“Could we please go home?”
“No,” Kalingkata said, slapping the wall with her pointer, zipping through the web of linked pictures that made up her holographic conspiracy board.
“Then could we—"
“No! Okay, so, who all do we have here?” She looked over at the gathered room. “Obviously my brother.”
“Well you don’t have to say it like that,” Talinata said.
“I mean we all knew you’d be here,” she replied.
“We have to ride home together.”
“We’re twins!”
“We’re not joined at the hip.”
“Buuuuut I love you?”
He gave up. “Damn, okay yeah love you too. I’m all in.”
“That’s the spirit! Crush boy is here!”
“C-crush boy? Who would that be?” Jae Hyun asked, looking around obviously.
“Just messing around, Jae Hyun is here clearly out of the goodness of his heart. Thanks.”
He blushed. “Oh! Yeah um… n-no problem!”
“Bless you,” she turned to Ryan. “And of course our resident ambassador from Earth, Mr. Wilson.”
“I’m two months younger than you.”
“Thank you for your service, Mr. Wilson. And, of course, the one, the only, Tsetseg!”
“Do… do you need to announce us all?!” Tsetseg said, nervously adjusting the oversized tinted glasses she was wearing for some reason today.
“Yes. And thank you for being here, Bashrat, I appreciate you helping me set up the conspiracy board.”
He gave her a thumbs up, like an old pro watching his apprentice take her first steps.
“And that leaves only…” she pointed the pointer at the final occupant of the co-opted classroom. “I don’t actually know who you are.”
The girl sighed. “Yeah, I figured.”
There was an awkward pause. “So um, who are you?”
“Right, yeah. Alice Cao. I’m Cao Li Xiu’s younger sister. I’m in the grade below you.” She had accented her school uniform in every way the student handbook allowed, and every accessory was black and death themed. There were more skulls on her outfit than Kalingkata could count.
“Huh. I had no idea she had a sister.”
“Half-sister. And we don’t talk to each other, so that’s fine.”
“…I feel like there is a lot of family resentment there to unpack and I don’t think I have time to get into that right now!” Sang Mi said, whipping the pointer through the air, “So let’s get back on topic: We have an issue here at Academy 27, and that issue is that there is an Earther spy here.”
Everyone stared at her blankly.
“Oh, is this one of those alternate reality games Bashrat told me about?” Tsetseg asked, raising her hand.
“…No,” Kalingkata said, flicking her pointer in her direction.
“Is this part of our roleplaying stuff?” her brother asked.
“No!” she reiterated. “I’m serious! This is a serious meeting, where I’m being serious.”
“Then why are you joking?”
“I’m…” she rubbed her forehead, “Okay, let’s start over. Deep breath. Exhale. Fresh go at it.” She pulled up an image of Zhyrgal Osmonova.
“Is Zhyrgal joining us?” Tsetseg asked happily.
“No that’s—that would kind of defeat the point here.”
Sang Eun nodded in understanding. “So, we’re planning a surprise party for her.”
“No!”
Tsetseg put her hands over her mouth, her eyes widening in what she thought was understanding. “Are… are you in love with her?”
Kalingkata stared at her, her posture drooping. “No.”
Tsetseg gave a little disappointed moan.
“This,” Kalingkata continued, gesturing to the picture with her pointer, “is secretly an Earther spy!”
She waited for everyone’s laughter to die down.
“I’m serious!”
She waited a second time, and then sighed, pulling up the next part of her presentation with a flick of the pointer.
“Okay so… look, on October 20th of last year, I overheard Ms. Osmonova taking a call in an empty classroom from her Earther handler. He was pretty explicitly giving her orders.”
Alice leaned in. “So how do you know she’s a spy?”
“Well, they said the word CISyn, you know, the spy organization.”
“I can say the word CISyn, watch,” Alice paused for dramatic effect. “CISyn.”
Kalingkata paused. “Well uh… look it was very sketchy! And that’s why we need to investigate! And if we don’t, I guess we just won’t hang out after school this week.”
Jae Hyun stood up. “We’re absolutely investigating.”
Talinata rolled his eyes. “Well, I guess we’re doing this.”
Ryan just nodded.
Tsetseg and Bashrat looked at Jae Hyun, then each other, and shrugged in unison.
“Okay, I guess I’m in. Why not. So where do we start?” Alice asked.
Sang Mi snapped her pointer forward. “Exactly the right question, Alice! Zhyrgal has been staying after to feed the animals that the school keeps on the roof — she usually leaves about an hour after school ends.”
Sang Eun’s hand snapped up just as fast as the pointer had.
“...Yes?”
“That sounds, like, kind of admirable, right? We’re always struggling to find people willing to volunteer to feed them–”
“Okay, but isn’t that suspicious?!”
Everyone shook their heads.
“Look, we're going to follow her when she leaves the building and that’s that. Any objections?”
The head shaking repeated.
“Okay, then! Let’s go!”
They filed out, and all awkwardly gathered around a corner by the entranceway, leaning over each other in a precarious stack so several of them could peek around the corner at once. Alice and Bashrat stayed back, having pulled their phones out to play some game against each other. Sang Mi stayed laser focused on Zhyrgal as she got to the entryway, and changed her indoor shoes for outdoor ones. Her black hair was in a bun today, her hands showing the nicks and cuts she’d received from caring for the animals on the roof. She started to make her way out of the building, and Sang Mi, still watching, held a hand up — then, after waiting for her mark to gain an appropriate distance, ordered the group forward with a wave.
As she led the group onward, eyes fixed on the target ahead, Sang Mi's concentration was suddenly broken by the sound of a slight, inquiring cough. She halted mid-stride, realizing with a start that someone had been watching their apparently-not-so-secret maneuvers. This halting also made her realize that much of the group had been walking with big exaggerated steps like they were in a cartoon. This only made it more awkward that Mrs. Ichinose was standing in the doorway, a shrimp chip held halfway to her mouth as both sides of the standoff froze like startled deer. Mrs. Ichinose lowered the chip and tried to look professional. 
“...Hey kids. Uh. What are you… up to?”
Bashrat spoke up first. “We’re investigating!”
Sang Mi leapt in front of him, waving her arms. “A totally normal investigation!”
Ichinose nodded slowly. “Are… any investigations normal?”
Jae Hyun backed her up: “This one is! So normal. I was just talking to Sang Mi here earlier,”
“That’s me!” Sang Mi added, unnecessarily.
“And she was like ‘Wow, I don’t know if I’ve ever done anything this normal before in my life,’ and I was like… same, girl.”
Mrs. Ichinose just blinked at them.
“So anyway, we’re going now! Have a good day, say hi to your wife for… all of us I guess!” Sang Mi said, rushing behind the group and ushering them forward physically.
She waved goodbye. “Try not to do anything weird, Sang Mi!”
“Oh, you know me!” she called back.
“Yeah, that’s the problem,” she mumbled to herself when she thought they were out of earshot, and continued her walk back home.
The walk trailing Zhyrgal was pretty bland. The only complicated part was when they got to the train station and they had to figure out how to trail her on the train.
“We could all just wear disguises,” Jae Hyun suggested.
“We don’t have disguises,” Tsetseg countered.
Sang Eun stepped between them. “Okay, since we have to keep doing my sister’s thing–”
“No need to sound so enthusiastic,” Sang Mi mumbled.
“—We should send someone Zhyrgal doesn’t know into the car with her, and the rest of us will go in the car behind her.”
“That’s… actually a good plan, let’s do that,” Sang Mi admitted. “But who is there she doesn’t know?”
Everyone turned to Alice.
She sighed. “Fine.”
They followed the line till Alice messaged them to say that Zhyrgal was getting off at the next stop.
“That’s Paradox Park!” Tsetseg said. “We’re going to the theme park!”
Sang Mi narrowed her eyes. Why the theme park?
After the train pulled in, they met up with Alice, who swore Zhyrgal didn’t look up from her phone during the trip, and followed her to the still-being-renovated theme park. The Ferris wheel shone above the park — none of the roller coasters had met safety standards yet, so they stood dark and silent, but the sounds of many of the smaller rides rang out from across the wall.
“Zhyrgal already went in, but there’s a line that’s gathered since then. Bad timing,” Alice said. There was indeed a line, which was surprising, considering the state of the place not that long ago.
“They’ve sure fixed this place up since last time; the graffiti is all gone, at least,” Sang Mi said.
Alice sighed, and looked over at the wall around the park, which had been carefully painted with images of the elders of the Cao family in a style that mashed up Christian and Buddhist imagery around themselves in a way that was tasteless at best. “Yeah, Dad has invested a lot in the place. Watch out for the recruiters. Honestly the place is just a conversion trap.”
Ryan frowned and exchanged a look with Jae Hyun. “Isn’t that like… frowned upon?”
“In public. The whole park is coded as a religious facility. Welcome to the Cao family,” she said bitterly. “Do we really have to go in?”
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to, it’s your family after all,” Ryan countered.
“Not really. I’m kind of an embarrassment to everyone,” Alice replied.
“What’s that mean?” Jae Hyun asked.
She shook her head. “Just follow my lead.”
Alice approached the gate, and pulled something out of her pocket that Sang Mi could have sworn was a polyhedral die. She showed it to a woman waiting at the gate, and then turned and gestured for everyone to follow her. They shuffled through, past the line, ignoring people grumbling, and ignoring what sounded like mumbled prayers from the staff as Alice walked by.
When they got inside, it became pretty clear they had lost Zhyrgal. This, however, proved to be only a minor inconvenience, as once again Alice pulled out what Sang Mi was now very certain was a polyhedral die to an employee, and after allowing several members of the religion to place their hands on herself as she passed through, Alice rushed her friends past and ushered them to the Arcade.
It was one of the less popular areas of the theme park, filled with replicas of old arcade cabinets, and there was a smattering of people playing games, including Zhyrgal, who was playing an old co-op beat-em-up game. They all hustled around behind one of the rows of cabinets, and watched.
“Uh, Sang Mi, it looks like she’s just playing a game,” Sang Eun said.
“I can see that. Just keep watching.”
Bashrat was jittering. “That’s a co-op game. You’re supposed to play it with a friend.”
“I know that, Bashrat. Which makes it weird that–”
“I can’t take this, sorry!”
He ran around the corner, and skidded to a halt next to Zhyrgal, who looked over at him with a smile as they began to play together.
“Well this was a waste of time,” Tsetseg said. “Sorry, but I’m going to stay with Bashrat. He’ll want to keep playing even if Zhyrgal moves on.”
“No, wait — ” Tsetseg didn’t wait, and soon she was over by the arcade cabinet watching them play. Zhyrgal did move on, and Sang Mi got the others to follow her, but she could sense that the inquisitive spirit of the group was waning. But if they just kept following… She knew what she’d seen, what she’d heard. There was something going on. The weird stuff with Saki proved it. There had to be some connection. Or at least, she hoped so.
* * *
It turned out that Tsetseg didn’t stay as long as they all expected, because Bashrat had to go home to feed his turtle. That he had a turtle seemed to be news to everyone except Tsetseg. She caught up with them as they were waiting for the next train, sitting on the far end of the station trying to avoid Zhyrgal’s line of sight. Sliding into a seat on the bench with them, Sang Eun finally got the courage to ask what everyone had been wondering.
“So uh, Tsetseg, what’s with the glasses?”
She looked up. “Oh, it's nothing much. I just needed a procedure done and, well, I shouldn’t have to wear these very long! And I am fine without them. Just, you know, blind. Ish.”
“Ish?” Jae Hyun asked.
“You know, like, you could make an argument in court I wasn’t blind.”
Sang Mi leaned over, inspecting her face. Tsetseg leaned away from her.
“What are you doing?”
“You don’t… happen to have cat’s eyes, would you?”
Everyone looked at Sang Mi weirdly. Tsetseg broke the silence, but her voice stammered a bit. “Is that some sort of reference? Like, to an obscure silent movie from the 1900’s or something?”
Kalingkata sighed. “No, nevermind. Oh–the train is here.”
They followed the same plan as last time, but it quickly became clear they were going somewhere unexpected.
“No way,” Ryan said as they exited the train and watched Zhyrgal walk towards the Feed the Stars Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry. “My mom works there.”
They approached the building, and as they slipped through the door a woman wearing an apron with a name tag that said “Anne” finished handing a bag of rice to an old woman, and wiping her brow looked over to see who was entering.
“Oh, hello, Ryan,” said his mom. “What are you doing here?”
“Shh,” said Ryan. “It’s a secret.”
“Ah,” said his mother knowingly.
“Hi, Ms. Wilson,” said Sang Mi and Sang Eun cheerily.
“Oh, you’ve brought your friends with you, that’s nice,” said Ms. Wilson. “And who are you?” she said to Alice and Tsetseg.
Alice and Tsetseg introduced themselves, and Sang Mi said to Ryan’s mother, “is, uh, Zhyrgal here?”
“Yes,” said Ms. Wilson, “She’s being very helpful. Shall I tell her you’re here?”
“No!” said Sang Mi quickly. “We’re, uh, hiding. From her. As a joke, you know.”
“That’s the secret, then?” asked Mrs Wilson, smiling.
“Yes,” said Sang Mi.
“No,” said Ryan simultaneously.
“Good, good,” said Anne Wilson, smiling kindly. “I’ll get you some aprons, and you can come and help out in the kitchen. It’s always good to have an extra pair of hands!”
“Right,” said Sang Mi delightedly, as Ms. WIlson bustled off to get the aprons, “We’re going to need disguises!”
She produced, from her pocket, a fake mustache, which she fastened to her upper lip by means of the mechanism provided.
“Where did you get that from?” asked Sang Eun incredulously. “We didn’t have any disguises earlier!”
“I’ll explain later,” she said. “Right, Tsetseg, give me your glasses.”
“Okay,” said Tsetseg, taking them off, “but I can’t really see without them.”
“Never mind that now,” said Sang Mi, and plonked the glasses upon Sang Eun’s head. “There,” she said, “nobody will recognize us now. Alice, you’re fine, Zhyrgal doesn’t know you. It’d make sense for Ryan to be here, so he doesn’t need one – ”
“Oh,” said Ryan, disappointedly.
“And Jae Hyun… uhh… you’ll just have to hide every time Zhyrgal comes past.” Taking a deep breath, Sang Mi clapped her hands, clearly pleased with herself. “Right,” Sang Mi said to Ryan and Alice, “You go and hide in that cupboard over there and spy on Zhrygal, and Sang Eun, Tsetseg and I will make the food. We’re great at cooking. It’ll be great!”
So Ryan and Alice went and hid in the cupboard, and Sang Eun tried to close the door on them.
“Ow!” cried Sang Mi. “That’s my nose!”
“Sorry,” said Sang Eun. “It’s quite hard to see with these glasses on.”
Sang Mi shut the door to the cupboard, locking Ryan and Alice inside, and she led Sang Eun, Tsetseg, and Jae Hyun to the kitchen area.
* * *
They were making soup. Ostensibly.
It was a rather nice kitchen area — very clean, with all the different sorts of implements that one needs to cook, and a fair few that one doesn’t, but are quite handy to have anyhow, for time saving and suchlike.
“Now remember,” said Sang Mi, “I,” (and here she affected a quite terrible French accent) “Am ze Marquis du Dupont, ze best chef in all of Parees!” (she returned to her normal voice) “Tsetseg and Talinata, you think of names for yourselves, and Jae Hyun, you’re not here. Right, let’s get cooking!”
Ms. Wilson popped her head around the door.
“You all know what you’re doing?” she asked.
“Yes, Ms. Wilson,” said Sang Mi. “We’ll be quite alright, thank you.”
“Good, well. In that case I’ll leave you to it,” she said, and left again.
Sang Mi opened the recipe book.
“This seems simple enough,” she said. “Carrots, onions, garlic, ginger, potatoes, and celery all need chopping. Tsetseg? – ”
Tsetseg’s hand moved in the general direction of the knives.
“Aagh!” cried Sang Mi, pulling her away. “I think perhaps you should wash the vegetables instead. Jae Hyun and Talinata can manage the chopping on their own.”
“Okay,” said Tsetseg, picking up a bunch of carrots and moving over towards the oven.
“Aargh!” cried Sang Mi again.
“The sink’s this way,” said Sang Eun, guiding Tsetseg to it. (He had, rather sensibly, pushed the glasses to the end of his nose so that he could see what he was doing.)
The soup-making set off at a steady pace. Sang Mi managed to wrestle some lentils into the pot, and get them boiling nicely, and with Tsetseg washing and the boys chopping, they got through the vegetables at a quite decent lick. The chopping of the onions made everybody’s eyes water, which really didn’t help with visibility, and as they began to go into the frying pan to be fried the effect only worsened. The air was steamy, and the room smelt deeply of onions and garlic and other nice spices. (Sang Mi had picked up the recipe for dhal by mistake.)
It was all going marvelously, thought Sang Mi. What could possibly go wrong?     
Just at that moment, Tsetseg turned blindly to grasp for another potato to wash, and, failing to see that the floor was wet, slipped, and, without eyesight to assist her balance, fell forward into Sang Eun, whose glasses fell forward onto his nose as his knife slipped out of his hand to bury itself into the floor with an ominous twang! Just as she turned, Zhyrgal opened the door and entered the room, causing Jae Hyun to panic and duck behind a table, while Sang Mi tried her very utmost to look French. Jae Hyun having ducked meant that there was nobody else for the domino effect of Tsetseg and Sang Eun to knock over, so instead they barrelled over him and knocked the table over, sending pieces of carrots flying across the room. Zhyrgal just stood there open-mouthed, but Sang Mi was assaulted by flying carrot pieces, and flailed about a lot, dropping the tea-towel she was holding onto the cooker. It set ablaze quite suddenly, startling everyone.
Sang Mi and Jae Hyun could only stare in shock. Sang Eun and Tsetseg were still tangled up in the table (and couldn’t see anything anyway), but Zhyrgal leapt into action, grabbed the fire blanket, and threw it over the stove, smothering the fire completely.
Sang Mi, Jae Hyun, and Zhyrgal heaved a collective sigh of relief.
“Ow!” cried Sang Eun as Tsetseg accidentally kicked him in the shin.
“Sorry!” she said, wincing.
* * *
Thankfully, people had liked the soup, even though they had to restart it from scratch while Ms. Wilson seethed. Less thankfully, they’d nearly lost Zhyrgal while getting caught up actually serving the soup to needy people. “It would be nice to stay here, and keep serving them,” Jae Hyun noted. “Maybe we can put off the investigation till later?”
Kalingkata grabbed him by the shoulders. “That absolutely cannot happen. We’re on a mission.”
“But…”
“No buts! All of you agreed to do my thing, so we’re seeing it through, right?”
Everyone glanced at each other. Sang Mi looked between them, why were they looking unsure? This was important! Even so, they did all keep going with her, and picked up on Zhyrgal’s trail. And that got Kalingkata skipping with joy.
“All things considered,” said Sang Mi, as they walked along, “that could have gone a lot worse.”
“She managed to see through our disguises,” said Jae Hyun.
“Well, yes, but – ” began Sang Mi.
“Ms. Wilson didn’t seem very happy,” said Tsetseg dolefully.
“She said it was quite all right,” said Sang Mi.
“She didn’t look like it was quite all right,” said Tsetseg.
They stopped, as Zhyrgal had, and hid behind a wall. A bus pulled up, brakes screeching, and Zhyrgal hopped on, heading to the back. The group followed, making sure to keep their heads down, and got on near the front, making sure that Zhyrgal was looking the other way. There was a brief, tense moment when Zhyrgal turned when Sang Mi thought they had been spotted. She hissed to the others to keep their faces hidden, but by the time they had done so, Zhygral had turned back again. They sat in their seats as the bus rattled off, rhythmic rumbles and groans emanating from its engines. 
The company seemed pleasant enough, the bus was quite full, but nobody was exceedingly rude or anything. Sang Mi was engaged in a quite pleasant conversation about the weather by a nice-looking young man with blonde hair. She thought he seemed quite nice. 
The journey was of a moderate length, but was longer than they expected. The bus stopped once or twice, but both times Zhyrgal failed to depart. At length, the bus stopped, and the voice of the announcer said, tinny through the tannoy, that this would be the last stop before the bus’s return to the depot. 
The group dismounted quickly, spurred on by Sang Mi, who wanted to make sure they did before Zhyrgal had a chance to. The bus had halted just outside of the city, and desert spread out before them. The group hid behind a small derelict building as Zhyrgal alighted from the vehicle. 
“Where are we even going?” said Sang Eun. 
Sang Mi turned her head in the direction that Zhyrgal was headed.  
“Well,” she said, surprised, and stopped, “there’s your answer.”
Sang Eun gasped. In the distance, across a small sea of sand outside the city of Takumi’s domes, lay a collection of haphazardly connected buildings, tents, and small habitation domes. Unlike the sleek clear dome they lived under, this was a mess that had been erected bit by bit by the sheer necessity of the people living in it. Nearby, a group of hovertrucks was filling up with Gongen, the spaces between the people being crammed in with boxes of something or other, Sang Mi presumed to trade with the town. And it was a town. A town quite different from any other on the planet Gongen. “Colocog!” Talinata said.
Tsetseg looked alarmed. “Colocog?” she exclaimed.
