The library was the oldest building on campus — stone walls, vaulted ceilings, the smell of paper and polish. No windows. Just soft, downward lights and rows of silent study carrels.
It felt like a tomb.
Or a vault.
I went there after Wellness Check — a ten-minute session in a white room where a woman in a gray suit asked me how I was "adjusting to the Veridian environment." I said fine. She nodded, typed something, and told me to keep my earpiece charged.
I didn't tell her I'd taken it off the second I left.
Now, I sat at a corner desk, the folded list from Nia tucked inside my notebook. I opened my laptop, typed:
Veridian Academy – Student Index – Internal Document
Nothing.
I tried:
Alpha Index Veridian
Leadership Ranking System
Project Alpha Protocol
Same result. Clean. Sterile. Like the school's website had been scrubbed with bleach.
Then I remembered what Nia said: It updates every seventy-two hours.
So someone had to be storing it.
Printing it.
Accessing it.
I looked around.
At the back of the library, past the archives section, a narrow door stood slightly ajar.
STAFF ONLY – AUTHORIZED ACCESS
No lock. Just a keypad beside it, glowing faintly green.
I waited until the librarian — an older man with thick glasses — stepped out for tea. Then I moved.
The door opened with a soft click.
Inside was a small room — shelves of binders, a dusty printer, a single terminal on a metal desk. The screen was dark, but when I touched the mouse, it flickered to life.
Login required.
No guest access.
I scanned the binders.
Labels like: Counseling Logs – Redacted, Event Calibrations, Behavioral Adjustments – Q3.
Then one, thinner than the rest:
Index – Print Archive (Do Not Remove)
I opened it.
Empty.
Every page had been torn out.
But not cleanly.
At the top of the binder, a single staple remained — and with it, a sliver of paper, no bigger than a fingernail.
I pulled it free.
Just a fragment.
But enough.
On it, a partial name: …RA VALE
And a number: 98.
And beneath it, in tiny print:
Update Cycle: 72h | Next Sync: 03:00 AM
I turned the scrap over.
On the back, someone had written in pencil — light, hurried, as if afraid to leave a mark:
They watch the watchers.
I didn't hear the door.
But I felt the air change.
I turned.
The librarian stood in the doorway, his glasses catching the dim light. He didn't speak. Didn't frown. Just looked at the open binder. At the scrap in my hand.
Then, slowly, he reached past me and closed it.
"Some books," he said, voice low, "are only meant to be read once."
He didn't report me.
But that night, my earpiece buzzed at 2:58 a.m. — two minutes before the next sync.
A voice, calm, synthetic:
"Wellness reminder: Sleep improves compliance."
I sat up in bed.
Stared at the ceiling.
And knew, for the first time, that I wasn't just on the list.
I was being tested.