by C. C. Monö
Professor Jackson took off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. Sarah hated him now, but he didn’t mind. He did this for her. She had all the right qualities and yet she seemed determined to become a rebel. It angered him. The woman had so much potential; why throw it away on some naïve ideology? There had to be a way to change her. After all, that’s what the Academy did; they turned sheep into wolves.
CHAPTER 51
PRESENT MOMENT
Room C wasn’t very big, but it was by far one of the more interesting classrooms within the Academy. There were no windows. Instead, each wall, along with the floor and the concaved ceiling, functioned as huge screens, displaying magnificent scenes from around the world.
Mr Bell frequently used the room as a means of taking the students straight into the heart of a city or culture without having to leave the Academy. By incorporating complex holograms, he provided the students with stunning and realistic environments. This way they could sit in the middle of a busy street in Beijing one day, and, the next, a small village in Papua New Guinea. Just last week, Mr Bell had taken them to a small settlement in North West Greenland, where they learnt about the culture of the Greenlandic Inuit people.
Of course, not all teachers used the room as a training tool. Some just wanted the students to experience various environments, hoping to boost their engagement. Axel assumed this was the case today. Entering the room, he found himself in a desert, near a large oasis. It was a spectacular scene.
A week had passed since he returned from Black Sunday. He was a little disappointed to find that the interest in his absence had been rather low. Not even Thabo, Paul, or Izabella seemed to care much. Everyone was preoccupied with his or her own studies.
“Good morning, leaders!” Professor Evans’ joyful voice cut through the classroom as she stepped through the door, smiling as always. “Today you’re up for a fun exercise. Bring your computers and come with me!”
She led her class down to the Academy basement.
“This sucks. I don’t want to go down there again,” Axel mumbled to Thabo as they stood packed in one of the elevators.
“Don’t worry.” Thabo smiled. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. We are leaders.”
I’m doing it for Talk Thirteen, Axel thought, and steeled himself as the winged doors opened. Standing at the back he couldn’t see much, but a hushed murmur told him something had baffled the other students. He and Thabo exchanged looks and craned their necks.
A few seconds later, Axel stepped out, gaping at the view in front of him. The dark, rugged corridor he’d walked through a week before was gone. Instead, he stood in a wide, cosy-lit hallway. Large, framed photographs of African animals hung on yellow-painted walls. A beige carpet covered the concrete floor, and, through the hallway, soft, soul-soothing music flowed.
A light ring told him the second elevator had arrived. Professor Evans stepped out, followed by the remaining students.
“Come on,” she urged. “We have a lot to do.”
“They never cease to amaze me,” Izabella said, as the professor led her students through a series of short but wide hallways, each a small gallery in itself. Photos, paintings, and extraordinary statues lined the walls, making it hard to keep up with Professor Evans.
A few minutes later, they reached a door leading into a peculiar room that reminded Axel of a small wooden cabin. The walls were cladded in timber but instead of windows, there were large TV-screens showing wide-open fields and a clear-blue sky.
“I told you; they never cease to surprise me.” Izabella laughed as she stepped through the door.
Professor Evans waved them in.
“Go on, have a seat.” She nodded at the wooden desks lined up in neat rows. “Let me tell you about today’s exercise. In there –” she pointed at a narrow door opposite the one where they had just entered “– is something we call ‘the chamber’. It’s a training facility. Today you’ll enter it one by one. Inside, you’ll find a number of mannequins holding a note with a word on it. Four of these words are related the E.K.A. Your task is to identify these words as fast as possible. Once you’ve found them, you shall return to this room and wait for further instructions. Any questions?” No one raised a hand. “Good. Mr Hallman, why don’t you start?”
Paul gave Axel a slap on the back.
“Good luck, mate.”
Axel opened the door and stared into blackness.
“Step in and close the door behind you,” Professor Evans instructed. “The lights will turn on once the door is closed.”
Axel glanced over his shoulder. He had no doubt there was more to this exercise than just finding a few notes. He searched the professor’s face for any clues but she gave nothing away.
“Go on,” she said. “We don’t have all day.”
Axel stepped in. The door closed without making a sound, leaving Axel alone in complete darkness. He waited. Just when he began wondering if something was wrong, a light appeared in front of him. Other lights soon followed and before he knew it, he was standing in a room the size of a warehouse.
“Wow,” he breathed, gawking at the wondrous scene.
He was standing on a cobblestone street that ran from one end of the Chamber to the other. There were buildings on each side of the street, a few stores, a barbershop, a bus stop, and even a real car positioned on the street. The whole scene reminded him of photo from the 1930s.
The mannequins were everywhere, dressed to resemble people going about their everyday business. Some were on the street, like the police officer appearing to stroll down the sidewalk. Others were inside the buildings, or in the process of entering or leaving one of the stores.
Leaning against the barbershop sat a mannequin dressed as a beggar, wearing ragged clothes and dirt all over its face. Nearby, three children played by the street. There were even two boys appearing to fight each other at the end of the room. The smaller of the two had beaten his much-larger opponent to the ground, and stood over him with a proud expression on his face and his hands balled into fists.
