The Nerd’s Guide to Surviving an Apocalypse

Unsubstantiated

I couldn't move.

Mr. Collins still had his hand on my arm, but I could barely feel it. All I could focus on was the sound of boots against the gymnasium floor, dozens of them, moving in formation as the scientists and armed personnel spread out through the entrance hall.

"Nora Bennett." The voice came from a man near the front, his suit sealed all the way to his throat, a clipboard in one gloved hand. "We received a report that a student at this facility was exposed to contaminated rainfall and displayed no adverse effects."

Nobody answered him.

Students had gathered along the edges of the hallway, pressed against lockers and walls, watching with wide eyes. I searched the crowd for Adrian and found him near the front, his jaw tight, his eyes locked on the man speaking.

"We need to identify the student in question," the man continued. "Cooperation will make this significantly easier for everyone."

Mr. Collins stepped forward before I could say anything.

"There's been a misunderstanding," he said, his voice steady in a way that didn't match the fear I'd seen on his face moments earlier.

The man's eyes narrowed. "Explain."

"We had an incident two nights ago," Mr. Collins said. "A student slipped in one of the bathrooms and got wet from a burst pipe. Nothing related to the storm. I believe whoever called your hotline misunderstood what happened, or perhaps wanted to cause trouble. It happens, given the circumstances everyone is under right now."

My heart pounded so hard I was sure everyone could hear it.

"A burst pipe," the man repeated flatly.

"Old plumbing," Mr. Collins said. "We've had problems with it for months."

The man studied him for a long moment, and I braced myself for him to call it what it obviously was, a lie, poorly constructed and too convenient to believe.

Instead, a girl near the front spoke up.

"It's true," she said. "I was in the hallway when it happened. Water was everywhere."

I recognized her vaguely, someone from my chemistry class, someone I'd barely spoken two words to all year.

"Same," another voice added, a boy near the lockers. "The custodian was still trying to fix it yesterday."

More voices joined, quiet at first, then steadier, students I barely knew nodding along, inventing details, backing up a story none of them had actually witnessed. Somewhere behind me, I heard Chloe's voice among them, insisting she'd helped mop up the water herself.

The man's expression didn't change, but something in his posture shifted, the certainty draining slightly out of it.

"We'll need to see this bathroom."

"Of course," Mr. Collins said, without missing a beat. "Right this way."

He led the group down the hall, and I watched them go, my whole body rigid with fear that someone, somewhere, would slip up, say the wrong thing, break the fragile story everyone had built in the space of a few seconds.

Adrian appeared at my side, gripping my hand tightly.

"They're not going to find anything," he murmured. "Everyone's covering for you."

"Why would they do that?"

"Because it's the right thing to do," he said simply, like the answer was obvious.

I didn't trust myself to speak.

We waited in silence for what felt like an hour, though it was probably closer to twenty minutes. When the group finally returned, the man in the sealed suit looked visibly unconvinced, but there was nothing left for him to argue with. A damp bathroom floor, a broken pipe someone had clearly loosened just enough to leak, students who all told the same story with just enough small variations to sound genuine.

"This report will be marked as unsubstantiated," he said finally, though his eyes swept over the crowd one more time before he turned toward the door. "If we receive credible evidence otherwise, we will return."

Nobody said a word until the vehicles pulled away from the front drive, disappearing back into the gray curtain of rain.

Only then did the hallway erupt into noise, relief spilling out of people in nervous laughter and exhales and quiet disbelief that it had actually worked.

Chloe found me first, pulling me into a hug so sudden I barely had time to react.

"You're okay," she said. "You're okay."

Mr. Collins approached a moment later, and for the first time since I'd known him, he looked less like a teacher and more like someone who'd just done something he knew could have cost him everything.

"That was reckless," I told him quietly.

"Yes," he agreed. "It was also right. Sometimes those are the same thing."

Adrian didn't let go of my hand for a long time.

***

Madison locked the door of her room and pressed her back against it, her chest heaving with a fury she hadn't let anyone see.

They'd lied.

All of them, every single one of those students, standing there inventing a story about a bathroom pipe, protecting a girl most of them barely knew, and they'd done it so easily, so seamlessly, that even the government's own people hadn't been able to poke a single hole through it.

She'd been so certain.

She'd stood at the edge of that hallway watching it happen, watching her plan collapse in real time, watching Nora Bennett walk away untouched again, and there had been nothing, nothing at all, that Madison could do about it without exposing herself completely.

She crossed the room and swept a stack of books off her desk, sending them crashing to the floor, the sound loud and satisfying in the empty room.

It wasn't fair.

She had done everything right. She had planned carefully, made the call anonymously, kept her hands clean the entire time, and somehow Nora still came out of it surrounded by people willing to lie for her, protect her, choose her over the truth.

Nobody had ever done that for Madison.

Not once, not in her entire life, had a room full of people looked at her and decided she was worth protecting like that.

She sank down onto the edge of her bed, her hands curling into fists against her knees.

She thought about calling the hotline again, telling them the truth this time, telling them exactly which bathroom to check for a pipe that had never actually burst.

Her hand hovered near her phone.

She didn't pick it up.

Not because she'd changed her mind.

Because she needed a plan that wouldn't fail this time, and she wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

Whatever came next, she told herself, quietly, in the dark of her room where no one could hear her decide it, she would make sure it worked.