Chapter 17: Prank Push
The computer lab in the basement of the engineering building hummed with the white noise of servers and cooling fans, a technological heartbeat that masked the sound of careful keystrokes and whispered conspiracies. Landon hunched over a terminal in the back corner, fingers dancing across keys worn smooth by countless students who'd sat in this same chair, nursing the same mixture of ambition and desperation that seemed to permeate Godolkin's walls.
The screen's glow painted his face in shifting blues and greens as code scrolled past—security protocols being carefully dissected, access logs being artfully modified, and most importantly, the main campus display system's administrative controls being quietly compromised.
This is either brilliant or suicidal. Possibly both.
Andre leaned against the terminal next to him, magnetism dancing around his fingers in tight spirals that occasionally interfered with nearby electronics. "You sure this is gonna work?"
"Nothing's sure," Landon replied without looking up from his screen. "But Vought's biggest weakness has always been hubris. They never think anyone's smart enough to actually challenge them."
The irony wasn't lost on him—using meta-knowledge from a TV show to hack the very organization that show had depicted. Reality and fiction blurred together in ways that made his head hurt if he thought about it too long.
Emma materialized from the shadows near the door, having used her size-shifting to scout the corridors for security patrols. "Coast is clear. Night janitor's on the third floor, security's doing rounds in the dorms. We've got maybe twenty minutes before someone comes through here."
Her presence immediately shifted the room's energy, nervous tension transforming into focused excitement. Emma had that effect—she made dangerous plans feel like adventures instead of potential disasters.
Landon's fingers stilled on the keyboard as the final security barrier dissolved. The campus display network lay open before him like an undefended city, every screen on Godolkin's grounds suddenly vulnerable to whatever message he chose to broadcast.
Power. Real power, for maybe the first time since I got here.
The temptation to go big was overwhelming—expose The Woods, reveal Shetty's connections, burn down Vought's entire operation in one spectacular digital conflagration. But that would be suicide, and more importantly, it would put his friends in immediate danger.
Better to start small. Build momentum. Let Vought hang themselves with their own overreaction.
"What's the message?" Andre asked, peering over Landon's shoulder at the screen.
Landon cracked his knuckles, a habit from his old life that still surfaced when he was about to do something monumentally stupid. "Simple. Direct. Just enough truth to make them paranoid."
His fingers moved across the keyboard with practiced precision, crafting a message that would thread the needle between revelation and restraint:
GODOLKIN STUDENTS: Ever wonder why your rankings never match your performance? Why some students disappear without explanation? Why faculty meetings are held in soundproof rooms? Ask questions. Trust nobody in a suit. Your powers belong to YOU. —A Friend
"That's it?" Andre sounded disappointed. "I was expecting something more... explosive."
"Sometimes the best explosions start with a spark," Emma said, though her eyes were bright with anticipation. "This is going to drive them absolutely crazy."
Landon made final adjustments to the broadcast settings—timing, duration, backup protocols in case they tried to shut it down quickly. The message would appear on every screen simultaneously during tomorrow's lunch rush, when maximum students would see it before faculty could respond.
"There," he said, fingers hovering over the final command key. "Last chance to back out."
Andre snorted. "Back out? This is the most fun I've had since getting here."
Emma nodded agreement, her small hand settling on Landon's shoulder. "Do it."
The key clicked under his finger with surprising finality. Across campus, servers began processing the delayed transmission, queuing it for broadcast in seventeen hours and thirty-two minutes. There was no taking it back now.
[PRANK SUCCESS: CAMPUS IS LIT. VOUGHT'S FUMING.]
The system's approval felt like vindication, though Landon wasn't sure what exactly he was trying to prove. That he could fight back? That Vought wasn't untouchable? That his friends' faith in him wasn't completely misplaced?
Maybe all of the above.
"Now what?" Emma asked, settling into the chair beside him.
"Now we wait," Landon replied, logging out and carefully erasing any traces of their presence. "And prepare for the shitstorm."
Luke found them an hour later in their usual spot by the fountain, though he looked more energized than Landon had seen him since the lockdown. The fire supe carried himself differently now—shoulders straighter, eyes brighter, like someone who'd remembered what hope felt like.
"Heard you three were planning something interesting," Luke said, settling onto the fountain's edge with fluid grace. "Room for one more in whatever revolution you're cooking up?"
Andre grinned. "Depends. How do you feel about digital rebellion?"
"Better than the analog kind. Leaves less evidence." Luke's expression grew serious. "Also heard Brink's been asking questions about our boy here." He nodded toward Landon. "Might be good to give the professor something else to focus on."