Astonished, Axel began to walk down the street, marvelling at all the details. Mikael would have loved this. The man had a thing for silent films, particularly films with John Gilbert, who’d influenced Mikael to grow his ridiculous moustache.
After quick consideration, Axel decided to work from one end of the room to the other. It was an eerie feeling, moving amongst the stiff mannequins, accompanied by nothing more than the hollow sound of his shoes against the cobblestone. He picked up his speed, reading the notes attached to each mannequin’s hand. Most words were such that they couldn’t be connected to the Academy; words such as “Moon”, “Seaweed”, “Snow”, “Skateboard”, etc. Others were a little harder, things that one could find within the Academy; “Rug”, “Restaurant”, “Pool”, etc.
When Axel came across a female mannequin at the bus stop, he found she had the word “Eagle” on her note. That had to be one of the words. A little later, he found the word “Brussels” on a male mannequin. It wasn’t as obvious as “Eagle”, but it was clear enough. The third word was in the hand of a mannequin girl playing on the street. It said “Power”.
After a fair bit of searching, Axel found the fourth word, “Thunder”, written on a tiny note, stuffed into the fist of the young fighter. Thunderstruck, Axel thought, as he considered the larger boy on the ground. How fitting. He shoved the note back into the plastic hand when the lights flickered and died.
The room grew black as a grave. Great, now what?
“Ms Evans!” Axel yelled. “The lights went out!”
There was a faint click above his head. Axel’s heart began to pound.
“We know why you applied,” a powerful female voice declared. She uttered the words without judgement, yet Axel was so startled, he reared and knocked a mannequin over. “We know the truth and we will keep it a secret if you collaborate.”
Axel found his balance and froze. He didn’t even breathe. He just wai
ted, listening to the quiet, static noise that filled the silence around him.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
“In time you’ll know, Mr Hallman. Meanwhile, here’s something to contemplate: if you talk me into doing what you want, you call it leadership; if I talk you into doing what I want, then you call it manipulation. Tell me, what’s the difference?”
There was a flickering of light, the voice vanished, and the room lit up. An instant later, the door at the end of the room flung opened and Professor Evans marched in.
“Mr Hallman! Are you all right?”
* * *
In a different part of the world, Smooth got an expected phone call.
“Yes?”
“We did it. We broke through and reached him.”
“Excellent! Well done. And how did he take it?”
“Better than I expected, sir.”
“Perfect. Inform the others. Let them know that as far as I’m concerned, we should proceed according to plan.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Thor…make sure you’re here by tomorrow morning.”
“Of course, sir.”
CHAPTER 52
Professor Jackson cursed at the ringing of the phone and turned away from his computer. He’d been very clear when he told Nicole that he didn’t want to be disturbed. He was in the middle of grading his students’ essays on business restructuring. As expected, they’d done a great job, which required him to be very creative in order to find things to criticise.
Many people disliked giving criticism but not Professor Jackson. He was of the opinion that criticism was the ticket to improvement. Know your faults and you’ll be able to improve. It was as simple as that.
The phone rang once more and the professor snatched off his glasses. Glaring at the phone he was surprised to find that it wasn’t Nicole who called.
“Aye?”
“We have security issue.”
Professor Jackson closed his eyes. Although Mr Nakata’s voice was calm as always, the fact that he’d found something he regarded as an “issue” was disturbing, very disturbing.
“Shit! Where are you?”
“Eagle Eye.”
“All right, I’ll be right down!” he barked, his Irish accent becoming more pronounced with anger.
The assistant principal stormed out of his office. With Cunningham out on business, it was up to him to run the Academy. An “issue” was troubling, and Professor Jackson didn’t want anything remotely “troubling” on his watch. Shit!
He took the elevator to the bottom floor and made his way through a labyrinth of corridors until he reached a thick metal door, guarded by a woman in black uniform.
“Good afternoon, sir,” she said and stepped aside.
“No, it’s not,” Professor Jackson muttered as he punched in a private code on his phone. The door opened and he marched into a short, sterile corridor. To his left was a double door leading to the guards’ quarters, and to his right the guards’ training centre. Professor Jackson stomped down the hallway to the very end, where a massive and heavily armed guard protected yet another door. The guard gave him a small nod of recognition and stepped aside.
“Good afternoon, sir.”
“For you maybe,” Professor Jackson growled and placing his left palm on the scanner.
“Welcome Assistant Principal Jackson,” a computerised voice declared, and the door opened.
The Academy’s security centre, Eagle Eye, was a dark, bunker-like room, fitted with monitors everywhere. There were always three guards on duty. Their job was to be the eyes and ears of the Academy.
Mr Nakata was in the back of the room, staring at a cluster of monitors.
“What’s the problem,” Professor Jackson roared.
“We think maybe someone hack security system.” Mr Nakata looked down at a young man sitting in front of a computer. “Mr Tilly, explain,” he demanded.
