The Altered.

Chapter LXXVI.

The room was full of devices.

The desks in the large office were covered in screens; computers and small electronics Miles had never seen before. In the tiny, spare spaces available, there were scraps of paper with mad scribblings on them. The space was that of a scientist who had no other way to busy herself - her life was dedicated to technology and figuring it out.

Marissa had figured it out. She'd figured out how to shut off the Alteration, and now she was dead.

Why, though, had her office door been open?

One by one, they group of Unaltered teens filed into the room, all with expressions of different shades of horror painted on their face. Lia looked mesmerised, Luca looked terrified, and Percy seemed to be the most enthusiastic.

"We're in a dead scientist's office!" Percy exclaimed in a hushed voice.

"Unfortunately," Miles grunted, shuffling through a few of the pieces of papers on Marissa's desk. "Sort of weird, if you ask me."

"I didn't ask you."

Lia, before Percy and Miles could start bickering, intercepted. "It's interesting, but we shouldn't stay here for long. There's not much we'll be able to find in the office of somebody who died years back."

"On the contrary! This place is full of cool history," Angelina replied, breezing around the room with uncharacteristic grace. She seemed suddenly engaged, whereas for the previous half of the trip she'd seemed relatively disinterested. Reluctant, even.

Miles noticed that as Angelina walked herself around the room, she brushed deliberately close by Percy; so near that they made fleeting contact. Miles realised with a curl of his upper lip that Angelina was only feigning her interest to catch Percy's eye, and it seemed to be working. The raven-haired boy glanced over his shoulder to watch Angelina as she walked around to the other side of the desk, pretending to be fascinated by an old notepad.

Lia noticed this too, and appeared immediately defensive. "Can we hurry up, please? We can return later when there aren't lives on the line."

Miles physically cringed when Aaron was brought to the front of his mind once more. Wounded, unresponsive Aaron, who was currently three levels downstairs with Bri and Eira. "Lia's right. We have no business here." Even as he said that, there was a voice at the back of his head screaming his instincts at him. This room was full of research from one of the most fantastic scientists, and her door had been open despite the fact that she'd been dead for years now. There was something hidden beneath all this mess that was vital information, Miles was sure of it.

It was then that a small voice sounded from the corner of the room, and all eyes found Luca standing beside an indistinct, white door hidden so well in the wall that the only reason it was visible was because of the ID pad on it. The ID pad which read, for some reason, unlocked. "There's a door here," Luca said softly, then point to the pad. "Why's it unlocked?"

Claire spoke from behind Miles. "Look," she said, pointing to the ID pad on the door of the office. "This is unlocked, too." Which was obvious, because the door was open. But it wasn't the fact that the doors were unlocked which was weird; it was the fact that they had ID pads on them and had somehow come unlocked.

"The only way for these doors to unlock would be... for Marissa to place her hand against the pads." Miles' voice slowly trailed off, and he felt himself shrink into his clothes. For not the first time that night, he was nervous. Really, really nervous. "Shit, there could be a zombie Marissa out and about."

"Miles, shut up with that," Lia warned, voice pitchy. "That's absurd."

"Then how the hell did these doors get unlocked?" Miles shot back.