arkif

PRELUDE: “The Home of Champions”

The first buses arrived in Taguipan City before sunrise. Record-breaking traffic clogged the highways. Days before, planes from all over the country brought thousands of visitors to Taguipan. All of them brought students, many of whom were first-time visitors to the city.

Outside the grand boulevards leading to Northwestern Escabaco State University - hordes of parents and children streamed into the main campus. They carried envelopes of requirements pressed against their chests. Some clutched extra folders thick with certificates and recommendation letters. Vendors circled the sidewalks selling bottled water, cheap ballpens, and photocopy services to panicked applicants who had forgotten one signature or another. 

The campus stretched across several city blocks. Steel-and-glass academic buildings rose above carefully maintained gardens and stone walkways lined with national flags. Elevated pedestrian bridges connected entire complexes together while enormous gates marked the boundaries of each college within the university system. But none of the colleges carried the weight and prestige of the College of Nursing.

The College of Nursing dominated the northern side of the campus both physically and culturally. Its centerpiece - Centennial Hall - loomed over the surrounding buildings like a monument rather than an academic facility. Towering sheets of reflective blue glass wrapped around sleek concrete architecture accented by steel beams and silver university insignias. 

Above its entrance, engraved into polished marble, were the words: 

NORTHWESTERN ESCABACO STATE UNIVERSITY - COLLEGE OF NURSING

THE HOME OF CHAMPIONS

The nation had given it that name decades ago. 

For generations, NESU-CON represented the absolute pinnacle of nursing education in Carlapan. Its graduates consistently topped national board examinations. Hospitals across the country aggressively recruited its alumni before graduation even occurred. International healthcare institutions from overseas partnered directly with the university, offering placements in countries many students had only ever seen online or in textbooks. 

For many, a degree from NESU-CON meant securing a future and a stable job. 

To its students and alumni, it meant joining an elite institution whispered about with equal parts admiration and fear. 

The university produced nurses, researchers, emergency responders, humanitarian volunteers, and internationally recognized healthcare professionals at staggering rates. Entire hospitals proudly advertised when their chief staff graduated from NESU-CON. 

And on this day, admissions into the NESU-CON had commenced.

By the gates, the bumbling Orson Cabrales felt he was being watched.

He was one of thousands of applicants, having grown up in a relatively comfortable life - with a family full of doctors and nurses. Though he was conflicted about his choice to apply for nursing at NESU-CON, to this family - it seemed the only logical route for the young polar bear. Dinner conversations at home regularly drifted toward patient care, healthcare politics, and emergency cases nobody outside the medical field would casually discuss over soup. 

The Beagle and Rottweiler guards ushering him and dozens of other students eyed them constantly. Not caring to inspect their IDs or search their bags. They stared, openly. One of them watched a student argue with her mother for a minute without once checking the line. 

“Excuse me sir, where is Building 2A?” Orson asked an officer.

The officer smiled. “Have you been delayed?” he asked.

“No, I haven’t.”

“Did you prepare for possible delays?” the watchful dog asked.

“Anyone responsible would,” Orson said.

The officer nodded and patted Orson on the back before giving him directions to Building 2A.

Near the registration tents, student volunteers distributed queue numbers while faculty members moved through the crowds with clipboards. 

At Tent Three, Maia Zafra stood alone reviewing her paperwork for the fifth time. 

She grew up in a flood-prone municipality in a neighboring province where the nearest hospital sat nearly two towns away and public clinics regularly ran out of supplies before noon. During storms, volunteer responders and exhausted nurses became the closest thing entire communities had to emergency infrastructure. 

Her parents saw those healthcare workers as symbols of stability. Every conversation about the future eventually circled back toward medicine, hospitals, or nursing school. Maia resented it. She disliked how people treated her future like a solved equation. Somewhere along the way, her own wants became secondary to what made sense financially. 

A fennec fox in a pink polo shirt labeled ‘CON Faculty’ approached her. “Hello, I’m Mrs. Mipa. Scholarship applicant?” She said, raising her pen at Maia.

Maia nodded and handed Mrs. Mipa her envelope.

Mrs. Mipa browsed through her documents - skimming her grades, her certificates, and her qualifications with a detached expression. She returned the envelope in less than a blink then took notes on her clipboard. “Miss Zafra, If your team leader gives an incorrect instruction during a crisis, what do you do?” Mrs. Mipa asked.

Maia blinked. Nobody warned her about this kind of ambush questioning.

“I… clarify first?” 

“How?” 

“Ask them to repeat, or rephrase it, if possible. Is that okay?” 

Mrs. Mipa scribbled something down. “Thank you. Proceed to your medical evaluation at the university clinic please.”

At the opposite side of the campus, a hedgehog Cade Cereza had already been redirected twice. His nervous ticks weren’t doing him any justice. Having volunteers give him conflicting instructions only worsened his stammering.

The young hedgehog came from a cramped apartment district deep within southern Taguipan itself, raised by a single mother who worked long hospital shifts as a laboratory technician. Unlike Orson’s polished upbringing or Maia’s disaster-hardened determination, Cade’s childhood revolved around overstimulation and survival inside the capital city’s relentless noise. Despite the city chaos and the rat race of day-to-day living, he simply wanted to become a nurse to help his family.

“Wrong building,” a volunteer told him the first time. 

“I- I'm so sorry, can you tell me where the Arts Building is?” 

“Temporary reassignment,” said another. 

“Oh, I see - how can I check the new assignments?” 

And so on and so forth.

After half an hour of looping the campus, he sat inside a waiting room with other applicants despite arriving for a simple admissions screening. 

Nobody spoke. 

He couldn’t help but fidget and scan the room warily. 

A faculty member, a big water buffalo pretending to organize folders, stole occasional glances at him. 

Cade noticed. He locked eyes with the teacher.

The water buffalo nodded, faintly, and took note in an empty folder.

***

20,000 students applied for the undergraduate nursing program this year. 

At the nursing building, the NESU-CON faculty worked around the clock to process each application. The college was going to receive its newest batch of freshmen. 

The NESU-CON faculty room occupied nearly half an entire floor of Centennial Hall.

The ceiling was high to accommodate taller faculty members. These included giraffes, elk, and large bovines. Overhead support beams doubled as walking rails and perches for birds. Near the windows, elevated platforms allowed birds of prey and smaller fliers to work above the main floor without crowding the communal areas below. 

Cool white lights illuminated the administrative desks where paperwork was handled. Warm lamps filled the lounge corners reserved for rest breaks. 

Rows of modular desks could be adjusted higher, lower, wider, or narrower depending on species needs. Some chairs were oversized and reinforced for heavier staff members. Others had tail openings, perch bars, heated cushions, or textured upholstery for scales and fur. 

The breakroom was a mess of appliances. It was equipped with industrial kettles, a refrigerated seafood storage, herbivore-safe meal warmers, high-calorie carnivore meal lockers, nut-free cabinets, insect protein dispensers, and three separate coffee machines calibrated to different caffeine tolerances. 

Mr. Babs found himself going overtime to print a thousand admission tests a day with Mrs. Cherry. The washed-up seal had to break his time in the faculty aquarium between every 50 or so copies. Working so hard made his skin dry out under the office air-conditioning. The aquarium sat in the corner of the printing room. It was a large reinforced saltwater tank squeezed beside filing cabinets and supply shelves. Someone tried to decorate it with corals and a tiny NESU-CON banner, but it made it tackier.

 Mrs. Cherry - a bobcat fresh from her work abroad - wasn’t faring any better with the intense workload.

