The wall of monitors stretched thousands of feet across a massive hall, casting a blue glow over the rudramite floor. Thousands of digital screens displayed every inch of the academy.
Hundreds of human operators were monitoring the live audio and video feeds of every student in the building.
They sat in clusters of ten. Behind each cluster stood a supervisor, watching the watchers. And standing at the very back of the massive hall, a single senior supervisor oversaw the entire operation from a raised rudramite platform.
Operator Seven sat six feet back from his screen, his body sunk into a deep, padded chair. The chair felt soft against his spine, helping him stay still during the long shift.
Ahead of him, a ten-foot-wide screen filled his entire field of vision. The screen showed a full layout of Senior locality, House number 15.
Because the screen was so massive, the image was split into a sharp grid. Every room of the house was there at once.
He could see the hallway, the kitchen, the living area, the bedroom, and the washroom. The detail was so high he could see the tiny scratches on the kitchen counter.
In the center of the grid, a girl with messy dark hair paced across her living room.
Operator Seven tapped his index finger against the flat glass of his keyboard. "Walking again, huh?" he muttered, watching her bare feet hit the floorboards.
He reached out and pressed a small circular icon on the glass. "Echo."
"I am listening, Seven," a flat, mechanical voice replied from the earpiece he was wearing over his ear.
"She is going to walk like this for about half an hour. Monitor the rest of the house. I am going to focus entirely on her."
"Confirmed," Echo said. "Secondary rooms are under automated surveillance."
Operator Seven placed his fingers on the glass desk and swiped outward in a fast, fluid motion.
The grid pattern vanished instantly. The empty kitchen, the dark bedroom, and the silent washroom disappeared from the monitor.
The screen split straight down the middle into two vertical panels. The left panel displayed a clear, close-up front view of the girl. The right panel showed her back view.
Then, along the very bottom edge of the massive screen, a horizontal row of seven small digital monitors popped up.
Six of these were the direct feeds from the tracker embedded inside the girl's body, specifically designed to detect any use of superhuman abilities.
The last one was for thermal imaging.
Operator Seven sat quietly, watching the numbers and colors flow across the screen, waiting for the slightest anomaly.
******
Inside Senior Locality: House number 15.
Isabella dragged her bare toes across the floorboards.
Scuff, scuff.
She paced from the reinforced window to the sliding kitchen door, turned on her heel, and walked back.
Her earpiece rested securely in her left ear, playing music just loud enough to drown out the oppressive silence of her house.
She stopped near the window and leaned her forehead against the glass.
Outside, the streetlights cast long, stretching shadows over the empty pavement.
Another day gone.
Another day closer to graduation, to becoming something horrifying.
Dammit, I don't even want to think about those who came back.
She traced an uneven, messy circle in the thin layer of condensation near the bottom of the pane.
We are running out of time.
But then, a sudden thought broke through the gloom. She pushed off the glass and clasped her hands loosely behind her back, resuming her pacing.
Jack.
A genuine smile broke across her face. It felt strange, like finding a working flashlight after months of stumbling around in the dark.
******
Operator Seven leaned closer to his massive monitor, tapping his thick finger against the glass desk. The high-definition feed showed Isabella pacing, a distinct, hopeful smile on her face.
"Smiling? For what? What exactly is she listening to?" Operator Seven muttered.
He pressed a circular icon on his interface. "Echo."
"I am listening, Seven," the mechanical voice replied in his earpiece.
"Run an audio diagnostic on her earpiece. Find out what she is listening to."
"Processing," Echo stated.
A second later, the system chimed. "Track identified. It is 'Il cielo in una stanza' by Gino Paoli. An old Italian release. Considered a hidden gem in classical pop."
Operator Seven exhaled, leaning back into his padded chair. "Oh. That explains it."
He glanced at the row of biometric trackers at the bottom of the screen. The power-usage graphs were completely flat.
"I thought maybe her tracker was malfunctioning and she was using telepathy to talk to someone. But no… she's just smiling at a song."
