January 29, 2511 — Clear (no wind), 04:00

  On the roof of the training hall across from the Garipan City Military Academy plaza, a dark figure moved nimbly through piles of debris carrying a case. He picked a flat, unobstructed spot facing the lecture building, set the case down, and began assembling an electromagnetic railgun with practiced hands. Forty seconds later, a brand-new EM railgun—model PGM Hecate IV-EM (4th-gen electromagnetic, manufactured 2510)—was complete in his grip.

  Dual capacitor system.

  Effective range: 2000 meters.

  Current target distance: 600 meters.

  The figure then lay prone and watched motionless toward the tactical lecture building across the square.

  At 08:00 that morning, Cyril and Captain Kane arrived at Classroom 303 on the third floor of the tactical lecture building to teach the cadets. Cyril stood on the podium and began explaining the dawn of the first large-scale proxy wars decades earlier. Morning sunlight flooded the room.

  08:19:50 — the maintenance worker on the training hall roof, wearing a work cap and overalls, checked his watch and began charging the railgun. A faint electromagnetic pulse diffused through the air.

  08:20:00 — Cyril 's watch suddenly shrieked a series of beeps, displaying "HIGHEST PRIORITY ALERT." Captain Kane in the front row reacted almost instantaneously and shouted, "Get down!" His body moved even faster than his voice; he lunged for Cyril. Before the cadets and Cyril could react, the window of the classroom facing the plaza — made of nano-synth glass — shattered. Almost simultaneously, a spray of blood erupted from the left side of Kane's back. Four seconds later, Cyril 's watch shrieked again. As he fell, a sharp pain tore through his right shoulder. Kane had lost consciousness, his heavy body pinning Cyril down; Cyril too slipped into unconsciousness.

  Screams rose inside the classroom. The building alarm began to blare. The academy's alloy gates sealed automatically. Military flyers converged on the plaza from all directions.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

  At that moment, Fatty was clinging to the maintenance ladder outside his own bathroom wall like a gecko. He held a multimeter in his hand, wearing a look of professional solemnity as if he were testing the window frame’s smart sensors, but those shifty eyes were glued to the scene inside the glass.

  Inside the bathroom, a tall, curvaceous woman was showering. Water cascaded over her bronzed skin, her long ponytail loose and draped over her shoulders. Through the rising steam, Jack caught glimpses of a tantalizing flush of pink appearing and disappearing amidst the flowing water.

  As the woman’s hand glided down her smooth abdomen, the multimeter in Fatty’s hand clattered onto the ladder. His face was practically plastered against the glass, his gaze burning hot enough to melt the barrier between them.

  Snap.

  The maintenance ladder beneath him let out a sharp groan of surrender.

  "Shit."

  Amidst the woman’s startled cry, Fatty—ladder and all—slid downward, ending with a heavy, muffled thud.

  In the living room, Nya sat on the sofa, her wet hair draped over her shoulders. She was laughing so hard she shook, watching Fatty, who sat there with two wads of cotton stuffed up his nose, still clutching a screwdriver. The air was thick with the intoxicating scent of her post-bath fragrance.

  "Fatty, this is your house. If you wanted to see me, did you really have to climb the window with a screwdriver?"

  "Ahem... that window sensor’s sensitivity was experiencing some drift. I just wanted to... calibrate it." Fatty hid the screwdriver behind his back, bullshitting with a face full of simple, innocent honesty. "I’m a rigorous mechanic. I can’t tolerate imperfection."

  "Is that so?" Nya extended a slender leg and rested it on Fatty’s knee. "So, are you done calibrating?"

  A pair of chubby hands immediately enveloped that work of art, kneading it with practiced skill. "Not yet. It still requires... deep tactile calibration.

  "Then the woman's left foot — five round toes like grapes — rubbed slowly up Jack's round belly to the back of his head, hooked gently, and Jack toppled into Nya's full chest. A warm, domineering kiss closed on his mouth.

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  Jack returned the kiss with equal force; tongues pried past neat teeth and tangled together.

  Just as they were about to go further, Jack's watch vibrated on the table. LEO's hologram blinked into the air, and his voice cut through urgently: "Jack, Professor Cyril has been assassinated—get back to the academy now." The projection vanished.

  Jack scrambled off Nya, dressed quickly, his face clouded, and left after kissing Nya lightly on the forehead. "I'll be back," he murmured.

  Nya pulled on her uniform, told Ming Meilin there was something wrong at the academy, and hurried out.

  Jack made it to the academy in record time — only eighteen minutes after receiving the alert. The academy was under lockdown; guards scanned his biometrics and allowed him through. He headed straight to Laboratory Six, where LEO was waiting. The two exchanged a few terse words. Cyril had been hit in the right shoulder, but the watch's EM sensor had detected a massive EM field within 2000 meters and issued an early warning; he was conscious and had been taken for treatment. Lieutenant Kane had taken the first, fatal round intended for Cyril; he was now critically wounded and being transferred to the nearest bio-medical facility for engineered tissue repair. He would likely spend days in nutrient baths.