“Yes, sir.” The young man turned to Professor Jackson. “Ms Evans is doing an exercise with her class. She requested a visual of the Chamber for her entire session. I gave her access five minutes before class started. She logged on fifteen minutes later. Five minutes after that, the first student entered the Chamber. Everything went well for eight minutes. Then we lost connection with all cameras on that floor. For thirty seconds, we couldn’t see or hear anything. Not even our back-up system worked, and that’s very, very strange, sir.”
Professor Jackson glared at the screen while his mind processed Mr Tilly’s words.
“Could it have been caused by some mechanical or technical failure?”
“It’s possible, sir, but I doubt it.”
“Why?”
“Because Professor Evans called us twenty-two seconds after the system crashed and informed us that the door to the Chamber was locked. When she lost visual, she’d tried to get in to her student, but somehow the automatic lock-up system had kicked in. That shouldn’t happen, sir.”
“We control lock-up and lock-down,” Mr Nakata added. “No one else.”
Mr Tilly bobbed his head.
“That’s for safety reasons, sir. In fact, should our security system falter, then most of our automatic doors should open, not close. I’ve done a quick health check on our system and I can’t find anything indicating that we have a bug in our system. I need to run a few more checks, of course, but I doubt I’ll find anything.”
Professor Jackson couldn’t believe it. It didn’t make any sense.
“What are you saying, Mr Tilly? Someone hacked their way into our system? Is that even possible?”
“Anything is possible,” Mr Nakata said, “but very difficult from outside.”
Professor Jackson winced.
“And from inside the Academy?”
“Much easier.”
“I see.” Professor Jackson rubbed the back of his neck. “Tell me, who was the student that got locked in when this happened?”
Mr Tilly glanced at Mr Nakata before tapping a few commands on his computer, bringing forth a blurry picture of Axel. Professor Jackson closed his eyes for a second. It might not mean anything, he thought to himself. It could be a simple coincidence. On the other hand…it might mean everything.
“Not a word about this to anyone,” he warned. “And I mean anyone! That includes our Principal Cunningham, understand?”
Mr Tilly flinched.
“But, sir…”
Mr Nakata, cut him off by placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t question order!”
“Of course, sir,” Mr Tilly faltered. “Not a word to anyone.”
Professor Jackson took the elevator up one floor and marched off to the Cabin, the classroom connected to the Chamber.
“Oh, good afternoon, sir,” Professor Evans began as he barged in.
Had it been a good afternoon, I wouldn’t be here, Professor Jackson wanted to yell, but he held his tongue and scanned the room for Axel.
“I need to borrow Mr Hallman for a second,” he snapped and gestured at the young Swede to join him.
Professor Evans was displeased, but she knew better than to challenge him.
“I want you to tell me what happened in there,” he demanded, when he and Axel stood outside the Cabin a moment later.
“You already know about that, sir?”
“Just answer the damn question, Hallman!”
Axel’s eyes darted towards the ceiling and back, making it clear that he was choosing his words with care. Why would he do that? Professor Jackson wondered.
“Well, sir, I was in the Chamber when the lights went out. I called for Professor Evans but she couldn’t hear me. Then the lights went on again and the professor came in. She said the cameras had malfunctioned and that the door couldn’t be opened for a while.”
Professor Jackson tried to read the young man’s face to see if he was telling the truth.
“That’s it, Mr Hallman?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’d tell me if
something else happened, wouldn’t you? I’m very concerned about your safety here.”
“Oh.” Axel’s surprise seemed genuine. Most students were too thick-headed to realise that Professor Jackson cared about them, and Axel was no exception. “Of course, sir.”
The assistant principal raised his chin and exhaled.
“Very well, Mr Hallman. You can return to your class.”
On his way back to the office, Professor Jackson’s cell phone rang.
“Professor, this is Carl Tilly from security. We’ve gone through our systems and we can’t find any indication of software or hardware failure. We found a tiny bug in the audio system but that shouldn’t have affected the cameras or the doors.”
Professor Jackson came to a dead stop.
“What did you just say?”
“Eh…”
“You found a bug?”
“Yes, sir, but it was tiny...”
“I don’t care how small it is, you fud!” the professor barked. “A bug is a mistake and we don’t do mistakes! You have thirty minutes to write me a full report, including an action plan! Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, tell me; were we hacked or not?”
Mr Tilly seemed to waver.
“We can’t find any signs of intrusion, sir. None whatsoever. If we were hacked, then whoever did it must have known our system in quite some detail. I just don’t see how that would be possible.”
“So you’re telling me we weren’t hacked?”
Mr Tilly cleared his throat.
“Well…no, sir. I’m saying that we don’t know.”
Professor Jackson took a very deep and loud breath.
“Now you listen to me, you bleedin’ muppet,” he hissed. “I’m not interested in your opinion or your guesses. I have to know if we were hacked or not.”
“But, sir, it’s impossible…”
“Nothing is impossible,” Professor Jackson shouted. “Just get me a bloody answer!”