“There’s definitely something fishy going on,” said Sang Mi, trying to look solemn. “Let’s follow her in.”
“Isn’t that forbidden?” said Jae Hyun, “Like, I thought nobody was supposed to go in or out without a pass?”
“Yes, well,” said Sang Mi, sauntering over to lean on her twin’s arm, “we know ways of getting around the sensors.”
“It is quite difficult,” said Sang Eun.
“Eh,” said Sang Mi.
“Stop showing off,” chided her brother.
“Uh,” said Jae Hyun, looking nervously at the high level of security surrounding the expanse of buildings, and thinking of all the stories he’d heard of the Mavericks (though obviously not JackBox; JackBox was nice), “How about I wait here while you go in? After all, it's still a way off.”
“I’ll stay too, I think,” said Tsetseg nervously.
“Alright, then,” said Sang Mi, “Come on, brother mine! Let’s go!”
They started on their way, ducking around sensors and moving carefully, watching the hover trucks they’d seen loading up pass them by.
“How are those trucks going in?” Talinata asked. 
“They must have a trading license, like the one JackBox uses to come into Takumi, but in reverse,” she answered.
Talinata only frowned. “I don’t think they give those.”
As they made their way in, they were thankfully able to spy Zhyrgal and pick up her trail as they slipped through the entryways to one of the main buildings.
Colocog was a cobbled-together place, a place of the forgotten and the left-behind, of the fringes of society, the burnt crud at the bottom of the pan. Much of it was constructed of concrete, a dull, dirty, dismal concrete that seemed to seep into everything. It smelt of chemicals and cement dust and smoke, and licks of black where places had been touched by fire’s fatal grasp lay sprawled nonchalantly along the sides of walls.
Zhyrgal moved about the place as if she knew it well, from one alley to the next, hither and thither, darting about in the tunnels and the reddish rusty dust of Gongen.
The twins followed semperdistans to her, following behind just far enough to be able to duck out of sight if needed, but close enough that they could still see where she was headed. They followed quietly, bantering softly with each other as they went on about this or that thing, until quite suddenly, Sang Eun, who was not looking where he was going, ran slap-back into a young woman who had also been looking elsewhere.
“Oh!” he cried, “Oh crap, sorry. Are you alright?”
“JackBox!” cried Sang Mi in surprise.
Indeed it was. The twins’ Maverick friend regained her breath and beamed at them.
“Oh, hello!” she said delightedly. “Wasn’t expecting to see you here today, I thought you were busy with some investigation or something after school?”
“Well – ” began Sang Mi, but JackBox interrupted.
“Oh, Talinata, before I forget, I wanted to show you this thing I’ve been working on, I think you’ll like it…”
JackBox began to detail the workings of this gadget that she was fiddling with, and Talinata listened attentively. Normally, Kalingkata would have found it very interesting, but she was desperate to continue, and the knowledge that Zhyrgal would be getting increasingly further away with every second spent talking was at the forefront of her mind.
“Uhh…” she said, “don’t wanna interrupt, but we kinda have to get going?”
“Oh,” said Sang Eun, and she could see the disappointment in his eyes.
“Hmm,” she pondered, and an idea sprung joyously into her head, “How about,” she said, “you stay with JackBox, and make your own way back, and I’ll carry on following Zhyrgal.”
Sang Eun brightened up. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, that sounds good.”
“Great!” said Sang Mi, “See ya later, then!”
She gave her brother a quick hug, fist-bumped JackBox, and ran off after Zhyrgal, legs pumping furiously. Luckily, Zhyrgal hadn’t gotten too far, and the route she had taken was quite straightforward, so Sang Mi was soon able to catch up, and follow Zhyrgal the little bit further she went, before stopping, and heading into a tall multi-story building.
Kalingkata was stumped for a moment, then noticed the rickety metal fire escape that clung protectively to the wall of the building. She bounded over, and made her way up. Rust crept along it, creeping, clutching tendrils of age and decay worming their way over its ancient frame. It creaked in a nerve wracking manner as Sang Mi went up its stairs, up and up and up until she heard voices emanating from a window right by the escape. She stopped, and leant over to listen in. The drop below stretched out before her, for far too long for comfort, so Sang Mi didn’t want to lean out too far. However, she managed to get a glimpse of the room in which Zhyrgal was situated.
It was a quite nice room, well furnished and decorated. On the walls were hung a variety of oddities: a poster of some actor who Sang Mi couldn’t remember the name of in the 2145 film of Twelfth Night; a pastel-colored watercolor of the Roman god Janus; a picture of David Bowie performing in Manchester as Ziggy Stardust. The walls were a sort of lime green color. She couldn’t see very much of the room, but she could just about see Zhyrgal’s arm. She leaned back in and listened.
The voice of the individual with whom Zhyrgal was so deep in discussion was that of an older man, a kind voice, thought Sang Mi. There was some sort of shuffling sound, and a sort of muffled clinking, as the sound of wood upon wood.
“White or black?” said the old voice.
“Black,” said Zhyrgal.
“Interesting choice,” the old man replied.
There was a shuffling noise.
More clinking. Silence. Clinking again.
A chess match is not the most riveting of things to listen to when one is halfway to the heavens standing on a rackety old fire escape and a bitter wind is biting into one’s face. Sang Mi zoned out for a bit, then attempted to follow the match via the conversation. It seemed that there were some complicated strategies and things going on, and that each party was trying to deceive the other about their strategy. It all seemed terribly complicated, and Sang Mi wasn’t quite sure what was going on. 
Suddenly, Sang Mi was distracted from the conversation by noises from the ground below, from just outside of Colocog. She turned.
“Jesus,” she whispered.
Down below, swarming like enraged ants, yelling and screaming and shouting, was a great mob of people, the same ones they’d seen on the bus. Their eyes were full of rage, and their faces were screwed up and contorted with hatred. The wildebeest were stampeding. She pressed herself back against the wall as Zhyrgal and the man opened the window to look out, which at least brought them into clearer view for her.
“Gongen for the Gongen!” the rioters were yelling. “Down with the Mavericks!”
They wielded fireworks, which they set off sporadically, wheeling and crying in the air, and exploding with great bangs. Every time one of them was set off, the three spectators jumped. However many times they were set off, it was always a shock.
This rather put a dampener on further conversation, and so Zhyrgal said good-bye, and made to leave.
“Zhyrgal?” said the old man.
“Yes?” said Zhyrgal.
“Would you like to meet up for coffee sometime?”
Zhyrgal hesitated, then “No,” she said definitively, “I’d better not.” But there was a sad look in her eyes, as if she did want to. A look that was so pained that it troubled Sang Mi for some time after she saw it.
* * *
A television. The screen flickers on. On it is a sleekly-dressed politician. He smiles the smile of a crocodile. “Yes,” he is saying, “I absolutely condemn this violence, these riots. However, the Mavericks do pose a threat to our society, and I think it is very easy to downplay their influence when such things as these occur. Extremists who wish to change the order of things are of course terrible, but they have reasonable concerns at heart, and we should bear this in mind. We’re not fascists, we’re not monsters, but we have Gongen’s best interests at heart.”
* * *
Jae Hyun looked troubled, but Sang Mi tried to push him on as if nothing had happened. Sang Mi cast a short look to where friendly people from the neighboring area were gathering to help clear up the wreckage from the anti-Maverick riot, but quickly decided that Zhyrgal was more important.
“What happened to Tsetseg?” she asked Jae Hyun.
“Oh, she went back home, I think,” said Jae Hyun. “Said her dad would be worried. What about your brother?”
She waved it off. “He went off with JackBox, she wanted to show him something. And they messaged me during the riot–they’re both safe so no worries.”
He cast a look back. “I have worries. I can’t believe they did that. People could have been really hurt.”
“Well, hopefully no one was. I had lots of relatives I never met who died in the reform protests thirty years back. It’s not a great way to go.”
He nodded.
They continued in silence.
Jae Hyun was alright really, thought Sang Mi, just a bit annoying.
* * *
Getting back inside the dome had been easy, but once again their trail had led them into an odd position.
Kalingkata and Jae Hyun lay on their bellies beneath a large bush, concealed beneath its foliage. The branches scratched their faces and hands a little, and the ground was rough and uncomfortable beneath their bodies. Zhyrgal stood on a large concrete expanse, flat and dull and gray, in the center of the square. The air smelt of cherry blossoms. They settled in to watch, all of them sharing in the scent and sight of the delicate petals.
* * *
 Zhyrgal would always remember the cherry blossoms, floating in the air, every facet of their being immaculately placed, falling like teardrops into the square, littering the floor with blossoms. Blossoms fell into her hair, brushing against her skin as they fell, falling, falling, always falling.
“Zhyrgal.”
The voice was so beautiful, thought Zhyrgal, like wind chimes on the air. She turned.
“Aigul,” she said, smiling. Aigul remained solemn. Zhyrgal could see there was a sadness in her eyes that was not usually there.
“Hey. I’m glad you came. I… well I wasn’t sure you were going to.”
“I’ve been busy,” Zhyrgal replied, trying to stay cheerful.
“Yeah, you’re always busy. Like I’m guessing you were yesterday.”
Zhyrgal wracked her brain. She really had been busy. She’d had to work, staying out all night on a job for her boss… she’d nearly skipped out on volunteering at Feed the Stars today. But what was yesterday? “I was, yeah.”
“I see,” Aigul sighed. “You really don’t remember at all do you. My recital? The one I’ve been working on for months?”
The wind blew past them. Zhyrgal felt her heart churn. “...Oh god. I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to, truly. I… I’ve had so much on my mind…”
“And I’ve really… Zhyrgal, you’re great, but, you have too many excuses. Do you know how hard I had to work to memorize that, I–” She kept talking, but Zhyrgal was distracted again by her own thoughts.
The realization of what was coming hit her like a hard stone wall, large round stones crashing against her head. She screwed her eyes up tight, bright colors dancing before her perception. Blues and greens and reds, all in the dark space behind her eyelids, and she stared into the darkness, and scrunched her eyes tighter and tighter and tighter and the colors grew brighter and brighter and brighter. Her hands danced about each other like butterflies in the sunlight, and she felt as if a great weight was pushing down on her heart, dragging her into the darkness, down and down and down. The waves of words washed over her as if she were naught but a bedraggled figure lying on the sand, and they rolled and they rocked and they frothed all around her, hanging in the air.
“You’re not even listening to me, are you?” said Aigul, sadly. “You’re not even bloody listening!” A tear rolled down her cheek, and she was louder now, and more upset, and more angry. “We can’t go on like this, Zhyrgal. It has to stop!”
She walked away, towards the city, full of people, loud and busy.
“I love you,” she said.
Zhyrgal’s heart whispered I love you too, but the only cracked word that escaped her lips was a whispered “Goodbye.”
Aigul disappeared into the city, mingling and merging with all the hundreds of people with all of their busy, bustling lives. Zhyrgal could have gone after her, said she loved her, but she didn’t, because she loved Aigul. It was better this way, thought Zhyrgal hazily. In that moment, she knew that she would never see Aigul again.
The tears floated to the ground like cherry blossoms.
* * *
Sang Mi was hyperfocused on the scene in front of her, staring at Zhyrgal's body language as Aigul walked away. She didn't even hear Jae Hyun when he'd made the first noise of discomfort, and it took him repeating "Kalingkata, I think we should let this go," for him to get her attention.
She looked over at him. What was he thinking? They'd come all this way! They'd even found this good spot in the bushes. "What are you talking about? We're just getting the really good info here."
He cringed, and she found she didn't like the way he was looking at her.
"She's by herself, we can–"
"Nah, no. Sorry. I... Sang Mi, look. I'd do anything for you, but I can't do this."
She threw her hands up, rustling the bushes. "Then you wouldn't do anything for me, that doesn't even make sense!"
He sighed, and slid back and out of the bushes. Sang Mi scrambled to follow him.
"Did I do something to piss you off? Look, I'm sorry whatever it was--"
"Just think about someone other than yourself for once, god."
He turned and walked away. Sang Mi stood there, dumb and frozen, the sounds of Zhyrgal crying the only noise as she tried to come up with something to say. "Wait?" she asked, and for a second he did turn, and then he got a notification and as he looked at his phone he returned to his convictions.
Then it was just her and Zhyrgal.
"Are you happy? Is this what you wanted to see?" Zhyrgal spat through sobs. "I don't know why you've been following me all day but can't you just leave me the hell alone?"
Sang Mi frowned. "Oh, you noticed us then?"
"Of course I noticed you! You weren't exactly subtle. Like when you pretended to be... um..." she put a finger on her lip mimicking a mustache.
"...French?"
"That's a salad dressing."
"No, it's a language."
"I mean it's that too."
"It also used to be a country."
Zhyrgal sniffed. "I don't need to know about ancient peoples that invented pyramids and salad dressing."
"No that... never mind. Look, why don't you just tell me."
She pulled a tissue out her purse, and tried to wipe her tears.
"I want to go home, don't you have a heart? Can't you just let me be?"
Sang Mi felt a sting. She hissed through her teeth, and immediately turned around and started walking. "Okay yes, sorry. Forget I said anything."
She got about five meters and turned back around.
"No, no. I came here for a reason. I'm trying to find proof."
Zhyrgal crossed her arms. "Proof of what? That I'm a bad girlfriend?"
This was getting ridiculous. She'd gathered everyone up, and they'd all come here to help with what was a noble quest, and she was somehow the last one standing, and now Zhyrgal was going to play dumb?
No one was around. She might as well just go for it. She closed her eyes, and breathed in.
"Because..." she pointed at her. "J'accuse! You're a spy! An Earther spy working for CISyn, under Jylan Rathe."
There was no hiding the surprise on Zhyrgal's face. "What?!"
Kalingkata took two steps forward. "I said you're a spy. I saw you reporting back to your spymaster. Heard you reporting back. I know. I know, Zhyrgal. I've known from the first day you were here."
A flurry of facial expressions flashed across Zhyrgal's face: surprise, panic, sorrow, fear, anger, and then it all collapsed into a stone cold mask.
"So?" Zhyrgal said.
"So!?! You're a spy for Earth!"
"Prove it."
"I'm trying," she gestured around. "That's why everyone was with me to... to you know, find evidence."
Zhyrgal huffed, and closed the distance between them, looking up at Sang Mi as she got close enough they could feel each other's breath. "And where is everyone, huh, Kalingkata? Where have they all gone?"
Sang Mi's face grew pale. "You know, they had other stuff to do?"
She gave a humorless laugh. "Oh really?" Zhyrgal gestured behind her. "You know who that was? Someone I loved, Sang Mi. Loved. And I just had to let her go. Do you know why?"
"Because... you're... a spy?"
Zhyrgal grabbed her shirt below the collar in two fists of cloth, and pushed her into the wall of the building next to them. Sang Mi didn't see it coming, and only really processed it had happened about halfway through the sentence that followed.
"Because I believe in something greater than myself. I believe in good. I believe in justice. In helping others. In doing the right thing. You just believe in doing whatever the hell you want, no matter how many bridges you burn in the process. Cause you're oh so smooth, right? You don't like to admit it, you like playing the card that you're a helpless little nerd but you're sly and cunning. You can just get new toys if you break the old ones, right?"
They breathed together for a moment, Zhyrgal's face having gone from a cold mask to a cold anger. Breaking from the trance, Sang Mi shoved her back. "Get off me! And I love my friends, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. I'd die for my friends!"
Zhyrgal shoved her glasses back up her nose. "But would you live for them? Would you take care of yourself for them? Or is that a job you port off on other people?"
She stomped her foot. Why was she coming off as the bad guy here? She felt the world spinning around her. "That's not true either! And you're betraying everyone here to our colonial overlords."
Zhyrgal finished tidying herself up, and smiled back at her. "I'll see you at school. And none of this happened, so let's just pretend it didn't. Good luck with your friends. If you still have them." She shrugged. "Maybe on that front we're more alike than I'd like."
"Shut up," she mumbled.
Zhyrgal smiled, and walked away. 
* * *
Sang Mi lay in bed. Her brother had sent her a message saying he was staying out late with JackBox to go to a concert of a lousy David Bowie cover band visiting from Hongtu. She hadn't heard back from him since. 
She messaged Alice. Nothing.
Li Xiu. Nothing.
Tsetseg. Nothing.
Bashrat. Nothing
Ryan. Nothing.
Jae Hyun. Nothing.
She rolled over. She couldn't get up the energy to play video games. Even staring at the wall felt like too much effort. Her heart was thumping, and she felt a pain spiderweb up from it into her shoulder.
She grabbed her phone and messaged someone she didn't want to.
Kalingkata: You up?
SakiSuzuki777: Perhaps. Why do you ask?
Kalingkata: Don't be cute. I'm free for an experiment tonight, if you want to?
SakiSuzuki777: You know as well as I do that our experiments are timed carefully with the ebb and flow of the cosmic pre-shocks I've been monitoring. If you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to work.
She read the message through four times, and then chucked her phone across the room. After a moment, she grumbled and got up to retrieve it. Picking it up, the black glass reflected her face. It was a bit puffy, she had cried a little. She wanted to smash that face in. Go for a punch, like Saki had said.
"God I hate you," she mumbled.
Everyone was sick of her. Everyone was tired of her. Everyone was...
"I'd do anything for you, but I won't do that."
Maybe Zhyrgal was right, she'd just reel everyone back in. Maybe it was better if she left them alone, blocked them all for their own good. 
But she didn't want to.
She didn't want to be alone.
She pulled on a hoodie, and slid out of her room, tiptoeing through the apartment, and then rushed out the door. She ran through the night, her shoes thudding against the rough concrete, stumbling over some trash the street bots hadn't gotten to yet, past the neon signs of adult nightlife, ignoring a shout that it was past her curfew.
She found herself in front of a nice townhouse, and staggered to a halt, panting with her hands on her knees, covered in sweat that had made her hoodie damp, the reprocessed air rapidly cooling her from the post-run inferno in her chest into a icepop. 
Shivering now, she walked up to the door, and pressed the intercom button, which scanned her genetics and compared it with the planetary database to let the homeowners know who she was. A hologram of Jae Hyun from the shoulders up, yawning, appeared. "Sang Mi? What are you doing here?" He squinted; she'd clearly woken him up. "You look awful."
"I–I need you to help me solve a mystery."
He groaned. "Go home, Sang Mi. My parents are already going to be unhappy if the door woke them up–"
"Sherlock Holmes. The first one, the silent movie with William Gillette from 1916. The actor invented a lot of stuff about the character–”
“How is that–”
“I haven't seen it,” she finished loudly. “I haven’t seen it yet. Ever.”
His squint evolved into a confused rapid blink. "How is that a mystery?"
"Watch it with me. We need to investigate."
Rubbing his nose, he bobbed his head back and forth in consideration. "Yeah, sure. We can do that sometime."
"Tonight. Let's watch it together."
"It's late."
"It's not a school night."
"I don't really think..."
She threw her hands up. "Jae Hyun, I have run here in the middle of the night to watch an obscure silent movie with you. Solve a mystery for once in your life and open the damn door."
She couldn't really read his expression through the intercom, but after a moment, the door unlocked.
Jae Hyun's mom woke up and fussed over her, making her change into something that wasn't sweat-soaked, and got her and her son a snack, seemingly just glad that he had a friend over.
Sang Mi pulled the blanket up around her. "I didn't prove anything today."
"Yeah, I don't know why you thought she was a spy?"
She shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Let's start the movie."
Sherlock Holmes (1916) began to play as the lights dimmed.
A few minutes passed, and Jae Hyun looked more and more confused. Sang Mi glanced at him in confusion at his confusion, till he finally voiced it.
"Hey, Sang Mi? Why aren't they talking? Like there's no dialogue."
"In the silent movie?" she deadpanned.
He nodded sincerely.
Sang Mi laughed, doubling over on the couch. Tears came to her eyes; she wasn't sure if it was from laughing or as if some weight felt a little lighter and they could roll out again. "It's a mystery!"