“Mrs. Guerra assigned you to printing? And what’s her reasoning for it?” Mrs. Cherry said as she stacked another 30 copies on her desk.

“She bought out all the waterproof paper at the supply store,” Mr. Babs said. Water dripped from his whiskers onto the tiled floor as he shimmied toward the industrial printer with a ream of waterproof paper balanced carefully between his foreflippers. “It’ll let me be more useful, she told me.” He grimaced at her.

“It’s not the wet papers I’m worried about. Sea lions aren’t good with office work in general, are they?”

“No. Neither are bobcats like you.”

Mrs. Cherry brandished her claws at him, but not to threaten the sea lion. She grumbled. “Not a chance. But here I am having to use a scratching post to trim my nails,” she said.

“Back from the Saharat Peninsula, right?” Mr. Babs asked.

Mrs. Cherry’s eyes glimmered. “Yeah. Seven years of field nursing at Jazurah. The hospitals have way better equipment, but the heat is worse. Not to mention the work hierarchies they enforce to a tee.”

Mr. Babs and Mrs. Cherry carried on with their work.

A few other faculty members passed them.

One of them - a Doberman - tapped a file folder.

“Candidate 441, Cabrales,” he murmured. “Interesting stress response.”

Another - a fennec fox - turned a page.

“Zafra. Potential leadership traits. Poor concealment instincts.”

A third - a certain water buffalo - passed them his notes.

“That hedgehog kid. Keep observing him.”

***

Two weeks later, 5,000 applicants moved up and were tested for their competency. The faculty dispatched the nursing student council to help with the work. Student officers returned from vacation to act as proctors.

Applicants of all shapes, species, and sizes packed the amphitheater. It was one of the largest rooms in the Centennial Hall. Every tiered row was occupied.

Outside, rain battered the glass windows lining the walls of the amphitheater. Gray afternoon light filtered through the storm clouds and reflected against the floors below. Every so often, distant thunder broke the silence. 

Clark - a deer working as the council’s vice chairperson - held up a sample test paper in front of the applicants. “Excuse my antlers. Please write your name in capital letters. I repeat: capital letters. And use Type-2 pencils please,” he said. 

As the applicants opened their test booklets, a knock at the door caught his attention. He excused himself and crossed to a small operations table near the edge of the hall. Several student officers sat idly by, monitoring schedules and applicant counts.

A German shepherd in a raincoat shuffled into the classroom. His boots tracked mud across the linoleum. Large plastic bags - smelling of steamed and smoked food - dangled from his hands. Tendrils of steam curled out of the bags. Several exhausted officers visibly perked up. “Sorry I’m late. The sidewalks were flooded. But I got our lunch. Warm and thankfully dry,” he said.

“Just in time,” Noelle said, waddling over to Gabe and plucking some of the bags from him.

“Oats again, Noelle?” Clark said.

“Peas and berries. Mrs. Guerra said that swans should be majestic, and I should diet starting today,” Noelle said, frowning as she patted her belly. “Clark - I’m not getting fat, am I?”

Gabe took off his raincoat and shook off water from his fur. “Enough to tempt a carnivore, I’d say,” he said, howling at the crude remark. “And I’m glad Clark is here to oversee things despite the fact you’re on night duty.” He grinned ear-to-ear as he hung his raincoat on his antlers.

Clark snatched his coat off his head and threw it back. “I’d tackle you headfirst if I could,” he said, coldly.

“Calm down. You’re hangry, you’re sleepy. I get it,” Gabe said. He placed the bags on the table and took their food out. Their meals were in tin containers of varying sizes. NESU canteens offered everything from tree bark to tofu - so long as one had the lunch money for it.

“You better have gotten me something worth the wait then,” Clark said as he accepted his food.

“Browse, forbs, and mast, right? I had to order it separately from the salad bar at the canteen.” Gabe sat down and began chowing on a synthetic chicken breast. He grabbed a drumstick and offered it to Noelle. “Want some?”

“Don’t even think about it,” Noelle said without missing a beat as she chewed on a handful of peas.

“Officers on night duty should be exempted from these events,” Clark said with a sigh. He rubbed her eyes before stuffing himself with a spoonful of mixed berries and leaves. “It’s always the riskier missions with us.”

“Incidents like to happen when everyone else is asleep.” Noelle placed her wing around Clark’s shoulders. “But it makes our jobs much more important as nurses.”

“Or as - that other thing,” Gabe murmured, rolling his paw in the air and his mouth full of meat.

The officers huddled closer and spoke in a low whisper.

“Hmpf. That other thing, yeah. You know, I’m hoping the faculty recruits less freshies this year. It’s getting harder every day to focus on your studies when you have a double life to manage,” Clark said.

Gabe paused to swallow his food before speaking up.

“Absolutely valid.”

“Right?” Noelle chimed in. “Plus, I think more unsavory figures -” 

“Those people,” Gabe cut in. “Yes, the people testing my sanity every day I spend in clinical uniform.”

“Yeah, as I was saying - I hear they’re getting more aggressive with each new batch coming in. Mrs. Guerra told me over lunch yesterday that the faculty is on high alert. They caught someone stalking a few sophomores earlier this morning,” Noelle said. “Besides that, a lot of similar incidents have popped up lately. They’ve had to resort to equal measures on some occasions.”

“Off duty?” Clark asked.

Noelle nodded.

The both of them could hear the faintest whimper from Gabe.

“An oath of secrecy can only protect you for so long,” Gabe said.

***

One week later, 250 applicants were cleared for an interview with NESU-CON’s veteran faculty members. It was the last hurdle to leap before they earned their spot in NESU’s most acclaimed undergraduate program. 

Centennial Hall looked less like a university building and more like a government office. Glass windows stretched from floor to ceiling. The marble floors reflected the movement of hundreds of applicants crossing the hall in nervous currents. Above them hung banners displaying NESU-CON’s achievements: 

100% National Board Passing Rate

International Partnerships, Global Outreach

Cradle of Excellence

Everywhere Orson looked, it was - industrial, as he would describe it. A pair of volunteers rolled medical equipment down a hallway in exact synchronization. A professor passed through the crowd and every conversation quieted. 

The woman at the registration desk was a snow leopard in pristine pink administrative attire. She wore thin gloves despite the heat outside. Her smile was polite enough to be comforting, at least for Orson.

“Queue number?” 

“M4-” Orson answered. 

“M-441,” she cut in. “Thank you, I have a copy of your papers here.”

She scanned his documents rapidly.

“Scholarship consideration?”

“Partial.”

“Any prior leadership experience?”

“Not much.”

“Any formal emergency response training?”

Orson hesitated.

The leopard’s eyes flicked upward immediately.

“School disaster brigades,” he said carefully. “But those were mandatory, I didn’t volunteer much during high school.”

Another note was written down. 

“Your interview is at Meeting Room 4, Third Floor,” she said, pointing without looking back at him. 

Orson left quickly. By the elevators stood a completely different type of faculty member. An elderly sheep professor wearing oversized spectacles handed candies to visibly anxious applicants. 

“Hydration is important,” she reminded one trembling freshman. “Stress affects memory recall.” 

He watched as some accepted her treats, while others passed by without another word. Then Orson noticed the clipboard tucked beneath her arm, on it - two lists of names, one in red, the other in blue. She listed down each student who approached her. Then those who ignored her. Students who accepted help and those who refused it. 

“Every adult here is evaluating something, it’s all too specific not to notice,” whispered someone beside him. 

He turned to see a bespectacled bunny walking alongside him.

“You’re skeptical too, right?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Maia,” she said, offering her hand.

