It's midnight, and the moon is high. Everybody is asleep. Jacques sneaks out of the dormitory window and carefully slides down the wall, landing in the bushes. Then, he quickly runs across to a wall, behind trees that shields him from the CCTV. He had peeked into the security room earlier to study the blind spots—and he nailed it, most of the time.
Moving through the shadows of the trees, he leaps, climbs the outer wall of the dormitory, and lands outside. Easy.
Once free, he runs to the minimarket near the dorm where he parked his motorcycle, then drives off toward Sulu's hideout.
His face is sour as he rides through the night. Anyone could tell—he just had an argument with someone important to him.
"Why are you doing this? Do you know how tough it is to always make excuses for you when the instructor asks about you?" Charles had raised his voice.
Jacques, just about to leap out the window, paused to argue back. "Then don't make excuses!"
"They'll expel you!"
"Expel me from here?" Jacques gulped. Of course he thought of his mother—what would she say if he left the academy after promising to take it seriously? But this was argument time. No room for hesitation.
"So be it! Expel me if they want! Who wants to be a policeman, anyway? They're just a bunch of hypocrites—they don't stand for the law, they sell it!"
"Then leave this place! It's better than staying here while doing something else and dragging me into your mess!"
"Nobody dragged you into my mess! This is our mess! And it's not even a mess—I'm fighting for us!"
Charles scoffed. "Yeah? By sneaking out of the dorm every night? How is that fighting for us?"
"You'll see." Jacques swung one leg out the window again.
Charles warned him, "If you jump out of that window, don't expect everything to be the same again."
Jacques said nothing more and leapt anyway.
Grades doesn't matter.
Even law can be buy.
Right? If things had stayed integritous, Bruno would still be here, and the one who got expelled would've been that spoiled, privileged kid selling drugs for extra cash by poisoning his peers.
Why bother defending the law if the law workers are betraying it?
This academy is a big lie. It makes more sense for him to focus on what truly matters—his dream.
After a one-hour journey, he finally arrived at a forest where a waterfall concealed a hidden chamber behind its cascading curtain. Inside, a massive spacecraft garage stretched before him, and a 40-year-old man stood cleaning his tools, ensuring that neither dust nor rust took over.
Once Jacques arrived, Sulu's face lights up and talk to himself, "Hahaha, I can't believe how stubborn he is. He show up every day." Then Sulu pretend not interested at all and keep being busy with his tools.
"Pops, I'm here, can we continue the lesson?" Jacques looked confident and ready.
Sulu looked all displeased and grumpy, "today's lesson is tools function. Clean up these tools."
"Yes, sir! Right away, sir!" Jacques gave a playful salute before grabbing a tool and cleaning it up. "I wonder what this one does… but this…"
He examined a tool shaped like a gun, though it was clearly not a weapon. It was powered by air pressure, and when he read the tank, it said hydrogen.
Later, just before sunrise, Sulu returned and asked, "So, what do you think these tools are for?"
"This one tests tank pressure, this one detects CO2 leaks, and this one…" Jacques continued, confidently guessing the functions of each tool.
He got everything right, which surprised Sulu. However, the old mechanic was an experienced mentor—Jacques wasn't his first student. He knew that too much praise would lead to quick satisfaction and kill motivation. So, instead of acknowledging Jacques' accuracy, Sulu remained silent and simply dismissed him.
"That's it? You're not even going to tell me which ones I got right?" Jacques protested, but Sulu just kept walking toward his sleeping chamber.
"I took that as I got everything right." Jacques nods optimistically.
Then, his gaze drifted upward toward the trooper pod—a single-pilot fighter spaceship designed to guard larger vessels. It had once been Sulu's, back when he was young and still in active service, before his demotion left him with only this pod.
"One day, he'll let me fly you!" Jacques smirked confidently, pointing at the trooper pod.
He hopped onto his motorcycle, using his allowance money to refill the gas, then made his way back to campus before class began. After signing in for attendance, he promptly fell asleep in his seat while the teacher droned on about intergalactic law and the importance of police work.
--DREAM--
Jared followed The Mentor to the locker room, where they put on specialized waterproof gear that resembled thick leather. The Mentor guided him through the process of wearing the equipment and using the necessary tools.
"Got it? This one opens the valve to the drainage, and this one unclogs blockages," The Mentor said, making sure Jared memorized the tools and their functions. "Now, repeat it back to me."
Jared repeated the instructions, listing off each tool and its purpose. He got everything correct.
"That's great! You remembered everything. See? You're a clever boy!" The Mentor smiled, and Jared found himself momentarily stunned by how beautiful that smile was. One day, I'll be brave enough to hold your hand.
