***
Despite the best of my abilities, time blurs after the call. Minutes tick by, seeming to go past me.
I suppose I’m losing grasp of time.
There must have been tasks between then and now. Notes I tapped into my tablet. Orders Set gave that Idris and Darius are already carrying out. Conversations I moved through without registering them.
All I know with certainty is that, at this moment, I’m now standing in the mess hall.
The room is full of bodies, voices, and heat. But the usual buzz of conversation has a different pitch today. Higher. Tenser.Wrong.
My eyes scan over the people. Fellow staff and fellow subjects. All of us showing subtle—as well as open—signs of distress. I can’t fault them for feeling this way.
Idris stands in front of the room, where everyone can see him. Darius is by him, hands clasped behind his back, frowning and eyeing the floor. I take my place on the other side of Idris, tablet in hand.
Everyone else faces us. I scan the room and see Nil looking stoic, at a table near the middle. Stan’s next to him, face unusually solemn. Fewer smiles today. More gritted teeth. Others I know by intake number first, then by name. Chronologically… Jonathan. Gerald. Walter. Marco. Edward. Alphonso. Rami. Connor. Tomas. Stan. Nil. So many of them for only twelve.
No…
Only eleven now.
My eyes dart to my tablet screen as the murmur dies down as soon as Idris clears his throat. “Thank you all for coming,” he says, his voice carrying across the crowd easily. “I know this isn’t how we usually start the day.”
Silence becomes tense in the space between tables.
Idris lets some seconds pass before speaking. “There’s no easy way to say this,” he says with a heavy sigh, “so I’ll just say it. Late last night, one of our people was found in his room. He was unfortunately found unresponsive. Despite our best efforts, we were unable toresuscitate him.”
The silence that comes after is heavy. My ears ring again.
A hand goes up near the back. Someone blurts, “Who?”
Idris purses his lips, breathing in deeply before saying his name. “Sergio.”
The sound that follows isn’t a single noise. It’s a layered reaction. A gasp from one side. A curse from another. Chair scraping. Someone shakily mutters, “No way,” under their breath.
Idris keeps his tone steady. “I know many of you spent time with him. Some of you more than others. His loss is a heartbreaking misfortune.”
Questions fire from different directions.
“What happened to him?”
“Was it the new Kys?”
“Is this experiment safe?”
“Are we next?”
The pitch of the room spikes. My body reacts as my mind tries to contain everything in order. My heart rate jumps. My palms dampen around my tablet. The air feels thinner even though the vents make the same sounds as always.
Idris raises a hand. The crowd reaches a quiet murmur. “Take a breath,” he says. “I’ll answer what I can.”
The room quiets by decibels. My ears barely ring.
“First,” Idris says, “someone noticed Sergio’s cabin door wasn’t closing properly during late hours and alerted me. That person did the right thing. They did not harm him. They did not cause this.”
“Who found him?” someone calls out. “We should know.”
“Yeah,” another voice adds. “If his door was open, Sergio must’ve opened it for someone. That’s suspicious, right?”
