakness following treatment, and the last thing he or his friends needed was to be crippled by fatigue before they made it out of the building. His dad would have a vacuum; they could treat each other during the car ride.
At 11:59 PM Noah shook himself from his thoughts and stood from the bed. He quickly tied most of his clothes around his upper arm like a couple of bandanas so he could keep his hands free, then exited the room, leaving all the lights on in a small act of spite.
Noah saw Brian exit his room across the hall simultaneously. The two of them were the last to emerge.
“Great, everyone’s here,” Leah said briskly. “So, the plan is to check for a custodial closet on this floor, right?”
“Yeah,” Noah confirmed. He pulled out the ill-gotten keycard and held it up. “Let’s see what this thing can unlock.”
He made to do a walk-through of the entire hallway, but before he could take more than a few steps, the nearest door suddenly lit up green.
“That was easy,” Brian laughed.
“Uh, wait a moment. That’s my room,” Elias said nervously. “Why is that keycard able to unlock my room?”
Everyone stared at the card clasped in Noah’s hand.
“I don’t recall it unlocking any doors earlier,” Leah said slowly. “I guess I wasn’t really paying attention, though.”
“No, you’re right. It definitely wasn’t working earlier,” Clarissa confirmed.
“The card must be set up to only be able to unlock our rooms once night falls,” Brian said uneasily. He shuddered. “Why the hell do they need to be able to access our rooms while we’re sleeping?”
“Look, we already knew they were shady as shit. This only confirms what we’re already well aware of,” Noah muttered.
“This is going to make it a lot more difficult to find the supposed maintenance closet,” Leah said. “If we knew it was the only door that could be unlocked, it would have been easy to pick it out. But now every single door is gonna light up as we walk by. How are we supposed to find the right one?”
“Maybe it’ll look different,” May said hopefully. “Or it could be labeled. Let’s take a look around before we start despairing.”
A full walk-through of the corridor revealed that every door was both visually exactly the same and able to be opened by the keycard.
“Alright, let’s start here and work our way down,” Noah said once they were gathered at the far end of the hall.
May gave him a dirty look. “You can’t just walk into random people’s rooms. Where’s your sense of privacy?”
“I’m not actually going to enter any of the rooms,” he said defensively. “Just crack the door enough to check it’s not a custodial closet. Like this.”
His friends watched in various states of alarm as he walked to the closest door and silently pushed it several inches open. When it became apparent that it was, indeed, someone’s quarters, he calmly shut the door and turned back to his fellow students with a small smile. “See? Easy.”
“What if they’re awake?” May asked uncomfortably.
“They probably won’t notice,” Noah said with a shrug.
He went to the next door without anyone moving to stop him, and then the next and the next.
He checked a good two-thirds of the doors in this fashion, encountering no difficulties, until May’s warning proved unfortunately accurate.
As he opened the thirteenth door and briefly scanned the room, he was alarmed to see the lights within were all very much on. He quickly closed the door, but in the moment before it shut, an angry shout came from the room.
“You idiot,” Brian muttered.
Before Noah hardly knew what was happening, the door was thrown wide open to reveal an infected, middle-aged man standing there with a furious expression twisting his features. He had a pair of narrow reading glasses perched upon the tip of his nose and he held a book with his index finger tucked into the pages, keeping his spot. His eyes narrowed at the sight of the six startled college students arrayed around his door.
Before the man could yell again, Noah pulled the tranquilizing weapon from his pocket, engaged the needle, and lunged forward to stick it into his arm.
The needle easily pierced his skin, but the man simply flinched away, and the needle slid back out with seemingly no effect.
Noah squinted at the weapon for a moment, peeved, before his eyes widened and he darted forward again. The motion somehow caught the man off guard long enough for him to stick the needle into the same arm. Noah depressed the lever, held the weapon in place for as long as he dared, then quickly yanked it out and backpedaled out of range.
Even before Noah removed the needle, the man froze. His hands shot to his eyes with a gasp.
“Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure it’s temporary,” Noah reassured him. He glanced across the room and considered taking the time to lay the man comfortably on the bed, but quickly thought better of it and instead simply nudged the man (who was currently in the process of slowly collapsing to the floor) so that his body didn’t block the door from closing.
“What’s happening?!” the guy yelled, panicked.
Noah shut the door without responding and turned to face his friends as he pocketed the needled weapon. Hopefully, it had more than a single dose.
Nobody said anything for a few seconds. Finally Noah smiled weakly and gestured to the right.
“So, next door?”