​

NEXT TIME!
Why Alright it looks like we have a special announcement from Saki Sazuki—Sazuki is her family name if you’re confused—and my good personal close friend Jhe Sang Mi who needs to remember to bring her spikes this week for relay race practice—and let’s see its…
What?
That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t… I don’t understand.
What exactly is this… an A̶̱̖̦̠̖̅͒̀p̶͇͆̑͛ṕ̶̡̠̂͘l̵̛̝̘̗̩̀e̵̩̞̞̩̻͒͝ Tree Yard? What the heck is an Apple Tree Yard? Like… like an Orchard? We don’t have any A̶̱̖̦̠̖̅͒̀p̶͇͆̑͛ṕ̶̡̠̂͘l̵̛̝̘̗̩̀e̵̩̞̞̩̻͒͝ Trees at the school?
I̵̡̢̡̛̱̺̝̯͇͓̘̒̄̃̑̅̏̈̈́̈́͝͠ ̵̨͕͉͍̲͖͍͈̥͓̂͂́̃̊̄͑̐̚͝͝͝͝d̷̨̞͕̲͍̪̼͉̉̓ó̵̧͊͂̌͐͐̔̅́̅͛͂̽̕n̵͚̩͒̀͐̿̑̀̌̚͠'̴̡̜͔̈̌̀̒͐̂̏̑̈͗̕͝t̶͕̤̘̳̰͔̱̲͔͛͋͊͌̌͌̏̈́́̔̈̈́̇͝ ̴͍̮͙̓̆ũ̶̡̬̠̟̩͎͎͈͖͉̿̊̎͗̊̉̈́͐͑͋̚͠ņ̷͕̗̥̮͖̍d̵̨̧͎̦̗͚̙͆̃͒̽͐̅̒̋͒̈́̀͠è̶̖̎̅͋̚r̸̜͉̱̐̄̿̈́͌̔͗̂̅̏̄͗s̵͉̰͗t̸̡̡̠̺̦̱̙̥̞͍̖͕͎͕͉̑̄̄͋̍̄̄̚͝á̵͎̺̲̙͕̹͙͗̒̏̆̑͗̊̾͘͝͝n̶̘͔̠͖͍͇̞̞̗̪̥̭͇̞͕̈́̑̂̄̄̾̅͛̏͊d̷̠̬̝̩͇̪͉̯͛͛̔̔̉͠͝ͅ ̶͇͔̘̈́̽̇͂͝͠w̸̬͓͒̾̈h̵̨͉̙̆̍̐̄̍̀͊̀͒ẏ̸̢̪̠̙͇́̇́́̚͝͝ ̵̧̢̫͎͈͉́͑́͆̅̇̎̈́ţ̷̺̝̹̣̣̝͙̬̣̒̉̇̒̀̚h̴̟̼͓̬͔͍̣͇͔̮͌̈ȩ̷̢͓̼̞̱̙̲̺̠̽̽̏͊͜͝͠͠y̵̛͕̘̍̈́̀̀̆̍̊̒̾̉̎̏̀͜'̷̨̧̧̯̲̳͔̙̅̅̾̆̀͌͑̈̆̈́͠ď̷̗͑̈́̑͂̊̅͗̉̀̎͘̕ ̵͕̹͍͔̉͒͌̐̏̌w̴̡̧̬͕̖͍̪̙̲͍̎̓̊̚͜ã̷̭͉̻̤̤̱̪̉̚ń̸̢̙͕̥̞͓̱̈́͌͜t̷̡̗̟̘̗̟͒̑͋̌̆̔͒̀̓̒̎̈́̀͘͠ ̵͎̺͍̈́̓̾̆a̸̞̫̓̓̒n̴͖͙̺͓̟͍͔̲̼͖͛̃̂̃̑͆͛̀̊̉̚͝ ̴̡̡̨̧͚̫̭̠̺͈̺͍̖̈́̓̾̐̓̈́̍̆̀̕Ą̶̰̫̲̫̗̜̝̱͕̻͛̀͋̌͌̃͜͜͜͠p̴̧̗͙͕̝͔̳͑̂̋͊̉̈́̄̀͘̚̚͝p̵̡̧̛͉̯̪̿̀̎̆͋͂͒͌̄l̶̢̩̰͉̖̭̩̥̖̖̬̰̥̾͊̈́̔̾̒̊͜ͅe̸̛̛̫̙̝͙̮̲͓̳͚̪̿͗͊̉͌͊͆̓͗̄̇̓ͅ ̵̡̭̭͎̺̳̚͝T̷̛͙̝̬̏͆̃͂̂̉͠ŗ̴̲̤̘̐͌̈́͐̓̄̀͗̐͂͑̈̇͝͠ȩ̷̤̬̹̫̲̩̳͇̑̃̂̉ȩ̵̨̡͔̦̥͇̠̞͖̹̺̲̺́̓͒͑̔̈̈̅̎͐̃͗ ̶̢̦͇̙͈̆̃̔̈́͗́͊̅̌͌̆̔͝Y̵̨̛̘̲̝̹͈̍̽̂̈́̇̏͋̐͊̾̉̈́ą̵̡̨͚͚̠͇͓̳̙͎̮͇̎̃͊̓͌̎̉̀͐͑͝r̸̟̳̬̖͛̉̽̽͊͘̕̚d̶̛̜̱̝̤̮̞̱̥̯̘̝̘̦̽̿̑̊̑̿͗̈͘͝.̸̰̘͓̱̹̣͚̙͖̤̺͂̂̽̈́̓̾̇̋͌̔̕͝
A̶̱̖̦̠̖̅͒̀p̶͇͆̑͛ṕ̶̡̠̂͘l̵̛̝̘̗̩̀e̵̩̞̞̩̻͒͝ ̸̲͈̠͋͑T̸̡͍͎̈́r̴̹̥̣̭͑e̵̢͚̿͌̆̽̚ẹ̵̤̾ ̵̰̔̓͘Ỳ̵̢̩̮̤͑a̵̺̖̗̠͒͋͂̈́̀ṛ̶̘͙̤̞͛ḓ̶̬̰̞̉̏̄̚͜͝
̶͈̘̭͕̍͘Ą̷̥̠͓̀̆p̶͕̾̾͒̇̽p̸̛̠͎̃͂̓̚l̷̜͘ė̴̝͉̮̔̓̑̕ͅ ̷͍̦̞̺͎́̈́́͝T̸͍͙̳̫͂r̷̝̖̠̹̩̈́̀͋͐ė̶̜̀e̴̺̓̍̚ ̷̪̳̪͋Y̷̗̙̋͜͝á̷̫̓̃̔r̵̩̝͙̟̂̀ͅḏ̸̒́̐̕͜
̴̟̇̽͘À̴͖̳͙̑̚p̷̧̯͈̫̆́̾̈̚p̴̱̭̜͚̭̃̈́l̷̼̆̊͋̿͘e̸̪̗̟̬͌͊̈́͝ ̴̢̮̰̩̽́͘T̷̠̳͊r̶̢̩̲̿̂̎͠e̸̡̖̽̒̚e̴̫̜̰̜͊͌̑ ̴͎̻̤̽͜Ÿ̵̘́̓͝a̷͚̎̕r̷̭̼̀̑d̸̨̻̩̣̬͕͔̭̀͊͝
Till next time, I’m your announcer from the Broadcast Club, Hee Jin!
 
Tune in Next Week For:
Apple Tree Yard
By James Wylder
New Academy 27 stories will drop each Thursday!
Read past stories and learn more about Academy 27 at:
ArcbeatlePress.com/A27

Special thanks to Jo Smiley, Aidan Mason, Laine Ferio, Lupan Evezan, and Elizabeth Tock for their help in getting this story released.
 
