Chương 65: 27.Wrong Place, Wrong Time 27-1

The first thing back at the dorm wasn't rest. It was dividing the spoils. Perfectly reasonable. On the rare occasions the Federation let a bunch of Lower House students out the gate for half a day with no inspections, what came back was never going to be just "personal items." That was the official line.

In practice, anything that could buy you a few extra breaths between night roll call, morning runs, equipment maintenance, and mess hall food so bad it felt like a personal vendetta against society — all of that counted as strategic supplies. When we dumped everything onto the table, the dorm looked like it had been hit by an apocalypse supply convoy. D unloaded his two massive bags of dry rations and jerky first. The plastic hit the floor with the dull weight of sandbags.

Jess lined up her meds, wet wipes, feminine hygiene products, salt candy, and discounted snacks along the table edge, moving with the practiced efficiency of someone setting up a field clinic for a civilization about to collapse. Harvey's bag looked the most unremarkable from the outside — just a pile of metal scraps nobody else would want — but one real look told you every piece in there was more likely to keep you alive than anything the Academy had ever issued.

As for me, when I hauled both cases of cherry cola onto the table, Jess let out a low whistle.

"You actually dragged that shit back."

"When have I ever been kidding?"

"I thought you just wrote it on the list to feel better." She rapped her knuckles against the cardboard. The cans chimed inside with metallic precision.

"Two dozen. Hoshino, this isn't resupply. You're trying to establish a new currency system in the dorm." I set the bag of light novels on the table and cut the binding strap, face unchanged.

"If I did, it'd still have more of a conscience than the Academy's quota system." Harvey had been inspecting his new cold-cutting discs. At that, he finally looked up — somewhere between this person has finally admitted she's insane and at least her insanity follows structural logic. D had automatically taken a seat by the table, staring at the two cases of cola for three seconds.

"Can share?" Jess burst out laughing.

"See? I told you. Strategic supplies barely through the door and the supply line has spontaneously developed a socialist conscience." I tore open the outer box, pulled out a can and tossed it to D, then threw another to Jess. She caught it one-handed like she'd been rehearsing.

"Today only," I said.

"Today we celebrate the Federation temporarily failing to kill us." Jess popped the tab. The aggressively sweet cherry smell detonated in the room immediately, like a petty act of revenge against the Academy's air quality. She took a sip, grimaced, then took another.

"This tastes like shit."

"You're still drinking it."

"Because it's cheap and full of sugar." Her eyes shifted to my bag of books, mouth curling.

"More to the point — you actually bought that thing." I pulled the book out. The cover was garish enough to qualify as performance art, the title long enough to suggest the author and editorial department had contracted a chronic inability to end sentences. That Time the Editorial Department Lost Their Minds and Made This Light Novel Title So Long Jess nearly sprayed cola across the table.

"That's not just a long title. That's a crime against language."

"At least it's breaking grammar law, not military law." I flipped through the first pages, finding genuine comfort in its shameless commercial desperation.

"Besides, don't you think it's honest? One look at the title and you know the content isn't going to be remotely normal either." Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Fair point." She leaned against the table, still laughing.

"I now fully believe you're going to cuddle that thing before lights-out for spiritual rations."

"Print entertainment is part of the supply chain."

"And the cola?"

"Liquid entertainment."

"What if Disciplinary finds them?" I slid the book back into the bag, tone flat as if discussing knee strap specifications.

"Then I tell them it's medical equipment necessary to maintain my baseline tolerance for the Federation." Harvey snorted.

"Well said. When you inevitably get written up, I'll add a line to your appeal: Patient stable, requires regular doses of sugar and low-grade literature." Even I wanted to applaud that one. Once the spoils were mostly divided, a strange calm settled over the dorm. Someone sat on their bunk fitting new liners and attachment points, testing whether today's purchases were actually more survivable than standard issue.

Someone else portioned out candy and jerky at the table — the snacks that absolutely had to be hidden immediately or they'd get permanently "borrowed." Someone was drinking and reorganizing their essentials, like drafting a low-budget operational plan for the next few weeks. The corridor outside was livelier than usual. Everyone had been off-campus today; everyone had something genuinely theirs. The air carried a restlessness that didn't belong in the Academy.

