"Do you see anyone?" asked Will in a low voice.

Ahead of them was the print shop Miltons. The front door was shut tight, and no light was visible from its windows. It looked just as abandoned as the last time they visited the place.

"No one about," muttered Remy.

Will glanced at the shop's exterior. There was a camera mounted above, which covered the front door and the windows.

"Camera in the top right," said Will. "It will be hard to get to that one without being spotted."

Becca tapped him on the shoulder. "We might have better luck round the back."

"Yeah," Will said quietly. "Let's go."

They made their way around the shop through a side alley. There were no other windows on the side or any other point of entry. Will glanced at the sloped roof of the shop and immediately discarded the idea of going through there.

They rounded the corner and saw the back of the building. It was just as plain as the front, with a single back door covered by yet another camera. It had good coverage, and anyone approaching the door would be immediately spotted.

"This is a lot better," said Remy. "I could get to that camera."

"Let's hold off on that," said Will. "We are just looking for now."

"So, how do you want to do this?" asked Remy. "I doubt you want to go in guns blazing."

"No," said Will. "As covert as possible. I don't want them to know we were even there."

"That's going to be hard without knowing what's inside the building," said Remy.

"And I doubt you can get the blueprints of this place," added Becca.

"Right," muttered Remy. "So that's the rub. Even after we get past the camera, we have no idea what is waiting for us inside. Trip one sensor, and we're done."

Will folded his arms across his chest and looked around. Snow was piled to the side away from the back door. Off to the side was a large green garbage bin.

Will pointed at the bin. "The camera doesn't cover it."

Remy sighed. "Damn it."

"What?" asked Becca.

"Come on. Let's go gather intel," Remy muttered. "Also, keep your voice low and don't stray into the camera's line of sight."

Will approached the building from the side and opened the dumpster.

"Wait, what are you—" began Becca, but before she could protest, Will jumped into the garbage bin.

He landed on a bunch of trash bags. Will pushed aside the ones filled with food, which had turned into icy balls in the cold weather. Underneath, the trash bags were broken bits of discarded printed parts. One of them looked like a half-finished engine block.

Will handed the parts to Remy without examining them closely. More parts littered the bin, and behind them were a few shattered electronics.

"This is a complicated bit of print here," Remy's muffled voice reached Will. "Most of it is hollow."

"Must be test prints," Becca whispered. "I don't think they make their larger scale prints here. The industrial scale ones. This shop looks like an administrative hub. They must do small prints to showcase to their clients."

"Or what's left of their clients," muttered Remy.

Will snorted inside the bin and picked up a cardboard box. He opened it and found a bent chassis of some device. Underneath were dozens of small square cards. He thumbed through the storage flash cards, his heart beating fast in his chest.

"Remy!" Will called out in an excited whisper and poked his head out of the bin. "Check this out."

Remy opened the box and found the cards. "Well, I'll be damned!"

Becca examined the cards with her gloved hand over her nose. Despite her discomfort, she sounded delighted. "Wow. Storage drives. What do you think is in them?"

"Who knows?" said Remy. "It could be something, or it could be nothing. Anyway, the idiots. These are supposed to be crushed and shredded before tossing them away."

"Trying to cut costs, no doubt," said Will. "They must have figured that without shielding, the drives would degrade anyway, so why waste the money?"

Remy shook his head.

"Let's get this place cleaned up before anyone notices," said Will, climbing out of the bin. The two boys dumped the trash back into the dumpster and carefully closed the lid.

"Do you think you will find anything useful in there?" whispered Becca.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Will shrugged. "It depends on how long the flash drives have been out in the elements without shielding. Let's hope that the data corruption isn't too bad."

"Curfew will be up soon. We better get going," Becca sighed, and her breath steamed in the air. "Also, you two better stay away from me before you get a bath."

Remy pretended to lunge at Becca, who promptly kicked snow in his face. Will hushed the two, and they quickly made their way back to the fort.

The rest of the day went by quickly. They were busy scanning the drives for any usable data. Going through all the flash cards took most of the day, and the software was still chugging away when night fell. They decided to let the program run through the night, and Will fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Morning came abruptly. The reveille rang loud through the barracks, and Will's eyes snapped open the instant the bugles started blowing. He was on his feet, his actions almost instinctive at this point, and got his uniform on. A couple of minutes later, he was washed and dressed, rushing down the hall with Remy and Becca.

"Is the data recovery done yet?" asked Becca breathlessly.

"No," said Remy. "It is still analyzing. These things take time. Just keep your fingers crossed that the drives are not completely corrupted!"

"The drives didn't look too bad," said Becca. "I reckon we would get at least some data—woah!"

Becca gave a startled squeal as they nearly bumped into someone as they rounded the corner.

"Damian?!" Will exclaimed when he spotted his cousin.

Damian was in his white exo suit, and his helmet was clipped to his side. The gecko necklace jingled around his neck as he regarded Will with his piercing gaze.

"What?" Will asked defensively at the sudden scrutiny.

