Less people showed up than I expected.

You had Ahmed, Birgit and Ivan–who had found out everything during the second semester–but nobody from the higher years. Maria was there too, sitting alone on the couch. Ivan and Birgit were sitting on the chairs in front of the desk, with nobody sitting behind.

“Don’t tell me you called this meeting on your own,” said Maria with a roll of her eyes. “You couldn’t even get Smith in here.”

“That’s because he’s missing.” I clenched my fists. Looked around the room. Nobody else was coming. “But he left me a clue. I’ve shared an email with all of you. Something I think we all need to look into. Wifi here is free. Please connect and look at it.”

“Big leader, huh?” smirked Ivan. “Might as well sit in the chair. Be all proper about it.”

“I didn’t-I’m not trying to-”

“Relax, man. Šalio sam se–I was joking.”

Everyone looked down at their phones. Birgit’s eyes widened and Ivan’s smirk dipped as they both looked up to me. They didn’t say anything though. Maria’s reaction was the biggest. She shot up, yelling cursing in Greek. I even took a slight step back at her reaction. I didn’t really know what to do or what to say.

Then, the temperature of the room dropped and Birgit got up. They were staring at each other.

“Enough!” Birgit said in English. “Unless you want me to freeze your bryster off.”

“Really?” said Maria, switching to the language as well. “You know, it’s easy to make threats. I’d like to see you back them up.”

The temperature was dropping even faster. This was all going to hell. A deep, frozen hell, made by Birgit and Maria. Without realising it, I slipped on something–falling straight into Kent Smith’s chair. I felt Ivan and Ahmed’s eyes on me and then on each other.

They both got up, Ahmed bellowing silence, and Ivan getting between the two girls, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. His smile was back in full force as his eyes flicked between the two of them.

“Ladies, ladies,” he said with far more swagger and confidence than I had in my entire body. “We’re all adults here–albeit barely. Now, we’ve all proven we’re not rational on more than one occasion, but I think we can at least not blow up the office of a good man.”

“You can’t be serious!” Maria was pointing to me now. “It’s bad enough that we did what we did last year! Back then we had Alpha Surge’s help. Now you want to go after the person–the thing–that killed him? We will all die!”

I leaned forward. Looked her straight in the eye, trying to keep any guilt I felt buried deep within. Because she wasn’t wrong. We were just a bunch of second years in Atlantis. But every single person in this room, every single person that was with me was spectacular. Strong, both inside and out.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“I know that this is crazy. And it’s not the first time I’ve asked something crazy from you all. But Alpha Surge… Alpha Surge meant a lot to me. To the whole world. Saved it and everyone on it more times than we can count. In ways both big and small. And I think, if we can do this, then we should. We should at least try. Because that’s wha-”

“Alright, kæreste, I think I should stop you before you start rambling. I think I speak for everyone when I say: we’re in.”

I turned to Maria.

“What mistakes did I make to end up here?” she said under her breath. “Fine. But as soon as this gets too dangerous to handle, I’m out. I’m not going to die for you. Just for the record, I think we’re doomed.”

I nodded. Ivan and Ahmed were in too. Which was good. There were a lot of things to discuss. A lot of codes to break.

“We should start by figuring out who the ‘him’ is.” Ahmed was the first one to speak. “It must be someone close. Someone on the island at least. We can’t work with a mole so close.”

“I think you’re wrong there, buraz. I think we should look into the first hero thing. I can’t believe Hero History is going to be useful. I should have paid more attention.”

“Yet another thing I beat you at,” said Birgit, smirking at him. “But you’re all wrong. Why did he mash his keyboard? I mean, he wrote, and I quote: q-qwertyuiop-something. Weird stuff okay?”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the Danish chick has a point. But we can’t really do anything about it, can we?”

They all turned to me. There was merit in everything they’d said. And I didn’t want to shut anyone down–especially not since they were all right. Which was why I didn’t like being the deciding factor in most things.

But there was one thing they were all missing.

“Jensen,” I said simply. Ahmed and Birgit tensed at the mention of his name. “He and Charles were close. Georg Jensen is someone we must consider. A man that always landed on his feet.”

“A man that’s missing,” said Birgit. “Anyway, he couldn’t have done this. You know him.”

I did. I really did. Better than Birgit thought. I knew he’d been a villain that Charles had forced to work with him. He’d always been a question mark. But I also hated thinking of him as a suspect after everything he’d done for me. For everyone in this room.

“I’m not saying he did. But he knows a lot of stuff. He-he has an office in Greece. I’m sure he has one in Denmark. What if we-we look through them? You go to the one in Denmark. Me and Maria go to the one in Greece.”

“What about me and Ivan?” asked Ahmed. “We just sit around?”

“I’m not against that idea!” said Ivan.

“I-you can look into Kent Smith. Any, I don’t know, medical problems, anything that can answer the key mashing. Also gather as much info as possible on the First Hero.”

“We must also all be discreet,” said Ahmed. “There’s still someone out there that we can’t trust. Someone that will, probably, look like a trustworthy person.”

My mind flashed again to the dean. An odd feeling about him. He wasn’t like Charles, or at least I hoped he wasn’t. But we couldn’t look into that too, not right now.

“We’ll look into that after we’re all reunited. Take this weekend to look at everything else. Then, when we have more information, we’ll be able to make a better guess as to who that ‘him’ is.”

Everyone nodded.

And a plan was in place. For better or for worse.