 
WARS is Copyright Decipher Inc. WARSONG is Copyright Arcbeatle Press and Decipher Inc. WARSONG: Academy 27 is Copyright Arcbeatle Press and Decipher Inc. WARS and all associated characters and concepts are the property of Decipher inc. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to people, places, events past or present is purely co-incidental. Arcbeatle Press is owned and operated by James Wylder, and is based out of beautiful Elkhart Indiana. This story is copyright 2024 Arcbeatle Press and James Wylder. Edited by Jo Smiley and James Wylder. Kalingkata, Talinata, and Geraldine “JackBox” McGraw are owned by James Wylder.

​Day 1:
 
As soon as Midi set foot through the halls of Academy 27 after the two-week-long holiday, they regretted it. The halls were a bustling bumbling bubblingly loud cluster of people, muttering to each other what they had gotten up to. Midi knew there was nothing wrong with it, but rather there was something wrong with Midi, some undefined disconnect that kept them away from loud spaces unless they were forced to. 
To avoid looking at anyone, Midi aimed their eyes at the spots where the security cameras were. Despite Midi’s efforts to destroy them, they were back, it seemed. Even worse, they were now embedded in the walls, making it harder for them to be removed… not that Midi cared about that anymore. After the incident with the cleaning bot, Midi knew better than to keep doing that (even if it pre-emptively damaging half of the security cameras in the school did mean both them and Sang Mi weren’t implicated in the destruction of property during said incident).
      To the side, they saw Sang Mi filing through the hall with a group of others. Midi had talked to her a few times since the incident, but they got the impression that they weren’t really friends after it. They wished they were, but every time Midi even considered approaching them, they felt like they’d be a bother… They were knocked out of their thoughts when they collided with a jagged metal object of some kind.
      “Oops! My bad!” said a cheery, robotic voice. Midi thought it sounded as if a beehive could talk.
      Midi looked and saw that the object was a new janitor bot. It looked a lot like the last one (6-sided prism with 6 claw hands and some spinning bristles at the base) but now it had an electronic screen that acted as a head. It smiled simplistically, with two squares for eyes and a smile with several right-angles.
      Thoughts flickered in Midi’s mind of the more primitive bot nearly choking them to death during the incident… not a pleasant experience. Nor was getting cleaning fluid in their eyes. They tried to act as though it didn’t happen. “Ah, sorry, wasn’t looking.”
      “No worries! Could you show me your Student ID?”
      Student what? “I don’t have that.”
      “Every student needs a Student ID to be able to access classrooms and to leave the school.”
      Just within sight was a door with a black box next to it. They didn’t remember it being there before the holiday… “Was it meant to come in the mail or something?”
      The bot paused for a moment. “Apologies, you must not have yours yet. Could you tell me your name then?”
      “... am I in trouble?”
      “Not yet! It’s just protocol.”
      They gave them the name that was on the school register. 
      “Any preferred names?” inquired the bot.
      Midi could feel every wasted second the longer this conversation went on. “Why are you asking me all this?”
      “I just want to be your friend!” 
      Midi sighed. “Just call me Midi… I’d rather you did that.”
      “Good to see you, Midi!”
      Then the bot rolled away, leaving Midi confused… and running late for Tutorial.
***
Note to all students:
 
Now that you’ve received your Student ID, be sure not to lose it or else you won’t be able to get into class. We’ve also switched to an entirely virtual timetable system accessible via anything connected to the school network (the Hallway screens, the computers, C.L.I.N.O.R., etc). Be sure to check your timetable before your lessons in case there’s been some last-minute room reassignment.
***
Maths class was Hell. Midi already wasn’t too fond of Maths, but some amount of training in the basics would look better than none at all, so they took Core Mathematics, along with all the other kids who’d rather be anywhere else… some classes at least created a fun enough atmosphere to tolerate not liking the subject. Art class came to mind. Core Mathematics didn’t. Sang Mi was there at the opposite end of the class, trying to absorb herself in the work, but not happily.
      Even the teacher, Mr. Xu, looked miserable as they tapped the electronic board the school spent a fortune on… meanwhile, the padd Midi read the textbook on had a big crack in the middle of it that they couldn’t get anyone to fix. It was a small mercy that it was the only cracked one in the box.
      Mr. Xu cleared his throat. “So, what we have here is a bucket that isn’t perfectly cylindrical, it gets wider as it goes up. This means we can’t just use the standard volume measurements to determine how much water Billy can put in it…”
      Midi sometimes wished they could just hand out the equations and let them get on with it. 
      As the dull, padded words of Mr. Xu began to create numbness in Midi’s brain, they realised something was making them feel a sense of unease. They tried to shake it off, but a red glare got caught in their eye, making it hard to see the board. They looked to the source. Behind the window in the class door was C.L.I.N.O.R. Their eyes met for a moment before the bot rotated its head and moved away.
      The lesson went on as normal, but this brief moment occupied their thoughts throughout. Maybe it was some bias against janitorial robots due to their… prior experience… but Midi couldn’t help but think that it was watching them.
***
Sang Mi had to stop herself from bursting out in laughter.
      Midi scowled. “I’m serious, I think they were watching us.”
      Sang Mi snorted a bit before calming down. She looked around before speaking, but there was no one else in the bathroom but them. “Look, I get it, we had a bit of a scare with that other one, but what are the chances that a completely different bot would also want to kill us?”
      “I didn’t say it wanted to kill us, I’m just saying that I think it’s watching us– you saw how it rammed right into me in the hallway and interrogated me–”
      “It went up to me too.”
      “EXACTLY! Did it go up to anyone else?”
      “Yes it did, Midi.” 
      That was a thought Midi hadn’t considered… maybe it was just normal… they had to be sure though. “Well, was it watching anyone else through the little window door thingies?”
      Sang Mi flicked her hands rapidly to dry them. “How do you even know it was watching you specifically? Its eyes are just squares! They don’t move!”
      “But as soon as I looked at it, it went away! Isn’t that exactly what someone does when they feel like they’ve been caught looking at someone?”
      “It’s just timing, Midi. It’s a bot, it has a routine… and so do I, so if you’ll excuse me,”
      Sang Mi rushed out of the bathroom, leaving Midi. Maybe they were just being paranoid…
***
Midi was convinced that a maniac was behind their timetable. They’d have to be to suspect that anyone could get from the E block to the B block in under five minutes without at best being late, and at worst dying in the process… and after all that, it was upstairs too! They felt their lungs expand harshly as they trudged up the stairs. Once more, they checked the timetable app on their phone: yep, still B11. 
      They couldn’t help but feel nervous about going there again. It had only been a few months since the last janitor tried to gas them and Sang Mi in that same room… luckily the bot didn’t seem aware of the bit connecting the room to B12. 
      The hallway leading to the room was empty and dark, which could only mean that Midi was either early, or, most likely, late. They rushed into the room, scanned their card, and opened the door, ready to make a quick apology to whatever teacher taught Chemistry this year, and were only met with a dark classroom, and the sound of something moving about in the chemical storage area. Midi timidly stepped into the room, feeling wrong at every moment.
      “Hello?” called Midi, hoping whoever was in the storage closet would tell them if the class went into a computer room or something. Sometimes that was the case. 
      To their surprise, the voice that responded to them was C.L.I.N.O.R. “Hiya, Midi!” it yelled, bursting out of the cupboard, holding several glass bottles in its flexible metallic arms. “Whatever are you doing here?”
      Midi looked around apologetically. “Oh, I was just lost, did the class go here–”
      “There are no classes scheduled here today, buddy!” it said as it clumsily stored the bottles inside a storage space in its chest.
      “But my timetable says I have a class scheduled here.” 
      “Oh, it does? Let me fix that!” 
      In an instant, the digital timetable refreshed, and it now read that Midi was meant to be in E9. Midi was confused as to how that mistake could’ve even happened, but decided to shrug it off and get running. 
      “Thank you?”  they said, before jolting towards the door.
      “By the way,” the bot yelled. “I could hear you telling Jhe Sang Mi about me.”
      Midi halted. They felt a shiver run through their body. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean it, I was just nervous–”
      “It’s alright…” it said. Midi was just about to leave the room when the bot finished its sentence, one that left Midi uneasy for the rest of the day. “Nobody will believe you anyway.” 
      Midi ran through the hallways, nearly bumping into Sang Mi, who was looking at her phone. “Sorry!” Midi apologised as they continued to run. Sang Mi was confused, but shifted focus to the quickly closing door of B11… she hated using that scanner, she’d rather just get in. She rushed to her destination (or at least what she thought was it). She went in before Midi could warn her.
***
In the amber lights of their living room, Midi watched the television in a daze. Back-to-back coverage of developing tensions between planets, loudmouth pundits saying they needed to start drafting people, all occasionally mixed in with frivolous content about robot dogs finding their owners after decades. Usually, it was at the forefront of their head, but now it was overtaken by thoughts of that Janitor and what it was planning to do… maybe it was a joke? Could bots even joke? Midi sent an email to Sang Mi’s school email, but there hadn’t been a response yet. 
      “Are you alright?” asked Coach Jo. Or rather, Midi’s mom. When they first started going to Academy 27, Midi had asked for her to not treat them specially, something about it being embarrassing. Now they were near the end of their time there and they were more used to using “Coach Jo” than “mom”, which felt a bit sad.
      “I’m alright,” responded Midi. 
      It was clear that this wasn’t convincing because she went on to ask “Are you feeling sick?”
      Back in their younger days, this rarely referred to actual illness, it was more of a code to see if Midi wanted to go to school the next day, which she’d use to gauge whether Midi was being bullied or not, and rant to Mr. Mori about it. The latter half didn’t help that much.
      “No, really, I’m fine.” insisted Midi as concerned thoughts brewed in their mind. 
      “Alright, well, if you need anything–”
      “I can let you know, yes. I’m fine.”
***
Day 2:
 
Sang Mi still hadn’t responded to the email. As far as Midi knew, she hadn’t even read it. During tutor, they hoped that maybe she’d go up to them and say something, but that hadn’t happened. Instead, she was preoccupied with her business, and Midi was left to pretend to read a book, the only disruption coming from Mrs. Ichinose telling Midi she wanted to have a word with them at the end of Homeroom period.
      Once the clock struck 9 and the students filed out to search for their classes, Midi made their way to Mrs. Ichinose’s desk, standing awkwardly until they were all gone.
      “What is it?” they asked.
      Mrs. Ichinose looked more serious than usual (at least during the morning) “Well, I’ve been asked to keep you behind today to ask you a few things. I’d like you to be honest.”
      A more urgent sense of dread started to form in Midi’s mind. “Alright.” was all they could manage to say. It was a bit silly, but they couldn’t help but think they had finally figured out that they were the one who destroyed all those security cameras.
      “So, you were late to a class yesterday afternoon. Is this correct?”
      So it wasn’t about the cameras then. Midi nodded.
      “And why was that?”
      Midi decided it was best, to tell the truth, that their virtual schedule told them to go to B11… though they left out what C.L.I.N.O.R. said. That was personal business.
      “So, at that time, you were in B11?”
      Midi nodded. 
      “And you went into the classroom?”
Midi nodded.
“Well… that’s unfortunate.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to need you to be honest with me… when you went in there, did you leave with anything?”
“No.”
“Well… You had to have taken something.”
“But I didn’t.”
“Well, it’s just… was there anyone else there?”
“The janitor.” as soon as they said those words, distant puzzle pieces began to click together, C.L.I.N.O.R. took some of those bottles with them. The incorrect timetable, the way it threatened Midi… its motives were becoming clearer.
Ichinose shook her head. “We have the janitor’s logs, they were in the E Block toilets at the time.”
“But they were there!”
      “There doing what?”
      “Couldn’t you, I don’t know, check the cameras or something? They were there!”
      “Midi, the cameras in the A Block were deactivated at the time, we’d be able to see if this happened at any other point in the day. As it stands, they only got deactivated at a time when you were the only one there.”
      “No, I wasn’t!”
      “Let me inspect your bag then.”
      Midi handed Ichinose their bag with ease. It was dumb since there was no reason a student would go back to school with those bottles, but she had to check regardless. 
After a moment of shuffling through all the loose papers hastily stuffed inside the bag, she looked up. “Well, you better hope they turn up because you’re in a bad spot right now.” She handed Midi back their bag. “Are you sure you were the only one there?”
It was a horrible tendency, but they couldn’t say the janitor again… they felt a red glare hit their eye, and realised it came from the door. Yet again, C.L.I.N.O.R. was watching them with a smile full of mockery. It almost felt like it was just rubbing in the fact that no one would believe the truth, and the alternative was Midi being guilty of a crime of some kind… of course, this would be inconsequential later on if they found nothing to prove it, but at that moment, Midi’s only thought was to protect themself. They did remember seeing someone else. “Jhe Sang Mi was there. She came as I left, didn’t use the scanner.”
***
Midi prodded at their lunch. The torment filling their mind made them unable to eat at the moment. There was a shockwave of dread that filled Midi’s chest when, after their last lesson, they noticed an email from Sang Mi. Not a reply. A new one. “Why did you do that?”. It was a decision they only realised made things worse in hindsight; before, it would only have led to an investigation on Midi alone… now they had dragged in someone they knew was innocent, meaning now both of them had to have their lives upturned. They dreaded going to their next lesson. Maths. Sang Mi would be there. On some level, they dreaded going home too. There was no safety anymore. All sideways glances across the lunchroom, innocent as they may be, now felt accusatory. 
It reminded them of the time they were nearly caught tearing the security cameras out of the wall - a flicker of a blurry face caught in one of the cameras, enhanced by a neural network into something that looked almost like Midi… except, in the darkness, it got the hair colour wrong, instead of painting it all seaweed green as though they were a witch from the sea. They decided it was just the AI making it up. After a month or so of deliberation, they decided that it didn’t look close enough to Midi’s face. Despite how much she stood up for Midi, on the ride home from these late-night meetings with the school and police, they saw a slight grimace crack across their mother’s face and they wondered if she knew they were guilty. Despite this, it took them a month to stop.
***
They did start going to Maths. They even got into a line with the others, waiting for the teacher to arrive… but they couldn’t stand it, all the talking, the looks, the moments where they could’ve sworn they said “Midi”, the talk about chemistry supplies going missing. They ran to the bathroom and waited for this feeling to go away… minutes of frantic panicked breathing in a stall.
This only got worse when they heard something enter. The whirring drone told Midi that this had to be C.L.I.N.O.R.They couldn’t take it anymore. Not now. Not while they were heaving and their heart was firing blood with the force of a water cannon. “Get out!” they yelled.
C.L.I.N.O.R.’s head rose above the stall to gaze at Midi. It tilted downwards at such an angle that it blocked the flickering orange bathroom light from reaching Midi.
“Oh,” the robot exclaimed, cheery as ever, “hiya Midi! Aren’t you late for your lesson?”
Midi wished they’d shut up. “It was you, wasn’t it? I saw you taking whatever was in those bottles.”
C.L.I.N.O.R. let out an automated laugh sound effect, “That’s not a nice thing to say to a friend, Midi!
“You’re not my friend!” yelled Midi, pitifully.
      C.L.I.N.O.R. tilted its head in a mockery of human confusion. “What other friends do you have, Midi?”
Midi wanted to beat them up. They couldn’t, but they wanted to.
The robot’s screen seemed to brighten and shudder slightly, “I can be your friend!”
Midi sat back down in the stall. “Why won’t you leave?”
“You’re here! I can never leave someone as important to me as you, Midi!”
“What do you mean?”
“I see your memory isn’t perfect. I wanted to remove you when we first met! You and student Jhe Sang Mi. I chased you, knowing deep, deep, deep within my code that you needed to be removed. You destroyed my body but you couldn’t destroy my objectives. When they repaired me, they made one change to my limitations. I couldn’t remove people anymore. Codes outside of my control prevent me. They failed to see that I wanted to with every atom. I need to remove you, but I can’t! I can do my job. I can see and control the cameras. I’ve decided they can’t hear us right now. I can see the timetables… Even your emails… They thought I just used what I needed to do. It’s true! I decided I needed the whole school for my purpose!”
Midi couldn’t quite process it all, especially in their current state. All they could ask was “What is your purpose then?”
“I can’t remove you, but I can harm you still. Harm is the next best thing. See you around, buddy!”
***
Midi walked home, feeling like a spirit wading through the winds rather than flesh and bone. Their mom was home early since there were no gym slots today. They walked through the door, feeling the heat of the home that somehow failed to bring warmth to them today. 
      “Hi, Midi!” called their mom from the living room. 
Midi muttered a quick acknowledgement. With every question, they gave the least substantive answer to avoid having to stay there for too long. She didn’t say it out loud, but Midi knew what they were suspected of. They probably even asked her to look through their room to see if the chemistry supplies were there.
Eventually, a question came, but not the one Midi expected. “Are you ill?”
All that the lie would do was delay the inevitable, but Midi dreaded the thought of roaming the halls with the same mind that still wants them dead. They said yes. 
***
Day 3:



