"The library?" Camille asked, her voice dropping to a sharp, incredulous whisper. She adjusted her backpack, the heavy strap digging into her shoulder as she stood in the center of the school’s sun-drenched courtyard. "Jovan, have you ever actually been inside the library during the mid-afternoon shift? Mrs. Gable is practically a bloodhound. She can smell a student looking to socialize from three aisles away. If she catches us pulling out a soldering kit or, God forbid, a crate of circuit boards, we won't just get kicked out. She’ll have us on a permanent ban list before you can even explain that it’s an 'educational initiative.'"Jovan adjusted his grip on his own bag, his posture relaxed, almost annoyingly so, compared to the nervous tension radiating from Camille. "Mrs. Gable is exactly why it’s the perfect location. She doesn't want people socializing. She wants silence. She wants academic rigor. If we present ourselves as the most dedicated, focused researchers in the building,

"Transactional," Camille whispered the word, tasting it like something bitter left on the back of her tongue. She paused in the shadow of the brick archway leading into the school building, the late afternoon sun casting long, distorted shadows of them against the weathered stone. "You make it sound so clean, Jovan. So bloodless. But you know as well as I do that school isn't a place for commerce. It’s a place for hierarchy. And we’re effectively trying to install a secret economy right under Mrs. Gable’s nose."Jovan smiled, a thin, sharp expression that lacked any genuine warmth. He reached out and pushed the heavy, brass-trimmed door of the library open just enough for them to slip through. "Hierarchy is exactly what we’re exploiting, Camille. Mrs. Gable is at the top of the information chain in this library. She thrives on order. If we offer her an order that supersedes the chaos of the average student body, she will protect us like a prized research project. It’s not a heist. It’

 "I am not just 'doing this,' Camille. I am optimizing the local infrastructure," Jovan murmured, sliding his messenger bag off his shoulder. The dull thud as it hit the table seemed to vibrate through the floorboards, prompting a sharp, bird-like head snap from Mrs. Gable, fifty feet away. Jovan didn't look up. He had already calculated the exact angle at which her vision was occluded by a rotating display of 'Banned Books' and a particularly tall, dusty encyclopedia set. "We need a base. This library is the only place in the school that operates on a logic system I can actually manipulate." Camille pulled out a wooden chair, the legs screeching against the linoleum. She winced, looking toward the front desk, but Mrs. Gable had returned to her stamping. Camille leaned in, her voice dropping to a harsh, frantic whisper. "You’re talking about turning the school’s most sacred space of silence into a black market for term papers and broken

 "The students in this building are drowning in assignments they don’t want to do, and they possess assets they don't know how to value," Jovan said, his voice a low, steady hum that barely carried across the scarred surface of the oak table. "It isn't about being a black market. It’s about clearing the inefficiencies in the ecosystem. I’m just the catalyst." Camille stared at him, her brow furrowed in a way that suggested she was trying to solve an equation that had no solution. "You talk like a textbook, Jovan. You know that? A really, really terrifying, cold-blooded textbook. You’re talking about my friends. You’re talking about Leo, who is currently failing Trig, and Sarah, who would sell her soul for an extra three hours of sleep on a Tuesday night. These aren't 'inefficiencies.' These are people." Jovan didn’t blink. He reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a stack of folded note

"If they don't have the service, they continue to fail, Camille. They stay trapped in a cycle of underperformance because they lack the bandwidth to manage their own lives," Jovan said, his voice barely rising above the rustle of turning pages in the nearby stacks. "What I am offering is an intervention. It’s a resource allocation model. I’m giving them the time they need to do whatever it is they actually care about, and in exchange, I gain the liquidity necessary to scale the tech ventures. It’s symbiosis."Camille looked at him, her eyes wide and reflecting the dim, amber light filtering through the high library windows. "Symbiosis? You sound like a parasite justifying its host. Do you ever hear yourself? You don’t just want to graduate. You want to optimize the entire school experience until it’s some kind of hyper-efficient factory. What about the joy of learning? What about the struggle? That’s what makes the grade worth something—the fact that we earned it."Jovan sighed, the s