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Chapter 19

Death stared at the piles of paper spread out over every inch of her worktable. She was working on connecting the poem to the files. This was going to take forever.

"Hey, um, can someone come help with this? Where's Marc?" she called.

"He went to get pizza. I didn't know pizza places opened at ten in the morning, but hey," Cindy shrugged. "I can help you."

"Oh, no, that's fine. You look really busy. I'm sure Rodrigo would be happy to," she said. Rodrigo sighed and started coming over.

"He actually is busy and I'm not. Besides, finding out what people mean... kinda what I'm here for," Cindy said.

"I-- I wouldn't want to impose. Besides, um, you working on why the number is here in the first place is, is far more important," Death said.

"Rodrigo, you can go back to your lab now," she pulled a stool up to the table and sat down. "You guys dragged me from my school to work with me, so now you are going to work with me, is that clear?"

She cleared her throat. "What are we trying to do here?" She gestured at the papers.

"Ummm... To find a correlation between the things referenced in the poem and the files we have so far that involve the number," Death said haltingly. "I might have one line figured out. 'To the fiery mountain beyond heaven's sight'. Beyond heaven's sight could mean something the sky doesn't touch. So that would be something in space or with a different sky. A fiery mountain is a volcano. If it has volcanoes, then it has tectonic plates and a mantle, so it's not just a tiny piece of space junk. It fits the description of Flira."

"What's Flira?"

"It's a planet. Really far away. One of these files has a pretty good description, if you're interested," Death said.

"How do you know about it if it's so far away?" Cindy asked, but then saw her expression. "No. No! I refuse to believe you met aliens until I see some actual proof, and you don't have any, do you?"

"Suit yourself," Death said.

"Okay. Good," she said. "Let's start with the first line. 'From deepest depth to highest height'. Okay. So underground, maybe caves, maybe the ocean. And 'highest height'. The sky. Have you ever had a case that involved birds?"

"Not that I know of. We've had some suspicious meteorites, though. Still don't know what they're for," Death said. "I think we'll just have to read through every file. That could take hours. And it'll be really boring."

"I'm not leaving, Death, so you can just cut it out," Cindy said. She chose a file and skimmed over it, eyes lighting on locations and altitudes. After a second, Death did the same. A stack of the files they had already read slowly grew on the floor. The only sound was of papers turning.

"I used to go to school with a girl named Sidney," Death said, breaking the silence.

"Oh, really? Were you two friends?"

"No. We weren't really in the same circles," she said apologetically.

"Oh."

They went back to reading. Death had already seen most of the files, but some were new and interesting. A glowing chimpanzee in Guinea. An old lady who could dodge bullets. A whole river disappearing over night. A boy who could... hear photons. Huh. She had known Alex would be given a file, but she hadn't actively thought about it. It seemed strange to read about.

There was a sudden burst of sound and people talking at the other end of the base. Death scrambled to get there, with Cindy and Rodrigo following a little more hesitantly.

Marc stood in the entryway with a cardboard box in hand. The whole team-- and Alex-- crowded in.

"Okay, so, I don't have any pizza. But," he said. "I brought back this box of kittens instead."

He tilted the box down, revealing a half dozen kittens crawling around and blinking their barely-open eyes.

"Marc."