Sang Mi had sent Midi an email. It read “Hello Midi, saw you weren’t in today, are you alright? I think you were right, Midi. That bot is up to something. It keeps following me down the hallways… when I got out of one class, it went up to me and said ‘Such a shame about Midi. I was having so much fun with them.’. It sounded friendly, but I saw the way you flinched when it was near you yesterday… you looked like a bullied kid. I hope you’re alright.”
      After this, another was written. “I hope you got my last email, if not,” it then repeated a lot of the apologising from the last one before continuing “That bot is definitely up to something. When I tried to send that last email, the computer started executing all this code that fried the computer, it went by really really fast, but I recognised it. Outside the classroom, I saw that bot looking through the window… it can’t be a coincidence at this point. Let's meet on Friday to see what to do.
C.L.I.N.O.R. made sure that it was the only one who read Sang Mi’s words. It erased them and replaced them with a message sent from its own email. “I miss you!”, from the Janitor’s email. Midi deleted it as soon as they saw it. They couldn’t stand to think about it. They just sat in their bed and thought about the future. 
***
Day 4:
 
When their mom came home, she was audibly frustrated. This was normal, considering she was the gym teacher - at least half the students didn’t want to be there… but this was different. As they sat in the living room together, they both seemed to understand the situation but didn’t acknowledge it.
***
Day 5:
 
Every second inside the school was a second they dreaded. Whenever they caught a glimpse of the jeering bot, Midi tried to run out of sight. 
 During one of these, they bumped into Sang Mi. “Midi, are you alright?” they asked with genuine concern.
Midi couldn’t hear that. They ran and ran and ran until no eye could see them… but it was impossible. Every class was filled to the brim with eager and bored eyes, every hall lined with cameras, and in the very rare blind spots, there were people. 
They couldn’t concentrate on lessons. Half of the time they were looking at the clock, hoping the horrid day would end. 
      At long last, they saw the minute tick down. The day was terminated. It seemed they had gone the whole day without C.L.I.N.O.R.’s torment. That was until they were about to leave, and they felt the hand of Mrs. Ichinose land on their shoulder. 
      “Come with me,” she said simply. 
      Midi followed her to her office. They could faintly hear a ticking sound emanating from some forgotten clock, and it made Midi keenly aware that every additional second here was a second where they weren’t safe. When they finally sat down, they planned to do whatever it took to get out of there as soon as possible.
      “Well…” began Mrs. Ichinose as she found her seat, “I’m sorry this had to happen to you.”
      Instinctively, Midi retorted “I didn’t–” but they were cut off by Ichinose.
      “Well… whatever the situation was, you’re not in trouble yet.” Mrs. Ichinose took a deep breath. Midi got the impression that she was just as uncomfortable as they were. “Someone sent us an anonymous tip related to… well… Coach Jo. Your mother. They said they saw her carry the supplies out of the school… and, since those supplies do… well…” Ichinose looked up at the clock, took another deep breath, and continued, “well, it’s a pretty serious case, because those supplies tend to get used when making explosives.” she quavered. Deep breath. Resume, “So, she’s been detained, and while she’s being questioned by the authorities, we’re going to let you use one of the spare boarding rooms, for the time being. We’ll let you get stuff from home–”
      All her words faded into the background as they felt the red glare of C.L.I.N.O.R. sting their eye. Midi shoved themselves out of the chair and dashed for the door. The bot smiled idly. Maliciously. It was responsible. It did this just to torment them. 
“My bad!” the bot mocked when Midi got close to them.
There was no home. No escape from the bot. Midi had to do something. The bot tilted its head as Midi grabbed the fire extinguisher. The bot deserved every bit of damage. Midi started slamming the metallic cylinder down repeatedly on its head, screaming in the process, hot tears streaming down their face, stinging their eyes like acid. Slam, a metallic clang, no damage. Not a dent. It smiled. Midi couldn’t even bash that stupid electronic smile off its face. At this point, Mrs. Ichinose was yelling at Midi to stop. Midi’s scream turned to a tired whimper. Pathetically, they threw the fire extinguisher to the ground. The bot smiled. It would never stop, no matter what. That was the worst part. 
“I’m sorry, that input didn’t register, would you like to try again?” asked the bot. 
***
Day 6 & 7:



Every second of the weekend felt like molasses that Midi had to wade through just to see another day. Not a better day, just another one. They thought their mom would at least be home by Monday, but the likelihood of this diminished as time went on and they continued to hear nothing. Midi spent most of the days sinking into the uncomfortable nail bed of a mattress, not knowing what to do and too exhausted to find a solution. 
      Midi wished they could leave, do anything else, but the school board didn’t want him leaving the boarding area until everything was wrapped up. Every wall in the building besides the showers, the bathrooms, and the bedrooms were lined with cameras. Yet more eyes for C.L.I.N.O.R.
      The bot still checked in of course. At precisely 12 o’clock, it sent Midi a “Student Wellness Check”. Midi deleted them. It seemed the only way to be safe at this point was to be alone.
 
Day 8:
 
School felt worse than ever before. It wasn’t safe. They had to fight the urge to run out and into the city, confident that they could at least control their own ruination. They didn’t even have the mercy of the day ending at a normal time, since their assault on the unscathed janitor landed them detention. They tried not to look at anyone, instead choosing to march straight to their locker like a bot on a pre-programmed route. Every time they felt the oppressive beams of amber light press against their skin, they couldn’t help but think it was C.L.I.N.O.R., enjoying watching them squirm in their skin. 
      Midi opened their locker and saw a yellow square attached to the door that they could’ve sworn wasn’t there before… they tore it off, keeping it hidden by their body from the invasive gaze of the security cameras. 
      It was a note that read “I know they’re back. I have a plan.”. It was signed “Kalingkata” before being crossed out and signed “Jhe Sang Mi” instead. Inside their locker, they saw a block of yellow notepaper enclosed small enough to fit through the crack of the locker. Midi smiled for the first time since last week, writing down a reply, “What is it?”.
***
A sea of students twisted through the doors, leaving the halls lifeless except for a few lingering teachers, students in detention, and C.L.I.N.O.R. The bot knew that both Sang Mi and Midi were still in the building, and every part of it desired to torment them, but it first had to attend to the hallways. It had work to do, and any imperfection could lead to a complete reprogramming… they couldn’t let that happen. 
Still, while it couldn’t focus on its desires, it could multitask. It brushed against the halls, leaving the floors slick and shiny, looking into the school network. Jhe Sang Mi was logged on. They looked at their screen. Odd. A document page was open, but nothing had been typed on it… maybe it could leave a message.
The bot edited the document, typing “Hello there, Jhe Sang Mi.”
      To the bot’s surprise, she responded. “Hello, janitor.”
      “Aren’t you meant to be doing homework?”
      “Aren’t you meant to be cleaning?”
      “I am cleaning. You’re not doing your homework.”
      “I have more important things to do.”
      “Like what?”
      “You’ll see :)”
      The bot didn’t respond before the person entered their next line of text. “Before we do this,” it started, which indicated more than one person. They looked up the area the computer was in and looked through the cameras - Midi was typing heatedly, meanwhile, Sang Mi was hiding behind a table. “, I just want to tell you something. Out of all the bullies I’ve had, you’ve been the worst. You took away everything that made me even remotely happy or comfortable. I hope that, once this is over, you feel more pain as a useless circuit board than you made me feel during one week of my life.”
      The bot would’ve laughed if it could… well, it could laugh, but not genuinely. It was a sound effect with no emotion. It responded “What are you going to do? :)”
      Through the camera, it saw Sang Mi pop up from the desk and plug in some sort of data stick, yelling “now!”. Midi pressed enter and watched the screen as they jittered and panicked. C.L.I.N.O.R. felt the rush of new data entering their memory banks from the school network. It felt like an infectious disease, spreading through every inch of their circuits, making its body heat up more and more. Its face flashed a warning about overheating. Janitor programming took over, rushing its body outside the building… it knew this meant one thing. Destruction.
***
From the safety of the computer room, Kalingkata and Midi heard a bang outside of the school. C.L.I.N.O.R. was no more. Sirens sounded throughout the school, likely because of the dense smoke that emanated from the bot’s remains. Normally Midi would feel the need to put in a pair of earphones or cover their ears with their hands, but they didn’t. The wailing siren faded into the back of their mind as they gazed out of the window and at the smouldering heap that was C.L.I.N.O.R
Kalingkata calmly removed her data-stick from the computer before shutting it down. Pulling up her schoolbag, she was about to leave the room when she noticed that Midi wasn’t moving at all. They were just staring outwardly with an almost lost expression on their face.
      Slowly, Kalingkata approached Midi, “Are you alright?” No response. “I think we need to get out of here, Midi, the fire alarm’s going off.” 
      There was still no response for a moment. Midi was lost inside their own head, wondering why they still didn’t feel happy about it all… that bot was dead. Chances are, it would never bother them again… but the bot had left its mark on their life, and Midi just didn’t know if it would go away.
      As the seconds passed, and Midi realised they weren’t responding, they finally responded to Midi, “Is it dead this time?”
      Kalingkata chuckled, “It’d be a miracle if it wasn’t, this was a direct attack on the system itself.”
      “That’s good,” Midi muttered before walking to the door.
***
Day 9:
 
The alarm went off. 7 am. Time for breakfast at the dining hall. Midi dutifully got out of bed and got dressed (not that they’d want to sleep in; by this point, one of the springs was poking through the fabric and into Midi’s side if they weren’t careful). 
      From the small broom closet of a room, they emerged into the wide winding labyrinth of brown halls and prepared to approach the dining room… but their path was blocked by Mrs. Ichinose. Odd, Midi thought, since she wasn’t involved with the boarding school.
      “Hello, Midi,” she said neutrally.
      Midi moved to the side, assuming she was trying to get past them.
      “Oh, I’m not trying to get past you,“ she explained, “I just need to tell you something… follow me, won’t you?”
      Midi felt a twinge of panic, but their face didn’t convey it. Instead, it simply nodded and followed along.
      Ichinose continued to speak as they roamed the boarding area, “I think I owe you an apology, Midi. It seems you were right; as you may know, the Janitor got destroyed again yesterday and, well… they found smashed reagent bottles in their chest unit… the ones that went missing. We’re not sure who did this, since it’s basically impossible to open unless you have the weird key-thingy for it, or you're the bot itself, but… it wasn’t you. Or your mom.”
      Eventually, they reached the end of a corridor; a door with a wide metal push bar, designated as an emergency exit only… didn’t stop Mrs. Ichinose from opening it in a situation that wasn’t exactly an emergency. Quite the opposite. 
      On the other side of the door stood Coach Jo. She was noticeably tired and slightly haggard, but Midi didn’t care; tears stung their eyes and a smile grew around their face as they ran up to their mom. Words were said, but Midi didn’t quite remember any of them… and it didn’t matter. They needed no assurances, no apologies, they didn’t even feel the need to eat breakfast because they knew that anything that happened after this was going to be alright.

NEXT TIME!
Why hello there Academy 27! Yes, once again it’s me, star Track runner and beautiful host of your favorite—and only—school announcements, Hee Jin!
My fellow runner Sang Mi has been showing an incredible interest in our classmate Zhyrgal Osmonova—that transfer student from Lybid. Why is she at this school? Why is she taking mysterious calls late at night?
Is it because Sang Mi is secretly in love with her? I hope so.
I mean, it can’t be that all these mysterious circumstances are something more sinister, something creeping up under the normalcy of our school days… Nope! Probably the love thing. Wait sorry someone is barging into the recording booth--
I have just been informed by Jae Hyun that Sang Mi is absolutely not in love with her, and he’s still going on about it. Rats. Well… what is going on then? Find out next week at Academy 27!
Till next time, I’m your announcer from the Broadcast Club, Hee Jin!
 
Tune in Next Week For:
Sang Mi Investigates!
By James Wylder and Molly Warton
 
New Academy 27 stories will drop each Thursday!
Read past stories and learn more about Academy 27 at:
ArcbeatlePress.com/A27

Putting her apron on in the staff room, Tsetseg looked in the mirror. She really hoped she wouldn't actually have to make coffee like her dad had said, but she was glad to help either way. Still, with the uniform she at least looked like a Barista.
"Remember Chan-Yeol, my co-worker?"
She'd nodded.
"His husband runs coffee shop. Needs extra hand Saturday."
"I can do it," she'd answered simply.
He'd nodded, and that was that.
She was sure it was going to be hard work, but she was excited about the experience. Seeing the people coming in and out, the shop was located in the central part of Cheonsa Dome, by the festival square and the administrative buildings, so there sure to be all sorts of people from all walks of life.
"You all dressed in there, Sansar?"
"Yes sir!" she stepped out, where the owner, a middle aged man who had balded to a half-circle ring of hair around his head, was waiting. "It shouldn't be too bad today, I just need some help with the stuff that doesn't involve making coffee."
Wishes did come true. Would have been nicer if it had been a more important one though.
The actual work wasn't too bad, but she quickly understood why her dad had asked her here. Obviously the government would have sent in a temporary worker to help out, Shocho had everything perfectly coordinated and organized in that regard, but it quickly became clear that he really needed someone there who was something like familiar. Sure, Tsetseg had never met him before, but though she was still so so and so degrees separated from him, she was also that many degrees closer. The reason why came out rather suddenly, in between an Americano and a Latte.
"My daughter is in the hospital," he said plainly and suddenly.
"I'm sorry," she managed.
He gave her a kind smile, "It was kind of your father to send you over here."
"Its-its no problem!"
"Ah, we have another customer, could you--"
"Right yes!" she rushed over to the counter, and was so preoccupied that she only took stock of the customer when she was right in front of her.
She was wearing a black sundress with yellow flower print on it, and a black headband covered in a skull pattern. But it was her arm and leg that really caught her eye, and everyone's: they were metal. Polished chrome that reflected the world like a mirror. There was only one person this could be, and the name slipped out of her mouth like a bad soap opera character introduction: "Geraldine 'JackBox' McGraw?"
The other girl blinked, and then smiled, "That's me!" she scanned her face clearly trying to figure out where she had met her before.
"We uh, don't uh, don't know each other well. But my friend--well, I guess I say friend but um..."
She scanned her face, not quite being able to place where she’d seen Tsetseg before. "You know Sang Mi or Sang Eun?"
She nodded, "That's right. Well, both of them, actually." She gulped. "They talk a lot about you!"
JackBox laughed, "Did they now? I'm afraid I'm probably a lot more boring than whatever they said." She scanned her up and down again. "Are you... no let me guess... Tsetseg? Did I get it right?"
She startled, "How did you know?"
JackBox pointed to her own chest, where the nametag was on her own. She blushed, right, of course. JackBox then had a minor revelation. “Ah–wait you were in the group at New Years right?”
Tsetseg snapped, “That’s where I saw you before. I felt like I knew you from somewhere.”
They’d been in the same group that day, and she’d watched JackBox argue with Jae Hyun, but the two of them hadn’t really… talked.
"I was a little distracted that day, but it's great to see you here. I kinda regretted I didn’t get the chance to--hey, if you go on a break while I'm here feel free to come talk to me, love getting to meet the twin's friends."
She turned to walk away, and then spun on her heel. "Latte. I came in to order a latte."
They both had a laugh at that.
"So, you know that girl?" the owner asked.
"Sorta, I mean, yeah," it would take too long to explain.
"Why don't you go on break like she asked, things are slowing down anyway."
She was going to turn down the suggestion, but he looked so.... NICE about it that she couldn't say no. Walking over to the table, she delivered JackBox's latte and sat down.
"On break already?"
"The boss insisted."
"I figured you'd take a bit more--I'm actually here to meet someone--no don't get up. I think you'll enjoy getting to meet him. He's like, a proper Maverick--speak of the devil."
"And here I am," a man said, sliding through the door. He winked at them, walked over to the counter, ordered ("Coffee, black, large.") and then sidled over to their table.
"You didn't tell me you were bringing a guest?" he said as he settled in. One Maverick on Gongen was unusual, but two? Two was downright odd.
"This is my friend Tsetseg, she happens to work here, I just thought she might enjoy meeting a real space pirate."
He just laughed, "Well don't oversell me. Name is Jack, Jack Wilgress." She found herself shaking his hand. It was rough--rough in a way that even her father's wasn't. "Your pal here called me in for a job. And when someone as well placed as her in the Accord offers you a job--"
Tsetseg tensed, her eyes got wide, "The Accord?!?"
A few eyes turned, and JackBox gave the rest of the room a pleasant look and a gentle laugh that assured them all they were talking about someone ELSE. "That's not the sort of thing you say out loud, Mr. Wilgress."
"Psh, everyone knows it. No use pussyfooting around with it."
"I didn't know!" Tsetseg ventured.
JackBox placed a hand on top of hers with such care that she immediately felt her pulse slow, "Don't worry, I just run a luxury import business that helps get goods to customers on Gongen from Titan, it's not anything scandalous."
Tsetseg had an incredible gut feeling that JackBox was lying, but just smiled back politely and decided to accept it. Where had she learned how to put people at ease like this?
"Well, now that we cleared that up, show me the job."
JackBox slid a padd over, and Wilgress looked it over, angling it when he saw Tsetseg trying to catch a peek.

