The computer lab after hours was technically off-limits to students, but at Aldridge, rules had asterisks. The digital fingerprint scanner at the door recognized Liam's credentials and silently admitted him, the locks disengaging with a soft click. Inside, the lab was bathed in the blue glow of standby screens and status LEDs, creating an underwater atmosphere that felt appropriate for the kind of deep diving they were about to do.
Nia Park was already there, perched cross-legged on a chair, three monitors arrayed before her like command screens. Her fingers flew across the keyboard with practiced precision, not even looking down as she typed.
"You're late," she said without turning around.
"I'm exactly on time," Liam replied, checking his watch. "10:00 PM, as agreed."
"For normal people, on time is late. For hackers, on time means you've already missed something." She swiveled in her chair, studying him. "You checked my data on Jasper?"
Liam nodded. The file she'd sent had been comprehensive—logs of grade modifications, subtle adjustments to participation scores, and most damning, artificially inflated innovation metrics. Someone had been keeping Jasper's rank artificially elevated for months.
"What's your interest in this?" Liam asked, pulling up a chair beside her. "Why target the Heir?"
"I don't care about Voss," Nia replied, turning back to her screens. "I care about something else. Let me see your devices."
Liam hesitated, then removed his Aldridge-issued tablet and personal phone from his bag, placing them on the desk. Nia immediately connected them to her setup, running diagnostics that Liam recognized as far more sophisticated than standard security protocols.
"So," she said as her programs worked, "you want to know who's watching you. Let me guess—it has something to do with that essay you posted? The one about being experimented on as a kid?"
"Ethan posted it," Liam clarified automatically. "And yes."
Nia's eyes stayed fixed on the screen. "You realize how crazy that sounds, right? Government experiments, memory gaps, classified information?"
"Reality often exceeds probability thresholds," Liam replied.
"Spoken like a true algorithm." Her diagnostics beeped, and her eyebrows rose slightly. "Well, someone is definitely interested in you. Your tablet has at least three different monitoring programs running simultaneously."
She typed rapidly, isolating the intrusions. "One's definitely Aldridge administration—that's standard. One appears to be a government-level surveillance package. And this third one..." She frowned. "This is unusual. Corporate-grade, but highly customized."
"VossTechnology?" Liam asked.
"Can't confirm yet, but the signature is similar to known VossTech security protocols." Nia glanced at him. "You've made some powerful enemies."
"Or powerful people are afraid of what I might remember," Liam countered.
Nia studied him for a moment. "You really believe it, don't you? That you were part of some experiment?"
"I have evidence," Liam said. "And I'm not the only one affected."
"Novak," Nia nodded. "The Chemist. I've noticed her anomalous patterns too."
"You seem to notice a lot for someone ranked 22nd."
Nia's expression hardened slightly. "The ranking system is compromised. It rewards certain types of achievement and ignores others. The Untouchables stay untouchable partly because they're seniors who've accumulated years of prestige points."
"The age stratification is by design," Liam said. "Seniors dominate the top spots because they've had four years to build their portfolios. Juniors like us occupy the middle ranks, and exceptional sophomores might break into the lower end of the top twenty."
"And freshmen never make it," Nia finished. "I know the pattern. Doesn't make it fair."
Liam tilted his head. "Fairness is irrelevant. The system is designed to identify and rank potential."
"The system," Nia corrected, "is designed to replicate itself. Why do you think they sort us into four class streams per grade level? Why make each stream compete internally and against other streams?"
It was a rhetorical question. Every Aldridge student understood the structure: each of the four grade levels was divided into four classes of thirty-five students each. Stream One contained the highest-ranked students, Stream Four the lowest. Each week, based on performance metrics, students could be shuffled between streams—promoted or demoted according to their output.
"The stream system creates controlled pressure," Liam replied. "It incentivizes collaboration within streams while maintaining competitive dynamics."
"It's social engineering," Nia countered. "One student's mistake can drag down the entire stream's collective score. It forces top performers to either help struggling classmates or sabotage them enough to force them into a lower stream."
That was the truth of Aldridge—the same structure that fostered occasional cooperation also bred ruthless self-interest. Stream One students were envied and resented in equal measure, their privileges substantial: priority access to research facilities, direct mentorship from industry leaders, and most importantly, attention from the faculty who determined rankings.
Liam had been in Stream One since his arrival at Aldridge. Ethan, despite his family's wealth and influence, languished in Stream Four, seemingly content with mediocrity.
"What stream are you in?" Liam asked, suddenly realizing he didn't know.
"Two," Nia replied. "Which is wrong. I should be in One based on my coding metrics alone, but my humanities scores drag me down." She smiled thinly. "Hard to excel in debate when half the faculty can't understand my accented English."
Her diagnostic program beeped again. "Found something interesting. Your devices started being monitored precisely three hours after your essay appeared on Reddit. Almost like someone was running a search algorithm for specific keywords."
"Can you block them?"
"Blocking would alert them," Nia said. "But I can create a sandbox—a false environment that feeds them sanitized data while we operate in a secure partition."
"Do it," Liam said.
As Nia worked, Liam found himself studying her. She was different from most Aldridge students—less polished, more direct. No wasted movements, no social performances.
"How did you end up here?" he asked. "At Aldridge?"
"Same as most non-legacies. Tested off the charts, got noticed, received a scholarship." She didn't look up from her work. "Difference is, my family couldn't afford the supplemental costs. I work in the IT department twenty hours a week to cover room and board."
