The interior of the 'Wraith' was a vacuum of luxury, but inside my mind, it was a shouting match.
[SYSTEM ALERT: OBSERVER PROXIMITY CRITICAL]
[DAO LOG: EMERGENCY EVASION PROTOCOL 'SMOKE SCREEN' INITIATED. TRIGGERING FAKE INCOMING CALL FROM 'MOTHER'...]
My phone buzzed violently. I pulled it out, ready to make a quick apology, but Lin Yue's slender finger tapped the screen before I could even see the caller ID. The call vanished into a "Do Not Disturb" void.
"Your mother can wait, Ren," she whispered, her violet eyes tracking the slight twitch in my jaw. "We were talking about perfection."
[DAO LOG: EVASION FAILED. INITIATING PROTOCOL 'COFFEE SPILL'. CALIBRATING KINETIC JOLT TO VEHICLE...]
Suddenly, the perfectly smooth hover-limo gave a sharp, unnatural lurch. My glass of sparkling water tilted, a wave of liquid destined for my lap—an easy excuse to demand a trip home. But the water didn't fall. It hung in mid-air for a micro-second, suspended by a localized stabilization field emitted from the car's armrest.
Lin Yue caught the glass with a smirk. "The Wraith has anti-spill sensors, Ren. Even the Dao—I mean, even physics—can't help you escape this lunch."
[DAO MESSAGE: HOST, I HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING. I ATTEMPTED TO TRIGGER A REMOTE SHORT-CIRCUIT IN THE CAR'S ENGINE, BUT THEIR FIREWALL IS MADE OF PURE GOLD AND SPITE. YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN. GODSPEED.]
While I was being held captive by jasmine-scented interrogation, the "Undercurrents" at the Institute had turned into a full-blown tide.
In a private lounge at the campus Apex Club, Zhao Feng slammed a glass of expensive synthetic whiskey onto a mahogany table. Around him sat a group of young men whose family names appeared on the bronze plaques of every building on campus.
"He's a nobody," Zhao hissed, his face twisted in a sneer. "A Middle-Tier scholarship rat from a family that fixes pipes. And yet, Lin Yue is practically dragging him into her car."
"Maybe he has something on her?" suggested Mao Jian, a lanky scion whose family controlled the city's high-speed rail. "Blackmail? Or maybe she's just bored and wants a 'pet' from the lower sectors."
"I don't care if he's a pet or a parasite," Zhao said, his eyes glowing with a faint, technologically-enhanced light—a military-grade Neural-Link implant. "He's embarrassing our tier. If an Un-Sync thinks he can sit at the same table as a Lin, he needs to be reminded where the floor is."
Jian grinned, pulling up a holographic map of Sector 4. "The Wraith is heading toward the 'Cloud-Gazing' restaurant in the Financial District. But there's a protest blocking the main arterial road in the Industrial Fringe. An 'Un-Sync' riot over energy prices. It would be a real shame if their car got... diverted into the chaos."
The Industrial Fringe: 12:45 PM
The Wraith slowed down. Outside the tinted, reinforced windows, the scenery shifted from the polished jade spires of Sector 4 to the soot-stained steel of the Fringe.
"There's a blockage on the main route," Chen-Bo, the granite-faced driver, announced. "Traffic Control is redirecting us through the Old Foundry district. Miss Lin, the security level in that area is... yellow."
"It's fine, Chen-Bo," Lin Yue said, never taking her eyes off me. "I want to see how our 'Middle-Tier' student reacts to a little grime. Tell me, Ren, does this place look familiar? It's where the 'Anchors' are the thinnest, isn't it?"
I looked out the window. The System was screaming again, but not because of Lin Yue.
[WARNING: STRUCTURAL INSTABILITY DETECTED]
[ANOMALY: ARTIFICIAL VIBRATIONS DETECTED IN THE BEDROCK]
[TYPE: SABOTAGE]
Zhao Feng hadn't just planned a redirection. He had messed with the foundations of the very road we were on. He wanted to scare me, to show me I didn't belong in Lin Yue's world. But he didn't realize that by shaking the ground, he was poking a sleeping Sovereign.
"Miss Lin," I said, my voice dropping the 'Average Student' act for the first time. "Tell your driver to stop the car. Right now."