First Person: Refuge Among the Wires
Running is a short-term solution. Every step I took through the white, sterile corridors of the academy was a second gained, but also an expenditure of energy I couldn't afford. My body was a map of pain: a sharp, throbbing ache in my head where Cecilia's stun baton had connected, a dull ache in my ribs, and a burning pain in my shoulder. I was bruised, exhausted, and running purely on the remnants of adrenaline and stubbornness.
I needed a breather. I needed a safe spot. I needed to change the game. A physical chase through a fortress full of teenage super-soldiers was a game I was bound to lose. I had to move the battle to terrain where I had the advantage: information and psychology.
My training guided me. I ignored classrooms and offices. They were obvious traps. Instead, I sought out what every large, complex facility has: a nervous system. Maintenance corridors, service ducts, the forgotten guts where data and power travel.
I found an unmarked maintenance hatch in the floor of Sector Gamma, hidden under a rubber mat. Using the stun baton as a pry bar, I opened it and slid into the darkness below, closing it over my head.
The world transformed. I went from bright, futuristic hallways to a labyrinth of pipes, ventilation ducts, and thick bundles of fiber optic cables that glowed with a faint light. The air was cool and smelled of dust and ozone. It was perfect. It was a place where a ghost could disappear.
I moved through the network of service tunnels for what felt like hours, though it was probably only fifteen minutes, until I found what I was looking for: a communications nexus. It was a small room, not much bigger than a closet, filled with softly humming servers and patch panels with hundreds of blinking lights. The sector's comms brain.
I slumped against a wall, the cold metal a relief against my aching back. Finally, I could stop. I did a quick self-assessment. Nothing broken, luckily. Just a collection of contusions that would make my life miserable for the next few days. If I even lived the next few days.
On one of the panels, I saw a maintenance terminal with a touchscreen and a built-in speaker. It was an intercom system for technicians to talk to each other while working in different sectors. It was an ear. And potentially, a mouth.
I turned it on. The screen came to life, showing me a diagram of the communications network. With a few taps, I could listen to internal transmissions. At first, it was just guard chatter, status reports, lockdown orders. They were looking for me, sweeping the academy sector by sector.
And then, I heard a voice I recognized. A soft, diplomatic voice.
"To the unidentified intruder... Please listen. This is Charlotte Dunois."
They were trying to contact me. The game had just begun.
Third Person: The Voice in the System
In the control room, which had formerly been the observation room, the atmosphere was one of extreme tension. Chifuyu Orimura stood in front of a command console, coordinating the search. The girls stood around her, watching the holographic map of the academy, where security teams moved like pieces on a board game.
"He's playing with us," Laura Bodewig said, her single eye fixed on the map. "He's moving through the service corridors. He knows evasion tactics. Every time my teams get close, he's already gone."
"It's like trying to catch smoke with your hands," Lingyin added, fascinated despite herself.
Chifuyu knew that a blind chase was useless. He was too good, and her own people were trained to engage frontal threats, not a ghost in their walls. She decided to change tactics.
"Miss Dunois," Chifuyu said, addressing Charlotte. "You have the calmest voice. I want you to speak over the academy-wide PA system. A simple message. Non-threatening. Let him know we want to talk."
Charlotte nodded, approached the main microphone, and took a deep breath. "To the unidentified intruder..." she began, her voice resonating softly and clearly throughout the facility. "Please listen. This is Charlotte Dunois. We don't want to cause you any further harm. The situation has gotten out of hand. We just want to talk."
They waited. The only result was the echo of Charlotte's own voice.
"Try again," Chifuyu ordered.
Charlotte was about to speak when a new sound filled the room. A crackle of static, followed by a voice. A deep, tired male voice, coming from the console's speakers with chilling clarity.
"A little late for that, don't you think?" Leo's voice said. "Your twenty friends in the hallway didn't seem very interested in 'talking'."
The room froze. All eyes snapped to the speakers.
"How...?" Ichika stammered.
"He's hacked our internal communications network," Chifuyu said, her face impassive, but her eyes revealing deep surprise. "He's not just hiding. He's listening. And now, he's talking to us." The ghost in the machine had just revealed his presence.
Charlotte, recovering from the shock, replied into the microphone. "We had no choice. You were escaping."
"I was avoiding becoming your international friends' lab rat," Leo's voice countered. "Who are you? How do you know how to fight like that? Who do you work for?"