“Orson,” he said, shaking hands with Maia.

“Where’s your interview?” 

“Meeting Room 4.”

“Third Floor? Same here.”

“I’m nervous, honestly. Thousands of people came and went. More than half the people I met didn’t make it past the competency exams,” Orson said, rubbing his arms. “I’m surprised at myself for getting this far.”

Maia adjusted her glasses awkwardly. “I’m surprised too,” she admitted. “I thought I failed the entrance exams immediately.” 

“You?” Orson asked. “You seem composed.” 

“That’s because I panic internally.” 

The elevator doors opened with a soft chime before either could continue. Twenty applicants squeezed themselves inside. Nobody spoke above a whisper. The elevator stopped on the second floor, and an ibex professor carrying stacks of folders stepped inside without acknowledging the students. Beside him followed a rabbit - a student officer from the looks of her uniform - balancing a tray of coffee cups. 

The ibex scanned the elevator once. Without missing a beat: “Meeting Rooms Three to Six,” he said, “stairs only.” 

A collective groan swept through the cramped space.

“The elevators are reserved for faculty personnel today,” the rabbit said.

The professor looked like the kind of man who would issue incident reports for breathing incorrectly, so nobody argued.

The climb to the third floor was exhausting. Halfway up, Maia leaned slightly toward Orson. 

“Do you ever get the feeling they enjoy this?”

“The stress?”

“The theatrics of it all!” Maia said.

“Maybe it’s a discipline thing,” Orson said. 

“You’d think we’re being recruited into the military or some prestigious company.”

“She kind of has a point,” said a small voice behind them.

A hedgehog clutching a folder tightly against his chest had paused midway up the stairs, breathing like he regretted every decision leading up to this moment. Sweat rolled down his forehead. 

“C-Cade,” he introduced quickly. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. You two were being a little loud, I thought you were talking to everyone here.” 

Orson and Maia stared for half a second.

Cade quickly panicked. “Not that you were loud-loud,” he corrected. “Normal loud. Human-type loud. Conversational kind of loud.” 

“You’re fine,” Maia said.

Cade exhaled in visible relief. “But really, I’m telling you guys - they’re assessing things nobody told us about in the guidelines. For something like a college admission process it’s pretty meticulous.”

No one disagreed.

Outside Meeting Room 4, applicants sat in straight rows waiting for their numbers to be called. Large analog clocks ticked overhead. Every few minutes, a student would emerge from the room looking either emotionally dismantled or eerily silent. Some looked relieved. 

A raccoon exited Meeting Room Two muttering, “Why did they ask me how I’d respond to betrayal?” 

The three of them exchanged glances.

After a prolonged silence, Cade spoke up. 

“We don’t deal with that much as nurses, do we?”

***

Meeting Room 4 was long and rectangular, illuminated by recessed ceiling lights that cast pale reflections across the polished wooden table at its center. Behind the interview panel stood the enormous seal of NESU-CON embossed in silver against dark mahogany walls. 

Three faculty members sat at the opposite end of the table. 

Mrs. Guerra, a crane who is the College Secretary. Thin reading glasses rested near the edge of her beak. Her claws swept across a stack of organized folders. 

Beside her sat the lion Professor Bautista. Broad-shouldered and groomed. The ghost of a reflection lingered in his spectacles when he eyed each applicant. 

At the center sat Dr. Valerio. The elephant dean occupied the room without effort. His charcoal-gray suit was immaculate. He was as still as a statue.

Every student that came and went entered another world in Meeting Room 4. It was as if they became a different animal the moment they stepped into that room.

-

“Applicant M-441,” Mrs. Guerra announced. “Orson Cabrales.” 

Orson sat down on a cold stool before the panel.

“Top twenty percentile in written evaluations,” she noted calmly. “Strong situational reasoning. Above-average stress tolerance.” 

-

“Applicant M-173. Maia Zafra,” Professor Bautista said.

Maia entered the room with her shoulders squared despite the exhaustion in her eyes. 

“Your academic record is impressive,” Mrs. Guerra began. “Especially considering your extracurricular workload.” 

-

“Applicant M-208. Cade Cereza,” Dr. Valerio called.

Cade entered the room looking pale. His folder nearly slipped from his grasp as he sat down.

The three panelists exchanged glances.

“Relax,” Mrs. Guerra said, breaking the ice.

-

“Why nursing?” one of the panelists asked.

“It’s stable, meaningful work. Nurses earn high salaries. I’m not passionate about it, but I’m willing to put in the effort to earn that license,” Orson said.

“It wasn’t my first choice. But when I learned I was accepted, my family didn’t think twice to push me for it,” Maia said.

“When my grandparents fell sick, no other profession inspired me to help them besides nursing,” Cade said.

The panelists took note.

-

“Meaningful how?” Dr. Valerio asked Orson.

Orson paused, his gaze wandering before snapping back to the elephant dean.

“My hometown only had one clinic,” he said. “People waited hours for treatment because there weren’t enough staff.” 

Professor Bautista nodded once. 

“A practical answer,” he said.

-

“You balanced volunteer work, student leadership, and academics simultaneously,” Professor Bautista asked Maia. “Why overextend yourself?” 

“They asked. I couldn’t say no,” Maia said.

The lion’s expression barely shifted. 

“That is not sustainable long-term.” 

“No,” Maia admitted. “But emergencies aren’t sustainable either.” 

Mrs. Guerra nodded in approval.

-

“You flagged inconsistencies in three separate assessment materials,” Mrs. Guerra said to Cade.

Cade froze. “…Was I not supposed to?” 

“No,” Dr. Valerio said calmly. “You were.” 

“You notice patterns quickly, Mr. Mercier.”

Cade swallowed hard.

“I notice things when I’m anxious.”

Professor Bautista almost smiled.

“And are you anxious now?”

“Extremely.”

To Cade’s horror, the panelists seemed amused.

-

Then, for each one of them, the questions came fast.

“How would you differentiate authority from leadership?”

“Can you discern sincerity from deception?”

“When should rules be ignored?” “How do people behave when they’re lying?” “What’s the fastest way to identify panic from a crowd?”

-

“You performed well in team-based assessments despite minimal leadership history. Why?” Dr. Valerio asked.

“I like working under a structure. When there is order,” Orson said.

“What if there isn’t? What if your structure were to descend into anarchy?” Professor Bautista cut in.

Orson locked eyes with the lion for a while. He took time to find his answer.

“I will build one from the ground up.”

Mrs. Guerra wrote something down.

-

“In one of your assessments,” Dr. Valerio said, “you assumed leadership without formal designation.” 

Maia nodded.

“Why is that so?” Mrs. Guerra asked.

“Someone has to step up. Everywhere, whatever happens, no matter how bad it gets, someone has to be there to tell us there is a way out.”

“Good point, but how do you prevent that?” Professor Bautista asked, pointing his pen at her.

“You make sure everyone trusts you, and that everyone has a place to call their own.”

The lion nodded once, not in approval, but rather in recognition.

-

“Final question,” Dr. Valerio cleared his throat. 

Cade’s ears perked up.

“If someone told you this institution was not what it appeared to be,” the dean asked, “what would you do?” 

The little hedgehog’s brain was visibly short-circuiting. His lip twitched as his eyebrows furrowed. He had one answer, but hesitated, and that became two, then four, then eight.

All the panelists paused to observe his trembling.

“…I would assume that’s either a psychological test or the beginning of a conspiracy.” 

Mrs. Guerra lowered her head to hide a smile. 

Cade opened his mouth, held his breath, and closed it again.

