The Altered.

Chapter LXXIV.

The interior of the building was relatively dark. Traveling through the halls was something that relied on sticking close together and using the small lights placed at long intervals through the halls. It was obvious that, seeing as the whole tower was now powered only by a battery generator, power was being preserved. Miles was thankful that he had so much company, and for much of the trip, he could feel Luca's fingers latched onto his sleeve tightly.

"Percy," Miles said finally, keeping his voice to a whisper as if he might disturb some sleeping beast in the halls, "do you know where you're going?"

"I'm trying to find the elevator," Percy hissed. "Or a map."

Now aware of what they were searching for, Miles lifted his chin to peek over Lia's shoulder, eyes scanning the walls surrounding them. Everywhere that they'd walked so far had been populated by screens on walls, slumbering robots, or other small devices trapped in display cases. Any other day, Miles would have allowed his inner nerd to take over, and he'd be swooning over everything in the tower - but the stakes were too high tonight to stop and marvel.

Subconsciously, the group started to slow. Miles only realised why when he turned around and noticed Angelina straying away, and he'd probably have cared less if he didn't realise quickly that her eyes were locked on something. "Is this a map?" she murmured.

Miles shook Luca free of his shirt - with an apologetic look beforehand - and slunk over to Angelina, being sure to keep his distance to remind her that he very much still despised her. Miles was surprised to realise that she was right; there was a digital map on the wall. He didn't know how she'd sighted it - he wouldn't have if she hadn't brought his attention to it - seeing as it wasn't lit up and the words were almost too dim to read.

Percy, who was the only one with a functioning flashlight, pushed his way through the group to arrive beside Miles. He cast the light onto the dull map, and his eyes widened with relief. "This'll help."

"No shit," Miles said. "Just tell us where we're going next." There were several factors that went into Miles' curt tone. a) Aaron could well be dying, or dead, at this point, and the more time they spent here, the longer it would take for Miles to return to him. b) Miles wasn't especially fond of Percy, and even less so Angelina, and those happened to be the pair of people closest to him right now. c) He was agitated and panicking - the fate of countless people rested on what went down in this tower tonight.

At least, that's what he thought so far. Perhaps this would all turn out to be for nothing.

Percy didn't comment on Miles' tone - it seemed that he recognised why Miles was currently so on edge. Either that, or he was just used to Miles' comments by now. "We'll still have to find an elevator," Percy noted. "There's one just around the corner." Absently, he cast his gaze up the hallway to see how far away it was until the next corner, then he looked back to the map, blinking to let his eyes readjust. "We'll be heading up three levels."

Now that Miles was leaning over Percy and he could see the map a little more clearly with light shining onto it, he recognised the simple label reading Motherboard, assigned to one of the largest rooms on the fourth level of the tower. All over again, a shiver of anticipation and terror ran through him.

Were they about to save the world?

Miles, Angelina, and Percy fell back into place in the group, Percy moving his way to the head again to take the lead. Lia fell into step beside him, and they started talking quietly. Miles eyed them thoughtfully from the rear, straining his ears to listen in on their conversation, though he got nothing. Percy and Lia had only gotten closer since they'd met, and Miles couldn't be the only one anticipating something larger than the so-called friendship they shared. Until that was proven, though, the only thing that was for certain was that they were close, and probably shared lots of secrets between the pair of them. Miles wished he knew what they were talking about, though he doubted it was relevant to this mission anyway.

"Miles," said Bates from somewhere beside Miles. "That's your name, right?"

Bates had a gruff, low voice that Miles could have mistakenly placed on an Altered as opposed to a fifteen-year-old boy. It was so odd to think that now, Miles was probably the oldest in this group. Sixteen. Sixteen years old.

Miles ignored Bates intentionally. He had no interest in engaging in conversation with somebody from Angelina's group.

Bates narrowed his eyes to slits and knocked Miles with his shoulder. It was probably intended as a nudge, but with Bates' size, it nearly knocked Miles - who was the oldest, but still one of the shortest in the group - over. "I'm talking to you."

Miles ground his teeth, not turning to look at Bates. "I'm busy ignoring you."

"Why?"

Miles' head finally snapped around to Bates. "Because I don't fucking want to talk to you!"

Percy turned around and hissed at Miles to be quiet.

Bates just looked disappointed. "For what it's worth, Angelina told Spike and I that she felt bad about leaving you and your friends in that fight, weeks ago. Outside the library."

"Then why did she run away?" Miles kept his voice quieter now, but it was filled with just as much fury.

"Because she's a coward," Bates spat, gaze flicking to Angelina to make sure she hadn't heard. If she had, she didn't do anything to show it. "So am I. But... not tonight. We want to help. We came here to do this on our own, but I'm glad you came. We didn't know what we were meant to do. Now, we might be able to get this fucking apocalypse out of the way."

Miles took a moment to think when Bates was done talking, and in the end, didn't bother to acknowledge the attempt at an apology Bates had provided. "You are a coward," Miles muttered. "A coward who somehow figured out this whole thing right before we did. How?"

"A Digi-screen," Bates replied, ignoring Miles' first comment. "We've been staying in a partially constructed apartment block. The lower apartment was furnished, and there was a Digi-screen there. When we tried to turn it on, all that was on the screen was a scramble of symbols."

This was sounding eerily familiar to what Miles and his group had found on the e-Screen. "A scramble of symbols," Miles echoed softly. "And you decoded it, right? How?"

Bates nodded. "Spike knew that each of the symbols were equivalent to a letter of the English alphabet each. The symbols are like the computer alphabet, he said." Miles already knew this, but he didn't interrupt. "We were up all day, all night, for days and days, trying every combination of letters until we started to get words. Then it was only a matter of substituting each of the symbols for English letters and completing the phrase. It took us a few days to understand it, but then we figured we ought to try and find more information in this tower."

"This tower is where we can shut this whole thing down," Miles said.

"When we saw your group here," Bates said, "we thought there must have been a reason. And I guess we realised why, when you all started talking about how this place could be the solution to this entire problem." A pause. "At least, I know I started to figure it out." The way Bates spoke was slow, but not thoughtful. More like he just wasn't sure how to make what he was saying make sense, or he was uncertain as to how to put his thoughts into words. Miles was struggling to get used to the way the boy spoke; it irritated him, though he wished it didn't. Bates sounded as if he was confused or uncertain about everything he said.

Miles spoke more surely. "Well, you were right. We're here because this tower is the answer. The virus more than likely started here. Now, we just need to figure out how we can finish it in the same place."

Bates appeared dumbfounded for a moment, but understanding slowly leaked into his features. "Okay. Okay, that... makes sense."

Miles noticed that the group was slowing gradually, and when he lifted his eyes, he noticed why. Percy voiced, "We're at the elevator."

Miles sucked in a breath. "Let's get this show on the road, then."

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