"GEORGE, HITTING YOUR HEAD REPEATEDLY AGAINST THE TABLE isn't going to give us any answers," Kai sighed, glancing at George who was banging his head against the table. George sighed back as he turned to face Kai, setting his cheek against the table's warm surface. "What?" He asked stubbornly when Rose chuckled at George's childish antics.

George narrowed his eyes at Rose who stuck her tongue out at him. He sat up straighter, hanging his head backward and staring fixedly at his book collection. He'd been restless since the time all of them had gone through those files, mad at himself that he couldn't find answers.

But one good thing Will felt as he saw George bang his head against the table with frustration, sulking was that he wasn't hiding his emotions around them any more. He wasn't hiding his tears or constant sadness behind the cheerful smile of his, and Will was happy that George was comfortable around them.

Leo tapped his paws against the black marble floor, looking at them with rich brown eyes as his ears were pricked up for any incoming orders or conversations. After a while, he started tapping with both of his paws and Will smiled, "L," He said. Leo immediately looked up and increased the tapping, this time it was faster.

"Leo," All of them chorused, and he started tapping impossibly fast until one of his paws skidded, and he lost balance and his jaw landed on the floor, which earned him a concerned glance from everyone in the room. Looking up and seeing everyone's eyes on him, he barked delightfully which let them know that he wasn't hurt.

Leo now sat under the dining table, occasionally licking someone which got him a pat on the back. Will picked at the food kept in front of him, his mind wandering to find them some answers. Everyone had their thinking caps on, letting their mind wander around for answers.

George had been right, there had been a change in the pattern of suicides. Previously, the people who killed themselves had one thing in common: something had been injected into their body. They were certain that something was injected into their bodies, because of the puncture wounds. George had confirmed that those puncture wounds were caused because of injecting something.

But this time, there were no puncture wounds on the body. Nothing to suggest that something had been injected into their bodies. They scanned through all the autopsies five times, to check if there was some small, minute detail they missed. But there wasn't anything in common and Will was close to throwing up, he didn't want to glance at those reports again.

But the one thing that was common with the last time was that there were no similarities. There was no target group, people were ranging from little kids to old, no similarities in their jobs.

Will frowned, "Can it be that there is something mixed in their food or water?" George pursed his lips, considering it. "Might be. But I don't think it's that. It would be hard for the killer to mix stuff into their food, as someone else might consume it too."

Shay looked up, "So you think that the killings aren't random?" George shook his head, indicating that he didn't think that. "It doesn't seem like a person killing people for his pleasure. If it was that, he wouldn't do through all the trouble to disguise them as suicides. All of this looks planned. And with those messages on the wall, I think it's something more like revenge."

"I still think—" Jade started, but Theo shook his head, "No, Jade. If you are gonna say that this whole thing is a coincidence then what about the reports we first saw? The reports told that everyone who killed themselves had been injected with something. So, whatever was happening then, they were attacks. Now I'm sure that whoever behind this has found a better way to hide this business he's doing and disguise them better."

"Then if that were the case, then why isn't he getting caught? Surely we weren't the first people who discovered this. People working in Aquariaa could've checked it easily. The higher authorities of our city too would be worried and wouldn't they check the reports once? When a bunch of high schoolers had the sense to check the autopsies, then wouldn't they too?"

"That would mean only one thing," George spoke up after a long time, "that whoever behind this has spies all over the city, including some of the higher officials who would prevent anyone checking these things or making others believe that this is normal. Checking things so that everything would go as planned. And other people like us who started investigating?" He took a deep breath before answering his question, "all of them are dead. They weren't careful enough, I think. So the spies caught them investigating, and they would inject that substance into their body and the next day that person would be dead. Since the death was disguised as a suicide, people wouldn't suspect anything. The family would be too devastated to think straight. Everything was planned out well."

