Somewhere in the pacific ocean, an island could be seen. On the island was the organization. It's current location. Inside, the blue walls of the organization stretched so far that the end cannot be seen. Then the classroom. All the students were sitting at their desks. Teenagers aged 15 or 16. Small talk with each other. Suddenly the door slid open. Their teacher entered the room. The same person wearing blue uniform and a clipboard in his hands.
He quickly got up to the small platform front and fixed the table's mic.
"This is a reminder to you all that today will be different." the teacher spoke up.
"Some of you might have wondered… How does this organization sustain itself? Where does the funding come from for running this large organization?" The teacher continued.
Now every eye was fixed on him. Even Pi was sitting at the back of the classroom, twisting her blonde hair with her finger while looking somewhere else. But the instructor's words catched her attention.
"There are people out there who secretly fund this facility. People with large capital and power. Businessmen, politicians, law enforcers and others from all over the world. Surely they have their own reasons. But they keep their identity anonymous."
Suddenly, murmurs started among the students but the teacher stopped it by hitting the table. A loud bang was heard and the class became quiet again.
"Today, one of the gentlemen will visit the facility to see our current conditions. He should be arriving in one hour or so. So don't disappoint our guests, understand?
"Yes, sir!" the students roared together. Their voices filled the classroom.
After the class was dismissed, Pi came out from the room only to find Zeta in another room. Zeta was using a laser light and a few mirrors in a little experiment. Notes scraped around everywhere. There it had writings and diagrams. Zeta was reading one of the notes.
"Sorry to interrupt," Pi said, entering in the room, "but… we need to talk."
Zeta looked up, eyes calm but sharp.
"About the guest?"
Pi nodded.
"Yes, that's it. How about this? We will do our daily routine training as usual and won't try to show off. Our normal curriculum is hard enough. It should be enough to satisfy whoever is coming." Pi proposed her idea.
Zeta frowned, straightening up.
"And why not show off?" Zeta opposed, "I mean, we have learned many things from here. It would be no use just to learn and to not use our skills."
"Why don't you understand?!" she snapped in fury and disturbance, voice trembling slightly. "This isn't some exhibition. What do you think is the reason for this sudden visit? That person is one of them who funds the organization! If he wants to take any student with him, we will have no chance of saying no. Think about it…what will happen to us then? He might use us in illegal works or criminal activities."
Zeta's expression didn't change.
"So… doing math makes you a criminal? Is that what you're saying?"
The words hit Pi like a slap. She had no counter available for Zeta's words. Then, Zeta sighed.
"Okay, fine." he said, "I agree with your idea. I will be just solving math problems. That shouldn't be enough to get the person convinced." Zeta replied.
"Okay then. I will be playing music in the side room. Then, let's meet after the inspection." Pi said.
She then left the room, leaving the door slightly open. Zeta continued with his little experiment.
An hour later___
From a gate of the facility, sounds of footsteps could be heard. One of the instructors was rolling a wheel chair, grabbing the hands of the chair from behind. In the chair sat the visitor.
An old man, in his 50s. He had pale skin and a short body. Hair aged and fallen from back. His breath was slow.
"I will be your tour guide for this area, sir," the instructor said.
But no reply came from the old man. After a few moments, his cracked lips parted. His voice came out roughened by age, "How long to go?" he asked, each word slightly drawn out.
"Just a little longer, sir," replied the instructor, bowing his head slightly while keeping pace. His tone was careful—too careful. "So for starters, I would like to explain the mechanisms in this organization for your better experience."
The old man didn't answer. He simply tilted his head slightly, as though granting permission to continue.
"We collect children with special conditions from all over the world," the instructor began. "Each group we form is called a batch. The current batch…have some exceptional students we have seen so far. But the students from the previous batch are still here as well."
The old man hummed faintly, almost a growl, more curiosity than emotion. He didn't interrupt. Their footsteps continued until the hallway ended, and they turned the corner.
Suddenly a little boy around the age of 5 came in front of them. His hair messy and had polished glowing eyes In his hands were strings and puppets. One attached to anther like a miniature one.
"Teacher, look!" the boy chirped, holding the strings high. "I learned how to control a puppet using another puppet!"
He placed one doll on the ground and began moving his fingers. The upper puppet's arms twitched, making the lower one mimic the same movements.
The old man's expression didn't shift, but a faint smile came in his face.
"Very creative," he murmured, his tone dry, deliberate. "I like it."
"Impressive, Lambda," the instructor added, kneeling slightly. "Now, go back to your class, will you?"
"Yes, teacher!" Lambda chirped and ran off, clutching his strings.
"Oh, I almost forgot to mention," said the instructor. "Each student here is named after a Greek alphabet. That boy was Lambda, from the latest batch."
The old man said nothing. His gaze stayed forward. He simply blinked once and gestured with two fingers for the instructor to move on. The wheels turned again, quiet and steady.
___
Inside the soundproof music room, the world felt completely different.