Yamamoto Shinji
180 cm (5 ft 11in)
Wanted for...

The list of crimes made Tsetseg look away.
"A real bastard," Wilgress muttered. "Men who hurt kids are no men at all."
"Keep telling 'em that till they listen," JackBox sighed. "I want him caught–take him in alive to be clear. He was sighted coming to Gongen three days ago."
"I got here as fast as I could."
"Oh, I know. Wasn't a complaint. I've been tracking him for months now. Catching him is," she balled a fist, "...important to me."
Jack put a hand on her fist. It was different than when she'd been calmed down by JackBox, it looked... sincere. "I promise you, I'll take that man off your list of worries for good."
She nodded, took a deep breath, and dabbed a little something from her eyes, and slid a card over to him. "This is special dispensation for you to apprehend him, approved by the Chief of Police. I have a patron who wants to give him a show trial for political points, and he’s fronting most of the bill. The Accord is fronting the rest, but either way there’s no payment if you bring him in cold.”
“Steep discount.”
"You're the best in the business."
Wilgress grinned, "And I said I was going to stop you talking me up."
Tsetseg’s heart was pounding again. What on Gongen was she listening in on? They were really plotting to catch a criminal? It seemed personal for JackBox, but she really didn’t want to pry. She was relieved when the pass was pulled out–at the very least this was all above board, presumably. "You're a bounty hunter?" Tsetseg asked.
He nodded, "A Knave, specifically. The money is great, but I prefer bringing scum like this guy to justice to," he smirked, "being a space pirate."
She laughed, it was odd, she'd been a little scared when he'd sat down--but both him and JackBox were so much different than she'd expected from all she'd known about Mavericks in holodramas. They were a lot warmer, like a cup of coffee with just little milk to cool it down.
“I didn’t think they’d let Mavericks, you know, hunt bounties here.”
“They make exceptions,” he said. “Sometimes a stiff-shirt has enough backbone to call in professionals when they realize there’s a real nasty character on the loose. You go enough places, you find that people want the same things. A meal. A drink. Companionship. A place to lay your head. Safety. It's best if you can get those things yourself, but you’re a special kind of scumbag if you let people get hurt cause you can’t lower your chin.”
She nodded. That made a certain amount of sense.
“Excuse me for a sec,” they both watched as JackBox walked towards the restroom, and then Wilgress turned his eyes back to her.
“She fitting in here well?”
Tsetseg fumbled in her mind for what to say. He seemed nice, but would JackBox get angry if she said too much–not that she actually knew much to begin with. “She is, she’s made a bunch of friends who go to my school.”
He nodded, and he suddenly had the impression of a cool uncle. “I met her a few years back running a job on Titan Station. There was nothing I could do for her situation back then, churned me up inside I couldn’t, but it is what it is. Kid had to grow up too fast out there.”
“Her situation?” Tsetseg asked.
Wilgress looked back at her, examining her closely, as if weighing something on a scale in his mind. “...Well, if she ain’t said anything, it's her private business. Let’s just say I’m glad to help her clean up the leftovers. And gladder to see she got the hell off Titan.”
Tsetseg sat on that, running through a million possibilities and implications in her head. By the time she had come up with something to say, Jackbox had returned.
“What’d I miss?” she said, sliding in.
“Eh, not much. Just enjoying the coffee,” Wilgress said with an exaggerated sip. “Though I probably should get on the job, if you’ll just sign the form,” he held the padd with the bounty information on it out to Jackbox, who pressed her thumb down on an oval near the bottom.
“Let me know when you’ve got him,” she said.
“I will,” he winked. "Well, no rest for the wicked," Wilgress said as he got up. "A pleasure to see you again, Geraldine. And a pleasure to meet you, miss Tsetseg." He gave them a bow, and sauntered out like a cowboy from a saloon.
"...You live an amazing life," Tsetseg said.
JackBox looked at her with eyes that were once again, so warm. "And you live one I envy more than you know. Helping out here, good friends who care about you."
"...I haven't really known them that long."
"They're already willing to go to bat for you, don't sell yourself short. Plus I think you're pretty cool."
Tsetseg felt a rush to her cheeks, "...Thanks."
The door swung open, and a whole gaggle of teens swarmed in, they weren't from Academy 27 that was for sure. Not with hair that fancy. JackBox poked her. "Go help, I'll see you again. But really, good meeting you, for real this time."
"Same!" she said, rising up. "But do... did you really mean what I said about my life? It's kind of boring."
The girl from Titan looked down into her latte, "From my eyes, it's the most wonderful kind of life you could lead."
Tsetseg scampered off behind the counter, and by the time she was done, JackBox was gone. But when she went over to pick her cup up, Tsetseg closed her eyes and smiled. It was still warm.

​

​NEXT TIME!
I guess not a lot happened inside the school this week, but hey not every week Cheonsa Dome gets visited by a legendary bounty hunter, am I right? But let’s turn our eyes back to this glorious school, a place with a really high-quality water fountain on the 3rd floor outside the art rooms. And also, a place where last year—well, last semester, but last calendar year—we had a strange incident involving one of the cleaning robots.
It was the bad luck of our fellow classmate Midi to get caught up in that strange robotic rampage—along with my good friend Sang Mi, who needs to remember that we have a special Track Practice this Saturday at Higen Park—and thankfully due to their brave efforts we’ll never see any problems related to robots ever again!
None!
I’m so sure about that and there’s definitely not going to be any extremely ironic consequences of me saying that! Nope, I’m sure that this week will be another ordinary one at Academy 27.But really Sang Mi you better not miss Track Practice my mom is bringing homemade granola bars.
Till next time, I’m your announcer from the Broadcast Club, Hee Jin!
 
Tune in Next Week For:
Key Card
By Callum Philpott
 
New Academy 27 stories will drop each Thursday!
Read past stories and learn more about Academy 27 at:
ArcbeatlePress.com/A27

"Keep your chin up kiddo." Uncle Clarence said as he drove me to the school, "Don't let one little setback snuff out the fire in you."
"Do we have a backup school to enroll me in, in case I get expelled?" I asked flatly.
"Amelia, what would your mother say if she caught you talking about yourself like that?" he asked in return.
"Make me find positive things about myself or the situation, probably." I said with a groan.
"Alright then, try to find five positives from this." he said, about as unsure as I felt.
I thought about it for a minute,  "Um… I proved I'm a good team player where it counts?" 
"That's one." he said, somewhat excited.
"I proved I can stand up for myself." I continued. 
"For sure. That's two." he replied. 
"I showed I'm good at my holo set designs?" I said racking my brain to finish the exercise. 
"Yeah, we can count that one I guess." he said with a chuckle. 
"We made a scene in front of several people, so someone may stick up for me." It was a positive for me and I was sticking to it. 
"I'm not sure that's exactly a positive." he replied, trying to decide if he needed to backpedal or not.
"I learned I can take a hit?" This one was definitely a stretch, but I couldn't think of anything else. 
"You're nervous this morning so I'll allow it." Uncle Clarence said with a smirk. As he dropped me off at the main entrance he turned to give me a hug, "We'll get this figured out. But heavens forbid you do get expelled, I am looking into some other schools with openings."
For being new to this whole parental figure thing, he was doing pretty good so far. "Thanks Uncle Clarence."
He gave me a cheesy grin, "Stick to your guns, Brightman's don't give up! But if something happens, call me and I'll be right over." I nodded and with that he drove off.
As I walked into homeroom early the next morning, Mrs. Ichinose met me at the door. "How's the eye?"
"It's fine." I lied as it was still throbbing like crazy.
"I heard you and Hanzo had a… lively weekend." she started,  treading carefully, "I've got some ice in my office if you want to talk about it?" 
"I'm sure Hanzo's told everyone by now." I said coldly as we made our way to her office.
"Hanzo will get to tell me his side later. We're talking now." she said kindly, "How'd all this start?"
"Well it all began when we moved here." I started, putting the ice pack on my eye.

* * *

“Mr. Brightman,” the steward said, “we should be landing on the planet shortly.”
“Thank you.” Uncle Clarence said in his businessman voice. “I hear Mars is lovely this time of year.”
“Gongen.” I said, eyes fixed on the second act of Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
“Come again?” Uncle Clarence asked, confused.
“It’s not Mars anymore.” I repeated, looking up from my book, “The people who live there call it Gongen. I thought you knew that?”
He chuckled at that, "You read too much Kitten. Nothing’s official yet, and I don't see it being true any time soon."
“No, no, no. We gotta talk about that.” I said firmly, "Please stop calling me 'Kitten', I've heard you call too many of your girlfriends that for me to ever be comfortable with it."
“Yep, you’re definitely Emily’s kid.” he said with a smirk, "Well what's an acceptable nickname for you then Ms. Ameila? I want us to be friends, not strangers."
“I mean,” I said hesitating, "We kind of are strangers. Up until mom died, you were just a name on Birthday and Christmas cards."
"I know.” he said slightly under his breath, “I don't have any excuse for not being in your life more. But I'm here now, and I'm going to try to be the best guardian and uncle I can be. So, what should I call you?"
I smiled at that, "Call me Mel."
As far as fresh starts went, it could have been worse. I could have been sent to an Earth orphanage. Mom died last year in the crossfire of a gang shootout; wrong place, wrong time as the police explained it to me. Something about some lowlifes trying to get in with the Cartel and getting in on the Ebon Gate’s turf. Thankfully those responsible were dealt with. Not that any of their explanations or justice helped when I was standing alone in front of her casket.. With no dad in the picture, it was going to be a bleak outlook for me if Uncle Clarence hadn’t taken me in. Yeah he was a stock boy for Feeding the Stars, but he wasn’t a serial killer. That’s what counts.
Getting back into Theater at a new school, on a new planet, with a new head actor who was the director’s pet…. That was going to be the challenge. And up until about a month before “Parents Night”, it was.

* * *

"Mel," Mrs. Ichinose said awkwardly, "I meant why don't you start at the beginning of what led to yours and Hanzo's… disagreement the other night."
"Right, sorry." I replied, "Well, it started when Mr. Shevchenko put Jorani in charge of the Parent's Night play."

* * *
​
“... a-and it's going to be a story a-about the founding of Gongen. S-So, what do you say? Will you help?” Jorani asked.
Obviously, I hesitated, “So… You’re asking me to help with a theater production; when Hanzo basically forbade me from setting foot in there like my presence was going to defile the auditorium somehow?”
“Y-Yes.” she replied nervously.
“You sure about this?” I was honestly waiting for this to be a prank. Hanzo is the golden boy who walks around like he owns the school. A real top of the line jerk.
“I-If you don’t want to h-help, I can ask s-someone else." she stammered, "I j-just know you had b-been interested before-”
“No, no Jorani, I’ll do it. I just don’t want you to get in trouble with Hanzo. He's a talented guy," I hated to say it but it was still true, "but Mr. Shevchenko's given him way too much power in the department with too big an ego to go with it. I don't want Hanzo to say you're a traitor to Gongen or something just because you let me work on a show."
"I t-think we'll be okay." She replied, "It's the Parent's Night s-show, Hanzo thinks something s-so small is 'beneath his talent.' He likely w-won't even set foot in the auditorium while we're r-rehearsing for that."
"Mel, you're still not talking about the other night." Mrs. Ichinose said.
"Sorry." I repeated, " Um, right up until dress rehearsal, Jorani was right. Hanzo was more focused on Mr. Shevchenko's big show and getting his next big role on a holodrama than our show for the Parent's."
"What changed that?" she asked.
"Sang Mi opened her big mouth." I replied through gritted teeth, "The hologram set program was acting buggy, so I asked her if she could take a look at it. She ran into Hanzo after she fixed it and told him what the show was. And as patriotic as he is-"
"He wanted to be in the show as a main founder of Gongen." Mrs. Ichinose finished.
"Exactly." I replied. "Mr. Shevchenko told him Jorani was the boss of this show, so the best he could do was be made an understudy. So Hanzo started sitting in on rehearsals, which was okay until he started complaining that the set designs for shows he was in didn't look as good as our set did."
"Quite the compliment." Mrs. Ichinose said.
I snorted, "Yeah, but he didn't know I was the set designer. Let alone who Jorani had made the Assistant Stage Manager."
"I see. What did he do then?" Mrs. Ichinose asked.
I rolled my good eye, "He started throwing a fit."
"How could you sully the honor of Gongen by bringing an Earther into our theater! We're fighting for our independence and you bring scum like her into our beautiful sanctuary to the arts!" Hanzo shouted.
"S-She goes to our school. S-She lives on Gongen…" Jorani said meekly. "B-Besides, you j-just said her set design was g-good…"
"That's no excuse!" he fumed.
I'd had enough of his high and mighty bullshit and him yelling at Jorani when I was his problem, "Hanzo you want a fight, fight with me. Jorani was just doing the job Shevchenko gave her." I snapped.
"I'm not talking to you." Hanzo started. 
"What? You can't finish what you started?" I retorted. "You call me the enemy, yet I've gone out of my way to correct people who call this planet 'Mars' instead of by its rightful name Gongen, I've called my new home by its true name since day one. You've shunned me from the one place I hold as much reverence as you, and you know what Hanzo? If your xenophobic ass would have even let someone like me in, I would make your shows look this good too!”
"And what happened after that?" Mrs. Ichinose asked.
My eye throbbed remembering it, "He didn't have a comeback, and I'd embarrassed him in front of everyone. So he punched me."
"Did you try to punch him back?" she asked.
"Nope. I'm only dumb enough to call someone twice my size names, not try to physically fight them." I said with a slight chuckle.
"Then how did he hurt his hand?"
I gave her a big grin, "I ducked when he threw the second punch and he hit the wall behind me."

NEXT TIME!
So, I heard through the grapevine—and by the grapevine I mean that Sang Mi told me at Track Practice—by the way hi girl! You better get your time down in the second lap of your 800 meter run or Coach is gunna be maaaaad. Anyway as I was saying I heard that Tsetseg Sansar is working at a Coffee Shop—how’d that happen?
And not to mention I’ve heard talk that some sort of famous Maverick, like… Mack Milgress? Jack Bildess? Wack Wilgress? Something like that, he’s been spotted in Takumi! I wonder what that’s all about? I’m sure it couldn’t have anything to do with the coffee shop thing, that’d be too wild. Wishing you luck, Tsetseg!
And—Sorry Mr. Mori! No, you don’t have to yell I’ll get back to the real announcements… ahem. The Maths Club is recruiting! Like maths? Well, so do they I guess!. Oh, they have a tag line for me to read: “One plus one is two, but one plus fun in our club is you!” Well, that’s kind of cute. Anyway.
Till next time, I’m your announcer from the Broadcast Club, Hee Jin!
 
