It's strange how quickly your perspective changes once you realize the walls around you were built to contain you.
Before, I used to think of the school as a second home—its stone corridors familiar, even comforting. Now every classroom, every hallway, every teacher's smile looked different. Like a mask covering something darker. The air itself felt heavier, like it was hiding something just beneath the surface.
That week, we tried to act normal.
We went to class. We turned in our assignments. We joked during breaks. But under the surface, our minds were elsewhere—calculating, scanning, observing.
And digging.
It was Ethan who suggested the spot under the old bleachers.
"If someone's running something this big," he said, "they'll need a physical access point. Servers, maybe storage. Something they don't want on the grid."
Henry rolled his eyes. "You just want to go crawling through spiders and rat nests again, don't you?"
But we all knew he was right.
The south bleachers by the auxiliary field were ancient—barely standing, mostly ignored. They weren't used during games anymore. Most students didn't even go near them.
Perfect place to hide something.
We waited until late afternoon. Practice was wrapping up, the sun already dipping low. The shadows made it easier to slip past the fence and duck beneath the metal frame.
Inside, it was dark and dusty. Cobwebs everywhere. A forgotten soda can. A cracked clipboard. Just enough decay to convince anyone there was nothing useful here.
But Ethan moved like he was following a scent.
"Look for cables," he said, crouching low.
Henry and I fanned out, careful not to make too much noise. I ran my hand along the concrete base. Just dust. Then a thin seam. A panel?
"Here," I whispered.
Ethan was beside me instantly, flashlight in hand. He brushed away the grime. There it was—four screws, and something barely visible: a tiny red triangle etched into the metal.
It wasn't school property. Not officially, anyway.
Within minutes, Ethan had unscrewed the panel. Behind it: a narrow recess with a small server box—one of those silent machines with no branding, no ports except for a single Ethernet line running deep into the ground.
"Jesus," Henry muttered. "That's not school tech."
"No," Ethan replied, already connecting his portable reader. "This is private. Hidden network."
The box was password-protected. Of course.
But Ethan wasn't fazed. He moved with a quiet confidence, fingers flying. While he worked, I scanned the walls. There were markings scratched into the concrete—coordinates? Numbers? A few looked like initials.
"What is this place?" I asked.
"A junction point," Ethan said. "Whoever's running the data collection, it's being routed through multiple local nodes. This is one of them. Not for storage—just movement."
Henry leaned over. "So what's coming through here?"
Ethan didn't answer right away. His screen lit up.
He showed us a partial transmission log. Names. Time stamps. Video file headers. Internal student communications.
They weren't just tracking compliance.
They were recording us.
Every hallway camera, every private email sent over the school Wi-Fi, every club meeting—even some classroom conversations.
My stomach twisted. This was more than manipulation.
It was surveillance.
"They're building profiles," I said. "Every student. Every teacher."
Ethan nodded grimly. "Behavioral trends. Psychological weak points. They're not just managing people. They're preparing them for something."
Henry looked pale for the first time. "What kind of school does this?"
We backed out of the space as silently as we entered, carefully resealing the panel. As we emerged from the shadows, the sunset cast long bars of light across the field, and everything looked normal again. Boys laughing as they packed up gear. Coaches shouting. Girls sitting by the fence, gossiping.
But now we knew better.
Everything was being watched.
We regrouped at our usual spot behind the west library building. No one spoke for a while.
Then Henry broke the silence. "So… are we doing this? Really doing it?"
I looked at them both—Henry, always restless but loyal; Ethan, unreadable but unshakable.
"Yes," I said. "We're already in it."
Ethan handed me a printed list from the server's transmission log.
"These names," he said, "some of them match the Red List."
A few others had red stars beside them. I didn't recognize all of them. But a few…
One of them was in my homeroom.
Another was a first-year student I'd once tutored.
"They're being pulled in," I said. "Like I was. But they don't know it yet."
Henry looked over my shoulder. "Then we warn them."
"Not yet," Ethan said. "If we move too early, we scare them. Or we tip off the system."
"Then what?" I asked.
Ethan looked toward the school, his gaze narrowing. "We follow the data. And we find out who's at the top."
And so we began the next stage—quietly tracking. Watching the watchers.
But we knew, after tonight, that we couldn't play it safe forever.
So far, we were just peeling back layers.
Soon, we'd be hitting nerves.
And the system?
It would strike back.