Mira, however, remained completely oblivious to the fact that the entire class was staring at her. She just kept talking to Jelo, her mind already working through the logistics of their plan. Her voice was low and focused as she plotted aloud.
"We'll have to do it in the evening," she said thoughtfully, her eyes distant as she calculated. "That's when most of the teachers will be gone for the day. They'll have finished their classes and headed back to their personal quarters or left the building entirely."
Jelo stood beside her, frozen, acutely aware of every single pair of eyes boring into them. But Mira just kept going, apparently too caught up in planning to notice.
"Of course, there will still be a few teachers around," she continued, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "And security personnel. They patrol the halls at night, especially near the restricted areas. We'll need a way to distract them—pull their attention away from the teachers' quarters long enough for us to get in and out."
She glanced at Jelo, her expression serious. "You'll probably have to create the diversion," she said matter-of-factly. "Something big enough to draw attention but not so catastrophic that it triggers a full lockdown. Maybe set off an alarm in another section of the building, or cause some kind of commotion in the training halls. While you're doing that, I'll slip into the teachers' quarters and find the files we need."
Jelo opened his mouth to respond, to point out that maybe this wasn't the best time or place to be discussing breaking and entering, but Mira was already moving on.
"We'll need to figure out the patrol schedules," she rambled on, her voice taking on that rapid, analytical quality of someone working through a complex problem. "How many guards, what routes they take, how long it takes them to respond to incidents in different parts of the academy. If we can map that out, we can time everything perfectly. You create the distraction at the exact moment when the patrol is furthest from the teachers' quarters, I slip in, grab what we need, and we're out before anyone realizes what happened."
Jelo just stood there listening, half his attention on her words and the other half painfully aware of the growing whispers around them. Atlas was staring at him with wide, confused eyes. Ken had that infuriating grin on his face, the one that said he was already planning how to tease Jelo about this later. Even some of the students Jelo didn't know well were exchanging meaningful glances and barely suppressed giggles.
"The real challenge," Mira continued, completely absorbed in her planning, "will be getting past the initial security checkpoint. The teachers' quarters have reinforced doors with electronic locks. We'll need to either find a way to hack the system or—"
Then she suddenly stopped mid-sentence.
Something in the quality of the silence around her must have finally registered. Mira looked around, her eyes widening as she took in the scene properly for the first time.
The entire class was staring at her. At them. Students stood in small clusters, all conversations abandoned, every face turned in their direction. Some looked shocked. Some looked amused. Some looked scandalized. And standing at the front of the group, arms crossed and expression stern, was the teacher.
"Oh," Mira said quietly, her voice suddenly small.
The teacher's sharp eyes moved between Jelo and Mira, taking in their disheveled appearances with obvious disapproval. "Where," she asked, her voice cold and clipped, "have you two been?"
Jelo's mind went blank. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Beside him, he could feel Mira tensing up, equally caught off guard.
They needed an excuse. Fast.
"I—" Jelo started, then faltered. "We—"
"Jelo had to go to the bathroom," Mira blurted out suddenly, the words tumbling out in a rush. "But he was too scared to go alone. You know, because of the Dabba. So I went to watch over him. To make sure nothing attacked him while he was… you know. Vulnerable."
Jelo wanted to die. Of all the excuses they could have come up with, that was what Mira had chosen? But he couldn't contradict her now, not without making things worse.
The teacher's eyebrow rose slowly, skepticism written clearly across her face. "Is that so?"
"Yes, ma'am," Jelo said quickly, nodding perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. "It was urgent. Really urgent. I didn't have time to ask permission first."
The teacher's gaze moved slowly from Jelo's face down to his torn, bloodied uniform, then over to Mira's disheveled appearance and the faint bruise on her temple. She let the silence stretch out, her expression becoming increasingly unimpressed.
"And it took both of you this long to accomplish that task?" she asked dryly.
"It was… really urgent," Jelo repeated weakly, knowing how pathetic it sounded even as he said it.
"And complicated," Mira added, which somehow made it worse.
The teacher sighed deeply, the sound heavy with disappointment and exhaustion. She pinched the bridge of her nose, her eyes closing briefly as if gathering patience from somewhere deep within.
"Look," she said finally, her voice taking on a tone that suggested she'd had this conversation before and was tired of it. "While the academy does not frown upon romantic relationships between students—"
"What?!" Jelo and Mira said simultaneously, their faces flushing bright red.
The teacher held up one hand, silencing them. "—deliberately putting yourselves in danger for the sake of… thrills… is not behavior we expect from academy students. This wasteland is not a private playground for your entertainment. It is a dangerous, Dabba-infested zone that we brought you to for educational purposes only."
"We weren't—" Jelo started to protest, but the teacher cut him off.
"The ruins and isolated areas of this wasteland are explicitly off-limits for a reason," she continued, her voice growing sharper. "Students have been seriously injured and even killed by wandering into areas without proper supervision. Whatever you two were doing out there, it was reckless and irresponsible."
The teacher's gaze hardened. "Such actions are frowned upon and punishable. If I catch either of you engaging in this kind of behavior again—sneaking off during field trips, disappearing without permission, putting yourselves at unnecessary risk—there will be serious consequences. Do I make myself absolutely clear?"
"Yes, ma'am," Jelo said quickly, his face burning with embarrassment. He could feel the weight of every student's stare, could hear the barely suppressed snickers and whispers rippling through the group.
"Crystal clear," Mira added, her own face flushed as she stared determinedly at the ground.
"Good," the teacher said curtly. She gestured toward the rest of the class. "Now get back in formation. We're moving to the next observation point, and I expect both of you to stay within my line of sight for the remainder of this trip. No more disappearing acts."
"Yes, ma'am," they chorused together.
As the teacher turned away to resume the lesson, Jelo and Mira quickly moved to join the rest of the class. The whispers exploded the moment the teacher's back was turned, students leaning toward each other with excited, gossiping energy.