The explosion had left a mark — not just on the lab, but on them.
By morning, the assembly bay looked like a war zone. Fragments of singed plating glittered across the floor. The Apex Core chamber was a melted scar. And in the middle of it all stood Kai — hands clenched, eyes hollow, shoulders tight with sleepless defiance.
For a man who built chaos, he suddenly looked like he was trying very hard not to drown in it.
Selena was first to arrive. She stopped just inside the door, taking in the wreckage. The faint smell of burned circuitry clung to everything — sharp and acrid, like regret.
"So," she said quietly, "we officially made the front page of the internal disaster report."
Kai's lips twitched. "Top billing?"
"Number one. Congratulations. Your first Grimstone record."
He exhaled through his nose. "Guess I should thank the academy for the fireworks."
Selena crossed her arms, voice softening. "You don't have to joke."
"I'm not." His tone carried that brittle edge — the kind that comes right before something breaks.
Selena studied him for a moment. She'd seen brilliance before, obsession before — but not like this. Kai was different. He didn't crave recognition; he craved proof. And every failure cut deeper because of it.
Before she could speak, the door hissed open again.
Valerie swept in, immaculate as ever despite the soot in the air. She surveyed the damage with theatrical grace.
"Well," she drawled, "I see the avant-garde phase is progressing beautifully. Minimalist chaos. Very industrial."
Oliver stumbled in behind her, hair sticking up in twenty directions, clutching a half-eaten ration bar. "I slept for two hours. What did I miss?"
"Your dreams," Valerie replied. "And possibly your will to live."
Kai gave a ghost of a smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. He turned toward the team.
"Alright. No sugarcoating. We got hit. Someone's in our system — again. And this time, they didn't just spy. They hijacked us."
Oliver frowned. "So what now? We play defense?"
"No," Kai said. "We hunt."
Selena's brows knitted. "You mean trace the intruder?"
He nodded. "They left breadcrumbs. Nobody's that perfect."
Valerie smirked. "Unless they wanted you to think that."
The room went quiet.
It wasn't the words — it was the weight behind them. Because she was right. Every hack, every trace, every failure… it could all be part of a design.
Selena broke the silence, her tone clipped. "We need data. Logs. Access trails."
"Already working on it," Kai said, pulling up a holographic interface. Code streams cascaded like falling rain. "If I'm right, the breach came from inside the network."
Oliver blinked. "Inside Grimstone?"
"No," Kai said slowly. "Inside our lab."
The words hit like a shockwave.
Valerie leaned against a console, her tone deliberately light. "Well. That narrows it down. Just the four of us, then."
Oliver's head snapped up. "Wait, what—"
Selena shot Kai a sharp look. "You're saying one of us planted that code?"
Kai didn't answer immediately. He hated the silence that followed, but he couldn't lie to them — not now.
"It's a possibility," he said at last.
Selena's voice rose, incredulous. "A possibility? You think we're saboteurs?"
"I think someone has access they shouldn't," Kai replied, calm but cold. "We're the only ones with system clearance. Either one of us slipped, or someone's piggybacking our terminals."
Valerie gave a low whistle. "Congratulations, darlings. We've achieved peak dysfunction."
Oliver looked stricken. "You don't really think—"
Kai cut him off. "I don't want to. But the system doesn't lie."
Selena stepped closer, eyes flashing. "Neither do I."
Their faces were inches apart — the air crackling with a mix of anger, fear, and something unspoken. For a moment, Kai saw the exhaustion behind her fury — the way her hands trembled, the way she'd been holding the team together while he hunted ghosts.
He softened slightly. "Selena—"
"No," she said sharply. "Don't 'Selena' me. You're accusing your own team."
He exhaled. "I'm accusing the system. And we're part of it."
Valerie clapped once, cutting through the tension. "Alright, children. Before we start stabbing each other with data spikes, how about we test the theory?"
Oliver looked wary. "Test how?"
Valerie's grin turned feline. "Simple. If one of us is leaking code, let's set a trap."
An hour later, they had their plan.
Selena designed a dummy prototype — a hollowed-out energy core with traceable subroutines hidden beneath its framework. It looked authentic, down to the shimmer of Divergent Flow, but every signal was a beacon.
Kai uploaded a decoy blueprint into the system — labeled it "Apex Core v1.0."
If anyone accessed it without permission, they'd light up the network like a flare.