Damian said nothing but grabbed Will by the chin and tilted his head this way and that, examining his face. Will was too stunned to respond. It was when Damian started peeling back his eyelids to look at his pupils that Will finally protested.

"What are you doing?!"

Damian snorted and walked off without saying a word.

"What the hell was that?" asked Remy, bewildered.

Will stood stock still. Confusion turned to worry as he came to one conclusion. "He knows!"

"What?"

"I don't know how he knows, but he definitely knows." Will watched Damian's retreating back.

"How?"

"He was looking at how red my eyes were," said Will.

"Checking if you are still drunk," Becca muttered.

"Fuck!" Remy cursed.

Remy and Will stood still, staring after Damian, who had already left the hall.

"Come on, you two," said Becca, grabbing them by the arm. "We will worry about this later. We are going to be late."

Reluctantly, the two boys allowed Becca to drag them away. They rushed to join the rest of the class, who were making their way towards the obstacle course. The morning PT had been adjusted once again, but this time they were having a new instructor - Cline the Trapper.

Will spotted Lawson, standing at the start of the course with her arms folded in front of her. Cline was beside her, a short man clad in a white exo suit. Unlike Lawson and Damian, Trapper had his helmet secured over his head.

"Why is Trapper filling in as a substitute?" asked Remy. "Where are the other instructors?"

"Something definitely fishy is going on ever since the match," muttered Will.

Remy gave a grunt of confirmation.

"Hey, have you guys noticed something?" asked Becca. "Why do all the instructors have lizard trinkets on them? Look, Cline has one on his right hand."

Will glanced at Trapper's wrist and spotted the coiled green bracelet of a lizard biting its own tail.

"All lizard-themed," said Remy.

"Not lizard, it's a gecko," said Will, remembering Damian's nickname.

The class stopped in front of the two instructors and quickly got into formation. Lawson scanned them for a half a minute before they passed muster.

"At ease," she said as she looked around at the gathered cadets. "You had an entire day free yesterday. I hope you enjoyed your break because I need you to step up your game in the days ahead."

Will felt a headache coming. They were already running on fumes with all the work with the training and the project, not to mention their side investigation. If the workload got any larger, he might end up in the infirmary.

Lawson waved toward Cline. "Assisting me today is your new instructor. I think you already know him through the arena match. This is Cline Binds, also known as the Trapper."

Trapper gave a small nod toward the class, and Lawson continued. "We will start where we left off last time. How to defend yourself from signature conversion."

She clapped her hands, and Will felt a faint pulse come from her and brush against his field. It wasn't as strong as Arman's Kade and definitely lacked his power.

"As someone who has specialized in signature manipulation, I can't say that I approve of this method," said Lawson. "But nevertheless, it is effective in certain use cases. There are drawbacks, though, which we will discuss later."

"Now, does anyone remember how Captain Kade initiated subspace collapse?" asked Lawson, looking around at the cadets. She pointed at Victor standing at the back of the class.

Victor, surprised at being suddenly singled out, stammered out an answer. "He... he clapped his hands?"

"Yes, he did," said Lawson dryly. "But what else did he do?"

"He had his field out on both hands," said Victor. "He smashed the fields together, which caused the pulse."

"An excellent deduction, Maxwell," said Lawson. "That's exactly what Kade did. The sudden and violent clash of fields focused on a single point resulted in the collapse. The sudden breakdown of subspace sends out a pulse which disrupts all other field effects around it."

She clapped again, and another pulse came from her. "Now, let's try it all at once. Try clapping your hands."

The gathered cadets uncertainly raised their hands and focused their field around them. Will frowned as he brought his hands together and... nothing.

It was just a normal clap, and there was no pulse.

There was a surprised buzz of mutterings as the entire class failed to produce even a ripple in the subspace.

"As you can see, that did nothing," said Lawson. "It isn't enough that you collide two fields together. They must be of sufficient strength to pierce the subspace. Now, try again, but this time put more heart into it."

Will gritted his teeth and focused his field tightly around his hands. He tried to pack as much of his psions into his palms as he could and then clapped. There was a soft snap in the air as a faint, barely discernible pulse came from him.

More claps echoed around him, and he felt a dozen pulses from all around as cadets clapped their hands. But all of them were faint. None of them had the power of Lawson's, much less Kade's.

"Good attempt," said Lawson, "but it is not enough. You are going to have to do a lot better than that if you want to break a hostile signature."

Her field flared, and Will felt it again. From deep within the subspace, something ascended. Lawson's field washed over them, and Will's teeth chattered as he secured his field around himself.

Lawson smartly walked up the first slope of the obstacle course.

"Come!" she said sharply. "I want to see you ascend this ramp while fighting off my signature."

Will wiped the sweat from his brow and felt a sudden twinge from his right knee. The crystal felt the bite of Lawson's signature and didn't like it.

Will let out a breath. This might be just another lesson for the others, but for him, this could be the most important lesson of his life. Clenching his fist, Will strode forward.

He had to master this skill.