Dr. Valerio’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly. The silence began to drag. He coughed, deliberately, to snap Cade out of his reverie.

“That was a joke,” Cade blurted out. “I mean - not a joke joke, statistically speaking conspiracies do exist historically, but I don’t think the nursing college is secretly -” 

“You may go now, Mr. Cereza,” Dr. Valerio interrupted calmly.

Cade rose quickly and picked up his bag. “Thank you, I’m sorry if I - was holding you up.”

“Don’t sweat it, kid,” Professor Bautista said. “I’ve dealt with worse.”

-

As the panelists watched each one of them leave on their individual interviews, they stared. Watching their movements. Waiting to see if one of them would turn back to call them out. But none of them looked back. That was that. As the heavy doors shut behind each one, silence lingered for a while, for safety.

Professor Bautista leaned back in his chair with a quiet exhale.

“Interesting batch this year,” he said.

“Very interesting,” Dr. Valerio said.

Mrs. Guerra looked out the window below, overlooking the campus grounds where hundreds of students stood under the shade. Some were mingling, buying from vendors, meeting with friends, and making plans. Sunlight poured into the room, warming the air amidst the frosty gusts of the air conditioner. 

Professor Bautista wiped his spectacles and straightened his papers. 

“Who’s the next applicant?”

The day was uneventful again.

***

Maia woke to darkness and the violent buzzing of her phone against the wooden bedside table. For several disoriented seconds, she could not remember where she was. Her head was spinning. A painful hammering against her temples made it agonizing to sit up.

The room was alien. Washed pale blue by moonlight slipping through thin curtains. Rain tapped softly against the window beside her bed while the ceiling fan hummed overhead in uneven rhythm. 

Then it all came back. NESU-CON admissions. The interviews. The three-hour trip home. She had fallen asleep still wearing her interview outfit. 

Her phone buzzed again. 

Unknown Number. 

2:13 AM. 

Maia groaned softly and fumbled for the device beneath tangled charging cables. 

“Hello?” she muttered sleepily. 

“Maia?” The voice came sharp and breathless through the speaker. It was Cade.

Immediately awake now, Maia pushed herself upright against the headboard. 

“Why are you calling me at two in the morning?” 

“You checked your email yet?” 

Rain crackled faintly through his side of the call. Maia could hear movement too - pacing, maybe. 

“I was asleep.” 

“Right. Sorry. Stupid question.” 

Maia rubbed tiredly at her eyes. 

She grabbed her laptop from the floor beside the bed and flipped it open. The screen illuminated the dark room with pale white light as the device slowly booted awake. Outside her bedroom door, the rest of the house remained silent. The province itself seemed asleep, buried beneath distant thunder and steady rainfall. 

Three unread messages. 

The first came from a scholarship foundation. 

The second - “NORTHWESTERN ESCABACO STATE UNIVERSITY - COLLEGE OF NURSING “

“What does it say?” Cade asked immediately. 

She clicked the email. The university seal appeared first, polished and formal against a blue-and-gold banner. 

Dear Ms. Maia Zafra,

Congratulations.

Following your successful completion of the admissions evaluations and faculty interview process, you have officially been accepted into the Northwestern Escabaco State University - College of Nursing…

Maia stopped reading. A strange laugh overcame her.

“I got accepted,” she whispered. 

“…Yeah,” Cade said quietly. “Me too.” 

The moment felt enormous. She was tempted to wake her parents. She smiled helplessly at the glowing screen. 

“We made it.”

“Yeah.”

There was a long pause. Maia sensed something.

“Cade,” Maia said slowly. “What’s wrong?” 

He was silent at first.

“Did you get another email?” 

A cold feeling crawled quietly into her stomach. There was one unread message left. But it had no sender address, no profile icon. It was a blank address filled with random characters.

The subject line read:

DO NOT GO TO NESU-CON

Maia clicked it open. At first, the email appeared completely blank. Then the text began loading into the screen. She read them aloud to Cade.

You do not understand what you are walking into. If you value your future, walk away now while you still can. The school will take everything from you eventually. Your time, your safety, your identity.

“Such a cheap trick message.” She groaned.

She opened the email details. There was no traceable sender, no institutional domain, nothing she could recognize. The timestamp showed it was sent exactly a minute after she received the NESU-CON email. 

“What if it’s another applicant?” she suggested weakly. “Someone trying to scare people off the waitlist?” 

“I think so too. Still - it concerned me. From all the spam and scam emails you usually get - you wouldn’t expect something so personal.”

Cade sighed.

“I’m going to call Orson,” Cade said.

There was another pause. Maia’s phone rang. She answered the new caller. Orson sounded beaten from the other end, as he spoke with the tone of a bear shaken out of hibernation.

“Did you guys get -” 

“Yeah. We got it too.”

The three of them kept quiet in the call for a while. Maia scrolled through the rest of the email.

There is still time to refuse. Walk away while you can. 

Are you willing to let everything go for this? 

Is it really your calling? 

Maia stared at the sentence for a long moment. The question lodged itself somewhere unpleasant in her chest. Part of her couldn’t answer that question immediately. Truth be told, she wasn’t entirely sure of taking up the offer.

Cade broke the silence first. 

“…You guys still going?” 

Maia looked toward the rain-streaked window beside her bed. The bright lights and high-rises of Taguipan City conquered the night sky like an encroaching cluster of parasites. Its existence is wholly disorienting and alien against the endless sea of space.

Every instinct told her something about the school was wrong. 

“I worked too hard to get in,” she said quietly. 

“We all did,” Orson said. “It might just be me but - I’m considering backing out. My gut is telling me to leave while I still can.”

“Your future is on the line,” Cade said. “Yours, mine, Maia’s. I’m not backing out. I need this.”

“You don’t have to rub it in. I know.” Orson tried to laugh his anxieties away.

That evening, Maia sat in bed staring at her open laptop for hours until exhaustion forced her to sleep. Cade and Orson were in similar situations miles away from each other. NESU-CON outdid the other colleges in Taguipan in many more ways than one. To decline the once-in-a-lifetime offer was, as an old saying would put it: “refusing to sleep in bed in favor of a floor mat”. But the three of them thought hard about their choice. Somehow, somewhere deep inside - each one of them was compelled for different reasons to accept that email. To answer their calling.

***

Orientation Week was a time for students to adjust to their new college lives. Various clubs hosted programs to welcome incoming freshmen. Many seniors went out of their way to mingle with them and make new friends. 

A grand College Orientation Program began the school year. Per level, the faculty introduced themselves one by one. Notable figures appeared here and there. Everyone exchanged polite greetings and introductions were commonplace. Then each level held intermission numbers to entertain their collegemates. Some advisors planned separate parties with their classes to break the ice. 

After joining their batchmates in an impromptu dance number, the freshmen of Batch Avaris were given by-section tours of Nightingale Street. This wide avenue neighbored Centennial Hall. The dormitories stood here. Each dormitory was a concrete tower identical to each other if not for the life that ebbed and flowed in each room. Laundry lines fluttered between railings like improvised flags. Potted plants spilled vines over chipped cement edges. Wind chimes clinked in the spring breeze. Fairy lights blinked long after curfew. Hand-painted signs, bamboo blinds, posters, towels, drying uniforms, stuffed toys, and mismatched curtains painted the concrete. One floor glowed with warm yellow lamps and hanging lanterns; another blasted music beside neon LED strips taped around balcony doors. Each batch reserved an entire building with 200 rooms to occupy. 

Inside the freshman building, the hallways buzzed with organized chaos. 

