I pulled into the parking lot of old Chloe’s place, killing the engine. The brat jumped off the bike in one swift motion.

  —Heeey, big boss, we gonna gut this bastard or what?

  —No. I live in this swamp. Lesson number one: don’t shit where you sleep.

  —Oh… Gotcha, boss.

  Old Chloe was smoking a cigarette on the first floor, tucked away in a dark corner at the back of the L-shaped building. I barely recognized her until we got close enough.

  —And what’s this now? You turned into a mother hen or something?

  —Mm? Old hag? Oh, you mean Lisa? Yeah, wanna see her special skill?

  The old lady raised an eyebrow.

  —Lisa, use Annoyance ability.

  I pointed at Chloe. Lisa caught on instantly and started yelling all sorts of curses while hopping in circles around her, bouncing from side to side like a lunatic.

  Chloe exhaled a cloud of smoke, completely unfazed, while the little brat kept bouncing around, shouting names at her.

  —And what the hell is this supposed to do?

  Lisa frowned, pausing for a second.

  —Huh? Doesn’t it piss you off, old lady?

  —Nah. After all the shit I’ve put up with, this ain’t even a tickle.

  Lisa clicked her tongue and crossed her arms, visibly offended.

  —Bullshit, boss. It didn’t work.

  —Relax, brat. No one gets it right on the first try.

  Chloe stubbed out her cigarette against the metal railing and gave me a disdainful look.

  —Well?

  —What do you want?

  —My damn money, you little shit. What, you think this is a charity?

  —Tch. I’ll pay you right now.

  —Maybe you should learn to pay on time instead of adopting stray brats.

  I flipped her off and headed upstairs to my room.

  —Boss, what if we set the old hag’s junk on fire?

  —Nah, leave Chloe alone. Won’t do us any good.

  I went inside to grab what little money I had left—enough to pay my debts, cover rent for another three months, and a bit extra. With luck, I could afford food for another two weeks.

  I pulled out the wad of bills and counted fast. Just enough to pay the old hag and not be completely broke in the coming days. I shoved the leftovers into my pocket and headed back down.

  Chloe was still there, leaning against the railing, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised as she waited. Lisa trailed behind me, hands in her pockets, her eyes lazily scanning the place, like she was looking for something fun to mess with.

  I tossed the cash at Chloe. She caught it midair and counted it in one swift motion.

  —Well, at least you learned not to keep me waiting.

  —One of these days, I’m gonna charge you interest, old hag.

  Chloe let out a dry laugh.

  —Sure, kid. The day you grow a proper pair.

  Lisa narrowed her eyes at her.

  Lisa narrowed her eyes at her.

  —Well, I don’t like this old hag already.

  —Tough luck, brat. She’s the landlord.

  —Fuck my life, boss.

  Chloe stuffed the cash into her jacket and gave me that crooked smile of hers.

  —Now that you're all paid up, tell me what the hell you’re planning. Ain’t normal for you to be moving around so much.

  —None of your damn business.

  —Ungrateful little shit—she chuckled—. Well, if they kill you, I’m keeping the bike as payment.

  —If I die, I swear I’ll burn everything down first.

  Chloe laughed and spat over the railing.

  —No damn respect in this generation.

  —And there never will be.

  I turned on my heel and headed for the exit, flipping her off over my shoulder. Lisa trotted after me, hands still stuffed in her pockets.

  —Where to now, boss?

  —Sleep. Got a lot to do tomorrow.

  We left old Chloe’s place without looking back.

  The next day, I got up at the crack of dawn. To my surprise, the brat was already eating… with my money… and she hadn’t even bothered to buy me anything.

  —I’m heading out.

  —Heh, boss, I was gonna save you some, but you were snoring like a rusty old tractor.

  —Yeah, right. And I bet breakfast just magically appeared.

  —Yep, that’s it. The old lady gave it to me.

  She grinned shamelessly.

  —Bullshit, kid. We’re leaving.

  —Where to, boss?

  —Back to your house.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  —Ha! Good one. We’re already home.

  —Like hell we are. You’re going back to your family.

  —Oof, that’s a tough one, boss. See, Lisa’s been gone so long, she lost her spot. This is the only job I got now.

  —Yeah, almost believed that.

  —No, boss, for real.

