Chương 115: 45. Interference 45-1

When the bunker door made its unlocking sound at exactly the seventy-second hour, my first thought wasn't finally, we can get out. It was: the Federation's iron coffin has finally decided to spit us eight half-cooked cans of meat back onto the surface. The outer hydraulic locks disengaged segment by segment, metal teeth grinding apart and sending vibrations through the walls—low and nasty, like something gnawing. Nobody spoke in the main room.

Just the sequential click of gear buckling shut, fabric shifting, and Harvey's methodical equipment check that always sounded like he was dressing a corpse for viewing. I tightened my belt. My lower left abdomen immediately filed a formal complaint. Not can't move. Just every movement comes with interest. Maki stood beside me, pressing the last reinforced strip flat, voice carrying all the warmth of a sleep-deprived medic.

"Today your limit is able to walk, not able to prove how well you walk."

"That's a direct attack on my personality."

"Because your personality drags your wound down with it." I glared at her. She didn't even blink, just shoved a small packet of painkillers into my chest pocket. Infuriating. Across the room, D was re-securing the reinforced shield to his forearm and shoulder rig. After the firestorm and ravine brawl, it had acquired several new gouges—the whole thing looked even more like a wall with anger management issues.

The tall boy clipped his thermal sensor back to his chest; the short-haired girl was checking her low-lethality magazines. Akari finished prepping last. Same dead-fish eyes, grey-white thermal wrap over her armor, Type-99 high-penetration magnetic rifle slung across her back. She didn't look like someone about to lead a squad out. More like someone who'd been yanked out of a nap and happened to bring a gun that could lay classmates down in neat rows.

But for the first ten minutes after that door lifted, she was the one calling the shots. We'd settled that last night. I didn't like it. Not liking it and not acknowledging it were two different things.

"Order holds," Akari said. Her voice wasn't loud, but it nailed everyone back into position.

"D on point. Door opens, I clear firing lines first. Nobody moves until I say go. Hoshino confirms routes only—no sprinting demonstrations." I snorted.

"That last part was very specifically targeted."

"Yes," she said. … Right. Not even bothering with pretense. The blast door finally began to rise. The heat outside wasn't peak-Gale obscene, but it still scraped through nasal cavity and lungs, dry and harsh. The scorched rainforest spread beyond the bunker like a field of metal that had been burned, trampled, and refused to just die. The canopy that used to be thick enough to curse at was half-scalped by the Gale—only charred skeletal frames remained.

The ground was coated in fine ash, grey-white and dark red mixed, not soft but that bad-tempered kind where the surface had cooled while heat still simmered underneath. Worst was the quiet. Once the Gale passed, most things shut up. No insect chorus, no leaf-rush, even the usual metallic bug sounds had thinned. The whole forest felt like it had just taken a beating and hadn't decided where to swing next. D stepped out first, shield angled low, steps heavy but steady.

Akari second, immediately sweeping the right high ground and ravine lip. I took the middle, Maki beside me, Harvey and Jess behind. The moment I crossed the threshold, my left side reminded me not to get ambitious today. I pulled in a lungful of unreasonably hot air and checked the HUD. The bunker's approach zone was still lit—two viable routes, southwest and south.

The first was faster but ran past yesterday's high ground; the second detoured but used burnt root cover and a half-buried lava ridge to block sightlines. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"South," I said quietly. Akari didn't look back.

"Reason."

"Southwest high ground's dirty. Yesterday's downed team might not have cleared completely. No reason to walk into discount round two." She paused half a beat.

"Accepted. All units south, low profile, two-body spacing." Watching her convert my route intel into formation orders with zero lag triggered that familiar irritation. Not because she was stealing spotlight. Because she made it work too smoothly. People like that were a problem. Hard to keep them in the external support box when they made the whole formation stand up like it had been given new bones. We pressed along the half-fused rock ridge south of the bunker.

For the first time, the team actually felt like an eight-person unit. Not just headcount—when orders went out, eight positions filled their own gaps. D on point, designated to eat the stupidest opening fire. Akari's eyes and rifle measuring distance for everyone. Me running HUD, marking dead routes and live ones. Maki watching my color, water, time, and anything with medical incident potential. Harvey reading ground, thermal pockets, what could be stripped or pried.

Jess covering close angles, left flank, and scraping everyone's nerves with her mouth. The tall boy and short-haired girl filling rear sensors and low-lethality suppression. Strange feeling. Like we'd built a rickety frame with four barely-adequate planks, and someone had slotted steel beams into it. Still ugly. Starting to look like it might hold weight. Less than twenty minutes clear of the bunker, our first water stop brought up the eight-person question.