Leo's voice paused for a moment before replying. "The right questions, finally. But you're asking them in the wrong order."
First Person: The Interrogation's Inverse
"Who am I?" I repeated, a wry smile spreading across my face, though they couldn't see it. "I'm the guy who proved your billion-dollar fortress's security is a joke. That should be enough for now. But, how do I know how to fight like that? That's a more interesting question."
I could hear their murmurs on the other side. I was inverting the interrogation. I was in the dark, in control. They were in the war room, exposed.
"In my world," I continued, my voice echoing through their speakers, "I belonged to an organization. The Federal Bureau of Investigation. The acronym is F.B.I."
Silence. I could imagine their confused faces. F.B.I. would mean nothing to them.
"Ef-Bee-Eye?" Houki's voice asked, filled with doubt.
"A government agency," I explained patiently, as if giving a lecture. "Think of us as a national police force. We investigate the biggest crimes: kidnappings, organized crime, that sort of thing. But our other function, the more important one, is counterintelligence. We deal with spies and terrorists operating within our own country."
I could hear Laura Bodewig interjecting, her voice crisp and professional. "Your combat style is not standard military. Your movements in the infirmary were to incapacitate, not to kill. A strange choice for a soldier."
"There's the difference, Miss Bodewig," I replied. "I'm not a soldier. Soldiers are trained to kill the enemy. I was trained to arrest criminals. To neutralize threats with the least lethal force possible, so I could bring them to justice. We have rules. We have procedures. There's... paperwork."
I let out a dry laugh. "Believe me, the threat of having to fill out a fifty-page lethal force report is a huge disincentive to pull the trigger."
"But the men in the infirmary... they weren't common criminals," Laura's voice argued. "They were elite agents."
"I know," I said, my tone growing colder. "And I've trained with people like them. Worse than them. I'm not like the CIA's or Mossad's dogs. Those are the agencies in my world that handle foreign intelligence. They're the knives in the dark, the ones who operate outside the rules. I was a detective with a gun and a lot of authority."
I paused, letting them take in the information. "I've trained with them. I've learned their tricks. I know how they think, how they move. And I know how to take them down. I don't like killing. It's... messy. It's ugly, and it leaves stains that won't come out. But make no mistake for a second," I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper I knew would chill their blood. "I have no fear whatsoever of getting my hands dirty if the situation requires it. The fact that your friends are still breathing is a professional courtesy. One I can withdraw at any time."
The silence on the other side of the line was long and heavy. The message had been received.
Finally, a different voice spoke. The voice of authority. The voice of Chifuyu Orimura.
"Enough of your games, intruder. Or Leo, or whatever your name is. Your situation is untenable. You're injured. You're alone. You're trapped in a facility you cannot escape. Surrender now, and we can discuss your... circumstances, in a civilized manner."
"Civilized?" I chuckled. "Like when your student split my head open with a baton? Or like when your international friends wanted to needle me with truth serum? Your definition of 'civilized' and mine seem to be light-years apart."
"Then what do you want?" she asked, and I could hear the contained frustration in her voice.
Here it was. The turning point. Time to lay my own cards on the table.
"I want to talk," I said. "I'm tired of running. I'm tired of fighting. But I'm not going to surrender unconditionally to become a prize for your governments to squabble over. So here are my terms."
I leaned into the microphone.
"I want a face-to-face conversation. No tricks. No assault teams waiting in the next room. And I won't talk to a committee. I won't talk to you, Instructor Orimura, with all due respect. Your job is to neutralize me. We can't have an honest conversation."
"Who will you talk to then?" Chifuyu asked, her voice tense.
I made my final play. The one I knew would sow discord and give me the advantage.
"I will only talk to one person," I declared. "I want you to bring me Miss Cecilia Alcott."
I could hear the gasps of surprise on the other side.
"The one with the good aim with academy furniture. The one who knocked me out," I continued, my voice leaving no room for negotiation. "She started this last round. So she and I will finish it. Have her come alone to a neutral location of my choosing. Just her. That is my sole condition for a truce."
I let the demand hang in the air, suspended like a judgment.
"You have ten minutes to decide if your student's life is worth more than your pride. Leo, out."
And with a tap on the screen, I cut the connection, plunging the entire academy into a deafening silence. I had cast the die. Now, all that remained was to wait and see how the house responded. And the house, now, had a name: Cecilia Alcott.