That explained her access to the computer lab after hours—she wasn't breaking rules; she was an employee.
"Where are you from?"
"Nigeria originally. Boston now." She glanced at him. "Since we're doing personal histories, what's with you and Korean dramas?"
Liam stiffened slightly. "How do you know about that?"
"Your streaming history was in your device cache. You've watched an impressive amount of K-drama for someone who presents himself as an emotion-free algorithm."
For a moment, Liam considered deflecting, but something about the late hour and the blue glow of the monitors made honesty seem reasonable.
"I use them to study emotional expressions," he admitted. "The reactions in Korean dramas are often exaggerated—clear, demonstrative displays of common emotional states. It helps me... recognize patterns."
Nia's fingers paused briefly on the keyboard. "You're training yourself to identify emotions?"
"I have difficulty processing certain affective states," Liam said clinically. "My condition resembles alexithymia—an inability to identify and describe emotions. K-dramas provide clear examples with contextual cues."
"That's..." Nia seemed to search for the right word. "Systematic."
"It's inefficient," Liam acknowledged. "But it's the best method I've found."
"Until recently," Nia said, nodding toward his bag where she'd noticed the edge of a pill bottle peeking out.
Liam hesitated, then removed the small container. "Alina provided these. They're supposed to help counteract the neurological modifications we underwent."
"And do they?"
"The effects are subtle but measurable. Increased activity in the limbic system. Greater awareness of emotional states." Liam turned the bottle in his hand. "I verified their chemical composition before taking them. They appear to be a carefully calibrated mixture of neuroplasticity enhancers and mild mood stabilizers."
"You're taking experimental drugs provided by another test subject," Nia observed. "That requires trust."
"It requires data," Liam corrected. "And the preliminary results are promising."
Their conversation was interrupted by a chime from the security systems. Someone else was accessing the lab. The door opened to reveal Juliette Fontaine, her copper hair unmistakable even in the dim light.
"Working late?" she asked casually, as if finding them hunched over computers at 10:30 PM was perfectly normal.
"Project research," Liam replied automatically.
Juliette raised an eyebrow. "Must be fascinating research to require backdoor access to the school's security logs."
Nia quickly minimized several windows, but maintained her composure. "What do you want, Fontaine?"
"To give you a heads-up," Juliette said, stepping fully into the lab and letting the door close behind her. "The junior class trip to Aldridge Island has been moved up. We leave tomorrow instead of next week."
"Why the change?" Liam asked.
"Officially? Weather forecasts predict perfect conditions for the outdoor challenges. Unofficially?" Juliette's expression turned serious. "Jasper Voss has been asking questions about you, Liam. Very specific questions about your background, your scholarship, and your recent... interests."
Liam exchanged a glance with Nia. "What kind of questions?"
"The kind that suggest he knows more than he should about certain classified topics," Juliette replied. "And he's been gathering allies. Connor Walsh and Nikolai Petrov have been in closed-door meetings with him for hours."
Three Inner Circle students coordinating—that was unusual. The Inner Circle typically maintained a careful balance of competition and mutual non-interference.
"Why are you telling us this?" Nia asked, suspicion evident in her tone.
"Because I'm curious," Juliette admitted with a shrug. "And because island competitions are intense. Four junior streams competing directly against each other, isolated from the main campus, with faculty supervision that's more theoretical than actual? It's the perfect opportunity for someone to make a move."
"Or the perfect opportunity for us to investigate without constant surveillance," Liam countered.
"Either way," Juliette said, heading back toward the door, "pack for contingencies. The island facilities may be state-of-the-art, but they're remote. Once we're there, we're there for the full five days."
After she left, Nia turned to Liam. "Can we trust her?"
"Probably," Liam replied honestly. "But her information correlates with patterns I've observed. Jasper has been watching our group with increasing frequency."
Nia nodded, turning back to her screens. "I've isolated six separate surveillance packages on your devices. Two from Aldridge, one government-grade, two from what appears to be VossTech, and one..." She frowned. "One I can't identify at all. It's using encryption I've never seen before."
"Can you trace it?"
"Not directly. But I can set up a honeypot—feed it tempting but false information and watch where it goes." She glanced at Liam. "What should we tell it?"
Liam considered the options. "Tell it we're close to remembering something specific—a location. A facility where the experiments were conducted."
Nia's hands flew across the keyboard, creating the digital trap. "This might smoke out whoever's watching you."
"That's the intention," Liam said. "Whoever takes the bait will reveal themselves."
"Just in time for our isolated island adventure," Nia said dryly. "Perfect timing."
As they finished their work and prepared to leave, Liam found himself calculating variables and probabilities. The island trip, moved up suddenly. Jasper's unusual interest. The multiple surveillance systems monitoring his devices. Something was accelerating—moving pieces into position on a board he couldn't fully see.
"We should be careful on the island," he said as they shut down the systems.
Nia looked at him with an expression he couldn't quite interpret—concern, perhaps, or determination. "Better tell you friend Ethan to pack his survival gear," she said with what might have been humor. "Sounds like we'll need it."
"Oh, before I forget, I want the script or whatever Jasper is using to manipulate the ranks." Nia said. "I think that will be the fastest way for you to help me get into the top 20".
Outside the lab, the hallways of Aldridge were silent and dark, the perfect environment for secrets to grow. And as Liam walked back to his dorm, he couldn't shake the feeling that something fundamental was about to change—that the carefully constructed system around him was approaching a breaking point.
The island would be the catalyst. He was certain of it.