Parents dragged suitcases across polished floors. Freshmen carried electric fans, rice cookers, and oversized plush toys through corridors too narrow for all of them at once. Somewhere down the hall, somebody was already playing upbeat pop music far too loudly while another student argued with maintenance staff about internet access. 

Maia, Orson, and Cade spent the afternoon settling in their rooms. The trio ended up in the same class with 37 other strangers under Mr. Rioja - a bubbly quokka bursting with energy.

“WELCOME TO THE START OF THE BEST YEARS OF YOUR LIVES!” he had shouted earlier during orientation. He was one of the emcees, pacing across the auditorium stage like he was trying to outrun gravity itself. “Remember: you have come to accept your calling as a future nurse. Embrace it, and have fun!” 

After the orientation, he briefed everyone on their class welcoming party later that evening. Maia approached him after the program. He forgot to announce the dress code.

“I’ll text the group chat later, Mei-Mei,” he said, having given her a nickname in no time. “If my memory serves me right, some advisors are sensitive to some colors.”

Maia’s room sat near the corner of the seventh floor with a narrow balcony overlooking the university grounds below. Afternoon sunlight spilled through wide windows while electric fans hummed lazily overhead. 

A kitchenette occupied one corner beside a compact refrigerator. Shelves lined the walls above a study desk built directly into the room. The bed itself was narrow but clean, tucked neatly beside a corkboard already waiting to be filled with schedules, reminders, and future academic suffering. 

She had just pinned her weekly planner onto the corkboard when Orson appeared leaning against the open doorway. 

“You’re unpacking already?”

“You got a problem with that?” Maia shot him a look.

“No. It’s just - didn’t Sir Rioja tell us to wait for the guards to inspect our rooms first before we move in?”

Maia paused. She shook her head. “I forgot. Anyway, it’s probably nothing. We only have an hour to get ready for the party.”

Orson hummed disapprovingly. “Still. Moving in here without getting your room checked is like eating a cut of raw salmon without checking for maggots.”

Maia ignored him.

“You wouldn’t mind if I brought speakers over to play music, right?”

“No, as long as it’s not loud enough to disturb my studying.”

“It probably isn’t.” Orson paused to glance around her room. “…You definitely alphabetize things.”

“I do not.”

“You labeled your extension cords.”

“That’s practical.”

“That is indeed practical,” he said.

Maia rolled her eyes.

“You wouldn’t mind if I sang in my room, right?”

That caught her attention.

“You sing?”

“A little.”

Cade appeared beside Orson. Cade looked like he had been sprinting through the dormitory for fun. “I’m loving this place already,” he declared. “My dorm back home was basically a decorated storage closet. Do you guys have kitchens in your rooms too?”

“I have one,” Orson answered. “Thank god. I can cook in the comfort of my own home.”

“I have one too,” Maia added. “You can cook here if you want. You probably wouldn’t get anything done at Orson’s.”

“Why?”

“Because he seems like the type to do everything in his power to distract you in his own house.”

Orson looked offended.

Cade hurried back toward his room before abruptly reappearing thirty seconds later holding open Maia’s mini refrigerator dramatically. “Oh come on, you guys have fridges too? Why don’t I have one?” Cade groaned. “I’m going to waste so much money buying food outside. Do you know how expensive campus cafés are?” 

Without waiting for a reply, Cade ran back to his room.

As the sunset bathed NESU campus in an amber glow, students began crossing the elevated walkways connecting the dormitories directly to Centennial Hall. Music drifted upwards from outdoor garden cafes where upperclassmen were putting up decorations and preparing the tech.

Maia laid out her clothes on her bed, trying to eye an ideal one for the welcoming party later.

“Civilian, right?” she asked them.

“I don’t know. Nobody told us.” Orson asked. “I want to stay back to sleep. We travelled four hours from our province to get here and you still have energy to go?”

Before Maia could answer, Cade was back - his face red and covered in a sweaty mist.

“Guys.” He paused to catch his breath. 

“You should really stop comparing our rooms,” Maia said.

“Is your lamp bugged too?”

Both Maia and Orson exchanged glances at each other before turning back to Cade. “Bugged?” the both of them said.

Cade pushed past Orson and pointed at the desk lamp. He unplugged it and took the bulb out, causing a little black device to fall out. It had a small red light, and it was blinking. “This thing, I found it in my lamp too,” he said.

The trio looked around the room.

Orson paused, his expression shifting slightly. He pointed. “There.”

A tiny black dot nestled behind the ventilation grate. 

They stared at it.

“That’s a camera,” Cade said.

Orson stepped farther into the room slowly, eyes scanning the ceiling now. 

“That’s definitely a lens.” 

“Maybe it’s for hallway security?” Maia asked.

“Yet it’s inside the room? Come on,” Orson remarked.

The three of them searched the room with increasing disbelief. A second pinhole camera hidden near the smoke detector. An unusually sensitive microphone embedded beneath the study desk. Another tucked inside the digital clock mounted near the kitchenette. 

“This is insane,” Cade muttered while crouched beside the television console. “This is actually insane.” 

“They bugged our dormitories,” Maia said matter-of-factly. 

For several moments, none of them spoke. 

“…Do you think they can hear us right now?” Cade asked.

All three instinctively looked upward. 

Then Orson smiled, and lifted one of the listening devices to his mouth. “Well, whoever is listening right now should give us a sign and tell us what to wear for the acquaintance party tonight.”

They waited. The three of them sat down on the bed and waited for minutes.

Nothing happened. 

“I’m not gonna waste time, I have to get dressed,” Maia said, standing up and choosing a random outfit from her wardrobe. 

Then their phones buzzed. 

“Good evening everyone, our dress code for tonight is semi-formal, thank you. Please refrain from wearing any pastel or vibrant colors as some instructors requested,” Cade said, reading off of a text the whole class received mere seconds ago.

Him and Orson glanced at Maia, then at her dress.

Pretty and pink.

“There’s your sign,” Orson said, breaking into a laugh.

“This is illegal,” Maia said. “I’m texting my parents. This place is a melting pot of violations.”

She took out her phone and hastily messaged away in silence.

“We should ask about changing your dorm by the way.” Orson nudged Cade. “You’re gonna need that kitchenette and fridge. Besides the bugging.”

***

Nightingale Street transformed completely after sunset.

Strings of lantern lights hung across the courtyards between the dormitories and Centennial Hall, bathing the campus in warm amber and gold. Music echoed across the open grounds where upperclassmen grilled skewers beside food stalls while freshmen wandered between booths clutching paper cups of milk tea and plates overloaded with street food. 

Mr. Rioja was only glad everyone was in attendance. The quokka danced between tables wearing a floral polo shirt so aggressively colorful it drew gazes from everyone. His closet was full of them. Every few minutes he appeared beside another student group carrying food, starting games, or loudly encouraging unity between his section. At one point he conquered the karaoke machine, and nobody could tell him apart from any of the freshmen there.

Music pulsed from speakers set near the central fountain while students filled the courtyard with overlapping conversations and laughter. Some danced beneath the hanging lights while others lounged across picnic blankets spread over the grass. 

But the trio was nowhere to be found. They gathered at a quiet spot a block away from Centennial Hall. It was lights out for the rest of the campus. The three of them sat at a lone concrete picnic bench covered in fallen leaves. Nothing but the glow of their phones illuminated their faces. The silence was punctured by the chirping of crickets and the munching of street food. 

“What if we actually investigate?” Maia began.

The boys stopped chewing. Cade blinked.

“Investigate, investigate?” 

