My eyes shot open. My room was dark, and the time could not have been any later than four in the morning, nothing earlier than midnight. I rubbed my eyes, whilst listening for the sound that had woken me to repeat. It was a soft ‘thud.’ It could have been anything, but I was not about to take any chances.

  Maybe it had been Seph, around at what was supposedly the ‘best’ time of night.

  Or it could have been Vivian, sneaking off to do something again.

  Worse, it could have been someone sneaking out to assassinate one - or all - of the Xarnon agents.

  I slipped out of bed, and reached under my pillow where I had hid my knife, just in case. I walked slowly across my bedroom floor, approaching the door. I heard a creak beyond, a reassurance that whoever was on the other side was still there.

  It had been three weeks since what was now known as the “Atlantic Massacre.” The days following had been quiet, with little to no news coming in from the outside. After that, Whiteford informed us of having open communications with troops stationed in Russia. Shooting had not yet begun, but both sides were sending threats.

  Just a few days ago, rumors of Valamir successfully sending submarines into the Gulf of Mexico spread throughout the camp. It was unconfirmed whether they were genuine or not.

  Other than that, life had gone back to normal in the Xarnon campus. We taught the cadets, reaching the end of what could be considered our unit on human-mistake based hacking - including scams, code errors, and open-source program exploitation.

  But that night, the monotony had faded. Even though I was not entirely pleased to have woken up at such an ungodly hour, bits of excitement flared in my stomach.

  I reached for the doorknob, and slipped out into the main room. There was a loud creeeaaaaak, as my door slid open. Before I could even react, a figure had whirled around and stared at me. They were beyond the area where moonlight streamed in from the window, thus completely hidden.

  “Don’t move,” I hissed, pulling out my knife.

  “Cade, drop the knife,” Les boomed in his deep voice. He stepped forward, letting me see the remainder of his face.

  I gulped, suddenly dropping my arm. “Sorry. With everything going on right now, I’m not taking any chances.”

  He chuckled. “Understandable. But, pull a pistol out next time you hear strange sounds. A knife is a little weak.”

  I gaped at him for a second, and that was all it took. In an instant, I was pushed back and the knife had left my hands. When my balance was back to me, Les was already at my throat with the metal blade poised to kill.

  “Damn,” I said.

  “‘Damn’ indeed,” Les pulled back and handed me my weapon. He turned to walk away.

  Before he reached the door, I spoke. “What are you doing, anyway?

  Les turned to me, dead serious. “There is someone out there I need to talk to.” His gaze softened. “But please try not to tell anyone. Vivian would kill me if she found out I was sneaking around late too.”

  Without time for another word to be put in on either of our parts, Les slipped away.

  My mind formulated a thousand different possibilities of what he could be sneaking off to do, each one more outlandish and improbable than the last.

  But there was one particular thing that he said which struck me. Les had said that Vivian would kill him if she knew he was sneaking around late too. So, Vivian is doing something more than just vanishing in the day, I thought. Now that I considered it, Vivian hadn’t been leaving the group as obviously anymore.

  She must have been leaving at night instead.

  And there was one way to be sure that she wasn’t here. But, that would require entering her room. And me walking into Vivian’s room while she slept was not a good look, if she was still there. But her not sleeping at night made sense. It explained why she was in her room frequently, and why she always seemed just a little distanced from everything.

  Whatever she was doing at night was probably much more important to her than whatever the hell was happening in the CIA.

  I pushed down the bubbly nervousness, and walked toward Vivian's door. Not allowing myself to hesitate, I yanked the door open as softly as anything could be yanked.

  My breath hitched, my nerves flaring as my gaze flitted around the room.

  Vivian wasn’t there.

  I quickly slammed the door shut. The sound echoed through the quiet dorm room.

  Shit.

  Not ten seconds later, Mel had emerged from their room. “Cade?” They asked softly.

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  I sighed, and turned to face Mel. “Yes?” I asked.

  “It’s one in the morning.”

  I dragged my fingers through my hair. “So it is.”

  Even in the dark, I could tell that Mel’s eye roll was one for the ages. They paused, as if waiting for me to continue, before speaking. “And there’s nothing… wrong with that?”

  “Well, it’s the best time of the night!” I mentally thanked Seph for giving me that phrase.

  “Uh huh,” Mel said, their normally calm voice beginning to drip with sarcasm. “I sure do love darkness.”

  “Well, some people here-” I began, before clasping my hand over my mouth. Dammit, Cade! I cursed myself. You should definitely not say something someone specifically told you not to tell anyone.

  Again, there was a pause, as if Mel expected me to say more. After saying nothing didn’t work, they prompted me: “Some people here what?”

  “Nothing,” I almost slapped myself. “Absolutely nothing that… has any importance whatsoever!”

  “Then you can talk about your nothing,” Mel said, their voice skeptical. “I need to sleep.”

  And then they were gone, with the light tap of their footsteps receding the only indicator that they were no longer there.

  I stood there, somewhat indecisive, but mostly needing to process all that had just happened.

  After being still as a statue for over a minute, I sighed, and returned to my room.

