The call today settled into the usual rhythm. Students moved between classes, chatting in the hallways, keeping up with their assignments; somewhere within that school, in a corner, dark and secluded, a call was being made. A hushed voice, measured and composed, spoke into the receiver: "It is done. David and Everlyn have been placed into the class as you wanted."
Silence was followed on the other end by waiting for a moment, a deep, calculating voice having decided: "Good." There was a note of satisfaction in Doctor Hiroshi's voice; but there were deeper tones beneath it-analyzing, plotting. "Now let us leave it at that and see how things unfold." The caller hesitated, but then cautiously proceeded: "What is the next step?" A brief laughter escaped Hiroshi's lips. It was that kind of laughter meant not for the weak-hearted, it sounded from a mind always ahead and moving his pieces. "Patience. Everything has its time."
The voice on the other end would just take a solemn silence, for it was clear that Hiroshi was not to be questioned further. Inside the Laboratory-Hiroshi's Thoughts Far away from the school; inside his hidden laboratory, he pulled back from the computer terminals, gazed at several with data splattered on the screens, the glow from the screens reflected by his keen eye. David and Everlyn were already a pawn in his enormous design: not just thrown into the classroom for interference purposes, but also interacting while observing and being influenced by continuing manipulations. But his real business did not lie with them; it lay with that single variable which he had never accounted-the one strange element that had come up so far: Ren. "A prodigy in chess with an unusual measure of perception and an unusual level of strategic thinking…," he mused with fingers tapping against his desk.
He had only seen Ren for a few brief seconds through the televised contest, but it was enough. There was something about that boy-something worth testing. Then there was Aoi. His fingers stopped tapping. Her ability wasn't the only thing he found interesting in her. No. She was different; she brought something intangible with her, something even she had yet to discover. "Aoi… you will be key to everything." His lips curled into a smirk. "And Ren, let's see if you are indeed as special as I think you are." Back in the School-The Caller Ends the Call The unknown person closes his call and lowers his phone, took a deep breath. An unease lingering in the air. Whatever Hiroshi had in motion was about to become real. In a while, the actual game would take off.