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  Chapter 3 – Operation Sabotage

  There are schools.

  There are elite schools.

  And then… there’s El SHARKAWY School.

  The most prestigious institution on the planet. Home to geniuses, prodigies, diplomats' kids, future billionaires, and possibly an alien or two. The acceptance rate?

  Thirty. In ten million.

  Mo was many things—creepy, fat, aggressively annoying—but above all else, he was determined. Ruthless. Desperate. He’d do anything to get in.

  Which meant I had to stop him.

  And I had to do it now.

  But I couldn’t just roll up like an Amazon delivery guy and ask to see their files. I had to stay off the radar. Silent. Invisible. Covert.

  So I did what any deranged teenage hero would do.

  I ran.

  The school was thirty kilometers away. Thirty.

  I didn't take the bus. I didn’t ride a bike. No public transportation, no Uber, no metro. Not even a scooter.

  This was personal.

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  I tightened my laces, zipped my hoodie, and sprinted. Through streets. Across crosswalks. Past confused pedestrians and angry pigeons. I ran like the fate of humanity depended on it. Because maybe it did.

  Forty minutes later, gasping, drenched in sweat, and hallucinating colors that don’t exist in nature, I saw it:

  El SHARKAWY School.

  It stood on the horizon like a castle out of myth. Tall iron gates. Impossibly clean architecture. A gold crest embedded in marble walls. It practically glowed.

  I slowed my pace. Wiped my forehead. I had to play it smart now. Blend in.

  I started jogging casual-like, pretending to be a local runner. As I looped around the perimeter, I scanned the security layout. No guards. Just cameras—everywhere. Silent. Watching.

  But then I saw it.

  Just past the main gate, a blind spot.

  Inside and out.

  Someone messed up the angles.

  I kept jogging like nothing was happening. But my mind was racing. I had seconds to act.

  I darted across the field. Climbed the fence in one smooth motion, adrenaline doing all the work. As soon as I hit the top, I vaulted over and dropped down into the blind spot. Rolled once. Froze.

  The cameras didn’t catch me.

  I was in.

  The school was quiet. Too quiet.

  Then I remembered—it was Saturday.

  El SHARKAWY didn’t hold classes on weekends. My school did. Because of course it did.

  That worked in my favor.

  I ducked under windows, darted between hedges. I used water fountains and lockers as cover, hopping like I was in a video game. My heart thudded against my ribs like a war drum.

  Finally, I reached it.

  The Data Vault—the heart of the school’s student records system. A small, steel-doored room with no windows. No cameras.

  But one problem.

  The computer inside was designed to alert law enforcement the moment a wrong password was entered. One mistake and I’d have helicopters on me.

  I stood there for a second. Thinking. Breathing. Panicking.

  Then I saw it—on the desk beside the terminal. A dusty book.

  The title was written in bold, gold-embossed letters:

  > "El SHARKAWY."

  I picked it up.

  Two hundred and eighty pages.

  I flipped through it. Stories. Myths. Pure madness.

  They said the founder could destroy entire universes just by thinking. That he once blinked and caused a solar eclipse. That he was born knowing the answers to every math question that would ever exist.

  I didn’t believe the legends.

  At least… I didn’t want to.

  I shoved the book into my backpack and made my exit.

  Jumped out of the first-floor window. Landed hard. Rolled once. Scraped my elbow. Didn’t care.

  I was already running again.

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  There was only one person who could help me now…

  The author of that book.

  The one who somehow knew the mind of El SHARKAWY better than anyone. The one person who might know what the password was.

  Rumor said they were a student at a nearby school—not far from mine. And if I was quick, I could catch them before the end of their school day.

  I ran. Again.

  Through traffic. Across bridges. Past people yelling at me to “get some help.” I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.

  Time: 50 minutes.

  Distance: about 32 kilometers.

  Mental state: feral.

  I reached the gates just as the clock ticked into the final hour before dismissal.

  I sat down.

  Sweat dripped from my chin. My lungs burned. But I didn’t care.

  Because I was here.

  Waiting.

  And if this writer knew what I hoped they did…

  Mo’s dream school was about to become his worst nightmare.

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