“Yes.”

Orson glanced toward Centennial Hall. Several windows remained illuminated despite the late hour. Figures occasionally crossed behind the glass; faculty members, security personnel, all working during a freshman party. As they always did.

Cade waved a half-eaten burger at them. “If we get expelled, I want both of you to know this was peer pressure.” 

“I’m worried.” Orson shook his head. “I don’t want to risk anything. My parents always told me: don’t poke the bear, whenever problems with my relatives would come up during reunions. Don’t get into fights you can’t afford to lose.”

“It doesn’t have to be a fight. We’re just… surveying. Observing. Watching,” Maia said. “Trust me on this one. We’ll test the waters. We’ll be fine.”

***

The first operation happened two nights later. 

Curfew at the dormitories began at ten o’ clock in the evening. Any student caught wandering the campus past curfew would be ordered to submit an incident report the next morning. At exactly 9:55 PM every night, the dormitory loudspeakers played a soft piano melody followed by a prerecorded reminder from the administration: “Students are expected to remain within their assigned residential floors after curfew. Please uphold institutional discipline at all times.” 

By 10:15, the building usually fell quiet. It was never dead silent. Only subdued. One would hear distant plumbing groaning behind walls, muffled conversations leaking beneath doorways, the hum of fluorescent lights, and the steady drone of air-conditioning units fighting the tropical heat outside. 

The campus itself seemed asleep. 

Orson walked several paces ahead carrying a large laundry basket stuffed with towels and detergent packets. His expression remained unnervingly calm considering they were currently violating dormitory policy less than a week into freshman year. 

Inside the basket sat three pairs of shoes hidden beneath folded blankets.

Maia stared at him.

“That’s your disguise plan?”

“If anyone asks,” Orson said quietly, “we’re doing laundry.”

“At midnight?”

“People procrastinate. Besides, I know how the guards usually are with freshmen. They’re… lenient. At least for now.” Orson adjusted his grip on the basket.

Cade adjusted his oversized hoodie nervously. “I can’t believe we’re committing crimes because of elevators,” he said.

“We’re not committing crimes,” Maia argued. “I think.”

The elevator ride downward felt agonizingly loud.

Every mechanical hum sounded amplified inside the empty dormitory. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered softly while the metal walls reflected distorted versions of the three freshmen trying very hard to look casual. 

“You look guilty,” Orson murmured, eyeing Cade whose hands fidgeted with his hoodie straps.

“I feel guilty.”

“Yeah but you’re carrying fabric softener. Again, we have a perfectly good alibi.”

The elevator doors opened into the lobby, and the trio found themselves standing face-to-face with Sir Catubig - a carabao security guard. He held a cup of coffee in one hand and a flashlight in the other, his index finger hovering over the elevator buttons. A large ring of keys rattled against his belt as he stopped before them.

The three freshmen froze instantly. 

Sir Catubig’s eyes widened in recognition.

For an operation needing razor-sharp timing, Orson instantly realized how terrible their luck was. Then, in a last-ditch attempt to save their skin, he lifted up the laundry basket.

“Laundry,” he said.

The carabao stared at Orson. Then at Maia. Then at Cade who was visibly sweating in his hoodie despite the cool evening air. He stepped aside, letting the trio move past him.

“Take the side elevators,” he grunted.

“Thank you, sir.” 

The trio walked away with forced casualness. But the moment they rounded the corner, they took a moment to confirm they were still alive. Cade felt a tear roll down his cheek.

“I saw my entire academic future flash before my eyes,” the hedgehog muttered.

“You need better stress management,” Maia whispered.

“I need safer hobbies. And rational thinkers for friends.”

The side elevators connected directly into Centennial Hall’s maintenance corridors. Here, they were past the facade of the gleaming lecture halls and marble lobbies. Long steel corridors stretched endlessly beneath dimmed overhead lights. Entire sections of the building disappeared behind reinforced security shutters stamped with warning labels and access restrictions. Red standby lights blinked softly beside laboratory entrances while security cameras rotated with quiet mechanical clicks. The scent of antiseptic lingered everywhere beneath the faint metallic smell of machinery hidden somewhere deep within the walls. 

Somewhere distant, metal doors clanged shut. The noise echoed through the entire corridor. They felt their hair stand.

The trio wandered around, trying to mentally map out the maintenance floor. Most doors needed keycards to unlock. They couldn’t get far either, as a pair of guard dogs intercepted them not long after they arrived.

“The laundry room is over here,” a rottweiler said, escorting them to their destination. “You shouldn’t be out here at this time, I’d have you written up for delinquency.”

They dumped their clothes into washing machines, occasionally stealing glances at the guards standing by the doors. After several minutes of waiting in silence, one of the guard dogs yawned and muttered something to his companion.

“Hey, kid, you know your way back, right? We got work to do,” the rottweiler said.

They nodded.

The rottweiler’s companion - a labrador - made an offhanded comment about the trio to his partner before they disappeared behind the doors.

“We need keycards,” Maia said.

Over the following days, their investigations escalated from curious wandering into something far more organized. Even though they hadn’t formally discussed it, each one of them took on specific roles during each mission. Maia planned routes. Orson devised practical solutions. Cade took notes on everything and everyone. 

A second-year student named Kenny supplied temporary maintenance access cards after Orson offered to buy his books for him. The exchange happened behind a campus café beneath flickering neon signs. Rainwater dripped from the awnings overhead. The stolen maintenance cards granted access to entire sections of Centennial Hall freshmen were never supposed to enter. The simulation rooms. The underground storage wings. The restricted medical archives. 

One evening they disguised themselves as student custodians using borrowed cleaning uniforms. With their disguises, they wheeled supply carts through a faculty-only corridor. Another night involved hiding inside rolling linen carts to bypass a security checkpoint near the lower laboratory wings. The carts smelled overwhelmingly of bleach and fabric softener, and the squeaky wheels didn’t help them either. Orson, with his sensitive snout, nearly fainted from sitting in a cart for too long. The bleach overwhelmed him easily, pushing him close to puking.

Outside the investigations, orientation week continued without incident. Days were filled with anatomy lectures, welcoming events, cafeteria lunches, and section activities under Mr. Rioja’s supervision. Nights were spent on amateur investigations. 

Centennial Hall connected to multiple hidden service corridors branching beneath the university grounds like arteries beneath skin. Maintenance elevators descended far deeper underground than public maps indicated. Rooftop walkways linked dormitory towers through narrow access bridges overlooking the illuminated city skyline. 

One rainy evening, while following suspicious faculty movement through the lower west wing, they discovered the underground railway system connecting Centennial Hall to Saint Catherine Medical Center across campus. 

The tunnels looked nothing like ordinary maintenance infrastructure. Concrete walls reinforced with steel plating. Motion sensors embedded near the ceilings. Massive blast doors requiring keypad authorization. Heavy ventilation systems humming somewhere beyond the walls. 

The trains they employed in these routes made no noise. You couldn’t feel the ground shake either. It was as if they glided across the air, never once connecting with the tracks below. Anyone walking aboveground would never feel these steel snakes zip past beneath them.

The three of them stood at an empty train platform watching one fly past them - containing only cargo. 

“This,” Orson murmured quietly while his eyes surveyed the entire area, “is military infrastructure.” 

“Saint Catherine,” Maia said, looking at a nearby map of Taguipan City. “Escabaco Central Hospital, Northeastern District Medical, these are all hospitals and clinics around the city. Every single one is marked on the map.”