  Relief flooded Jack when he learned Cyril would live. Over recent months, Cyril had become like a friend or family member to him: generous with lessons, patient in tactical debriefings, his keen strategic insights had dissolved any distance between them. Their countless heated debates had actually drawn the two military minds closer.

  LEO added that the academy's troops had traced the sniper's position to the training hall roof at about 600 meters, and a charred weapon fragment had been found at the scene. Jack said simply, "I'll go check the roof across the way."

  Jack stood atop that other roof and stared at the scorched remains of the weapon on the ground.

  "Can we trace it?" he asked an investigator nearby.

  The investigator shook his head. "It had a self-destruct device. It was obliterated."

  "What about the weapon's origin?"

  "Black market. The serial number was ground off."

  Jack crouched to study the fragments. "Professional hit."

  "What?"

  "Amateurs take their guns with them because they're attached to them. Professionals know a life is more important than a weapon."

  He stood and scanned the escape routes in the distance. "And this person knew that leaving fewer traces is better than taking the gun."

  "Has the academy been searched?" he asked.

  "Everything but the girls' dormitory has been swept. No leads."

  At the mention of the girls' dorm, Jack's eyes lit up — it was a place he'd always wanted to visit but never could.

  "Why not search the girls' dorm?"

  The investigator grimaced. "Academy brass worry about panic. Also—some cadets there come from influential families; a reckless search could stir trouble upstairs."

  Jack requested permission from General Carrick to join the search. Considering Jack's status as Cyril 's pupil and because the incident had already hit the news — risking embarrassment to the Tyron Federation's recent celebrations — Carrick approved. With Jack's ability, the general hoped the case could be solved.

  The girls' dormitory was in chaos. The building Jack used to live in opposite housed Sloane and her group. The girls were pale but composed; the presence of a killer possibly hiding among them frightened the untested cadets. Each floor had a housemother and a student monitor; under guard orders, the girls sat in their rooms writing statements describing what they were doing at the time of the attack — including the time, place, and witnesses.

  Jack relished walking through the dorm — it was a sanctuary he'd long wanted access to — but that thrill faded quickly: the place was full of guards and the air no longer carried flirtatious perfume. Only lingerie hung on fast dryers, mute witnesses to past pleasures.

  Jack inspected the broken and self-destructed sniper rifle; his estimate was that an EM railgun main assembly weighed approximately 12–15 kg, and with batteries, optics, mounts, and other components, it could reach around 50 kg. Powerful enough to penetrate 20 cm of composite armor — shattering nano glass would be trivial. But the energy detonation system couldn't have escaped detector scans! How had the killer gotten that gun inside?

  He studied the holographic photos of the weapon fragments and moved from room to room, examining every cadet's facial expressions and micro-gestures. Even the most hardened killer shows subconscious reactions to seeing the weapon they used; such reflexes are nearly impossible to completely mask. Jack was confident he could spot the culprit.

  Fatty checked every dorm room but didn't find any obvious flaws. The only exception was Sloane—the one who had been constantly butting heads with him—whose eyes suddenly lit up when she saw him, as if she were looking at a savior rather than an enemy. Fatty shook his head and walked away; women were truly strange creatures.

  Then there was the student nicknamed "Big White Rabbit." She started crying the moment she laid eyes on him. According to the girls in her dorm, she had been spooked and had been weeping for a long time.

  Fatty walked up to her, looking like he was going to comfort her, but he leaned his body slightly forward, getting a little closer.

  "Don't be afraid. The instructor is here." Jack's voice was unusually gentle.

  Big White Rabbit looked up, sobbing, eyeing this chubby instructor. Just as she was about to let her guard down, she saw Fatty's nose suddenly twitch like a dog's.

  The expression on Jack's face froze for a second.

  Beneath the heavy scent of girlish perfume and the saltiness of tears, he caught a whiff of something extremely out of place—a slightly acidic smell with a hint of metallic corrosion.

  Perfluoropolyether coolant.

  This substance was typically used only for heat dissipation in high-precision military electronics, or... the high-energy capacitor banks of electromagnetic railguns. Why would a freshly enrolled freshman smell like something that belonged in a heavy maintenance workshop?

  Jack glanced at her hand without giving anything away and noticed a very thin callus on the web between her thumb and index finger—a mark left by the long-term use of some kind of heavy stabilizer.

  He narrowed his eyes. He already had the answer in his heart, but on the surface, he kept that lecherous look, grinning as he stepped back.

  Time ticked by, bit by bit...