It's Wednesday again.
A whole week later.
Things in Factory 24 had been going smoothly.
Too smoothly, in fact.
The peace felt unreal.
Like it could break at any point.
Well, in case you haven't guessed, that's the whole reason I'm writing again.
Our few days of peace broke.
John and Alex successfully got into The Claim.
They used the excuse of being banned from Factory 24 to get into Andrew's group.
And we learned a lot.
They got into The Claim on Saturday, which means they'd only had five days to gather information.
At first, it felt like a win.
We were finally gaining the advantage.
No way The Claim knew as much about us as we now knew about them.
At least, that's what I wanted to believe.
So, let's go over everything we learned.
The first big thing our beautiful scouts found out for us:
The Claim isn't unified.
That's huge knowledge.
The Claim is made up of a bunch of smaller groups working together.
They all want Factory 24, but for different reasons.
Some want the space.
Some want the status.
Some just want to be the ones who took it.
And some...
Some just want to have fun.
That's Andrew's group.
So while they might all be working together right now, once Factory 24 falls, they'll turn against each other.
They'll fight among themselves for control of the factory.
That makes this whole thing feel uglier.
Everyone is an enemy to everyone.
It's not organized.
It sure as hell isn't noble.
Just a temporary cooperation against a common enemy.
Us.
That part changed the way I saw them.
Before, The Claim sounded like one thing.
One enemy.
One force.
Now it sounded more like a swarm.
Messier.
Harder to predict.
More dangerous in a different way.
But because they're divided, we can use one group against another, and vice versa.
We're not too sure how to do that yet, but we'll figure something out.
We have to.
The second big thing our beautiful scouts found out for us:
There are only fifteen of them.
Andrew wasn't lying.
What a nice guy.
Well...
He was half lying.
He was telling the truth that there were fifteen of them.
In his group.
In reality, though, there are over fifty.
Liam heard right the first time, back when he first got suspicious of Andrew.
There are around fifty total members of The Claim, just split between multiple smaller groups.
That realization hit everyone hard.
We were prepared for Andrew to have lied about the member count.
But still, hearing that we might have to deal with fifty high schoolers was a blow to morale.
It was a big threat.
A bigger one than we'd wanted to admit.
We don't know if we can actually deal with that many.
Not directly.
Not if things get ugly all at once.
We'll have to think tactically if we want to win this war.
And we are at war now.
Even if no punches have been thrown yet.
Even if no blood has been spilled.
It's still war.
A day later, though, Alex and John brought back some good news.
The groups were already having issues with each other.
Andrew's group turned out to be the strongest of them all.
It's the one pushing the hardest against us too.
And against the other groups.
Alex told us they confronted another group within The Claim.
Andrew, Josh, and a few other members beat them to a pulp before the others could even react.
There were only five members in the other group, but it showed Andrew's authority.
Or maybe just his violence.
Either way, it worked.
That's what mattered.
Still, just because Andrew's group is the most coordinated—and the most dangerous—we can't ignore the others.
If the other groups decide to act against Factory 24 too, we're in for a mess.
They don't have to like Andrew.
They just have to hate us long enough.
That's the problem.
The third—and worst—thing our beautiful scouts found out for us:
We've been infiltrated.
We call infiltrators scouts.
Alex and John are our scouts.
And they found out one of the groups in The Claim has a scout inside Factory 24.
We don't know which group managed to place them here, but that doesn't matter much right now.
What matters is finding the little traitor.
Now that we know someone is feeding them information, none of us feel safe.
And we don't even know who it is.
That's the worst part.
I know all 126 members of Factory 24 almost perfectly.
And yet, no one is suspicious.
Even Liam couldn't spot anyone who seemed off.
Which only makes it worse.
The enemy isn't just outside anymore.
It's inside too.
That revelation sat over all of us like something rotten in the air.
It changed the way every conversation felt.
Every laugh.
Every pause.
Every look between people.
Not enough to destroy trust all at once.
But enough to poison it.
A little.
And a little is all it takes.
———————————————————————
At today's founders' meeting, we discussed what to do.
It was a messy discussion.
George started accusing people immediately.
He wanted anyone even slightly suspicious banned.
That was George's answer to most problems.
Remove them first.
Think later.
Leo wanted to narrow it down logically.
I agreed with that in theory, but there wasn't any real method for it yet.
No clean path.
No obvious way to catch someone who was being careful.
Melanie was worried about trust inside the factory.
If word got out that there was a scout among us, we would tear ourselves apart from the inside long before The Claim had to do anything.
Mel was disturbed by the idea that someone she might be close with could be doing this.
Liam felt guilty for not catching the person, even though it wasn't his fault.
He kept acting like it was.
Like the existence of a hidden scout meant he had failed somehow.
I've just been mentally going through everyone.
Anyone who seemed odd.
Anyone who strayed from their routines.
Anyone who suddenly acted too helpful, too distant, too quiet, too loud.
But no one did.
Everyone was the same as always.
That's what made it so awful.
No one stood out.
No one slipped.
No one looked guilty.
The scout is good.
Too good.
We obviously didn't tell the rest of Factory 24 about it.
We couldn't.
Not if we wanted the place to keep functioning.
Not if we wanted people to keep trusting each other enough to work together.
If we said there was a traitor among us, every little mistake would turn into an accusation.
Every quiet person would look guilty.
Every absence would mean something.
Every friendship would get questioned.
So we kept it between the founders, John, and Alex.
We told John and Alex to keep listening carefully and see if anyone in The Claim slipped up and mentioned the scout's name.
Liam and I started watching Factory 24 more closely again.
Who knows what.
Who comes when.
Who talks to who.
Who acts too normal.
Who might have access to the information The Claim seems to know.
Who would even benefit from doing this.
But no one stands out.
No one fits.
Every time I think about one person too long, I can immediately think of three reasons it can't be them.
And then I move on.
And then I come back.
And then I do it again.
By the time the meeting ended, everyone was uneasy.
No one knew the right path forward.
Before, the enemy was outside.
Now, they could be standing right next to us.
Walking past us.
Talking with us.
Holding flags beside us.
———————————————————————
And I think I figured something out.
About myself.
I was right to be paranoid.
I was right to be anxious.
If I had brushed off the memory and never broken down because of it, I wouldn't know everyone the way I do now.
I wouldn't know their routines.
Their habits.
Their friendships.
Their timing.
Their patterns.
Because of that, finding the scout feels less like an impossible task and more like waiting for a mistake.
Waiting for one person to slip.
One wrong word.
One wrong place at the wrong time.
One break in pattern.
That's all it will take.
At least, that's what I tell myself.
Because the other possibility is worse.
That there is no break in pattern.
That the scout is so good, so natural, so deeply buried inside Factory 24 that even I can't see them.
And if I can't see them...
Then maybe I was never as prepared as I thought.