SSS-Rank Corporate Predator System

Miles hadn't really slept in what felt like a decade.

His nights were a blur of dark web forums, mission planning, and the low, constant hum of the system knitting his broken body back together.

His days were somehow even more exhausting.

He sat at his desk, a single lamp casting a small circle of light in the darkness.

The room was a fortress built of textbooks.

History.

Physics.

Calculus.

Each one felt like it came from a different life, a life that wasn't his anymore.

A normal person.

He was supposed to be worried about a history presentation on post-war geopolitical conflict.

Instead, he was running threat assessments on a corporate smuggling operation.

The system, ever the helpful backseat driver, chose that moment to flash a notification in his vision.

[HOST ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE HAS DROPPED BY 17% IN THE LAST THREE WEEKS.]

[WARNING: CONTINUED NEGLECT OF COVER IDENTITY MAY LEAD TO UNWANTED ATTENTION FROM SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION.]

Miles let his head fall onto the open textbook with a dull thud.

"Right," he muttered to the empty room.

"Unwanted attention."

"Because getting stabbed in the shoulder and being hunted by assassins is just the right amount of attention."

He was a bit tired.

Tired of the lies.

Tired of the violence.

Tired of pretending to be the ghost of a boy who had died in an alley.

But the cover was everything.

Anonymity was safety.

He had to do this.

He had to be Miles Vane, unremarkable high school student.

So he spent the rest of the night cramming.

He forced his mind away from patrol routes and system synergies and focused it on the Marshall Plan and the Cold War.

It was the hardest fight he'd had all week.

Clara found him by his locker before first period, looking like a well-rested genius, as usual.

He, on the other hand, felt like a phone running on 1% battery.

"You look terrible," she said, her voice a mix of concern and blunt observation.

It was the nicest thing anyone had said to him all morning.

"Didn't sleep," he grunted, pulling his history textbook from his locker.

"Big project today," he added, as if that explained everything.

Her perceptive eyes scanned his face, noting the dark circles under his eyes, the faint tension in his jaw.

"You've been working on it all night, haven't you?" she asked.

He just nodded.

She gave him a small, understanding smile.

"Well, try not to fall asleep during my part of the presentation," she teased gently. "I'm told my analysis of the Truman Doctrine is surprisingly riveting."

He almost smiled back.

Almost.

They walked to class together, a comfortable silence settling between them.

For a few, precious moments, it felt normal.

He was just a tired student walking to class with his brilliant, and admittedly very attractive, friend.

Not a partner.

He'd made sure of that.

He'd built that wall for her own good.

The thought was a cold, hard stone in his gut.

They took their seats.

The teacher droned on about something.

Miles was only half-listening, his mind already drifting to the data he'd pulled from Broker's drive.

He had a plan.

A way into the Cross-Continental Logistics hub.

It was risky.

Probably stupid.

But it was a start.

"And now," the teacher said, pulling Miles back to reality. "We have our first presentation. Clara and Miles, you're up."

Clara stood up, confident and poised.

Miles followed, feeling like a sleep-deprived Neanderthal next to her.

She handed him the thumb drive with their presentation on it.

He walked to the front of the class and plugged it into the teacher's laptop.

He clicked open the file.

And then his world went red.

A literal, flashing, red-bordered warning sign appeared in his vision.

[ALERT: FOREIGN INTERFERENCE DETECTED.]

[MALICIOUS CODE INJECTION IN PROGRESS.]

[SOURCE IDENTIFIED: JULIAN CROSS'S PERSONAL NETWORK PROXY.]

Miles felt a surge of rage so cold and pure it almost made him dizzy.

Julian.

Of course.

[FILE CORRUPTION AT 30%... 45%... 60%...]

The system's text scrolled by with frantic speed.

This wasn't just a prank.

This was a deliberate, targeted attack to humiliate him.

To humiliate both of him.

In front of the whole class.

In front of Clara.

