The problem with Tavian was that he never let things go.
Ever.
Three days had passed since lunch with Ilya.
Three days of classes.
Three days of assignments.
Three days of Tavian making Caelum's life significantly more difficult.
"Good morning, lover boy."
Caelum didn't even look up.
"No."
"Interesting response."
"It wasn't a response."
"Then why'd you answer?"
Caelum considered throwing his notebook at him.
Briefly.
Very briefly.
Tavian sat down beside him with the expression of someone having far too much fun.
"Have you spoken to her today?"
"No."
"Yet."
"No."
"Interesting."
Caelum hated him.
Not really.
But a little.
The classroom began filling with students.
Conversations echoed through the room.
Chairs scraped across the floor.
Morning routines settled into place.
Normal.
Caelum liked normal.
Lately, normal felt harder to find.
The pressure behind his eyes hadn't returned since the archives.
That should have been reassuring.
Instead, it felt like waiting for a storm that refused to arrive.
The anticipation was worse than the weather.
Dr. Ashcroft entered a few moments later.
The room quieted almost immediately.
"Before we begin," Ashcroft said, "I'd like to discuss recent events."
That got everyone's attention.
Even Tavian sat up.
The projector activated behind Ashcroft.
A map of the world appeared.
Several locations glowed faintly.
Greyhaven.
A coastal district in the Eastern Federation.
A transit hub in South Aster.
An industrial zone near the Polar Belt.
"What happened there?" someone asked.
Ashcroft was quiet for a moment.
"Officially?"
The class exchanged glances.
That wasn't a normal answer.
"Officially," Ashcroft continued, "investigations are ongoing."
A few students groaned.
Ashcroft ignored them.
"The important thing is understanding how uncertainty affects people."
The map vanished.
"When answers don't exist, people create them."
Caelum wrote that down.
Tavian leaned over.
"You write down everything he says."
"Because it's useful."
"You wrote down 'good morning' once."
"That was different."
"It wasn't."
Caelum stopped responding.
The lesson continued.
But his attention drifted.
Not because of Greyhaven.
Because something else felt different.
Students were being watched.
Not openly.
Subtly.
There were unfamiliar adults in the halls.
Staff members he'd never seen before.
People who looked like they belonged nowhere.
And somehow...
Every time he noticed one of them—
They were already looking somewhere else.
The feeling stayed with him through the rest of the day.
At lunch, Ilya joined them.
Or more accurately—
She sat down.
Tavian immediately started causing problems.
"Caelum was looking for you."
Caelum nearly choked.
"I was not."
"You absolutely were."
"No."
"Yes."
Ilya looked between them.
Then calmly took a bite of her lunch.
"Good."
Both boys blinked.
"What?" Tavian asked.
"You should look for people you like."
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Tavian looked like Christmas had arrived early.
Caelum wanted to disappear.
Preferably forever.
"Ilya."
"Yes?"
"Please stop helping him."
She smiled.
Unfortunately.
Tavian looked moments away from ascending into another plane of existence.
The conversation moved on.
Mostly.
Yet Caelum found himself watching Ilya occasionally.
Not intentionally.
At least not at first.
She listened more than she spoke.
Observed more than she participated.
When other students argued nearby, she watched them carefully.
Not judgmentally.
Not nervously.
Curiously.
As if people fascinated her.
As if she were studying them.
That feeling returned.
The one he'd felt before.
A tiny sense that something about her didn't fit.
Then she noticed him looking.
And smiled.
The feeling vanished.
Or maybe he ignored it.
He wasn't sure.
After classes ended, students poured from the Institute.
The evening rush began.
Caelum and Tavian headed toward the transit bridge.
Halfway there, Tavian slowed.
"Do you feel that?"
Caelum looked over.
"Feel what?"
Tavian frowned.
"I don't know."
That was unusual.
Tavian almost always knew.
The ginger-haired boy looked back toward campus.
Two unfamiliar adults stood near the entrance.
Talking quietly.
Watching students leave.
One wore a matte gray identification band.
The other wore the same.
Neither looked like faculty.
Neither looked like parents.
Yet something about them made people unconsciously avoid walking too close.
"They've been around all week," Tavian said.
Caelum nodded.
"I know."
The pressure behind his eyes flickered.
Tiny.
Barely noticeable.
Gone before he could react.
Still.
His stomach tightened.
The two gray-banded figures continued their conversation.
One glanced in his direction.
Only for a second.
Then looked away.
Caelum suddenly felt very exposed.
As though someone had almost recognized him.
Though for what...
He couldn't say.
That night, deep within a Bureau monitoring center beneath Luminex City, another report appeared.
MICRO-DEVIATION DETECTED
Location:
Luminex Institute.
Duration:
0.4 seconds.
Severity:
Insignificant.
The report automatically joined dozens of similar entries.
Most analysts never saw it.
One did.
Senior Analyst Serin Vale stared at the screen.
Then at another.
Then another.
Each event was small.
Meaningless by itself.
Together...
They were beginning to form a shape.
And every line pointed toward the same location.
Luminex Institute.
For the first time, she opened a new file.
A file that did not previously exist.
She entered a title.
PERSON OF INTEREST — PENDING
Then she paused.
There wasn't enough evidence yet.
Not even close.
But something in her instincts refused to let the pattern go.
Outside, the city lights burned against the night.
Unaware.
The world continued moving.
But somewhere beneath that movement, something had begun to shift.
And the people watching were starting to notice.
End of Chapter 5