Landon felt a familiar flutter of guilt mixed with gratitude. Luke was offering to put himself at risk—again—to protect someone who'd manipulated his near-suicide for personal power gain. The contradiction made his chest tight.
"You don't have to—" he started, but Luke cut him off.
"Yeah, I do. You saved my life, remember? More than that, you gave me a reason to keep living. So if you're taking on Vought, I'm in."
The simple statement carried weight that threatened to break something fragile inside Landon's chest. Luke believed in him—not just as an ally, but as someone worth following. Someone worth trusting with the future.
If only you knew what I really am.
"Besides," Luke continued, flames dancing around his fingers in controlled spirals, "I've got some ideas about how to make this really burn."
Emma leaned forward, interest sparking in her dark eyes. "What kind of ideas?"
"The kind that make Vought sweat. See, I've been thinking about what you said earlier—about giving them something else to focus on. What if instead of just one prank, we give them a whole campaign? Multiple targets, coordinated strikes, make it look like there's an organized resistance instead of just a few troublemakers."
Andre's magnetic fields responded to his excitement, metal filings from the fountain's construction swirling in complex patterns around his hands. "I like where this is going."
"Multiple pranks means multiple opportunities to get caught," Landon pointed out, though his tone suggested interest rather than dismissal. "Higher risk, higher reward."
"Also higher impact," Luke said firmly. "Right now, they see us as isolated incidents. Nuisances to be managed. But if we show them coordinated opposition, organized resistance... that changes everything."
The fire supe's eyes reflected his power's glow, amber light dancing in depths that had seen too much darkness. This wasn't just about pranks anymore—this was about proving that students could fight back, that Vought's control wasn't absolute.
"What did you have in mind?" Emma asked.
Luke's grin was sharp as a blade's edge. "Faculty parking lot. Every car gets the same treatment—nothing destructive, just... memorable. Synchronized, coordinated, impossible to ignore."
"And if they trace it back to us?"
"They won't. I've got experience with this kind of thing." Luke's expression grew distant, memories of darker times flickering behind his eyes. "The Woods taught me a lot about avoiding surveillance."
The casual mention of his imprisonment sent a chill through the group. They'd all heard rumors about The Woods, but Luke was the only one among them who'd experienced it firsthand. His survival—and Landon's role in preserving it—created bonds that went deeper than friendship.
[LUKE'S IN: REBEL SPARK GROWING.]
"So we're really doing this," Landon said, though it came out more like a statement than a question. "Full-scale digital insurgency against one of the most powerful corporations in the world."
"When you put it like that, it sounds almost reasonable," Andre said with a laugh that carried just a hint of hysteria. "I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"
Emma snorted. "Famous last words."
"Better than famous last regrets," Luke said quietly. "I spent too long being afraid of what might happen. Sometimes you have to choose action over safety."
The words hung in the cooling night air like a challenge. Around them, campus life continued its familiar rhythms—students heading back to dorms, couples finding dark corners for privacy, the eternal dance of youth and ambition that had played out on college campuses for generations.
But underneath the surface normalcy, something was changing. The lockdown had shown them Vought's true face, and they couldn't unsee it. The choice now was between comfortable compliance and dangerous defiance.
Landon looked at each of his friends in turn—Andre with his restless energy and hidden depths, Emma with her fierce loyalty and unexpected cunning, Luke with his hard-won wisdom and barely-contained fire. They were all looking at him, waiting for his decision.
They think I'm the leader here. They think I know what I'm doing.
The responsibility was terrifying and intoxicating in equal measure. For the first time since arriving at Godolkin, he had the chance to be something other than a victim or a parasite. He could be someone who mattered, someone who made a difference.
Even if that difference got them all killed.
"Alright," he said finally. "Let's burn it all down."
The Grind—Godolkin's overpriced campus coffee shop—buzzed with the usual mixture of caffeine dependency and academic anxiety. Students clustered around small tables, textbooks competing for space with laptops and the detritus of young lives lived at double speed.
Landon sat in a corner booth, ostensibly studying but actually watching the room's social dynamics while nursing a coffee that had gone cold an hour ago. Emma had texted twenty minutes earlier, promising to meet him here after her evening lab, and he found himself checking his phone with embarrassing frequency.
When did I become the kind of person who gets excited about coffee dates?
The answer was uncomfortable but obvious—somewhere between Emma's fierce defense of him to Brink and her willing participation in increasingly dangerous schemes, she'd become more than just an ally or a romantic interest. She'd become someone he genuinely cared about, in ways that had nothing to do with strategic advantage or power acquisition.
It was terrifying.
