SSS-Rank Corporate Predator System

The school library was his sanctuary.

It was the one place in his chaotic, violent world that was reliably, blessedly quiet.

Miles sat hunched over a table in the most remote, forgotten corner of the building, hidden behind a towering shelf of 19th-century poetry.

He was trying to look like he was studying.

In reality, he was trying very hard not to pass out.

The escape from the logistics hub had been… messy.

He'd gotten the data, a massive file of shipping manifests that was now safely tucked away on one of his encrypted drives.

Then he'd used a series of controlled [Pulse Break] jumps to blast his way through a ventilation shaft and out onto the roof, just as a dozen heavily armed mercenaries stormed the server room.

It had not been subtle.

His entire body felt like one giant, throbbing bruise.

His chest ached from where he had punched himself.

But the worst part was his arm.

His left forearm, from his wrist to his elbow, was a landscape of raw, blistering, second-degree burns.

The system's [Bio-Regeneration] protocol was already hard at work, the skin tingling with the strange, pins-and-needles sensation of accelerated healing.

A faint, pale blue light was glowing just beneath the surface, visible only in the dim light of the library.

He had it wrapped in a clumsy, thick bandage he'd fashioned from a roll of gauze and a lot of medical tape, but it did little to hide the severity of the wound.

"Okay, new rule," he thought, his internal monologue a low, pain-filled groan.

"No more fighting guys who can double as a backyard barbecue."

"From now on, I'm only taking on enemies with mildly inconvenient powers."

"Like the ability to find really good parking spaces."

"Or the power to always guess the correct amount of pasta to cook."

"I think I could take that guy."

He was so lost in his own world of sarcastic, pain-fueled delirium that he didn't hear her approach.

"You look like you fought against fire and lost."

The voice was quiet, sharp, and entirely too perceptive for its own good.

Miles's head snapped up.

Clara stood on the other side of his table, her head tilted with that familiar, analytical curiosity.

Her eyes weren't on his face.

They were locked on the thick, lumpy bandage on his arm.

His mind went into full-blown panic mode.

[COVER IDENTITY COMPROMISED.]

[RECOMMEND TACTICAL EVASION.]

"Right," he thought frantically.

"Tactical evasion."

He could use [Echo Step] to blink into the men's room.

He could activate [Phantom Drift] and just become a blur of motion until he was safely back in his apartment.

Or, he could try the ancient, time-honored art of lying his face off.

"Hey," he said, his voice coming out as a weak croak.

He casually tried to slide his injured arm under the table, a movement that sent pain up to his shoulder.

He winced, a motion he desperately tried to turn into a casual cough.

It was not convincing.

Clara's lips twitched, the barest hint of a smile.

She wasn't buying it.

Not for a second.

"I was just leaving," he said, starting to gather his books with his one good hand.

"No, you're not," she replied, her voice losing none of its quiet authority.

She walked around the table and sat down in the chair opposite him.

She placed her own books on the table with a soft, decisive thud.

"You still owe me a partner for the history project," she said, her expression unreadable.

"And since you seem to be physically incapable of escaping, I'm cashing in that debt."

"Now."

He was trapped.

Cornered by the one person whose intelligence he couldn't outmaneuver.

He slumped back in his chair, defeated.

"Fine," he muttered.

So, for the next hour, they worked.

Or rather, she worked.

She laid out their entire presentation with a brilliant, effortless clarity, her mind moving at a speed that even his system had to respect.

He mostly just sat there, nodding along, trying to offer intelligent-sounding grunts of agreement.

It was the most normal thing he had done in weeks.

Sitting in a library.

Working on a school project with a beautiful, terrifyingly smart girl.

For a few, precious moments, he could almost pretend that this was his real life.

That he wasn't a living weapon.

That he wasn't being hunted by a homicidal billionaire.

That his arm wasn't currently glowing like a cheap party favor.

"So, what do you think?" she asked, looking up from her notes.

"Should we lead with the economic destabilization of the Bretton Woods system, or is that too dry for an opener?"

He stared at her blankly.

His brain, which could calculate the precise trajectory of a bullet, had absolutely no opinion on the Bretton Woods system.

"Uh," he said, his mind a complete and total void.

"The dry one sounds… good?"

She sighed, but it was a fond, exasperated sound, not an angry one.

"You really are out of it today," she said, her gaze drifting back to his arm.

The professional, academic mask she wore seemed to soften.

"Seriously, what happened to your arm?" she asked, her voice lower now, laced with genuine concern.

He knew he had to say something.

He needed a lie.

A good one.

A plausible one.

His mind, exhausted and traumatized, came up with the single worst alibi in the history of human civilization.

"Popcorn," he blurted out.

She just stared at him.

"I'm sorry?"

"It was a… a kitchen accident," he elaborated, digging himself deeper with every word.

"With popcorn."

"A very aggressive batch of popcorn."

"There was… hot oil."

"Everywhere."

The silence that followed was profound.

He could hear a student turning a page three aisles away.

He could practically hear the system in his head preparing a detailed report on the statistical improbability of his own stupid lie.

Clara just continued to stare at him.

He braced himself for the questions, for the mockery, for her to just get up and walk away from the crazy person who gets into fights with snack foods.

Instead, she just gave a slow, deliberate nod.

"Right," she said, her voice completely serious.

"Aggressive popcorn."

"You have to watch out for that."

And then she went right back to her notes, as if he had just told her the most normal, believable story in the world.

He didn't know what to do.

Her acceptance of his terrible lie was somehow more unnerving than any interrogation could have been.

They worked for another half an hour, the comfortable silence settling between them again.

Finally, Clara closed her textbook with a quiet snap.

"Okay," she said. "I think that's a good place to stop for tonight."

"We're almost done."She started packing her bag, her movements neat and efficient.

He began to gather his own things, the simple act feeling like a monumental effort.

As he reached for his history book, his hand bumped against the thick, clumsy bandage on his arm.

The medical tape, which had been weakened by his sweat and the constant heat from the healing wound, chose that exact moment to give up.

The bandage came loose.

It didn't fall off completely.

It just unraveled enough to slip down his wrist, exposing the raw, blistered, and very clearly burned skin beneath.

And something else.

The faint, unmistakable, pale blue glow of the [Bio-Regeneration] protocol, the light of his system, pulsed gently under his skin, visibly knitting the damaged cells back together.

It was magic.

It was impossible.

And it was happening right in front of her.

Clara gasped.

It was a sharp, tiny sound in the quiet of the empty library.

He froze, his hand hovering over the book, his terrible secret laid bare under the fluorescent lights.

He expected her to scream.

He expected her to look at him like he was a monster.

She did none of those things.

Her eyes, wide with a shocked but profound curiosity, were locked on his arm.

She saw the impossible happening, and her first instinct wasn't fear.

It was fascination.

Before he could react, before he could pull his arm away and hide his secret again, she reached out.

Her fingers were gentle, hesitant, as she touched his arm, just above the wound, her touch sending a strange, warm jolt through his entire body.

She wasn't recoiling in horror.

She was trying to understand.

She looked up from the glowing, healing wound, her gaze meeting his.

Her eyes were filled with a million questions, but there was no fear in them.

Only a startling, and frankly terrifying, amount of trust.

"I knew you were hiding something," she whispered, her voice barely audible in the silence.

She leaned in a little closer, her voice dropping even lower, a secret shared between just the two of them.

"And I'm not afraid of it."

The moment hung there, a fragile, impossible thing.

It bound them together more tightly than any school project ever could.

She knew.

She didn't know what she knew, but she knew he was something more.

Something different.

And she had just made a choice.

She was choosing to keep his secret.