Scylla rolled her eyes and, without a moment’s hesitation, shoved her hand down her own t-shirt and tucked the filthy object into her bra. The cannibalistic urgings of her t-shirt stretched until the words were barely recognizable.

I looked down, my face red and hot with embarrassment. Her glare burned into the back of my head as she grumbled, “Good thing I’ve got plenty of storage in here for the girls, since some people are too chicken to do their part for the cause. I’ll never complain about wearing a D-cup again.”

Tamara burst over the side of the trench just then, sparing me from processing that completely unnecessary piece of information. “Guys,” she yelled over the noise of the helicopter, which was touching down on the flat expanse that doubled as a parking area. “Get over here, quick. One of the people in my dig group, they found…” She swallowed, struggling to get the next words out. “I think they found a body.”

◦ • ◦

Erick was standing in Trench 21, visibly pale, his fingers raking through that thick black hair as he looked down at the half-buried object at his feet. The dig site was total pandemonium, TAs and student diggers jabbering over each other incomprehensibly. Some people were crying, others dashing around in excitement, everyone overcome by the shocking nature of the find.

I only managed to get a brief look at it before the GSAF suits swept in and ushered us all away from the site. It was undeniably a human skull. There was no mistaking the dark holes of the eye sockets, the eerily toothy grin. The bone was discolored, cracked and red as the earth around it. It reminded me of the fossilized skulls I’d seen at the history museums Abuelo used to take me to when I’d visit him on Earth.

I wondered how long it had been buried here. And, more importantly, why. Why was there a human body buried out here, in the middle of nowhere?

The GSAF agents escorted all the undergrads, and me and Tamara, over to the parking area where the shuttle van was waiting for us. I was expecting them to interrogate us or something, but they were really adamant about getting the group of us off the site as quickly as possible.

“We’ll contact each of you individually for questioning in the next few days,” one of the agents explained, practically shoving me into the van. “Please make sure you have some time available when we contact you.”

“What’s going to happen to the dig site?” I heard Grant, standing across the parking lot, ask. He spoke in his typical demanding tone, but his quavering voice gave him away.

“That will be determined based on what our investigation turns up. But I wouldn’t expect to be back here for the next several weeks.”