  —So you’re not going back?

  —Lisa’s broke.

  —I don’t have time to babysit you.

  —You don’t need to. Lisa’s got your back. And I’m slippery—like a greased-up eel. Lisa can help you out.

  What the hell was I supposed to do with this damn kid…? She kept sticking to me no matter where I went. Though, I had to admit, I was genuinely curious how the fuck she’d managed to survive this long in one piece… and how she always moved around unnoticed.

  —Whatever. I don’t care. I’m heading to the academy in Nest. I’ll drop you off with Balian. You can bother him for the day.

  —Alright, boss, I’ll keep an eye on him—make sure the ungrateful bastard doesn’t run off.

  Well, Balian, she’s your problem now. May the Guardian have eternal mercy on you.

  The trip took a couple of hours, mostly because I was in a hurry… and maybe ran a few red lights.

  Finally, I was standing in front of the academy again.

  —Halt. Identify yourself.

  Ah, this damn woman.

  —Eleonor, it’s me, Kailen.

  —Yeah, I know.

  —Then why the hell are you stopping me?

  —Just to mess with you.

  —Fuck you. Damn woman.

  Eleonor smirked smugly.

  —By the way, congrats on graduating. I knew you’d go back to your family.

  —Like hell I will. Wait… what do you mean, graduating?

  —What, you don’t know? They recently published the list of accepted theses. You’re one of the few who made it this year.

  —Oh. Might have something to do with Professor Giles’ work. Can you ask where he is? I need to thank him.

  Her expression shifted instantly. First, a flicker of anger, then understanding… and finally, just pity.

  —What? What don’t I know?

  —I thought you heard…?

  —Heard what, woman? I’ve been gone for months. Took a trip to the Pits.

  Eleonor sighed.

  —Professor Gale was found dead. The report says he took his own life in his lab.

  …

  —The report says?

  Eleonor tensed up.

  —There are… rumors that…

  —That it wasn’t suicide. Of course, it fucking wasn’t. I’m going to the lab.

  —Wait, you need—

  I flashed my ID. It took all my willpower not to throw it in her face.

  I bolted towards the professor’s lab.

  On the way, I spotted Viktor and his gang sitting at a table under a parasol, enjoying breakfast. No time to waste with those assholes. I picked up the pace and walked right past them.

  When I arrived, a caution tape stretched across the entrance, warning people to stay away. Of course. They’d kept it as an internal investigation. No way they’d bring in a more specialized unit—they didn’t want their shit exposed. I tore the tape down without a second thought.

  Inside… if before everything was organized chaos, now it felt like chaotic order. Hard to explain the difference. To the untrained eye, it looked just as messy as ever, but I could tell something was off. Tools stacked together that would never be used for the same kind of project, materials out of place, files moved… Maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see, but to me, this was, without a doubt, a sloppy attempt at covering something up.

  I stepped toward the professor’s desk. The papers were still there, but something was wrong. Giles never left important documents out in the open. He always had a system, an order within his own mess. Now everything looked placed at random, like someone had tried too hard to make it seem normal.

  I pulled open the bottom drawer. Empty. No—worse than empty. Clean. Giles never cleaned out his drawers. They were always crammed with loose notes, spent mana crystals, and all sorts of junk he’d hoarded over the years. Someone had been here before me.

  I took a deep breath.

  It wasn’t the first time the academy swept a problem under the rug. But this time was different. This time, it was personal.

  Then I noticed it.

  There was a strange pattern, a symbol carved into the professor’s desk.

  —What is this…? Transistors? Maybe, but these numbers don’t add up… This symbol next to this number inside a circle…

  The idea hit me instantly. Phase shifters.

  I went to the drawer where he kept them. Some were worn out, but as I moved them aside, I saw another symbol in the back.

  Two base triangles with another on top, surrounded by a rhomboid. Nothing else.

  —Converters… maybe quar accelerators.

  This clue was more complex. If it was an accelerator, there had to be at least one set of them somewhere in the lab. It wasn’t hard to locate, but no matter how much I analyzed it, I found nothing.

  —Think, Kailen. What the fuck is this…?

  I knocked my forehead with the top of my fist repeatedly. I needed to figure something out. I paced back and forth. The image… the clue had been carved hastily, just like the previous one. They were made together, by the same person, in a rush. Judging by the shaky lines, probably under pressure.