There was a pin drop silence. Will tried to process what George was telling. They had to be careful. It was a miracle that people behind the killings didn't suspect and kill them yet. Will voice out his thoughts, "We need to be careful. Till now, all we did was just steal from Aquariaa," Kai's voice interrupted him, "Dude please don't say it like that. The word 'steal' sounds too extreme, could we refer to it as 'a very extreme case of window shopping?' For the betterment of our city?" Kai said, sounding desperate.

Will sighed and continued, "Fine. 'Extreme case of window shopping we did for the betterment of the city', but even the police closed the case by giving a statement that 'they were just a bunch of drunk teenagers daring each other to do stunts', and it did seem to fit the situation. People just broke into the building and didn't steal anything? It did seem like a dare so everyone believed it, and we fell out of the case. That was our luck. Now, we need to be careful, take care of every step we take. We've been safer because of those files we've been reading from my dad's and Shay's mom's company. We weren't openly looking into things, just reading from a source. That was an advantage."

Everyone nodded solemnly. George spoke up, "It's you guys I'm worried about. To everyone, I'm just an old scientist, living alone, coping with the death of his grandson, and has no family. And no one would be suspicious when they hear that I asked for the files in Aquariaa, as they might assume that it's for another experiment I'm working on, trying to drown myself in work after the death of his grandson. Whatever you do, be careful and just stay with me, alright?"

After getting satisfying responses from everyone and a reassuring lick from Leo, George lapsed into silence again. Time ticked by and no one spoke, refusing to open their mouths until their brains figured something out which would make sense.

Soon, Kai and Theo resorted to George's 'banging head against the table' technique, and one by one, everyone else followed. Will was the last one to start doing it. He wasn't hitting his head too forcefully, it was somewhere between a nudge and a jab. The sounds slowly synchronized and turned into a rhythm, coming to a stop when George sat straighter and gestured for them to stop.

"I think... I think I figured it out. It makes sense." George nodded again. "Yes. It makes a lot of sense." All of them nodded, excited to hear George's theory. Will looked at his plate and stuffed food into his mouth, his stomach growling with satisfaction. George smiled at all of them, "I think we've been thinking the wrong way. All of us were under the impression that the answer to this very difficult question would be really complicated but would it still be complicated if we start looking for the answers in the basics we've learned? Always go through basics when looking for answers. Okay, I want you guys to crack this question, so you get the satisfaction of finding an answer, but I'm going to give you some clues. Just think of these suicides as a disease, a normal kind of disease which spreads and whose cure hasn't been found and humanity finds it terrifying to face it. Now, just think of the ways a disease can spread, and you will acquire an answer yourself. I was actually thinking of what you said, Will. Your previous answer is related to this one."

Always go through the basics, George had said.

Time to put my primary education into use, I guess, Will thought. He posed himself with questions. What are the modes of transmission of infectious diseases? He asked himself, pleased when he got a list on answers.

He went through each of them mentally. By direct contact, diseases can be spread by person to person contact or by droplets, spray of droplets while sneezing or coughing. By indirect contact, it can be through air or contaminated objects which also include food and water.

Airborne transmission.

Will's eyes were as wide as saucers when he considered the possibility. Airborne transmission was better than manually plunging injections into people. They wouldn't have to grab people or fight them, they could just release a gas. As people who died weren't in company but rather were alone, they wouldn't have to worry about others breathing in the gas.

Will glanced at his friends whose faces were covered in a mask of shock and surprise. They had figured it out. George's face was grim when he answered their unasked questions. Were they correct?

"I'm not entirely sure if this is it or not. But it's definitely a possibility. Definitely. And judging by those reports, I think what we assume is true." George said, his eyes trained on the designer wall of his library. Will looked out of the window anxiously, then looked away immediately.

He looked directly into the sun. Bright green spots danced in his vision, and Will blinked rapidly to get rid of them. He looked at George with difficulty, then gave up his effort. He closed his eyes, absorbing what George was saying.

"I think they are releasing a gas which contains the same serum as the injection. Release it into the air when the target is spotted, and the person would die after breathing it in."

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