"Is everything okay, Miles?" Clara asked, her voice a quiet whisper from beside him.

She could see the file icon flickering on the screen, glitching.

He didn't look at her.

He just stared at the screen, his eyes narrowed.

His mind was a block of ice.

He gave the system a single, silent command.

"Fix it."

A new line of text appeared in his vision.

[COUNTER-INTRUSION PROTOCOL INITIATED.]

"And send it back."

[RETALIATORY DATA-SPIKE PREPARED.]

He took a slow, deliberate breath.

He turned to Clara and gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.

"It's fine," he said.

He clicked the file.

It opened perfectly.

The title slide, "Post-War Geopolitics: A Study in Ideological Conflict," appeared on the projector screen, crisp and clean.

Clara gave him a curious, slightly suspicious look, but then her professional focus took over.

She began to speak.

Her voice was clear, confident, and captivating.

She laid out their thesis with the effortless precision of a master surgeon.

Miles controlled the slides, his timing perfect, anticipating her every point, every transition.

To the rest of the class, they looked like a perfectly synchronized team.

The presentation was a masterpiece.

When they finished, there was a moment of stunned silence, followed by a genuine round of applause from the students.

Even the teacher looked impressed.

As they walked back to their seats, Clara leaned in close.

"That file was definitely crashing," she whispered, her eyes full of a million questions.

"You saved us."

Miles just looked at her, the praise hitting him with a strange, unfamiliar warmth.

"We saved us," he corrected quietly.

From across the room, Julian Cross watched them, his face a thunderous mask of confusion and rage.

His plan had failed.

Somehow, the freak had undone his hack.

The teacher smiled. "Excellent work, you two. Truly impressive. Julian, you're next."

Julian stood up, plastering a smug, arrogant smirk back on his face.

He strode to the front of the room, his confidence returning.

He could still win this.

His presentation was on the economic dominance of corporations in modern society, a topic he felt he was uniquely qualified to discuss.

He plugged in his own thumb drive.

"As we can see from the rise of titans of industry, like my father," he began, his voice dripping with condescension.

He clicked to go to the next slide.

The screen flickered.

And then the projector displayed a single, massive, high-definition image of a sad kitten with the words "I pooped in the code" written in a childish font.

A few students snickered.

Julian's face went white.

He frantically clicked again.

The next slide was a corrupted mess of glitched images and nonsense text, with a picture of a crying baby photoshopped over his father's corporate logo.

The snickers turned into open, rolling laughter.

The entire classroom erupted.

Julian stood there, frozen, his face burning a shade of crimson that clashed horribly with his expensive blazer.

He was being laughed at.

Publicly.

Humiliated.

Again.

And he knew, with a certainty that burned in his gut, exactly who was responsible.

His eyes shot across the room and locked onto Miles.

Miles just stared back, his face a perfect, blank, unreadable mask.

Clara, however, was watching Miles with a small, thoughtful, and deeply impressed smile.

She knew.

She didn't know how, but she knew.

Julian slammed his laptop shut, the sound echoing the snap of his last shred of composure.

He grabbed his bag and stormed out of the classroom, the sound of his classmates' laughter following him down the hall like a pack of hyenas.

He didn't stop until he was outside, leaning against the cold brick wall of the school, his breath coming in ragged, furious gasps.

His two closest friends followed him out, looking nervous.

"That was… uh… a technical difficulty?" one of them offered weakly.

Julian rounded on him, his eyes blazing with a wild, uncontrollable fury.

"It was Vane," he snarled, his voice a low, venomous hiss. "It's always him."

"Forget the petty games," he spat, his hands clenching into white-knuckled fists.

"Forget trying to embarrass him."

"If that freak won't take the hint, we'll make sure he drops out."

He paused, a cruel, vicious smile spreading across his lips.

"Permanently."

The rivalry wasn't about a girl or a competition anymore.

It was about annihilation.

And Julian Cross had just declared open war.