Chapter 1168 Side Fangs: “Interrogating Chumbler” (Part 3) (Stella)

So apparently the former principal Penteldtam had some interaction with the Taramin Labs and Dr. Vesper, and seemed to have some knowledge of the so-called 'experiment' that led to us chaperones stuck in a void node based on a casino and our kids somewhere else. It was getting harder to keep my cool through this, but I just had to remind myself that this dude was going through it, and getting angry at him wouldn't help anything.

"Right, so I didn't usually handle much stuff with Taramin people," Penteldtam said. "I'd get letters and magazines and stuff from them, but I didn't really like 'talk' to them much, you know?"

"Not quite reassuring when they own like half the school," Evy said.

"Well, not 'own,' just...heavy benefactors...OK, yeah it was pretty eerie to think about, so I tried not to think about it!" Penteldtam said.

"But aren't the Kilanders majorly in debt to Taramin folks?" I said, remembering hearing that before.

"I didn't really deal with that either," Penteldtam said.

Just going with my past dealings with Penteldtam, I could see that being true. It would have been surprising if the Kilanders let him deal with anything financial, or of any importance whatsoever.

"But sometimes Mr. Benta IV, that's the guy that like, he's in that rich Benta family who also is very influential," Penteldtam said. "That guy would show up with some Taramin people when we met. And I remember one time that scientist lady was there."

"This chick gets around," Chumbler said, prompting another shoulder punch from her friend. "Ouch! Permission to go play poker to ease the wound of my sore shoulder?"

"Granted," Evy said. "Just stay in sight, and if you do run off I'm making sure you get expelled."

Chumbler saluted and left with her friend.

"I don't think I have any authority to expel anyone, but maybe they could find me vaguely threatening enough so they don't run off," Evy shrugged. "Anyways, continue."

"Where was I...?" Penteldtam said. "Right, Benta. He showed up to yell at me and make me feel bad as usual, but then he introduced me to that Vesper lady. When I did talk to any Taramin people, they were always on about all the good stuff they're doing for the world, the philanthropy and whatnot of their work. And they were asking...no they pretty much just told me that coming up there was to be a 'brief experiment in a dome.' I was like, 'Uhhhh, OK, we don't have a dome.' But they just laughed at me and said that was all taken care of."

"Did they say what the experiment was?" I asked. All we were getting so far was that the Taramin Labs folks led by Dr. Vesper was doing some kind of experiment on the kids while everyone was at the dance. If Penteldtam didn't have much more than that I figured I'd just get up and look around again.

"They went on for a long while, I'm talking real boring chatter that I'm gonna be honest with you, I tuned out pretty quickly," Penteldtam said. "But it all sounded on the up and up. There's some nebulous threat deep in the void approaching, Taramin Labs was looking into new ways to train Cani students to reach new heights in powers, and we'd just do a deal where they'd get to try their powers against our students to get everyone stronger, it all sounded on the up and up."

Evy rubbed her temples, somehow resisting the urge to interject.

"And since they said it was all good, I signed it for whenever they wanted to, so...that's probably why they built the dome and did this whole thing," Penteldtam said. "In my defense, Benta IV always loves dome-based architecture, and the Taramin people, so really it's them you should be mad at."

"Did they give any indication they'd do this during the dance?" I asked.

"They just said there'd be some kind of event," Penteldtam said. "That's about all I remember, anyways."

"We can probably guess that something similar to the power tests they were running at the camping trip are happening again," Evy said. "Caya and Kitty approved those, but they were pretty upfront about it and let everyone know in advance what was gonna happen. So I'd be surprised if they said this was fine to spring on the kids mid-dance, but...it's possible."

I didn't want to think Caya would do this, Kitty I could see but even so, she didn't seem that horrible.

"Would it be the devils again?" I asked. "I mean, the ones they're having test their powers."

Which would mean that not only was my sister Zeta embroiled in this experiment, she was potentially up against our newly discovered other sister Anastasia. Which would absolutely mean my mother was involved, right?

"Potentially," Evy said. She grimaced. "There's just too much we don't know right now. If they were fine doing the power tests at the camping trip, why would they do one now that required we be out of the picture?"

"Something worse is going on," I said.

"That's what I think too," Evy said.

"So we get back there and put a stop to it," I said. "Which...puts us back to where we were like an hour ago."

"Yes, but we know a bit more now, so...progress?" Evy said.

Just as I was about to try and brainstorm some more ideas, we all sensed that something had just shifted, looking around. A split-second later, a huge shadow appeared about a foot off the ground in an open space in the casino. Then about fifty kids from class were unceremoniously dropped down from it. Evy and I rushed over to them, and I desperately hoped Zeta was with them, but my gut was telling me she was someplace else.