******
Thank you, God, Isabella thought.
She let her fingers trail lightly over the edge of the kitchen counter, tracing an invisible line on the dark stone.
Thank you for dropping Jack right into our laps.
She paused near the sofa.
I am so happy that he got kidnapped and brought here, far away from his normal life…
Hehe
She absentmindedly smoothed out a small wrinkle on the cushion, pressing her palm flat against the fabric.
But wait. A dreadful thought crept into her mind. What if God was up there, actively deducting her good karma points for these evil thoughts?
No, no, no, God, that is not what I meant!
Did you see his face in the cafeteria today? He looked so utterly miserable, like someone had just slapped his ice cream cone out of his hands and directly into a muddy puddle.
I feel terrible for him! Truly!
After her brief panic attack settled, she forced her thoughts back into place.
But…
Let's be practical here.
At least he actually has a real family waiting for him on the outside! It's not like he has lost everything.
On the other hand, who do we have? We are just inventory numbers in green coats.
That comparison stung more than she expected. She squeezed her eyes shut for a fraction of a second, exhaling softly in time with the music.
*******
Operator Seven's eyes narrowed. He sat up straight.
"Hold on," he said, pointing a finger at the biometric feed.
"Echo, why did she just squeeze her eyes shut like that? And there is a clear variation in her breathing pattern. Run a check. Are these physical reactions normal while listening to this song? Or is this a suppressed stress response?"
"Processing," Echo replied.
Two seconds of heavy silence ticked by.
"Diagnostic complete. The physical reactions align perfectly with the emotional crescendo of the track. Music-induced physiological arousal is a highly common human response. Furthermore, tracker parameters six through twelve show zero energy spikes. Cognitive stress levels remain at a complete baseline."
Operator Seven scratched his chin, his suspicion fading. "So… she just got a little too into the music?"
"Affirmative," Echo stated.
"There are no signs of superhuman activity or mental distress."
Seven let out a slow breath. "Right. False alarm."
He leaned back, setting his screen to standard monitoring.
******
Isabella opened her eyes and continued her casual pacing.
Aargh, now I am confusing myself.
She pursed her lips slightly as she walked.
If I think Jack coming here is a good thing… does that mean I am secretly wishing his family would just vanish so he'd be as alone as we are?
Yikes! Cancel, cancel, cancel!
God, please delete my brain's search history for the last two minutes!
She tossed the pillow back onto the sofa.
Let's use some logic.
If he helps us behind the scenes, he gets to escape this giant green prison too, right?
He completely avoids the terrifying fate the Academy has planned for us after graduation.
We break out, and then we come back to save the rest. It is literally a win-win situation!
She turned away from kitchen and continued her walk.
Liam definitely gave him the grand tour today and totally brainwashed the poor kid.
He probably told him, 'Oh Jack, this Academy is the safest place on earth! Look at our lovely grass!'
She placed the spoon back down with a soft clink.
Well, it's not like he had any other choice. He had to do it, of course.
If Liam breathed one bad word about this place, they would make him disappear overnight. Just like Roni.
So first we have to exorcise this 'safest place' delusion out of Jack's head somehow, and that too without alerting the academy.
She took a deep breath, dropping her hands to her sides.
Just… one more tiny request, God.
Please make Riya agree to this. Do not let her start singing her usual anthem about the righteousness!
What good is being perfectly righteous if it gets you killed? Being good didn't save anyone before.
We have six months left.
Six months until they turned twenty-one.
If we can train Jack properly in this time, our chances of escape will rise dramatically.
But a massive roadblock stood in their way.
How do we train him to hack the system… when the system watches our every single move?
She didn't have an answer yet. But she had time.
For the next half an hour, Isabella kept pacing across the floorboards.
She sang along softly to the Italian tracks, looking like a perfectly normal, bored teenager trying to pass a Saturday night.
But behind her calm, rhythmic footsteps, her mind was spinning an intricate web of plans, calculating every move they needed to make to finally break free.