Quinn and the Quiet, Quiet

Quinn might get used to the food, Work Bots, and creating the Blue Brick (TM) ... but why are children all around him turning blue? Quinn Fleet, twelve, Packager (QF12P) has only been at the Work Centre for three days, but he's already seen a Caver run away, faced interrogation, and been made to stand in front of a crowd of children in the Grand Hall to apologize for breaking a Blue Brick (TM). That's when he notices that all the children at the Work Centre look so thin, ragged, and blue. Why are the children turning blue? Why can they make the strange blue spark when they snap their fingers? What's the blue shimmer in the air? And why do a renegade Work Bot and an Officer want Quinn to lead the NewBlues to the sanctuary of the Quiet, Quiet? But more than all that, what is the Quiet, Quiet, anyway?