No footsteps. No murmurs. Just silence thick enough to hear your own heartbeat.
A few light bulbs gave the glow in the room. There sat Pi in front of a piano. Playing motionlessly, like she had no interest in it.
She was playing Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9, No. 2 But her eyes weren't focused on the music. They were distant, somewhere else entirely.
She paused midway, her hands frozen over the keys."Oh I'm bored. Nothing new! When is the inspection gonna end? When is this visitor coming?" Pi said to herself.
She looked upwards to a bulb, eyes became tiny because of the light. Then suddenly, a ridiculous idea came in her mind, "Maybe… playing the piano with my feet would be fun."
And before her logic could stop her, she gave it a shot.
She shifted her weight, lifted both legs to the position of the piano keys and lost balance.
The chair tipped backward and she crashed to the floor with a dull thud.
"Ow! That hurts!" she hissed, sitting up and rubbing her back.
Suddenly her eyes caught something. A stack of boxes pushed against the far corner. She quickly went there to see if she could find anything useful to pass time.
Inside were a pair of small drums and a violin. Her eyes lit up instantly.
"This is it!"
She dragged over a high stool, balanced a violin under her chin, placed two drums at both side above a seat and attached a white globe to the end of a stick to strike the drums while playing.
When she started, her toes pressed the piano keys, her left hand wrestled the violin bow and with the same stick's globe head part, she stroked the drums from time to time. Playing 3 musical beads at the same time. The mixture of it sounded chaotic and ugly.
Outside the soundproof glass, the old man's wheelchair slowed. He turned his head slightly, observing the strange sight. A girl balancing on one seat, playing three instruments like a circus act. Seeing Pi doing that, the instructor had to describe it in a positive way to give the old man a good image about the organization,
"And there you can see a student from the previous batch. It's her practice session of performing a multitask to craft coordination." The instructor said.
Because of the thick soundproof wall, the old man couldn't hear the chaotic mess inside. From outside, it looked impressive. Controlled. Graceful, even.
"Move on," The old man said simply, his tone like ice cracking.
"Yes, sir," the instructor replied quickly, pushing the wheelchair forward again.
Inside, Pi finally stopped, panting and sweating. Her hair was a mess, and one of her drumsticks had fallen.
She stared at the piano and sighed deeply.
"Great," she muttered, falling back onto the floor. "Out of all the times to look ridiculous, I just had to do this during inspection."
Actually, she realized she had screwed up her own idea. Not to show off too much. But the visitor came when she was playing the instruments, so she had no other way but to continue.
For a long second, she stayed there, staring at the ceiling light. Then she laughed softly to herself.
"Well, at least I got something to make my blood boil," she said under her breath, closing her eyes.
The guide then took the wheel chair to another corner. They reached near Zeta's room. The instructor slightly pushed the door open.
"This is what happens when that boy gets his hands on a marker pen," the instructor said with a restrained smile.
The old man looked inside. Every inch of the walls was buried under endless equations, geometry, complex formulas, number sequences, symbols. Even the wall mirror was full of writings.
"Mathematics?" the old man murmured, his tone slow, rasping. "Is he fond of it?"
"Yes,that's the case," the instructor said. "Though I can't find him anywhere today. He might be training in another section."
They moved again, the echo of their steps resuming down another hall until they reached another room. When the instructor gently pushed it open, it was empty. The bed was perfectly made, the floor clean.
"Unfortunately," the instructor said quietly, "our best student from the previous batch isn't here anymore.
"Great, now I can't just say about the incident that happened a few years ago. He might think our security system is poor." the instructor thought, turning his eyes to the wheel chair.
"There was… an incident. A few years ago. She and another student killed each other. We theorized it was mostly because they couldn't take the pressure of the curriculum." The instructor lied in this part.
___
There was a room in the organization, a nearly inaccessible one. Inside, a long rectangular table was placed with a light above. Ten people sat there in their chairs, quietly. As if they were waiting for a storm to come. They were the board's head members in the organization.
Suddenly, a man stood up from his chair and slammed the table with his two hands, "Why did you do that?!" he shouted. "Why send them when Gamma is already out there? It's getting out of our hands!"
Another voice rose immediately, sharp and furious. "You think Gamma alone can handle it? And what about informing us? You can't just make decisions on your own. We have to vote for it." The room exploded in overlapping arguments.
A third man shouted from the opposite end, "Then explain why you sent Zeta and Pi without notifying us! You hid it from the rest of the board!"
The group of people instantly divided into two groups. Opposing each other for who made the first wrong.
Then, from the far end of the table, "Enough."
A woman, another member of the council spoke up. "What's done…is done," she said coolly.
The room became silent little by little.
"She's right," murmured another man after a pause. "And besides, the more hunters we release… the better the odds of catching the prey."
His words surely were a metaphor. By prey, he actually meant their purpose for sending the students out.
Dead Logic © 2025 by Muntasib_Ihshan789 is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International