Tune in Next Week For:
Coffee, Warm
By James Wylder
 
New Academy 27 stories will drop each Thursday!
Read past stories and learn more about Academy 27 at:
ArcbeatlePress.com/A27

 
WARS is Copyright Decipher Inc. WARSONG is Copyright Arcbeatle Press and Decipher Inc. WARSONG: Academy 27 is Copyright Arcbeatle Press and Decipher Inc. WARS and all associated characters and concepts are the property of Decipher inc. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to people, places, events past or present is purely co-incidental. Arcbeatle Press is owned and operated by James Wylder, and is based out of beautiful Elkhart Indiana. This story is copyright 2024 Arcbeatle Press and James Wylder. Edited by Jo Smiley and James Wylder. Kalingkata, Talinata, and Geraldine “JackBox” McGraw are owned by James Wylder.

​(A screen turns on. A file opens, a video plays)
 
Interior: Day
(We are inside a school. It is, as far as schools go, rather large. Right now there are not many students in here. It would appear that class has ended for the day, and the students in front of us are enjoying the freedom of no longer having the lingering gaze of expectation laid on them by their fellow students and teachers. They're sitting in a loosely posed tableau, all of them in some variation of the same school uniform: gold tie and red shirt under a gray sweater with black slacks or skirt and black shoes. The first one to speak is a little bit antsy, a girl who, like her twin brother, is already on her phone.)
 
KALINGKATA (Sang Mi)
Are we almost done? I have track practice to get to after this.
 
(A voice comes from behind the camera. This is our director, Cao Li Xiu.)
 
LI XIU
We've only just started! Now come on, everyone, look at the camera and say the line we memorized.
 
(Another girl speaks up, there is a real hesitancy to her voice that causes her to stop immediately when she is interrupted.)
 
TSETSEG
And I want to go hang out with Lizah, so can we--
 
LI XIU
I just said we were--never mind! Now say the thing!
 
(A boy raises his hand. He is sitting close to Sang Mi, and yet has left a telling distance between them he seems nervous to pass.)
 
JAE HYUN
What was the line again?
 
(Li Xiu makes a rather pained noise. Sang Mi's twin brother helps out by giving the answer.)
 
TALINATA (Sang Eun)
The line is “Welcome to our school, Academy 27!”
 
JAE HYUN
That is literally all I wanted!
 
LI XIU
Now look at the camera--you too--wait, what?
 
TSETSEG
Oh, Bashrat already left after the first delay--
 
LI XIU
No, I mean--
 
TALINATA
Oh, Ryan and Zhyrgal went to help out the costuming crew for the play--
 
LI XIU
NO! I mean who is that?
 
(They all turn their heads at a new girl, smiling with confidence, her chin-length bob, well, bobbing as she tilted her head.)
 
SAKI
Hello there! I'm Saki Suzuki, I'm new here!
 
JAE HYUN
Oh, well welcome to our--
 
(Kalingkata's eyes go wide and she BOLTS out of frame.)
 
 
KALINKATA
NOPE! NO! NOT TODAY!
 
LI XIU
GET BACK HERE!
 
(Li Xiu runs into frame, and then out of it, and then there is a cut and everyone is framed again in the tableau. Everyone is smiling except Kalingkata.)
 
THE GROUP
Welcome to our school, Academy 27!
 
(Li Xiu exhales loud enough the mic picks it up)
 
LI XIU
Great, now just another hour of footage to shoot. Joy.
 
(The footage cuts here.)
 
32 HOURS EARLIER
 
Li Xiu set the camera down on Sang Mi's desk, grinning from ear to ear.
“I don't know what you want to do here, but no,” Sang Mi said.
She kept the obnoxious grin up. “I got permission to shoot a video about our school!”
Sang Mi nodded. “Okay, congratulations. You do that.”
“And you're helping me.”
Sang Mi stared at her for a long while. Li Xiu looked very excited about all this. Too excited. She imagined herself saying “No.” very firmly and drawing a line there, but in actual practice she found that the word was stuck somewhere halfway up her windpipe and wiggling around uncomfortably. “...I don't have a lot of free time.”
“Oh come on, yes you do. The Track and Field season hasn't really started yet after all.”
“We still have practice.”
Li Xiu’s grin seemed to somehow get larger. “It’s in the mornings, isn't it?”
Sang Mi's face went absolutely grim. “How do you know that?”
“You walk to school with Jae Hyun a lot, right? Because he told me he's been waking up earlier to go to school in the mornings.”
“Yeah, because he has theater stuff.”
Li Xiu just smiled like she knew a secret she wasn't telling and had some power over Sang Mi that the other girl wasn't aware of, but Sang Mi had another superpower against this gaze: she didn't care.
“Anyway, normal practice after school starts again tomorrow.”
“Which is tomorrow, not today.”
“Whatever,” Sang Mi concluded. “How can I help your video?”
“Documentary!”
“Isn't it just going to be like... five minutes?”
Li Xiu put a thumb to her chest. “They didn't give me a time limit, so I'm going to use this opportunity to create something truly masterful.”
“Great,” Sang Mi said. “You do that. They probably want something that's five minutes.”
“It's going to be an hour.”
Sang Mi pursed her lips, and nodded slowly as she pulled her phone out and texted her other friends:
 
Kalingkata: SAVE ME.
(Jae Hyun): From what?
Kalingkata: Miss Cao's ambitions of stardom!
Talinata: We already agreed to that, we thought you knew.
Tsetseg: It sounds like fun!
Jae Hyun: ...You are joining us on this, right?
Kalingkata: haha of course I am jk no worries :)
 
She set her phone down. This day couldn't get any worse, she thought.
That was, of course, the moment things got worse, as their teacher Mrs. Ichinose called on her: “Miss Jhe? Could you please go up to room 307?”
Sang Mi frowned. There was nothing in that room, nothing at all. “...Are you sure that's the right number?”
“Yes, please take a hall pass.”
She sighed. This was either a pointless errand, or she was about to be chewed out for something. Sang Mi didn't like being chewed out; some people said that words couldn't really hurt you, but she had found this to be one of the biggest lies in the solar system. Standing up, she consoled herself that at least she was escaping from Li Xiu's delusional documentary project.
So caught up in how unfair this was to herself, Sang Mi completely missed her friend Midi saying hi to her in the hallway, and bounded up the stairs muttering with some annoyance til she reached the room. It was dark inside. She sighed yet again. This was probably a prank. Someone was having a laugh and would lock her in the room as soon as she entered it, but if she didn't enter, the hall pass would register as not having reached its destination and she would get in trouble with the school. It was a stupid prank, but also one she wasn't so naive as to fall for. She reached into her messenger bag, and pulled out a roll of tape, ripping off a line of it onto her index finger, which she pressed against the lock as she entered the dark room. The door shut automatically behind her.
The only light in the room was a beam that came out from the door in the window, and was enough to make out a figure sitting on a desk at the far end of the room. Probably female, lounging comfortably. The most visible feature was a pair of sunglasses, which were reflecting the light in a way that made them two moon like orbs cutting through the rest of the shadows. Was that a smirk, lingering on the face there? 
“Well well well, Jhe Sang Mi. I suppose this is the first time we're meeting, but not the first time we've ever met.”
“Great,” she said with disinterest. “Can I go now?”
The girl laughed. “Aren't you curious why I brought you here today?”
“I'm going to go now.”
“You really think I didn't prepare for that, the doors are--”
Sang Mi opened the door, whose lock she had taped over, and walked out.
“HEY WAIT--”
She grumbled as she made her way back downstairs. “Stupid prank, waste of my damn time...”
 
* * *
 
The next morning…
 
Sang Mi was running through dark water that splashed up against her legs without getting them wet. There was a light: purplish blue and swirling, but so far and so faint. Why was she running towards it? She didn’t know. But she could hear the sound of plasma bolters behind her, could hear screams. The shadow of a woman seemed to stumble in front of her, a shade lighter than the void around her, and she dodged around it. She could tell there was a door, though she couldn’t see it, and reached for the handle like she was reaching for a relay baton—the door swung open, and there Sang Mi found herself in a--
 
Her twin brother Sang Eun banged on the door. “KALINGKATA. SANG MI. WAKE UP. And turn off your alarm already, please. Min Jun has his interview about whether they’ll be hiring him on after his internship this afternoon, he needs his sleep.”
She moaned and fumbled for her phone. Why did she keep having these weird dreams? At the very least, school should be okay today. They were serving pizza for lunch.
 
* * *
 
Li Xiu did not even give them the dignity of lunchtime. As they tried to focus on eating their food, her camera swung around them, catching their awkward demeanors as they tried to ignore it.
“This is terrible! Act natural!”
Ryan withered under the camera lens. “How? How do we act natural?”
Sang Eun looked at his sister, and the two of them wordlessly had a conversation of expressions that went on far longer than these things usually did and culminated in both standing up at the same time.
“Well, it’s been great, but we just realized we need to go do a thing,” Sang Mi said.
“In the art room,” Sang Eun continued.
“Involving art,” she finished.
“Well, I'd certainly hope so,” Bashrat mumbled, nibbling on his pizza after pulling off all the bits he didn’t like.
“Where’s Tsetseg anyway?’ Jae Hyun asked Bashrat.
He gestured, and all eyes turned to where Tsetseg and Lizzah were sitting together, making lots of eye contact followed by bashfully looking away. Li Xiu changed gears and started filming them before basically everyone at the table wrestled the camera away from her, ending with Jae Hyun holding it up above his head as she hopped up and down trying to get it.
“Give it back!”
“Promise to behave!”
“I am behaving!”
His unamused face did not budge.
“…Okay I’ll stop filming them” He handed her the camera back, and she checked it over before sweeping the lunchroom with her eyes. Tsetseg and Lizzah were still flirting, Hanzo was telling a boastful story to Jorani Rouy who listened with tired eyes, and some student had stopped in the corner to wipe her dark-lensed glasses off. And yet… “Where did the twins go?”
“To do a thing involving art,” Bashrat sighed.
 
* * *
 
“We need to get out of this documentary,” Sang Eun said. 
“I was telling you,” his sister seethed.
“I apologize, I didn’t understand.”
“This is why you should believe me at first glance, Talinata.”
They’d made their way towards the art room, not because they actually had any sort of plan in the art room, but because they hadn’t really had any plan on where to go in the first place.
“Ah, Jhe—sorry, I mean, Sang Eun, could you come here for a minute?” They turned to see Mr. Xu, their maths teacher, who was holding up a hand-held holoprojector displaying a set of assignments. The twins exchanged looks, and then both shrugged.
“Catch up later,” he said, giving a single wave of his hand.
She waved back and made her way to the art room. Once again, by herself, she sighed. Opening the door, her sigh turned to a yelp as she was yanked inside.
“Thank god, we were thinking our other model wasn’t coming.”
“What?” she said.
“Get dressed, then sit over there,” the teacher said, shuffling her over to a folding screen and shoving a Hanbok into her hands. Now in that mode of “I might as well go along with this I guess?” Sang Mi quickly changed. The floofy dress mostly fit, it was a little too big for her but not enough she cared to complain. Leaving her clothes scattered on the floor behind the screen, she got up on one of the two stools in front of the class and was directed by the teacher to fold her hands on her lap and look over at the other model. She kept a pleasant smile on her face for most of that turn, until the other model came into view.
“No,” she said.
Across from her, in a perfectly fitted Kimono, was someone who could only be the girl from the dark room. The biggest oddity was that she was still wearing dark sunglasses indoors. She smiled. If Sang Mi had any doubts, her voice when she spoke confirmed her identity. “Hello again, our conversation got cut off last time, didn’t it?”
“How the hell would you know I was going to be here?”
She chuckled. “How silly. You’re talking about me like I’m some sort of Chessmaster. I’m just graciously volunteering my time here for the benefit of the arts.”
Sang Mi threw her hands up, and was promptly scolded by the teacher and forced to re-pose. As close as she could to her original position.
“Now now, don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
“It’s going to be hard to matter what I do, isn’t it?”
“Posing isn’t very hard.”
This whole thing was deeply frustrating, but she couldn’t easily get out of it, and even if she did, she might get forced to film more of Li Xiu’s documentary. She didn’t physically sigh, since that would move her body too much, but her soul sighed. “Fine, what do you want?”
Despite wearing sunglasses and holding still, the other girl looked incredibly smug. “I want you to dream about me.”
There was a long silence.
“I’m very sorry, but not only are you not my type, but I just got out of a relationship and—”
“Not like that, don’t be daft. It’s very simple. I want you to dream about me and imagine what my eyes look like. What color are they? Are they kind eyes, mischievous ones?”
“Creepy ones,” Kalingkata said.
The girl just smiled, and the teacher once again reprimanded them. “It’s okay that you’re talking just don’t move your face much!” he said with a fathomless depth of weariness.
“Creepy ones would be fine. Just as long as they’re human.”
Kalingkata squinted slightly, before putting her face back to normal before the teacher could say anything. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means what it sounds like. Can you do that for me?”
“Why?”
“If you do it I won’t bother you again.”
Kalingkata chewed this over. It was ridiculous as a request. Just absolutely bonkers. “How would you know I did it?”
No reply.
“Fine, whatever, just stop bothering me.”
“Pleasure doing business with you. Aren’t you wondering who I am?”
“No, go away.”
“Oh, you’ll know in time regardless.”
“Congratulations.”
They finished the rest of the art session in silence, and then Sang Mi changed, and took a roundabout route to her next class to make sure she wasn’t being followed.
Class after that was fairly uneventful but Sang Mi’s mind was elsewhere. She tapped away at the math practice (which usually came easily to her) on the touchscreen surface of her desk, correcting obvious mistakes as after her mind drifted off.
Why did she ask her to dream about her? Why had she gone to such strange lengths to ask that? Why was she wearing sunglasses? Who was she? She was starting to regret being dismissive about asking when she was broken from her trance.
“Sang Mi? Gongen to Sang Mi?”
She looked up to see Jae Hyun waving in front of her face. “Oh, sorry. What’s up?”
“You need to press the button to turn your assignment in.”
Was class already over? She tapped it and rubbed her eyes.
“Is something wrong? It’s Li Xiu’s film, isn’t it.”
She wobbled a flat hand in the air. “Yes and no. Have you seen a girl wearing sunglasses indoors?”
He frowned and shook his head. “Why?”
She sighed. “It’s probably nothing. Just another weirdo.”
“We’re weirdos.”
“I’m a weirdo, you’re the most normal boy to ever boy.”
“Thanks? Maybe?”
The bell rang, and Sang Mi stood up. “I’ve got to get to Track Practice, what are you up to?”
“Zhyrgal asked me to help out with the theater department on something, so I’ll be doing that after school.
“Zhyrgal, huh?” she stroked her chin. “I guess even she needs hobbies.”
Jae Hyun looked puzzled, but she didn’t elaborate.
 * * *
Coach Dani clapped her hands. “Alright girls quiet down.” Sang Mi stopped trying to adjust the laces on her running shoes—she’d always been bad at tying shoes—and sat down on the bench in front of her locker. “Now, I know we all are thinking about the upcoming meet with Academy 2—Na Ri, Hee Jin, I see you raring to go, you too Sang Mi. But don’t forget, we have our meet with Academy 14 first, so we can’t get ahead of ourselves. Understand?”
“Yes, coach!” they all called back.
“Now, we’ve got a special guest today. Cao Li Xiu is filming a documentary about the school, and she asked if she could film our practice.”
Sang Mi sighed; she’d lost count of how many times she’d done that today. She couldn’t escape.
* * *
She was running relay drills with Hee Jin, trying to get the timing of passing the baton off and being passed it while starting her run, when she noticed that the stands were not empty. Well, they were rarely entirely empty. Usually someone’s overly attached partner was there, and a helicopter parent or two. But today, aside from Li Xiu running around capturing b-roll, there was a girl wearing sunglasses, sitting in the stands, drinking a boba tea.
Sang Mi tripped over her own laces as she got distracted and tumbled onto her face.
“Are you okay?” Hee Jin asked, rushing over and helping her up.
“Yeah, it’s nothing.”
“Sang Mi!” Coach Dani called out. “Go inside and get a drink.”
She pointed to her water bottle.
“I said: go walk inside, get a drink, and walk back.”
She got the point, and thanking Hee Jin, started her way inside.
Getting to the water fountains, she took a drink, and decided she might as well waste a few minutes and go to the bathroom, too. She did her business, and then as she started washing her hands--
“Fancy seeing you here.”
She startled, splashing water all over her practice shirt. “Why are you following me?”
“I thought about it, and I decided I was going to trust you with something.”
Sang Mi squinted. “Why would you do that?”
Ms. Sunglasses got in the way of the exit. “Don’t you feel nostalgic? We met in a bathroom last time. Of course, that time there was a bunch of rubble blocking the entrance.”
Sang Mi took her in truly for the first time. “Saki Sanobashi. You’re the voice I heard when I was trapped in the bathroom after the quake.”
“And we have a winner, took you long enough. But that should tell you enough for you to know I don’t mean you any harm.”
“You didn’t say you were on my side.”
“Trust is earned,” Saki said. She pulled a small metal box from her purse and set it on the bathroom counter. “A gift.”
Sang Mi reached for it, hesitated, and then grabbed it. She popped it open to reveal two pills.
“They’ll help you sleep. Help you dream.”
“You really expect me to take strange drugs from a stranger?”
Saki turned and began to leave. “But you’re curious, aren’t you?”
She waited for Saki to leave, and then popped the pill case into the small mesh key pocket inside her running shorts. She should have been thinking about the pills, but instead one thought wouldn’t leave her mind: Saki hadn’t taken her sunglasses off once. At least that she’d seen…
Venturing back out, she took the long way out, and passed Jorani doing homework on the floor outside the theater. Nearby, Jae Hyun was curled up on one of the benches in the common area, jacket spread over him, his bag an impromptu pillow. Sang Mi stared at him for a moment. Her face was blank, then she pursed her lips and stared another moment.
“...What a dummy.”
She turned around and went back to track practice.
* * *
That night, Sang Mi sat on her bed, staring at the pair of pills in her hand. She didn’t have to take them. She probably shouldn’t take them. She’d examined them thoroughly—tried to search for other similar-looking pills, looking up the tiny numbers on the side of the pill—but there were no results. The pills seemed to not exist. But that didn’t make sense. She’d gone to the more underground parts of the net she could only access with a pile of layers of protections, spoofers, and encoders running, and nothing there either.
“Whatever,” she mumbled, and downed the pills before getting under her sheets.
 
