Chapter 14
1097 Words
*
Morning light filtered through the dorm window, too calm for what was sitting under my skin. The hum from the fragment still pulsed faintly through my mark, a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.
Kira hadn’t said much since we escaped the tunnels. She sat at my desk now, replaying the corrupted video over and over again. Every frame showed the same thing—Halden, the flash, the empty pod.
“We can’t go to Drayke,” she said finally. “He’ll twist it, erase it, or worse.”
“I know.” I rubbed my temples. “But the system wants a report. If we ignore it, we’ll trigger a compliance flag.”
“Eight hours.” I sighed. “Enough time to find proof before we hand him a version he can’t rewrite.”
Kira raised an eyebrow. “You plan to out-hack the Headmaster?”
“Not hack,” I said. “Borrow.”
---
We started in the data wing, where the academy stored all mission logs. The room was a maze of crystal servers and silent drones gliding along the ceiling. Access required triple clearance; luckily, my new Unranked Division status came with looser monitoring than most.
Kira kept watch near the door while I linked my wrist-band to the console.
The console hissed, lines of light running across its surface. I pulled up the surveillance list and filtered by “Sub-level Activity – Last 24 Hours.”
What appeared made my stomach twist.
The files weren’t just deleted—they’d been rewritten. Every log after our entry timestamp now showed Routine Maintenance. The same placeholder signature on all of them: Drayke.
Kira leaned over my shoulder. “He’s already covered it.”
“Not completely.” I zoomed in on one of the fragments. Hidden in the metadata, faint and broken, was an ID tag: HALDEN-ECHO-01.
“Got you,” I murmured. “He left a trace.”
Kira exhaled. “If we can prove Halden merged with an echo, we’ll have leverage.”
“Leverage against Drayke,” I corrected.
---
We left the data wing without triggering alarms—barely. A patrol drone turned the corner just as we stepped out; Kira tossed a small flare device down the opposite corridor. The light burst, sensors overloaded, and we vanished behind the smoke.
Back in Block E-13, the rest of the Unranked were in training. Halden’s absence had already stirred rumors. One of the older students, a thin boy named Crest, looked up as we entered.
“Where’s the instructor?”
“Promotion,” I said dryly.
He frowned but didn’t ask further. Kira slipped into the control room and began downloading secondary logs from the local terminal.
The air around the old equipment buzzed faintly. I felt the pulse in my hand again, stronger this time. The system responded before I could ask.
“Something’s here,” I said.
The lights flickered. Screens glitched, showing momentary images—Halden’s face, distorted by static.
Kira froze. “Is that—”
“Not him anymore.”
The projection shimmered, and the system spoke through the static.
> “They’re not fragments… they’re memories. Stop him before—”
The feed cut off. Sparks jumped from the console.
Kira swore under her breath. “He’s trying to warn us?”
“Or lure us,” I said. “Either way, we know Drayke’s next move.”
She frowned. “You’re assuming he’ll act fast.”
“I would.”
---
By late afternoon the academy was back to its usual rhythm—classes, drills, the illusion of order. We sat on the observation deck above the training grounds, pretending to study while we watched the towers for movement.
Kira broke the silence first. “You really think we can expose him?”
“I don’t need to expose him,” I said. “I just need to know why. Why build fragments out of echoes? Why hide it inside a school?”
She looked at me sideways. “Maybe he’s scared.”
“Of what?”
“Something bigger than him.”
Before I could answer, my wrist-band pulsed again.
> “Mr Palmer, Miss Kira. My office. Now.”
We both went still.
“He knows,” Kira whispered.
“Probably always did.” I stood, tightening my jacket. “Then let’s make sure he doesn’t know everything.”
---
We took the lift up the spire in silence. The same two guards waited outside the office; this time, their weapons were drawn but lowered. When the door opened, Drayke stood at his desk, calm as ever.
“Sit,” he said.
We did.
“I’ve reviewed your activity logs,” he continued. “Impressive initiative—but reckless. The tunnels are off-limits for a reason.”
Kira’s jaw tightened. “Because you’re keeping things down there?”
Drayke’s eyes flicked to her, amusement barely hidden. “Because people who don’t understand what they see tend to die from curiosity.” He turned to me. “Tell me, Kyle. Did you see it?”
I kept my expression neutral. “See what?”
He studied me for a long moment. The silence stretched. Then he smiled faintly. “Good. Keep it that way.”
Drayke tapped a button on his console. A projection appeared—our mission logs, cleaned and polished. “Your report will state that Instructor Halden perished due to a containment malfunction. You will both sign it.”
“And if we refuse?” I asked.
“Then I’ll assume you prefer to join him.”
Kira’s hand twitched toward her blade, but I caught her eye and shook my head. Not now.
Drayke slid the holo-pad across the desk. “Sign, and you remain students. Decline, and you become problems.”
I took the stylus, scrawled my name, and handed it back. The device blinked green.
“There,” Drayke said softly. “Was that so difficult?”
As we left the office, Kira hissed, “Why did you sign it?”
“Because now,” I said, “he thinks we’re done digging.”
She blinked. “And we’re not?”
“Not even close.”
---
That night, I watched the spire lights flicker from my window. Somewhere below, the fragments hummed again, faint but insistent. The system pulsed against my skin.
“Five hosts,” I murmured. “So Halden was just the first.”
The hum deepened, like an answer.
I smiled without meaning to. “Then let the hunt begin.”
*
- Writer