Someone lugging drinks back to their room got ambushed by floor-mates. Someone was showing off discounted boot liners like war trophies. Others whispered street gossip in conspiratorial undertones.

"Hey, I'm telling you, I actually heard someone say today—""Shh, you got a death wish?"

"No, listen, that Hoffmann senior from General Affairs—" A closing door cut off the rest. I'd been adjusting the lens ring on the old recorder. My fingers stopped. Hoffmann. That name had been shoved into my ears for the second, third, maybe fourth unnecessary time today. I wasn't the type to pounce on gossip, but when the same name keeps dropping from different mouths in a single day — always glued to another name that has no business being anywhere near it, Nikaido — things get interesting.

Jess had obviously caught it too. She leaned against the bed frame, swirling her half-empty cherry cola.

"I'm starting to believe it."

"Believe what?"

"That the system itself is bored," she said.

"Otherwise how do General Affairs and Disciplinary end up generating this much rumor material." I looked down at the recorder, popped the storage card out and back in, checking the contacts.

"Rumors usually need something real to grow from." Jess shrugged.

"Or everyone's just bored. This place manufactures an unhealthy amount of creative passion about other people's private lives." Also true. I let it drop. The recorder hummed quietly when it powered on — old and well-behaved. I test-shot the pile of snacks and cola. The image came out dark, grainy, but usable. This thing's greatest virtue was its stupidity.

Too stupid to grow network functions, too stupid to sync data back to Academy servers at night, too stupid to demonstrate institutional loyalty when you weren't looking. I like machines with no ambition. A while later, the dorm noise gradually settled. People went to shower, started stitching new straps, or collapsed on their bunks playing dead. Jess tore open salted crackers, watching me turn the recorder over in my hands.

"What are you doing?"

"Test shots."

"Right now?"

"Better than finding out it only captures blurry ghosts when I actually need it." She nodded. Made sense.

"Just stay inside. Don't wander. We just got back and the campus atmosphere is off."

"When isn't it off?"

"Today's specifically off." She crunched a cracker, lowering her voice.

"After everything we heard outside, I keep feeling like Disciplinary is way too quiet today." I looked up. Dead center. Nikaido had been unusually quiet today. Not absent, but shifted half a step back from where she was supposed to be. Technically present, but leaving you with the sense that something sharp was missing. Like knowing there's always been a knife on the wall — the sheath is still there, but the blade is gone.

"I'll just do a circuit outside," I said, slipping the recorder into my jacket pocket.

"Test the night focus." Jess studied me for two seconds, then didn't stop me. She just pressed a hard candy into my hand.

"If you get lost, at least you won't die of low blood sugar in the corridor." I pocketed the candy without thanking her and pushed out. The corridor lights were colder at night, turning the floor into something like fresh ice. Voices still carried from a distance, chopped into fragments by doors and corners — like ghosts not entirely committed to following orders.

The building still held traces of the outside: cheap detergent, snack wrappers, soda sugar, and that particular resentment of being briefly touched by the city then stuffed back in the box. I took the side corridor toward the rear buildings. I really was testing the recorder. It sat heavy in my hand. I shot the corner exit sign, the empty supply bay, a ventilation window nudging in the night breeze. Night mode was functional. Grainy, but outlines sharp.

Enough to capture anything that shouldn't appear in a photograph. The further back I went, the fewer voices there were. In a military academy at night, silence is rarely good news. Genuinely safe places aren't this quiet. Safe places have someone coughing, complaining about hot water, dragging their feet down halls. Only over-managed places get their darkness polished this clean — sterile enough to make you sick. I leaned against the rear building's exterior wall, turning over the old recorder I'd bought today.

Harvey was right about old equipment: simple construction, empty head, no secret uploads to Academy networks, no surprise updates into something more obedient. Its sole virtue was keeping its mouth shut. I like things that keep their mouths shut. The casing was worn, paint chipped at corners, making a dying-engine sound when it powered on. I'd only meant to find a quiet spot for test shots and check the storage module wasn't loose. The dorm was too bright, corridors too noisy, laundry room all steam and complaints.

I wandered until I ended up behind the Upper House buildings.