  That’s when I saw it—in one of the notebooks, a flowchart.

  —That’s it… The circles are stable elements… The rhomboids, assumptions…

  They were thoughts, ideas.

  The triangles… a charger… a closed-off corner.

  I looked down. Beneath the desk, there was a power outlet. It had been removed when they remodeled and placed static machinery right over its position.

  Luckily, the machine was no longer there. But the socket was still in place…

  —You have to be here, you bastard…

  I grabbed a screwdriver and removed the cover.

  Bingo.

  A data disk.

  An insignia coin.

  An envelope.

  A journal.

  I plugged the data disk into my terminal. What I found was an absurd amount of raw data. No time to decrypt it all now, so I let it run in the background and moved on.

  The coin… I recognized it instantly. It was awarded to the winners of the Gigante prize, given to those who had contributed theories or inventions that revolutionized the city’s knowledge or capabilities.

  The envelope contained two letters—one long, one short—along with a photograph. The long one was addressed to his family. I skimmed it briefly and set it aside. Not my business.

  The short one, however, was for me.

  He asked me, out of goodwill, to make sure the other message reached his family. As for the rest, he left it all to me to do as I saw fit. However, he urged me not to seek revenge against the academy.

  The journal was a compilation of all the major projects he had worked on over the past ten years. Near the end, there was an honorary mention of my thesis.

  Something didn’t add up.

  A major project had started months before my thesis. It was put on hold and then resumed days later. At first, it was described as something revolutionary, massive in scale, but there were no details… or at least, not the same level of passionate detail the professor used when describing every other project he had worked on.

  Something happened here.

  It didn’t look like a murder. Not a normal one, at least.

  The marks I found weren’t more than a week old… about the same amount of time the professor had been dead. He probably made them while something was affecting him. The first symbol was well-done; the second, however, was shaky, rushed.

  Something was tormenting him.

  And it was advancing fast.

  There was nothing else for me to do here, so, reluctantly, I had to leave. However, I still wanted to uncover something about the mystery surrounding his death. His family deserved more than just a simple “he died.”

  What I did next was… a bit reckless.

  I decided to break into the university’s security room.

  It wasn’t an impossible feat. No one in their right mind would mess with one of Nest’s most prestigious institutions, so security was lax. Or rather, overconfident.

  I slipped through the side hallways, avoiding the busier routes. I knew exactly where the security room was—a small office in the administrative wing, with a handful of terminals and a single guard who, with any luck, would be more focused on browsing digital news than actually watching the cameras.

  The first obstacle was the door. Locked, as expected, but nothing out of the ordinary. No advanced mechanisms or biometric systems. Just a standard lock and a keypad access panel.

  I crouched down, inspecting the panel. Chances were that some administrator had left it at its default setting—or better yet, written it down somewhere. I looked around and grinned when I spotted a small post-it note stuck to a monitor inside the room.

  What a mess.

  I tried the most obvious code.

  1-2-3-4.

  Nothing.

  I tried 0-0-0-0.

  Nope.

  I sighed and took a moment to think. Since this was an academic institution, maybe they used something related to its founding or anniversary. I tried the academy’s founding year.

  Beep.

  The panel’s light flashed green, and the door unlocked with a soft click.

  Gods… someone should get fired for this.

  I slipped inside, shutting the door behind me. Just as I suspected, the guard was at his desk, feet up on the table, watching a racing broadcast on his personal terminal. He didn’t even glance up.

  Perfect.

  I moved around the room, approaching the security monitors. Multiple screens displayed different parts of the academy—hallways, classrooms, labs… And there it was, the one I was looking for: the camera in Professor Gale’s lab.

  I carefully took a seat and started rewinding the footage.

  I needed to find something.

  Finally, I reached the day of the professor’s death.

  Everything looked normal. His day went on like any other. Then, suddenly, he grabbed his leg, just below the knee, and immediately started showing signs of distress. Before long, he rushed to draw the symbols I had found. The first one, he managed while limping. By the time he got to the second, he had practically collapsed to the floor, dragging himself with his hands. When he finished, he rolled onto his back, struggling for breath… and just like that, he stopped moving.

  He died there, surrounded by his scrap.

  Thank you for reading!

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