There's a moment just before you do something irreversible—an instant of silence, like the world is holding its breath. You know you're about to cross a line, but you cross it anyway, because standing still would be worse.
For us, that moment came on a Sunday morning.
While most of the students were sleeping in or cramming for Monday exams, we moved like shadows through the quiet campus. Ethan had disabled the camera loop in the west maintenance hall for twenty minutes—just enough time to get in and out, if nothing went wrong.
That was a big if.
Henry kept lookout by the stairwell, his phone set to vibrate for any movement on the upper levels. I followed Ethan down the metal steps, boots clanking softly in the silence, the faint hum of electricity growing louder with every level.
When we reached the grated utility room—the one glowing with cold blue light—we didn't hesitate this time.
Ethan knelt beside the keypad lock and popped the panel open. He didn't pick it. He fried it—carefully, with a bypass tool and a surge kit he'd built himself from scavenged robotics parts. Sparks flickered, then the lock clicked open with a reluctant groan.
Inside, the temperature dropped immediately. Fans whirred softly. The server towers blinked in neat rows, each unit labeled with meaningless strings of alphanumeric code. It looked like a data center you'd expect in a government building, not a high school.
"This is where they route it all," Ethan whispered. "Live surveillance, student behavior logs, real-time analytics. It's not just about monitoring. They're simulating responses. Modeling decision-making."
I stared at one of the screens. A 3D heatmap pulsed across a digital replica of our school building, tracking individual ID numbers in motion—color-coded by tags we couldn't decode. Every movement, every schedule deviation, every hallway interaction was being logged and analyzed in real time.
"How long have they been doing this?" I murmured.
Ethan tapped at a console. "First archive entry: six years ago."
"Who started it?"
A pause.
"Admin credentials point to a name we've never seen. Alias account. Level 5 root access. Everything else is scrubbed."
He inserted a small drive into the port.
"We copy what we can, fast," he said. "No downloads. Just intercept the stream."
As the file transfer ran, I moved to the back wall. A series of open drawers held printed logs—hard copies of flagged student profiles. I flipped through them, heart pounding faster with every familiar name.
Henry Williams.Ethan Harris.My name—again.And others: younger students, former prefects, even a few alumni with the stamp "TRANSFERRED—NONCOMPLIANT."
I froze at one file: a girl I remembered vaguely from last year. Smart, quiet, kept to herself. She'd vanished one day with no explanation.
"Class records say she moved overseas," I whispered. "But this says she was reassigned."
"To what?" Ethan asked.
"I don't know. It just says 'EXTERNAL PLACEMENT CONFIRMED.'"
That's when we heard the noise.
A soft shuffle from upstairs.
A second set of footsteps.
Henry's text buzzed our phones at once:"Someone's coming."
We pulled the drive and packed everything in seconds. Ethan sealed the door as best he could. We slipped out through the backup exit tunnel, hearts thudding, breath sharp in our lungs. Whoever had come to check the room hadn't made it down the stairs yet.
We got out clean. Barely.
By noon, we were sitting at a table in the far corner of the cafeteria, pretending to argue about physics homework. The USB drive lay hidden beneath my jacket.
No one would guess what we had just done.
But something had changed.
This wasn't just about surveillance anymore. This was about control—quiet, systemic, and brutal.
I kept thinking about that girl's file. Where was she now? Who had signed off on her "placement"? And how many others had simply disappeared without anyone asking questions?
Back in my room, I locked the USB in a case beneath the floorboards.
Ethan was already parsing the files for a traceable lead.
Henry paced the room. "They're gonna know," he said. "They'll know someone accessed it. That someone was down there."
"Let them," I said, surprising even myself. "Let them start watching us closely again. It means they'll get sloppy. And that's when we hit them."
This wasn't curiosity anymore.
This was war.
And we had just kicked the door in.