Chapter Thirty: The Assistant
554 Words
Writer’s POV
The school was nearly silent when Mila followed Xavier through the back hallway — the kind that always smelled faintly of old books and metal polish. The hum of the fluorescent lights buzzed above them, too loud for the hour.
“Are you sure about this?” she whispered.
Xavier didn’t look back. “Not even a little.”
They stopped in front of an unmarked door. The nameplate had been peeled off long ago, only a faint rectangle of glue remaining. Xavier knocked twice, paused, then once more — a pattern too deliberate to be random.
The lock clicked open.
A young woman in her twenties stood at the doorway, wearing glasses and a worn university hoodie. Her hair was tied in a messy bun, and her eyes — sharp, alert — scanned Mila first, then Xavier.
“Reed,” she said quietly. “You weren’t supposed to come here again.”
“Yeah, well,” Xavier muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets, “things got complicated.”
The woman sighed, stepping aside. “Come in before someone sees you.”
*****
Inside, the small office was cluttered — papers stacked like towers, half-dismantled computers, and a corkboard covered in red string and sticky notes. The only light came from two monitors displaying scrolling code.
Mila stared. “You… work here?”
The woman gave a humorless smile. “Assistant, technically. But I see more than they think I do.” She looked at Xavier. “What did you bring me this time?”
He slid the flash drive across the desk. “Found it in the restricted server.”
Her expression changed. “Where?”
“In Lennox’s folder.”
A heavy silence filled the room.
She plugged it into her system. Lines of encrypted data flashed across the screen — endless, looping code. One folder stood out among the chaos, marked with a faint label at the top:
PROJECT MNEMOSYNE
Mila leaned forward, heart thudding. “What is that?”
The assistant frowned. “You shouldn’t even be seeing this. I didn’t think this still existed.”
The words hit like static. Still existed.
She began typing furiously, tracing through the layers of encryption, muttering to herself. “This isn’t standard Eden code — these entries are cross-linked, overwritten… no names, just IDs.”
Xavier’s jaw tightened. “Can you open it?”
“Not without triggering a trace.” She hesitated. “If they realize someone’s inside this file, it won’t just lock — it’ll wipe everything, and maybe whoever accessed it.”
Mila felt her pulse quicken. “Then what do we do?”
The assistant leaned back, eyes darting between them. “You wait. And you don’t tell anyone you were here. Not your parents, not your teachers — no one.”
“Why?” Mila asked.
The woman’s gaze darkened. “Because if this file still exists, it means they’re still running it.”
*****
Xavier and Mila exchanged a glance — one that wasn’t filled with rivalry this time, but something heavier.
When they stepped back into the hall, the air felt colder.
“Still running it?” Mila whispered.
“Yeah,” Xavier said quietly, eyes fixed ahead. “And I think we just found out who’s next on their list.”
- Writer