"Now, let's go. Our task today is simple—dirty, disgusting, bad for my nails, and life-threatening. But if we don't do it, the whole bunker will be in trouble." The Mentor shut the locker and double-checked that it was locked, ensuring their valuables were secure. He clearly didn't want anyone stealing his earrings—even though, realistically, no one else would ever want to wear them.
So, the bunker is a human-sized ant colony house. But it was carefully structured to keep living underground possible and safe. No landslides when they sleep, no bug attacks when they bathe, and no one dies from choking on CO2 due to vent failure.
What are they doing right now?
It's dirty work.
The toilet septic needs unclogging because some idiot thinks they can throw plastic into the toilet, flush it, and expect it to disappear. And there are quite a few of these idiots. Somebody needs to go down there, swim in the black pond of human waste that has been there for months, and unclog the drainage, cleaning out the trash that isn't supposed to be there.
Once Jared sees how disgusting the place is and what they have to do, the gas mask suddenly makes sense.
He stands there, stunned, just staring at the pile of human waste before turning back to The Mentor. "I have to go there? I mean, DOWN there?"
"Yes. Don't worry. Just shut your hysterical brain down and focus on doing what you've been instructed to do. I did the same when I was your age. The sooner you do it, the sooner it will end," The Mentor pats Jared's shoulder to encourage him.
Jared hesitates at first. Even with the gas mask attached to his face, he can still smell how awful it is. And he has to go down there. He has to become one of them.
At first, his brain panics, screaming at him to save himself and avoid this filthy work. It's like trying to tame a male dog smelling a female dog in heat.
As soon as the tip of his shoe touches the surface of the wet, stinking mud, he smells it—and he wants to throw up.
He actually gags without throwing anything up. Once both his feet are submerged in the wet mud, he feels the coldness of it covering his toes.
"Damn... why did I agree to do this?" Jared feels his head spinning.
The Mentor holds down the nylon rope attached to Jared's belt around his stomach and encourages him. "Go, Jared, go! I got you!"
Jared tries to move toward the clogged drainage, but on the way there, he's trying so hard not to throw up that his face turns red. He feels dizzy, suffocated by the stink. But as his brain overloads with hysteria, rejecting what he is doing, Jared learns to shut down the voice in his head and just act.
Suddenly, it all feels like watching TV.
His body moves—no more stench, no more disgust, no more emotion. Just him, following instructions: collecting hairs mixed with oil and grease that seems like dirt that clogging the drainage and stuffing them into the bag attached to his side. One by one, the water starts flowing into the open drainage and free-falling. The more trash he removes, the stronger the current becomes.
"Keep doing it! Don't worry, I got you!" The Mentor shouts from the safe zone.
Jared can feel his brain start screaming again, but he shuts it down once more and keeps working. That's the only way he can get through this.
However, before he finishes, he stops as he notices movement out of the corner of his eye. Jared turns around—and sees someone. A man, covered in shadow, releasing a lever that is only supposed to be pulled after Jared reaches the safe zone.
"No!!" Jared shouts at the shadowy figure, but he doesn't listen. He pulls the lever anyway, and a rush of water storms in, flooding the tank.
"Jared!! Forget the clog! Drop everything and run back here!" The Mentor calls, his voice no longer playful but urgent. He moves as fast as he can to pull Jared back into the safe zone.
The water surges before Jared even reaches the stairs. Suddenly, a massive wave slams into him, sweeping his body away with the current.
The nasty, disgusting mud now mixes with the water, and Jared is drowning in it. Holding onto the rope—the only thing connecting him to safety—he struggles to keep his head above the raging wave.
"Charles!!" Jared calls out. The Mentor is the only one who can save him now. And he fights hard to pull Jared in, refusing to let go.
"Why do you fight so hard for him?" The mockery returns to The Mentor's head. "He doesn't even remember your name."
"Because..." The Mentor grunts, clinging to the rope and the pole that anchors him to the safe zone. There's no way he's letting go—no way he's letting Jared get swept away into the drainage.
"Because... he forgets," The Mentor grits his teeth, fighting the mocking voice inside his head. It lingers because he knows it's right. "That's why... this is the time when he needs me the most! There's no way I'd let him go!"
The current is so strong that Jared's gas mask is ripped from his face, forcing him to swallow a mouthful of the filthy water.
"Don't let me go! I don't wanna die!" Jared screams, desperate.
But then—he sees it again. The man who pulled the lever before its time. The shadowy figure—standing there, watching.
He appears behind The Mentor, gripping a sledgehammer.
"Charles, look out behind you!!" Jared screams, no longer caring about whatever is entering his mouth.
The Mentor turns in horror—just as the shadowy figure swings the sledgehammer straight at his head.