They gathered in front of the map, where a digital screen displayed a timetable in multiple languages. The train connected to every marked location in the map, capable of reaching each one in two to three minutes. Some facilities in far-flung rural areas were also marked, reaching up to five to eight minutes of travel time if one were to ride this secret trainline.

“Not just hospitals, but even other colleges. Look, there’s Saint Vincent College, and even Taguipan Medical Academy,” Orson said, pointing at the timetable.

“Does Taguipan City have an underground metro?” Cade asked.

“No. I’ve been to this city many times with my parents. They don’t even have public railways. Only buses and trams.”

Cade held up a little disposable camera and snapped pictures of the map and timetable. 

Somewhere behind them came the sound of voices. Whoever it was, they were approaching the platform.

The three immediately ducked behind stacked supply crates. 

Moments later, two faculty members rounded the corridor accompanied by armed campus security officers dressed in black tactical gear. 

“…northern transfer arrives Thursday.” 

“Has Central approved integration?”

“Pending review from Network oversight.”

The armed officers carried compact rifles.

Maia’s eyes narrowed. The Network. It was an intriguing name to hear from these faculty members. She devoted it to memory.

Soon though, another train - empty, arrived. The faculty members and their guards boarded the train. The train began picking up speed and was soon gone from the station.

Only the soft hum of ventilation systems remained. 

***

It was another rainy night. One o’ clock in the morning.

Maia pinned a sticky note to her corkboard. 

“The Network” she said, pointing her pencil at the note, the words scribbled hastily but larger than all the other notes.

It had been a day since they came across the train system underneath Centennial Hall. After their lectures concluded, the trio gathered all of the clues and information they had on a large corkboard affixed to Maia’s wall. Sticky notes covered the entire board. It had schedules, names, time schedules of various faculty members. On one side of the board, a whole collection of badly drawn maps Orson sketched from memory.

She paced around the room, spinning the pencil in her hand. Cade sat on a stool staring up at the corkboard, his eyes bouncing between each note and photograph he snapped. Orson was hunched up by the window, eating a cup of instant noodles while he eyed something outside with a pair of binoculars.

“Do you guys know anything about this - Network?” Maia said.

“Nothing comes to mind,” Orson said, his focus never leaving the binoculars.

“None of the professors ever mention it,” Cade said, taking out several more pictures from his pockets and browsing them.

“Okay. Let’s review.” Maia returned to the corkboard.

“Exhibit A,” Cade announced dramatically. “The elevators.” Maia pointed at one of the sketched floor plans.

“The south wing elevator accessed a supposed twelfth floor during orientation week.”

“Which later disappeared entirely from the control panel,” Orson added.

Cade scribbled another note beneath it.

“Exhibit B: suspicious faculty behavior.”

“Professor Belleza receiving calls in some kind of disjointed morse code during lectures,” Maia listed.

“Mrs. Miedes restricting certain corridors at specific times of day.”

“Sir Desiderio’s kids keep loudly pestering him about mysterious strangers meeting him at home. He definitely knows something,” Cade added immediately.

“Everyone here knows something,” Orson muttered quietly. 

Maia pinned another sticky note beside the tunnel sketches. “Armed escorts during supply deliveries. Motion sensors underground. Security lockdowns,” she said.

“Military-grade blast doors beneath a nursing building,” Cade emphasized.

He got up and walked closer toward the corkboard. 

“I still think about the interviews sometimes.”

Maia glanced toward him.

“What about them?”

“The questions.” He gestured vaguely. “They asked about leadership, handling pressure, following orders… then deception, confidentiality, and crowd control.”

“The question isn’t whether NESU-CON is a nursing school or not. Obviously it isn’t,” Orson said. “The real question is what NESU-CON really is underneath the facade of a nursing school.”

Maia sat down heavily at the edge of the bed. The exhaustion from the week finally seemed to hit all at once. Cade and Orson felt it too. Seven days ago, they had been nervous freshmen worried about classes and dorm life. Now they were discussing secret underground facilities at one in the morning while surrounded by evidence boards. Beyond their investigations, they had their actual studies to worry about. 

Anatomy textbooks lay open beside handwritten surveillance notes. Maintenance schedules sat stacked beneath biochemistry reviewers. One entire section of Maia’s desk had been overtaken by maps of the underground tunnel systems they had partially explored. The dormitory was too small for the entire breadth of their investigation.

Outside the bedroom door, normal student life continued completely unaware. Someone laughed in the hallway. A neighboring room played soft music through thin walls.

Maia rose from the bed and cleared her throat. “Alright, let’s get back on track. Any leading guesses as to what the hell this college is hiding?”

“It could just be a very advanced nursing school. Uh - I don’t want to dwell on a crackpot conspiracy just yet,” Cade said. “Or what about a military academy?”

"That one makes sense," Maia admitted. “They have all the security, the discipline, plus the hidden infrastructure. And the interview questions about leadership and following instructions.”

“Intelligence agency?” 

“Surveillance, hidden cameras, secrecy, coded language,” Maia said. “A much better fit.”

Cade and Maia spent several more minutes mulling over more choices. A military training center. A disaster response academy. A government intelligence division. But eventually the corkboard was bloated with notes. None of the theories answered all of the questions. Why would they recruit students? Why take on the disguise of a nursing school? Why hide everything?

Then Orson lowered his binoculars and turned to them.

“What about a crime syndicate?” he said. 

***

“Look.” Orson offered Maia his binoculars and waved them over.

The other two crossed the room. Far below the dormitories, the campus grounds sat mostly deserted beneath the rain. Streetlamps cast pale pools of light across wet pavement. The parking area near the freshman dormitory entrance was nearly empty. 

Two black vehicles had just arrived. Neither bore the logos of the university on their doors. Neither looked like any other university vehicle. Neither had car plates. Their headlights switched off simultaneously, and three figures emerged all dressed in black gear and batons. Their faces hidden beneath masks. They approached the locked doors of the freshmen dormitory. 

Sir Catubig - the same security guard a few nights ago, was standing alert at the doors. The weary carabao had been awake the whole evening. He questioned them for a moment, until a struggle broke out between him and the three intruders. One of them took out a handkerchief - probably laced with a powerful anesthetic - which finally knocked out Catubig. They laid the carabao’s snoring body aside before disappearing into the building. 

Thirty seconds passed. Then a minute. Then two.

The front doors burst open again. The masked individuals reappeared, but this time dragging two struggling freshmen in their arms. The students’ arms were bound behind their backs and sacks covered their heads. One freshman tried to kick free but was struck across the head with a baton. The building was asleep. In the darkness, the rain, and the late hour - the scene was concealed perfectly.

"No," Maia said. 

Neither Orson nor Cade realized she had spoken until she was already moving. She stood abruptly and grabbed her raincoat off the wall. 

"What are you doing?" Orson said..

"We're stopping them."

"Stopping them?" Orson repeated. “Do you hear yourself right now? There are kidnappers down there!”

“Exactly.”

“And that’s the reason not to chase them! Listen, Maia,” Orson blocked her from reaching the door. “We’ve been in this cat and mouse chase for how long - and we’ve risked everything for it. We’ve put our studies on the line just for this investigation you pushed us into. And now you want us to risk our lives? Think about this.”

“I am.”

“No you’re not,” Orson said. “We have no idea what's happening.”

“We know enough.”

“We know nothing,” Cade cut in.

The room shook faintly as thunder rolled over Escabaco. Outside, the black vehicles continued moving. They were almost gone. 

Maia took a deep breath. "Look at everything we've found.”

