FULL OBLITERATION (Book #3)

𝕰𝖑𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖓

"We jump... so try 'jumper'?" I whisper to Ella.

In the instructor's office, we're all huddled around Ella as she sits on a chair in front of a Mac computer. It's dark all around us, the only light comes from the screen in front of us, making our faces glow blue.

"'Jumper'," she types it up in the search bar and presses enter. "Hmm, just some movie and the actual jumper, like the one you wear."

"'Migraines and jumper'?" Carmen suggests.

Ella searches it up and presses enter again. "Okay guys, can we be a lil more specific here? This link here reads, 'does wearing jumpers cause migraines?'."

"Keep migraine but change 'jumper' to 'dimension'," I try.

"Still nothing," Ella sighs.

"How about... the zombie apocalypse?" Bray offers, rhetoric. "Ain't that the first thing you'd wanna search up, duh."

"Right," Ella presses enter. "Oh, well, of course, nothing much but just a thousand movies about the zombie apocalypse," she sighs, giving Bray an irritated look. "Argh, Dean, Carmen, what's something more unique? Something you only heard in the other dimension."

"Wait," I think, squinting. "Try... 'purple haze'."

She types it up.

"'Weed'?" Bray reads the first few links, eyebrows knitted together. "Your other life ain't sounding too bad right about now."

"No, no, no," I feel puzzled. "It shouldn't be weed. It's... it's like an injection. It stops the virus in its track for some time before starting again."

"Surely you guys gave me some of that," Bray says optimistically.

"Yeah," I smile. "Bought us more time... But not enough," my smile fades.

"Wait," Carmen points to the screen as Ella scrolls down. "Stop there, go up again, some more, yes, there."

Ella clicks on the website and a loading screen comes up saying something like 'waiting for authentication'.

"Is this site safe?" Bray asks nervously. "If it gives this computer malware, the instructor will definitely know someone was on it, and then she'll notify my mum, and then they'll realise a keycard has gone missing and then-"

"Bray, chill," Ella looks up at him. "It won't give it a virus. 'Member we're fighting a virus? That should be top priority right now, not malware."

"Right, right, true," Bray nods.

Ella peers back at the screen and reads an article, "witnesses reported that an unusual class of bioweapon had been in the making inside the walls of NOIR HQ. However, Ms G. Malhotra was quick to debunk these 'vile accusations'."

"'Noir'?" Bray repeats.

"Noir is French for black," Ella informs him.

"Hm, how bright," Bray gulps, pun intended.

"'Bioweapon'?" I glance at Carmen. "That sounds too similar to be just a coincidence."

"Doesn't say what the 'bioweapon' is though," Ella keeps reading the article. "Says it's.. 'classified information'."

"But what are the chances it isn't a weapon that turns humans into zombies?" Carmen suggests. "I think Dean's right, that has to be the bioweapon they're creating."

"I trust you guys," Ella scrolls down the page. "The rest goes on about protests being held to shut down the corporation as it kept emitting some sort of.. black smoke.. polluting a quiet town."