"Sorry I'm late!" Emma's voice cut through his brooding as she slipped into the booth across from him, cheeks flushed from hurrying across campus. "Professor Martinez kept us over to demonstrate molecular compression techniques. Apparently watching me shrink things never gets old."
Her presence immediately brightened the corner of The Grind like someone had turned up the lights. Other students glanced over, drawn by her energy and the unconscious confidence that came with being comfortable in her own skin.
"No problem," Landon said, meaning it. "Gave me time to people-watch and contemplate my life choices."
"Contemplating anything interesting?"
"The usual. Whether I'm making the right decisions, whether I'm in over my head, whether my friends deserve better than whatever chaos I'm dragging them into."
Emma reached across the table to cover his hand with hers, her touch warm against skin that always seemed to run cold these days. "For what it's worth, I think you're exactly where you're supposed to be. Doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing."
The simple faith in her voice made his chest tight. "Even when what I'm doing is borderline insane?"
"Especially then." Emma's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Boring people don't change the world."
"I'm not trying to change the world. I'm just trying to survive it."
"Same thing, really. At least here." Emma gestured toward the window, where campus security was conducting another "random" inspection of student bags. "Survival requires resistance when the system's designed to crush you."
Her casual wisdom was one of the things he'd come to love about Emma—the way she could cut through his self-doubt and paranoia to find the essential truth underneath. She saw him more clearly than he saw himself, and somehow still chose to stay.
[ROMANCE RISING: DATE'S GONNA BE HOT.]
The system's commentary felt less intrusive than usual, almost supportive. Maybe even the cynical algorithm that governed his death-and-resurrection cycle could recognize something worth protecting in what he'd found with Emma.
"Speaking of resistance," Emma continued, lowering her voice conspiratorially, "how's our digital insurgency coming along?"
"Scheduled for tomorrow at lunch. Are you having second thoughts?"
Emma's laugh was bright and fearless. "Second thoughts? I'm having fifth and sixth thoughts. But I'm also having thoughts about how good it's going to feel to watch Vought scramble to explain why their 'perfect' system got compromised by a few troublemaking students."
Her excitement was infectious, reminding Landon why he'd been drawn to her in the first place. Emma Meyer faced the world with open eyes and an open heart, even when that world was trying to crush her spirit.
"You know this changes everything, right?" he said quietly. "After tomorrow, there's no going back to being normal students. We'll be targets."
"Good." Emma's expression grew fierce. "Normal is overrated anyway. Besides, I'd rather be a target standing up for something than safe while cowering from nothing."
She leaned forward, close enough that he could smell her shampoo over the coffee shop's ambient aroma of roasted beans and academic desperation. "And I'd rather face whatever comes next with you than be safe without you."
The words hit him harder than any physical blow could have. Emma was choosing him—not just for now, but for whatever dangerous future they were careening toward. She was willing to throw her lot in with someone whose secrets could destroy them all.
She deserves better than this. Better than me.
But looking into her dark eyes, seeing the determination and affection there, Landon found himself choosing hope over guilt. Maybe she did deserve better. Maybe they all did. But this was what they had—dangerous alliances forged in crisis, love growing in the spaces between disasters.
It would have to be enough.
"Emma," he said, reaching across the table to frame her face with his hands, "I—"
"Don't you dare apologize," she interrupted, leaning into his touch. "Don't you dare say I don't know what I'm getting into, or that you're dangerous, or any of that noble self-sacrifice bullshit. I'm a grown woman making grown-up choices."
"I was actually going to say that I'm glad you're here. That I don't know what I'd do without you."
Emma's fierce expression melted into something softer, more vulnerable. "Oh. Well. That's... better."
"Much better," Landon agreed, leaning forward to kiss her across the small table. She tasted like coffee and determination, with just a hint of the vanilla lip balm she favored. It was perfect.
When they broke apart, Emma was smiling with the particular radiance that made everything else fade into background noise. "So," she said, voice slightly breathless, "about that date you promised me. Think we'll survive tomorrow's chaos long enough to make it happen?"
Landon grinned, feeling lighter than he had in weeks. "Wouldn't miss it for the world. Even if we have to hide in abandoned laboratories to avoid the fallout."
"Especially then," Emma replied, her eyes bright with laughter and love and the particular fearlessness that came with being twenty and convinced of your own immortality.
Tomorrow would bring consequences. Tomorrow would change everything. But tonight, in a corner booth of an overpriced coffee shop, Landon Vale held hands with a girl who saw through his lies to something worth saving, and for the first time since awakening in this dangerous world, he felt like he might actually deserve the happiness that had somehow found him.
The revolution could wait until morning.
MORE POWER STONES == MORE CHAPTERS
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