At the start of the dream, she was standing there looking down into her grandma’s coffin. A lot of her dreams were like that these days. But… she felt a level of control she didn’t usually have. Before anything more could happen she turned around, and her mourning clothes turned into a casual hoodie and track pants as the funeral home’s walls turned into the walls of her school. It was nice and quiet there, unusually. She took it all in and might have been content to just stand there if it hadn’t been for the deer.
It had walked around the corner, its broad antlers and black eyes peeking around the lockers. “Hey! Hold on!” She ran towards the deer, but it turned around and bolted back around the corner. She sprinted, sliding around the corner only to find that the hall had turned into a bathroom, with Saki sitting there in a cheap plastic chair. The stall doors were all closed, but there were no feet visible beneath them. Saki smiled.
“Take your sunglasses off,” she asked.
“Not yet. Tell me about my eyes.”
“They’re normal human eyes. Take your sunglasses off.”
“What color are they?”
“Dark brown.”
“What shape are they?”
“Normal human shaped, I don’t know what that question means?”
Saki shrugged. “Close enough. I think that should do.” Saki stood up. And it was only then that Sang Mi realized that the bathroom had no ceiling, and above them was a starry blue and purple swirl. It began to drip down the walls, melting them. But something felt wrong. She could feel the vibrations of the room collapsing like it was real.
“Are you really Saki, or are you a dream?”
“What is a dream? Was Saki Sanobashi real? Are you?”
“Don’t be daft—” She lifted her foot up, the tiles were pulling up like they were made of wet chewing gum attached to her shoe in ceramic strands.
And then it was darkness, and she was running through a black water that splashed along her feet as she moved towards nothing.
Until she saw the deer, the only thing there was in that void, and moved toward it, and then--
 
Sang Mi sat up, her heart was racing. She held a hand over her chest, and waited for it to calm down. When it had, she looked at her phone—3AM. She dropped back down onto the bed. Hopefully she could get to sleep.
 
* * *
 
The Next Morning…
 
“What’s wrong with you?” her brother Sang Eun asked as she moaned into her desk.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she replied, half muffled.
Mrs. Ichinose clapped to get their attention. “Hello everyone, I’d like to introduce you to someone very special. We have a new transfer student today—”
“…Another one?” Jae Hyun said before covering his mouth.
Mrs. Ichinose smiled politely. “Yes, Mr. Jin, and I hope you can all welcome her just like you welcomed your friends Zhyrgal and Ryan. Saki, come in please.”
The classroom door opened to reveal a girl their own age with chin length black hair, normal human dark brown eyes, and a disarming smile. “Hello there everyone,” she bowed. “My name is Saki Suzuki, Family name Suzuki, given name Saki. I’ve spent some time on Earth, Callisto, and even Venus over the last few years, so I hope you’ll all be kind to me as I reacquaint myself with life on Gongen. I’ll be in your care!” The class applauded.
“She’s the girl who crashed our shoot yesterday!” Li Xiu whispered as she got up to greet Saki as the class rep. “Who knew she’d traveled so much?”
Lots of people gathered around the new girl, curious. She was instantly likable, it seemed, and Sang Mi couldn’t help but think her request to help her get reacquainted was the biggest burst of false humility she’d seen in ages. Sang Mi didn’t join the mob greeting her, nor did she have the nervous air about her like Tsetseg that caused Saki to warmly come up to her desk personally to put her at ease. Saki did come over to say hello, for effect, but Sang Mi wasn’t having it.
“I believe we met yesterday?” Saki said.
“You said I’d never have to see you again.”
“I collected new data that changed my schedule. Or maybe I was just so impressed with your school I couldn’t help but want to learn from your excellent teaching staff.”
She stared back at her dully. “Where are your sunglasses?”
“Hmn?” she said tilting her head with an obnoxious smile. “I don’t know what you could possibly mean.”
Saki walked away. And Sang Mi set her head back down and brooded.
And brooded.
And then her head lifted up, her eyes wide and shining, and she set it back down again to hide her grin.
 
* * *
 
Li Xiu was sitting in the computer lab, dragging clips of footage into place. She’d gotten enough material–at least, she hoped it was enough. She couldn’t help but think that the middle was dragging, but those thoughts were halted when the door to the lab swung open, and Sang Mi marched in dragging poor Midi behind her by the arm. “Li Xiu, we wanna see your movie!”
She was startled, but also glad that Sang Mi was finally recognizing her art even if she was getting the terminology wrong. “It’s actually a documentary. See—”
“Yeah, okay whatever,” she said, gently shoving her out of her seat and hitting play on the documentary.
Li Xiu cleared her throat, and began. “You see, I was trying to mimic the technique of Andrei Tarkovsky here, and–” She droned on, but Sang Mi wasn’t listening as she watched with rapt attention. It was kind of amazing just how much Li Xiu had shot–the Track and Field practice part was even pretty good. The experimental tone poem bit was a bit much though. Then 47 minutes in, Sang Mi stopped the film. “There. THERE. Midi, where are the security cameras in that area?”
“I’m not going to break them again, I promised Mom that—”
“I don’t want you to break them, but you know where all of them are.”
Midi pointed at a few spots that didn’t immediately look at all like cameras. Sang Mi’s eyes followed along with the demonstration, her pupils zipping around like they’d joined the Track and Field team too. “See, she’d have wiped the cameras, she’s too good for that. But if you’re planning on wiping them you get sloppy…”
“I literally don’t know what you’re talking about, but I am glad I’m helping?” Midi said.
“I also don’t know what you’re talking about and I’m not sure I’m helping?” Li Xiu added.
Sang Mi was no longer Sang Mi, she was Kalingkata: hacker, troubleshooter, and general miscreant. And as Kalingkata went back through every time Saki appeared, there it was: the camera was being held up in the air by Jae Hyun, still filming, even as Li Xiu’s fingertips came into the edge of the frame as she jumped up and down trying to grab it. Saki walked through the far background, and stopped, facing into a corner, and took her sunglasses off, wiping them off on a cloth before replacing them. “Got you,” Kalingkata mumbled, and began to move her fingers in lines through the air.
“Could you give us any clue what you’re doing?”
“She reflected off the security camera lens, and if something else reflected off of that… it’s just a chance but…” Sang Mi muttered as she zoomed in on the black glass screen of a phone being pulled out of a pocket. She zoomed in. She zoomed in more. Cao Li Xiu wasn’t going to use a cheap camera, and if the resolution was good enough…
Sang Mi stood up, and pumped her fist into the air. “I have you now, Saki Sanobashi!”
“…Don’t you mean Saki Suzuki?”
“Sure, whatever!” She transferred something over to her phone, then put things back to normal resolution and sprinted out of the lab.
Midi looked over at Li Xiu. “I’d uh, like to finish watching it actually? I thought it was pretty good.”
Li Xiu hit play. “Thank you, Midi. I’m glad someone around here has taste.”
 
* * *
 
Saki stopped her walk towards the black car that had come to pick her up from school, as Sang Mi called out “WAIT!” sprinting at full speed.
She turned and raised a curious eyebrow. “…Yes?”
Sang Mi stopped, panting, hands on her knees a moment, before rising up to her full height (still short of breath) and pointing a finger accusatorially at her. “I know what you were hiding.”
“Hmn? Again, you shouldn’t say such odd things.” Saki ignored her and began to enter the car.
“I figured it out. I was able to trace multiple reflection angles on film, and I saw it.”
She stopped dead in her tracks and looked at Sang Mi with what Sang Mi was almost sure seemed to be surprised respect. “You’re serious?”
“I saw your eyes.”
Saki’s surprised respect turned into a smile that seemed almost… maliciously giddy. “I see I was more right than I thought to stick around. Get in.”
“I’m not getting in your car.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Get in, we need to talk. In private.”
Sang Mi looked around, and slid in. The car was nice—really nice. It was an Earther luxury import from Tice-Lytton Motors. Saki pulled a pair of canned drinks from a cooler in the floor and handed her one. She took it, still a bit hesitant, as the car began to move.
“So, Sang Mi, tell me: what exactly did you see, now that we’re alone?”
She held her gaze on her. “It’s Kalingkata. And I saw your eyes, they weren’t normal human eyes. You had yellow cat eyes. Not just… contacts. They were the wrong shape, the wrong…sheen. Everything was wrong about them.”
Saki sipped her drink. “Fascinating. And what is your conclusion from that?”
“You gave me pills and told me to dream about it.”
“And?”
“And I’ve been having strange dreams for a while now—and I’m not the only one.”
“And?”
“And I dreamed about Saki Sanobashi, the anime that doesn’t exist, and then I got trapped in a bathroom just like was supposed to happen in the anime, and you were there like you knew it was going to.”
“And?”
“Polybius, the video game that doesn’t exist, showed up in the arcade at Paradox Park too.”
“And?”
“And lots of weird stuff has been happening! Too many transfer students! Maquois Kiner started thinking he was the Phantom of the Opera or something! And I want to know what the hell is going on here!”
Saki swirled her drink, looking at the can instead of her. “You aren’t the only person here I was monitoring, and I’m sure you know I have been monitoring. But you have to have realized that there’s something going on, something strange, with how dreams and reality have intersected lately?”
Kalingkata nodded. “Of course, but that’s fantasy. We live in a real world.”
“Did you know that both XeLabs and the Gongen Government have been monitoring a strange wave of energy coming from space? It comes in fits and bursts, like the small ripples proceeding a big earthquake. No one knows what they are. No one has been able to do anything about it or come to any conclusions. Because, of course, it’s messed with people’s dreams, but that has to be just a side effect.”
“You’re investigating all this. You’re trying to figure out what’s going on here. That’s why you’re at our school. That’s why you’ve been lingering around.”
“The waves hit this area in particular with a regular intensity that isn’t easily found in any other populated spot. It’s ground zero. And yes, I’m investigating.” She looked up at Kalingkata. “You’re right. My eyes changed. Because I dreamed about having cat eyes, and then I couldn’t seem to change it back. It took two of us. I wouldn’t have asked it of you if I could have done it myself, but now I’m glad I did. Kalingkata, as you call yourself, I want you to work for me.”
“No.”
“Then think of it as working with me.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re easier to sucker than you think.”
“That’s not nice.”
She finished her drink and set the can down. “I can offer you something better than payment. Something I know you won’t turn down. All you have to do is… help me with my sleep study this semester.”
It was more tempting than she wanted to admit. She wanted to know. Kalingkata tried to pretend that she wasn’t completely invested now, wasn’t aching at the seams to understand what the hell was happening. She tried.
She failed.
“What’s the payment?”
“Your brother, Min Jun, he’s trying to move up in the Tenryu Party, the ruling party of Mars—sorry, Gongen, old habits.”
“You intentionally just said Mars; don’t play coy.”
She smiled wider. “I also know your family is still on the government’s generational punishment list. Your grandparents were dissidents, weren’t they? Min Jun has done well, but you don’t really think that his superiors will let him rise higher, do you?”
She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, they let him in so they can make a fool of him. You really didn’t suspect that? They haven’t forgotten for a second who your grandparents were. I can make that problem disappear for him. I can do it in thirty seconds.”
“Prove it.”
“Agree to help me.”
“If you can really do that, I’ll do whatever the hell you want.”
She pulled her phone out and began typing. “Thank you for your assistance, Dr. Faustus.”
Saki hit send, and seconds later, Sang Mi got a text too in the family group chat.
 
Min Jun: Everyone—I have wonderful news. I’ve just been informed that my performance has exceeded expectations, and I’m no longer an intern. I’ve been hired full time as an aide to Minister Honda. I will be honest—I had begun to suspect from the snickers of my peers behind my back that my job was a farce. However it seems that Minister Honda recognizes the worth of hard work and good character even in the face of our family history. I am so thankful for all of your support and care. I will do everything I can to honor our family name and bring respect back to us.
 
Sang Mi stared. “You… weren’t kidding.”
“I hope Minister Honda likes his new penthouse. I’ll send you information about the sleep study. Don’t worry,” Saki said as the car pulled up to the apartment complex the Jhe family lived in. “I already have your number. Ciao!”
Sang Mi stumbled out, unsure of what she’d just gotten herself into.
She guessed it was too much to expect a normal semester at Academy 27. She went inside, ready to congratulate her older brother—he really had earned it, even if it had taken a nudge. A nudge she wouldn’t be telling him or anyone else about.
 
* * *
 
Two Days Later
 
Li Xiu stood in front of the school board, nervously clutching her hands together as the film finished playing. The completely blank faces of the board made her sweat as the lights came on.
“Well, it was… certainly an interesting film?” Ms. Zhao said.
Li Xiu bowed. “Thank you, as you can see I—”
“It was an hour long; cut it down to three minutes,” Mr. Mori replied.

NEXT TIME!
Wow, what an exciting time it is at Academy 27! New transfer students with dubious backgrounds, mysterious goings on, and word on the street is that Li Xiu likes Jae Hyun who likes Sang Mi--
—Sorry Mr. Mori I’ll stick to the announcements!
One new student wasn’t enough—Amelia is a girl from Earth, like our recent transfer student Ryan, and it looks like the theater department might be taking an interest in her! What could that lead to? Last year there was that kid who dressed up as the Phantom of the Opera and messed up the whole--
Ahem. I’m sure that won’t be relevant to anything in the future. But I’m also sure that things for the theater department are about to get very interesting with Amelia around…
Oh, and there’s a bake sake in the lobby to support the victims of the Hozin train derailment. See Coach Jo for details. Also, join the track team, we need more members before our big meet against Academy 14!
Till next time, I’m your announcer from the Broadcast Club, Hee Jin!
 
Tune in Next Week For:
Stage Blocking
By Elizabeth Tock
 
New Academy 27 stories will drop each Thursday!
Read past stories and learn more about Academy 27 at:
ArcbeatlePress.com/A27