The short-haired girl started it, crouched behind a burnt root swapping magazines: "The Academy hasn't said anything yet."

"About what?" Jess asked, squeezing a sip from her water pouch, playing dumb.

"All eight of us operating together." D rested his shield on his shoulder, glanced at me, then Akari.

"If there was a hard rule against more than four, someone should've smacked us by now." The tall boy grunted agreement.

"No warnings, no penalty alerts, no broadcasts. Probably tacit approval. Or—""Or they're watching," Akari finished, flat. That sounded exactly right. Federation loved this game. Don't say yes or no. Watch what you grow into. Useful gets tacit approval. Ugly gets logged and retroactive rules claiming it was always educational design. I filed that without speaking. The more disgusting it was, the more useful it usually became. Then D turned to me like something had clicked.

"Anyone in your squad mention finals before?" I frowned.

"Just scattered rumors. Why?" D shrugged carefully, like he was afraid of launching the wall off his shoulder.

"We heard finals aren't fixed scenarios—randomized draw. Survival, escort, capture, recovery, tracking. Anything. The one consistent thing is second- and third-years actively recruiting first-years." Jess's eyebrows shot up.

"Upperclassmen volunteering? The school finally grew a conscience?"

"Not conscience," Akari said, dead-fish eyes on the charred forest ahead, tone like reading scrap prices.

"Credits."

"Upper years short on credits target lower years. Lower years are malleable, cheap, and usually count as variable assets under finals rules." I almost laughed at the phrase. Variable assets. Polished language for: cheap, flexible cannon fodder. Maki murmured beside me: "If accurate, Forest School isn't just filtering first-years. It's stress-testing combinations for finals." I didn't answer but locked every word down. Second-years, third-years, credit shortfalls, actively recruiting first-years. Randomized finals.

Academy silent on eight-person formations—tacit approval or active observation. Another pile of things that weren't biting yet but would jump from the grass later. Akari suddenly raised her hand.

"Stop." The formation froze. Not last night's paper agreement—the first real test of provisional command chain. She stopped, D angled his shield, Harvey crouched, Jess cut low-left, the short-haired girl flowed right-rear. Before she spoke again, I'd dimmed my HUD and swept the terrain ahead. Burnt low forest, half-stripped by the Gale. Surface looked like plain ash but hid pitting and cracked, refrozen root channels. Further out, a half-collapsed observation slope.

"Someone's been through," Akari said quietly. Harvey was already touching the ash.

"Two-plus teams. Fresh. Steps separated—not the same unit." My stomach sank. More than one team, paths diverging. That smell meant someone was doing math on someone else.

"Glint left-front behind the slope," Jess said.

"Right-side ash pattern's wrong," the tall boy added. Akari didn't look at me.

"Frost 01. Route." I scrolled the HUD forward and found the problem immediately. Straight through the low forest was shortest, but the right-side ash hid a narrow heat signature—not natural cooling, more like someone had broken the crust to expose still-hot substrate. The left slope was climbable but would walk us into a sight pocket.

"Front's fake-safe. Right has thermal pockets. Left slope's viable but exposes us," I said quietly.

"Someone's forcing a choice." Akari made a quiet sound, like that was exactly what she'd wanted to confirm. The next second, we spoke almost simultaneously.

"Don't take front—""Cut right-rear through the root belt—" We both stopped. Jess made a loaded nasal sound, clearly wanting to laugh and deciding against it. Akari tilted her head.

"You first."

"Right-rear root belt skirts the thermal pocket's edge. Slower, but forces them to change firing angles." She nodded.

"Same." …Infuriating. That kind of immediate sync made it hard to righteously dislike someone. D shuffled impatiently.

"Captains, unless you want the other side deciding lunch for us—" The shooting started. From both sides. Left-front slope dropped two low-lethality mag-spikes, vicious angles targeting routes we might've climbed. Almost simultaneously, automatic fire burst from the right-rear ash, driving the short-haired girl and tall boy flat.

"Both sides!" Jess snapped.

"I can see that!" I barked back. First volley was dirty. Left team controlling sightlines from high ground; right team firing low close angles from behind ash—textbook pincer to pin us in the middle and tie eight people into knots. Works beautifully on improvised teams; too many people means arguments over who to listen to, who turns first, who pulls back. Usually collapses in two seconds. Not today.

"D, shield left-front!" Akari snapped fire control.

"Harvey, mark that thermal edge on the right—nobody steps in!" I layered route control.

"Jess, three steps left with me—no climbing, show false positions!"

"Maki, collapse center—watch me and the water!"

"Right-rear, two-burst suppress—keep their heads down!"

"Sensor to Harvey!" Orders hit simultaneously. The formation moved as one piece.