The corkboard stood behind her. It was covered in sticky notes. All their theories, their evidence, the stolen photographs. Proof that the institution they will devote four years of their lives into - was a complete sham. Slithers of the truth laid out before them - hidden tunnels, underground elevators, armed security, the Network. Nothing about NESU-CON made sense anymore. 

“The world is scary and dangerous enough as it is,” Orson said. “Don’t you want to look after yourself for once? To try and just make sure you live to see another day?”

“I know.” Maia looked up at him. “But I’m beginning to think it’s a losing strategy to keep staying in the sidelines and watch the world go by - watch as people around us get screwed over. I think the least we can do is to make the world know we still have a fighting chance.”

All three of them fell silent as Maia’s words began to weigh on them. After a while, she crossed her arms and straightened herself.

“Tell me, are you going to man up and take the lead? Or are you going to keep being reactive until somebody pushes you into a corner?”

For an entire week they had done nothing but follow clues. They observed, speculated, hid in the shadows and watched as things happened without them. Things that are clearly dangerous. Things that are real. And now actual students were being taken away, and they could be next. They will never know until they go out of their way to find out. Someday, it would be too late to act. 

Orson relented. “I hate your guts,” he said.

They bolted out the room. The seventh floor corridor became a blur. Stairways, hallways, and elevators were ignored. After a minute of numbing sprinting, the lobby came into view. The front desk lamp glowed warmly. A large ring of keys were left on the desk - the same one Sir Catubig kept hooked to his belt. There was a key fob hooked on it. Maia grabbed them.

The three raced around the back of the dormitory, where the rain hit them like a wall. Cold, heavy, and relentless. The streetlights reflected across wet pavement. The maintenance yard sat behind the freshmen dormitory hidden behind fencing and storage sheds. There were rows of university vehicles here parked beneath metal awnings. Utility trucks, vans, and even golf carts the faculty used. 

Maia pressed the key fob. A white maintenance van flashed its lights.

The trio sprinted toward it. Rainwater splashed beneath their feet, soaking their pajama pants. Orson pulled the doors open and they climbed inside. Then a realization struck them at the same time. They exchanged glances.

“Can anybody drive?” Maia asked.

Orson turned to Cade. Cade turned to him. They stared at each other.

“Can you drive?” Orson said to Cade.

“I have a license,” Cade said.

Orson pushed him onto the driver’s seat. The engine roared awake and the van lurched forward. Then something changed in that nervous hedgehog. A flash of familiarity shot through him, something electrifying, enough to melt away his nervous ticks. Cade straightened his posture. His grip tightened, his eyes focused.

“Hold on tight,” the hedgehog said. 

The van blasted through the yard’s gates like a missile.

Maia faceplanted into the dashboard. Orson grabbed the overhead handle, a shrill scream escaping him. Rain exploded across the windshield as the campus blurred past.

“Maia, you want me to chase after them?” Cade asked as he slammed his foot on the gas pedal. 

Maia was stunned to answer.

The black vehicles were already reaching the outer university roads. Their taillights glowed through the storm. Cade accelerated, and the engine screamed. The distance shrank fast. Way too fast.

“Cade!” Maia finally shouted.

“What?”

“You’re gaining on them.”

“I know!”

The van drifted around a wet corner, its tires squealed. Water sprayed in every direction.

The first black vehicle noticed them. Its brake lights flashed. 

Then a side window rolled down.

“Oh crud,” Orson said, spotting a muzzle peek out the window. 

A flash exploded through the rain.

Bang!

The rear window shattered. Glass erupted through the cabin, and everyone screamed. In that instant, they remembered their mortality in this world. How fragile it was, how it could be taken away in a moment’s notice. 

“I didn’t think they’d actually have guns,” Orson said.

More shots cut through the thunder. Two more.

Bang. Bang.

The maintenance van swerved. Ahead, the black cars accelerated. But then, behind them, headlights appeared. Dozens of them. Orson noticed first, looking out the rear window. They were university vehicles: black SUVs and security trucks bearing the seal of NESU-CON. The rainwater doing little to obscure their floodlights.

“They found us!” Maia shouted.

Another gunshot echoed through the night. Now the van was trapped between retaliating kidnappers and university pursuit behind. The chase winded across the campus. They zoomed through service roads, past lecture buildings, between dormitories, and crossing into other college areas. The entire university seemed awake now. Sirens wailed from the university vehicles. The storm transformed everything into streaks of light and bullets slicing through the air.

The kidnappers aimed for the rear gate. It was the fastest escape route off campus just past the College of Law. 

Cade’s eyes scanned the roads ahead of them. A faded construction sign flashed past in the darkness. A service road west of the College of Law was left unfinished due to difficult weather conditions. Weeks of rain halted construction. Most of the route consisted of gravel, mud, exposed concrete, and temporary barriers. But more importantly, it cut through the College of Law directly to the rear gate.

“I have an idea,” he said.

“Shoot,” Orson said.

“We’ll block them off.”

“They’re ahead of us.”

“Through the unfinished road.”

“You’re insane. That road is barely a road!” Orson shouted. 

“Do you have a better plan?” Cade said.

The black vehicles accelerated ahead through the rain. Their taillights vanished briefly around another corner. They were picking up distance farther from the van. Time was running out. 

Cade tightened his grip on the steering wheel. For the first time since arriving at NESU-CON, he looked completely certain of something. He took a leap of faith for himself this time.

“If I’m right, we can beat them to the gate.”

"If you're wrong?" Maia asked. 

Cade swallowed. “I don’t know.”

Silence. Then Maia nodded. “Do it.”

The van swerved violently, hurling Maia and Orson against the side. Mud sprayed across the roadway. The vehicle broke away from the main road and crashed through a gap in a temporary construction fence. The service road wasn’t really a road, as it was a half-finished path carved through the western side of campus. Floodlights mounted on construction towers illuminated sections of exposed earth and unfinished pavement. Massive drainage pipes sat abandoned beside trenches filled with rainwater. Excavators and bulldozers loomed through the darkness like sleeping monsters. The van rocked roughly against the dirt and gravel. 

Orson kept knocking his head against the ceiling. “Cade!”

Behind them, university pursuit vehicles overshot the turn completely and continued racing down the main road. 

“I got this,” Cade said. “Sit down.”

The unfinished road twisted between construction equipment and stacks of steel beams. Every few seconds Cade narrowly avoided another obstacle. The van launched over another rise, and for a moment all four wheels left the ground. Then slammed back down. 

“We’re going to make it.” A faint smile appeared on Cade’s lips.

The shortcut worked. They could see the rear gate ahead of them as the scaffolding dwindled around them. Cade accelerated harder. The gate grew larger. 

Headlights appeared before them. The black vehicles emerged from the main road, still fast and approaching, but not enough to avoid the incoming van.

The van rumbled toward the gate. They closed the distance: twenty meters, to ten, and then to five. Cade yanked the steering wheel and the van spun sideways. Metal screeched against wet pavement. The vehicle skidded across the entire width of the rear gate entrance, blocking it completely. The front bumper slammed against one of the posts, while the rear clipped another. Concrete pavement shifted under the wheels. Steel fencing buckled under the van. 

For a short moment, the silence before certain doom, the trio stared into space. Breathing heavily, listening to the rain, a moment of respite.

Then headlights rounded the corner. The kidnappers, coming in fast.

“Brace for impact!” Maia shouted, ducking under the dashboard.

The black vehicles saw the blockade. They slammed on the brakes. Their tires locked. The first car fishtailed wildly across the wet pavement, driving straight into a nearby tree. The second tried to avoid the van, but failed.

It crashed against them.

The impact thundered through the campus.