Chapter 35: Office

When Ollie coughed again, Milo folded his arms over the flail beneath his sweater, feeling the cold metal through the cloth.

One person getting better would draw little attention, and he could find out how long it took before attempting the whole yard.

"So how do I do this..." Milo whispered, as Ollie lay stretched along the bench, too far away to hear a thing. "Do I tell them to die?"

He considered die, pictured something important stopping in Ollie’s chest, and tried pause instead. What if that left the particles halfway through hurting him, with the damage continuing?

The sheet had made him careful about words, and asymptomatic sounded like a way to hide the trouble without ending it.

After rubbing his face twice, Milo settled on off.

In the context of disabling, off was a binary state where a system’s active operational functions, in this case the symptoms caused by the Plague particles, were suspended. Unlike an outright pause, a suspension left nothing stuck in perpetual inflammation. Besides, if it messed something up, he could always re-enable them and think the options over more carefully.

...

Those Plague particles inside my friend, Ollie... shall be disabled! Turned off.

Nothing happened for the first three seconds, and he was about to say the intention out loud, just in case Ministry needed some encouragement, when the sheet snapped open right in front of him.

Scritch-scritch!

[ The Gauge...

Eyes wide, Milo shot his hand out and crushed the yellowed paper in his grip, before sliding it into a pocket.

Poof!

As though frustrated, it dissolved in there, a faint mist seeping out between his knuckles.

Given that to outsiders it could be displaying anything, Nimble Flanged Flail included, he didn’t risk reading what it said. Not out here. The results were on their way regardless: Ollie coughed at a consistent interval of about three to five minutes, and an absence of that spelled success!

Ten minutes passed without a cough, though Milo stayed for another two to make a nice dozen. Reaching twelve only persuaded him to wait for twenty.

During the last three, Ollie talked without interruption, stopping at last to wave to somebody across the yard. He called that he would be over in a minute, finished what he was saying to Milo, and went to join them.

"Improvement." Milo nodded to the empty spot on the bench, expression dead-serious.

Since people needed a while to actually notice the lack of symptoms, at least to the point of being deemed clear, it was better to start the curing now.

He got up and walked out onto the grass, the numerous glances that had long lost their interest now finding him again with double the intensity.

Just going for a walk, a walk... OFF! Plague particles of this whole field, no—more precisely—Plague particles inside people who are within my reach, disable yourselves.

Keeping to an idle pace, he passed the benches and the water barrel, repeating the same order from five places so the groups at the far edges would be within reach too.

After that, he dropped back onto the flaking bench and pretended not to look around, all while he tallied the coughs.

Cough.

Coff! Coff!

With a crowd that size, the coughs overlapped from many sides, a callback to the Host’s attack.

Five minutes on, no new coughs came from the area Milo had covered first. Silence was spreading over the yard in waves when the door suddenly opened.

Milo’s eyes snapped toward the entrance. Another boy was sent in, hacking into his elbow, and had the door closed on his back.

Off him too, please.

It was ten seconds before he realized what he’d just said.

Particles, disable yourselves. Not anyone.

Twenty minutes after his walk, the students by the wall were arguing over the ladle. A boy who had been curled on the grass got up to defend his place in the queue, talking over two others without interrupting himself to cough.

Smiling before the argument was even settled, Milo listened from the bench. The noise was going to bring somebody out of the building, but for a while he was content to hear it.

About an hour and fifteen minutes after Ollie’s test, the door opened again, and this time a pair of nurses came in, followed close behind by Miss Rolt.

"Has Aldous done it?"

A group of girls debated next to him.

"Do you feel better too?"

"I thought it was only me!"

"When did you last cough?"

Within a minute, both nurses had stopped taking temperatures to ask everyone to give them room. A girl pulled her friend forward by the wrist, insisting they check her too.

Watching them crowd around the nurses, Milo began to think that being a good person might suit him. Maybe not every Heroic act had to put holes in his body.

The girl who had told the others to throw his water bottle was laughing with a nurse. He could forgive a child for something like that, especially now that she was well enough to be annoying again.

The daydream took a good dozen minutes from him before the school comms announcement sounded.

"There we are, loves. Every student in the sick ward is well again," Miss Rolt said. "Every one of you! I think we know what that means."

Students sprang up around him, cheering the phrase, "Aldous won!"

"Aldous won!" she confirmed over the comms. "I think your favorite principal will insist on keeping you through this night, per procedure, but it has been taken care of. You will definitely be released for the weekend. For the time being, enjoy a healthy Thursday evening, loves!"

The doors swung wide, and everyone swarmed in.

Hundreds were still inside, infected without showing it. Milo had to take care of them before the next symptoms appeared and somebody started asking why Aldous’s victory had only helped the people in the yard.

He rose from the bench and followed, an arm over the flail as the crowd pressed toward the doors.

A hand closed on his sleeve and pulled him aside.

"Milo, Mr. Thwaite expects you in his office," Grace said.

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⋆˚࿔ Coming right up: "Anomaly (Part 1)" ... ⤵︎ [!]