The temporary infirmary hums beneath After Garden's launch court. Yunito lies on a diagnostic cot while academy med-techs, two young adult women in pale blue diagnostic smocks and clear face shields, their hair tucked beneath white caps scan her pinned leg, its bruising already fading beneath blue sensor light.
Yunito Harisha
The leg still works. It hurts when the scanner pulses, but nothing feels broken.
The infirmary door slides open. Gerald, a large athletic young man with a broad frame and sturdy shoulders, steps inside clutching a salvaged data wafer in both hands.
Gerald Heaves
I brought the cockpit footage. I cleaned up the signal twice, and I think I found something Rusk missed.
Yunito Harisha
Rusk stayed with the disabled mech and the academy security team. What did you find, Gerald?
Gerald sets the wafer against the wall display. Grainy footage resolves into the mech's transfer seal, then a second timestamp hidden beneath the recovery code.
Gerald Heaves
The depot coordinates were entered before the theft was reported. Someone knew where that machine was going, and they wanted us looking there.
The display holds on the concealed timestamp. Yunito watches the data while Gerald steadies himself beside the cot, leaving the next question to Daven.
“But we are just students who would want us looking somewhere*I ask looking at them*and we cant tell the teachers about this”
SUCCESS (Great Reasoning, rolled +0)
Daven
But we are just students. Who would want us looking somewhere else? And we cannot tell the teachers about this.
The infirmary hum tightens around the question. On the wall display, the concealed timestamp sits beneath the transfer code like a deliberate second trail.
Gerald Heaves
Someone with access to Garden Corp routing planted that destination before the theft report. They wanted the depot blamed, and us chasing the wrong lead.
Yunito Harisha
Then we keep this between us. No teachers, no academy channels, and no report until we know which Garden Corp operator entered it.
Gerald swallows, then locks the wafer behind an encrypted diagnostic partition. The display blanks except for a private copy of the timestamp.
Gerald Heaves
Agreed. We can trace the authorization without alerting anyone. But if that operator knows we found it, staying quiet may be what keeps us safe.
Yunito Harisha
We are not dropping it. Whoever redirected attention may know something about my brother's death, too.
✓ Quest Accepted
Keep the investigation hidden from academy channels
Daven leaves After Garden Academy launch court temporary infirmary behind and arrives at my dorm.
“Heal up yunito, im off to my dorm*I say walking to my dorm thinkabout what this means*”
SUCCESS (Good Agility, rolled +1)
Daven's dorm seals behind him with a soft pressure hiss. The compact room is quiet, lit by the city glow and the amber standby lights of his workbench.
Daven
Yunito is stable, but someone planted the depot trail before the theft report.
His wrist display confirms the infirmary discharge update: Yunito's leg has regained full function, with no fracture or lasting damage detected.
As Daven crosses to the workbench, the encrypted wafer partition wakes without being touched. A new file has appeared beside Gerald's private timestamp copy.
The file contains a routing fragment and one access tag: GARDEN CORP, operator credentials pending. Its timestamp is eleven seconds earlier than the planted destination.
Outside, academy transit lights sweep across the dorm window. The wafer finishes decrypting, revealing a single instruction: CHECK THE PILOT ASSIGNMENT LEDGER.
The instruction ends with an access key matching Daven's student credentials, granting him immediate entry to the restricted ledger archive.
The archive waits on his display, already authenticated and open to the Garden Corp transfer records.
“A new mech material, but why haven't they announced it unless its meant to be a secret*I t think to myself*guess I gotta go see it for myself*I say getting up and sneaking out my door to the secret lab*”
SUCCESS (Good Agility, rolled +1)
Daven
A new mech material, hidden from announcement? Then it is meant to stay secret. I need to see it myself.
Daven
I am going to see it for myself.
Daven rises from the workbench and kills the dorm lights. He slips through the door during a passing transit sweep, keeping to service corridors outside the academy's routine camera angles.
His student credentials open a maintenance lift beneath the archive wing. The lift descends without logging the stop, carrying him below the teaching floors toward a sealed research level.
A concealed panel parts at the bottom. Daven crosses the threshold into the secret lab, where cold white work lights reveal a towering mech frame under a translucent containment shroud.
The machine's armor is unfinished, layered with a dark silver material that ripples like liquid beneath the shroud. Its inactive cockpit bears no academy designation, only a fresh Garden Corp seal.
Behind the frame, a diagnostic console wakes to his credentials and displays one warning: PILOT COMPATIBILITY TRIAL, SUBJECT UNASSIGNED.
Discover the purpose of the secret mech