The dorm lights dropped to midnight blue at exactly 23:00.
Kai lay still for ten minutes. 23:15. Every night. Like a clock.
He'd watched her for two days. The administrator, mid-forties, always the last one out of the east wing office. She took the same route to the bathroom every night at quarter past, same rubber-soled shoes, same slight drag on the left foot like an old injury.
He slid out of bed at 23:11, socks quiet on the tile.
The hallway was empty. No camera lights in this corridor, he'd confirmed that Tuesday by dropping a pen near the corner mount and watching which direction the duty guard looked. Dead zone.
23:13. He pressed his back against the wall six feet from the staff door and waited.
Come on.
23:15. He heard footsteps. Rubber soles, left foot slightly heavier than the right.
The administrator came around the corner without looking up, already focused on whatever was at the end of the hallway. Kai gave her four steps past him then moved smoothly, closing the distance to the door in the three seconds before the magnetic lock re-engaged.
He caught it with two fingers. Let out a breath.
She didn't turn around.
He slipped inside.
The staff room was nothing impressive. That was the first thing he noticed. He backed against the wall and scanned the room. A long table with coffee rings on it. A coat draped over the back of a chair like its owner had just stepped out. Kai stood still for three full seconds, listening. Nothing moved.
He crossed the room on his toes. The monitors were locked. A filing cabinet in the corner, half-open, folders stacked without much care. A whiteboard on the far wall covered in shift rotations and a few circled dates he didn't have time to read.
His eyes caught a laptop sitting on the side desk, showing a documentary on human psychology. He moved closer and saw a pamphlet lying open beside the keyboard, like someone had been reading between clips.
The cover read: A New ThorneWorld; Internal Vision Brief, Q3 Distribution.
Kai picked it up without thinking. His eyes scanned the lines.
Blueprints. Timelines. Population curves that looked more like harvest schedules than development plans.
Holy shit. They're not saving the world. They're replacing it.
He set the pamphlet down and noticed a blue file sitting on the table nearby, slightly apart from the other papers like it had been pulled recently. The label read: Student Intake, Behavioral Flags.
His own name sat near the top. Below it: Theo Park. Maya Rivera.
And fourth on the list: Lena Okoye.
Kai muttered under his breath. "Lena? What the hell."
He glanced at the hallway door, then back at the file. He flipped through it until he found her section. It had two pages, most of it blacked out in thick marker, the kind of redaction that meant someone had printed this copy specifically for limited eyes. One note sat alone at the bottom of her page in clean unredacted text:
Motivation profile: Exceptional. Loyalty: Unknown.
Kai let out a low breath. "Damn. Even they don't trust you yet."
He closed the file fast, pulse kicking harder. He went back to the laptop and closed the documentary. A file was opened with administrative language so clean and cold it made total dependency sound like customer service.
A soft footstep sounded behind him.
Kai froze.
The door hissed open.
Theo stood there, hands loose in his pockets, face calm as ever.
"You're not supposed to see that yet," Theo said quietly.
Kai didn't turn around at first. His pulse hammered so loud he was sure Theo could hear it.
Theo stepped inside. The door sealed shut with a soft click.
"How long have you been following me?"
"Since the black van." Theo's eyes flicked to the glowing screen, then back to Kai. "You're faster than most. That's rare."
Kai closed the laptop with one sharp press. "What are you? The official hallway babysitter?"
Theo gave a small shrug, almost amused. "Something like that. You really shouldn't be in here alone."
Kai stood slowly, chair scraping loud in the quiet room. "What now? You gonna run and tell Voss? Or go straight to Thorne and collect your gold star?"
"If I wanted to report you," Theo said evenly, "I would've done it from the hallway. I waited."
Kai narrowed his eyes. "Why?"
"Because I'm curious." Theo's voice dropped lower. "You look at those plans, and you don't get excited like the others. Why is that?"
Kai's jaw clenched. He's fishing. Don't bite, idiot.
But the words came anyway, low and blunt. "Because those plans don't fix anything. They turn people into batteries. Plug in, keep the lights on, get tossed when your charge drops. That's not a future."
Theo studied him for a long beat. "And what would you do instead? Wait for someone kinder to find the controls first?"
Kai's voice dropped, cold and flat. "Better than dressing up a cage and calling it progress."
Theo's thin smile returned, quieter than before. "You really are different."
He tilted his head slightly. "Careful, Kai. Some truths don't fit inside the model. And the model always wins in the end."
Kai took one step closer, voice hard. "You sound like you've already picked your side."
Theo's expression stayed perfectly blank. "Sides are for people who still think they have choices."
He turned toward the door, then paused with his hand on the frame.
"Get back to your dorm before the next patrol sweep. And Kai?"
Theo looked back over his shoulder, eyes flat and too perfect in the red light.
"Next time you break Rule One… make sure you're actually alone."
The door hissed open. Theo slipped out without another sound.
Kai stood frozen in the red glow, fists tight at his sides. His eyes drifted back to the desk. Whoever owned this room was still coming back.
They've been watching me longer than I thought.
And now Theo had seen everything.