  The only thing I had gotten from this endeavor was another piece in a puzzle that seemed to be never-ending and complicated. And another night of what would probably be restless tossing and turning.

  ??

  If Vivian was missing that morning, I would shrug it off.

  Hell, if Vivian was the one missing that morning, I’d be the happiest person in the world right now.

  But Les?

  When I stepped out of my room that morning after a restless night and didn’t see Les in our dorm room, I assumed that Les had already headed down to the Sphere, like usual. So, I made my way down with Naomi.

  And then he wasn’t there.

  And he still wasn’t there ten minutes later.

  The Cadets were getting restless as all of us but Les sat in the back, just waiting.

  Seph looked like he was about to slam his head against a wall a few hundred times, hard. “Has anyone seen him?” he whisper-hissed to all of us, only barely loud enough to be heard above the chatter flitting around the classroom.

  My gaze went to Vivian. On one hand, this was a scenario where it would be good to notify everyone that Les had left in the night and would probably not be coming. But on the other hand, Les had been very specific to not tell anyone.

  Maybe I’ll just tell Seph later…

  I was suddenly very aware of Mel’s gaze directly on me.

  And Mel too.

  The conversation continued, but my focus had drifted away from it. My mind picked up just where it had left off last night, taking my theories for why Les was leaving and running off with the, twisting complicated tales to describe his absence: him being a traitor, him trading away CIA secrets for cash, him having a secret lover, and ones that spiraled deeper, more crazy.

  I was snapped out of it, when Naomi asked: “Cade?”

  “Yes?” I asked, trying to sound as not just-woke-up-from-a-daydream as possible.

  Naomi blinked, and repeated xyr question. “Would you be willing to fill in for the lesson?”

  In what could only be described as a sleep-deprived decision that had no thought behind it, I responded. “Sure.”

  For the next thirty minutes, I tried my best at a lesson. The four other Xarnon agents were scattered in the back of the classroom and seemed to not be paying any attention to what I was saying.

  It was both a blessing and a curse.

  No one ever chipped in to tell me how bad I sounded, or how I was hunched over and missed half of the things that were said by the cadets. I tried to do some review questions, slurred my way through them, and was hit by loopholes found by especially attentive cadets almost every time.

  I then tried to go over some final content, but garbled my way through the speech.

  When I had almost finished up going through my messy lecture, Whiteford burst in. Never before had I been more glad to see someone burst into a room angrily. She marched right up to me, lowering her voice and leaning close. “Where the fuck is Les?”

  “I was going to ask you that,” I hissed back.

  She stepped away and turned to the cadets. “Early dismissal,” she announced. “Head back to your dorms.”

  No one looked all too surprised. They had all gotten used to random interruptions of someone storming in during a lesson. It seemed to happen all too often for my comfort. In about five minutes, the auditorium had fully emptied.

  Whiteford motioned for the four other Xarnon agents in the back to come up on stage. They quickly did so.

  “What is it?” Seph asked.

  Whiteford rolled her eyes. “If you haven’t yet noticed, Les is missing.”

  “We assumed he was with you,” Naomi said, raising xyr chin.

  Whiteford shook her head. “And he wasn’t showing up on the cameras either.”

  Oh, shit.

  Me, Seph, and Vivian all reacted at the same time.

  For any of us that knew about the tunnels, it was instantly clear how he had gotten out. Where he was was only for Whiteford to guess about, assuming that she knew about the passages - which was likely. I had barely explored, and had no idea how much farther that they went. For all I knew, Les could be out in the country by now.

  No one spoke.

  A million conflicting opinions raged through my head: ways of going about this situation, more possibilities, what to say next. And out of all the things whirling around inside me, there was only one thing that rose up to my mind.

  “We have to go after him,” I said.

  Whiteford nodded. “I’ve already started to assemble a force-”

  “No, I mean we have to. Us, the Xarnon agents.”

  Whiteford’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  I was slowly beginning to panic - I hadn’t considered her giving us this much resistance against the idea. Plus, nothing really backed it.

  “I-well-I-” I stuttered, before clearing my throat. “Who better to approach him than us? If he is… frightened, he might not take kindly to having an armed CIA task force storm into wherever he’s hiding.”

  Whiteford nodded, seeming to consider that. “Perhaps. But you don’t know-”

  “We know more than you do,” Vivian muttered.

  “Excuse me?”

  Vivian looked Whiteford in the eye. “We know lots.”

  “And we’ve got a pretty good idea of where Les went,” Seph said, and gave me a pointed look. I nodded.

  Whiteford gave us a sour look. “Fine.” We looked at each other, excited. “But-” Whiteford continued. “If any of you runs off in this endeavor I will personally oversee your brutal and public execution. Happy?”

  We nodded.

  “Then we need to get you some protective stuff. And trackers.”

  I opened my mouth to question that last sentence, but Vivian beat me to it. “Trackers?” she asked.

  “Yes. We’re not going to let some of the most important agents in the world run free.” Whiteford snapped. After a moment’s pause, she spoke again, her face and tone softened. “But maybe, if you do good here… you could do more on the field.”

  With those words, my heart beat a little faster. I imagined going out to Russia and ending Valamir’s sick life.

  And then I could finally have peace.