The next morning was chaos. Not in Carter's room but outside. Shouting. Running. The sound of hundreds of students all reacting to something at once. It was six AM. Way too early for this much noise. Tyler was already at the window. "Holy shit. Someone hit The Beacon." Demo sat up in his bunk. "What?" "The Beacon. Someone vandalized it. There's paint everywhere." The whole room rushed to the window except Kevin, who was still asleep in his gaming chair with his headphones on. Carter looked out. Even from here, blocks away, he could see The Beacon. The massive fifty foot LED tower that displayed real time rankings for every student. It was the heart of the academy. The physical manifestation of everything Star Academy stood for. And someone had covered it in graffiti. The Protocol activated automatically, pulling in social media feeds, analyzing the situation. CAMPUS WIDE INCIDENT. SECURITY BREACH. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO PROTECTED STRUCTURE. Demo was already getting dressed.

Carter spent the next day preparing. Or trying to prepare. The problem was he had no idea how to apologize sincerely when he didn't fully understand what he'd done wrong in the first place. He'd rejected Felix's help. That was clear. But the emotions behind it, the fear and distrust that made him lash out, those were harder to explain without revealing too much about Amaya's betrayal and his own paranoia. The Protocol offered scripted responses, phrases designed for maximum emotional impact. Carter ignored them. If he was going to do this, it had to be genuine. Felix would see through a performance. That morning's Bronze class was Economics of Influence taught by Professor Reeves, a tired looking woman in her fifties who seemed genuinely interested in helping Bronze students succeed. It was a dramatic contrast to Kane. "Social capital," she explained, writing on an actual whiteboard instead of using fancy tech, "is the currency of Star Academy. Your relationships, your reputation,

Carter woke to Demo shaking his shoulder urgently. “Grace. Wake up. Something happened,” Demo said, still gripping his arm. Carter sat up, blinking against the early light. “What?” he asked. “Security swept Bronze dorms last night,” Demo said. “They were looking for evidence about the Beacon vandalism. Took some students’ computers, phones, equipment.” Carter pushed off the blanket and sat straighter. “Did they take anything from our room?” he asked. “No,” Demo said, stepping back. “But they took Isla Chen’s entire setup. Cameras, laptop, hard drives. Everything.” Carter’s stomach turned. All their footage, the entire day of filming, was gone. He reached for his phone and called Isla. She answered on the first ring. “They took everything,” Isla said. “Every piece of equipment I owned. They said it was part of their investigation into the vandalism.” “But we weren’t involved in that,” Carter said. “They don’t care,” Isla said. “They’re using it as an excuse to shut down anyon

Carter lay on his bunk at two in the morning, staring at the ceiling while his roommates slept around him. Tyler was snoring softly in the bunk above. Demo muttered something in his sleep about explosives. Alexander was curled up facing the wall. Kevin still had his headphones on, passed out in his gaming chair. Omar was the only other person awake, sitting by the window with a small reading light, that damn book open in his lap. Carter's head throbbed with a dull ache that had become constant over the past few days. The Protocol hummed in the background of his consciousness like white noise he couldn't turn off. Carter sat up slowly, careful not to wake Tyler above him. He swung his legs over the side of the bunk and pressed his palms against his temples. The headache was getting worse. A new notification appeared in his vision. SYSTEM MESSAGE: ADAPTATION COMPLETE. USER SURVIVAL PARAMETERS PRIORITIZED. PROTOCOL HAS EVOLVED TO MAXIMIZE HOST SUCCESS PROBABILITY. Carter's blood ra

Carter didn't remember how he got behind the dumpster. One moment he was sitting against the tree, the next he was waking up to Demo's face looming over him in the dark. "Yo, Grace," Demo said, shaking his shoulder. "Wake up, man. You look like death." Carter tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. His head exploded with pain and he fell back against the metal dumpster with a groan. "What happened to you?" Demo asked, his usual mocking tone replaced with something that might have been actual concern. "Ran from Derek Winters," Carter managed to say. His mouth tasted like copper and his tongue felt too thick. "Needed to rest." "Rest? Dude, you passed out behind a dumpster. That's not resting, that's dying," Demo said. He pulled out his phone and started texting someone. "I'm getting you to medical. You're all kinds of messed up." "No, I'm fine," Carter protested weakly. He tried to stand and his legs wouldn't cooperate. His whole body felt like someone had beaten him with ha