Oliver triple-layered firewalls, muttering, "Feels like we're fishing for ghosts."
Valerie smirked. "Ghosts bite when they're hungry."
They set the system to passive watch, then dispersed — pretending to resume normal work. The hum of tools and chatter slowly returned, but it all felt off now. Every sound, every glance carried new weight.
Kai couldn't shake the feeling that the room was shrinking — walls closing in with invisible eyes.
Hours passed. Nothing.
Oliver tried to lighten the mood by juggling microchips — he dropped three.
Selena glared. "Those are calibrated!"
"Sorry! I'm nervous!"
Valerie lounged on a stool, examining her nails. "We're all nervous, darling. Suspicion is so terribly unflattering."
Kai rubbed his temples. He could feel the fatigue clawing at him — the sleeplessness, the pressure, the weight of every expectation. "Maybe I was wrong."
Selena sighed. "Wouldn't that be a relief?"
Before he could answer —
The system beeped.
Everyone froze.
A red marker pulsed on the holo-display — incoming access, unauthorized.
Oliver whispered, "We got a bite."
Kai's voice was barely audible. "Trace it."
Selena's fingers flew across the console, eyes narrowing as data flickered. "Signal's local — originating from—"
She stopped.
"From inside the lab," Kai finished grimly.
"Which terminal?" Valerie asked.
Selena hesitated. "...Station Three."
Oliver blinked. "That's my station!"
The air thickened instantly.
Kai turned toward him, expression unreadable. "Oliver."
"I didn't— I swear, I wasn't even near it!"
Selena checked the feed. "He's right. No physical input detected."
Valerie tilted her head. "Then someone remote-linked his terminal."
Kai's jaw tightened. "They're piggybacking him."
Oliver looked pale. "Can they do that?"
Selena's voice dropped. "Not without a direct tether."
Kai's eyes darkened. "Meaning someone installed something."
He marched to Oliver's workstation — pulled off the access panel — and froze.
There, hidden beneath a bundle of wires, was a small black shard — crystalline, pulsing faintly.
Selena stepped closer. "That's not academy tech."
Valerie frowned. "It's corporate."
Kai's eyes narrowed. "Council-grade."
Oliver stepped back, hands raised. "I didn't put that there!"
"I know," Kai said quietly. "You're not that subtle."
Selena shot him a look. "Then how—"
Before she could finish, the lab lights flickered — once, twice — then dimmed.
A voice crackled through the overhead speakers.
Smooth. Mocking.
"Nice try, Zore. But you're a little late."
Kai's blood ran cold. He recognized that tone — that smug, effortless superiority. He'd heard it during every failed academy test, every sneer from the privileged top ranks.
"Who is this?" he demanded.
The voice laughed softly. "Oh, you'll find out soon enough. Just know this — your chaos doesn't scare us. It entertains us."
Selena hissed, "They're in the network!"
Valerie smirked, even as her eyes sharpened. "Well, at least our stalker has taste."
The voice continued.
"Keep building your little toy. When it's done, we'll take it. And you can crawl back to your Rust Belt with whatever scraps are left."
Kai's fists tightened. "Over my dead body."
"Easily arranged."
Then — silence. The lights flickered back.
The voice was gone.
Selena slammed the console. "Damn it!"
Oliver looked shaken. "They were inside our feed. How—"
Kai didn't answer. He just stared at the black shard in his hand, watching it pulse like a heartbeat.
Later, after the others had gone, Kai sat alone at the terminal. He placed the shard in a scanner, running its code. Data streamed across the screen — encrypted, complex, viciously elegant.
But then — a signature flashed.
A pattern he knew.
A pattern he'd seen once before — on the corrupted drone he'd salvaged back in the Rust Belt. (Chapter 4)
His breath caught.
"No way…"
He pulled up the old logs, cross-referenced the energy signature — perfect match.
Whoever had been watching him before Grimstone —
was still watching him now.
And they'd followed him inside the academy.
Kai leaned back, eyes narrowing, realization cutting like a blade.
"This isn't sabotage," he whispered. "It's a hunt."
The scanner beeped once — and the shard cracked open.
A holographic eye flickered to life above it — metallic, unblinking — staring straight at him.
Then the screen went black.
Next: Chapter 24 — "The Eye That Watches" — where Kai discovers the true scope of the surveillance network, forcing him to confront both his paranoia and his need to trust the team he's beginning to lose.