SSS-Rank Awakening: My Infinite Absorption System

Chapter 67: Subject Two Confirmed

The morning sun cast long pale rectangles across the scuffed linoleum floor of apartment four-B, warming the quiet kitchen.

Jolly stood at the cast-iron stove in her blue canvas apron, deftly flipping thick golden squares of sesame bread with a wooden spatula.

"Fin," Jolly said without turning around. "Stop rubbing that hatchet blade on the tablecloth."

"It’s an oiled microfiber cloth," Fin said from the table. "Not the tablecloth."

"Still leaves grease on the wood," Jolly countered, sliding three steaming slices onto a ceramic plate. "Eat your toast before it turns into leather."

"Yes, chef," Fin said, taking a warm slice.

Ruby sat across from him, tapping her fork against her empty mug with a thoughtful rhythm.

"How many pictures did Talla give you, Maya?" Ruby asked.

"Fourteen," Maya answered, spreading glossy eight-by-ten surveillance photographs across the oilcloth table. "Taken from four different focal lengths over the past forty-eight hours."

"All of them around the middle school?" Fin asked, chewing the warm sesame bread.

"Every single one," Maya said, tapping a photograph showing the brick gates of District Three Middle School. "Look at the time stamps in the lower right corner."

"Eight-fifteen in the morning," Ruby read, leaning closer. "And three-thirty in the afternoon."

"Student arrival and dismissal," Maya confirmed. "They’re mapping her daily walking route."

Fin picked up one of the prints, comparing it to a faded, water-damaged document resting in an open cardboard folder beside his plate.

"The classification code is identical," Fin said. "Sub-Seven Experimental Harvest... Subject Two."

"I know that code," Jolly said, setting a plate of sliced pickled cucumbers between them. "That’s the name on the lab vats from Chapter Forty-Seven."

"Jolly," Ruby began gently. "You don’t need to look at these files."

"I’m twelve, Ruby, not blind," Jolly replied, wiping her hands on her apron as she sat down beside Fin. "If people are taking pictures of my school shoes with telephoto lenses, I want to know who’s paying for the film."

"Fair enough," Fin said, handing her one of the unclassified route maps. "Look at this transit authorization."

"What is it?" Jolly asked, tracing a red highlighter line that cut through the delivery alley behind her homeroom building.

"A priority municipal clearance order," Maya explained. "Signed by Deputy Commissioner Malan from the municipal transit bureau."

"Malan..." Jolly murmured. "The man with the big gold signet ring from the news broadcast?"

"The very same," Maya nodded grimly. "The order clears an unmarked private ambulance into the school service lane tomorrow between two and four."

"That’s during our sixth-period physical education class," Jolly noted, her eyes narrowing with sharp realization. "The teacher leaves the side gates unlatched so the groundskeepers can haul out the grass clippings."

"An open gate, an authorized transport, and zero municipal patrol cars on that block for two hours," Ruby said, her voice dropping into icy fury. "A textbook extraction corridor."

A measured, double-rap knock sounded against the reinforced timber of the apartment door, followed by a familiar clearing of a throat.

"That’s Sefu," Fin said, rising to slide back the heavy brass deadbolt.

The door swung open, admitting Sefu into the kitchen alongside the rich scent of damp harbor air and diesel fuel.

"Morning, folks," Sefu said, taking off his canvas flat cap and nodding respectfully to Jolly. "Jolly, that bread smells good enough to sell on the docks."

"There’s two slices left in the pan for you, Sefu," Jolly smiled, pointing with her spatula.

"I’ll take you up on that in a minute, little lady," Sefu said, unrolling a hand-drawn street schematic over the kitchen counter. "Fin, I scouted the school perimeter before breakfast."

"What did you find?" Fin asked, joining him at the counter.

"They’ve got spotters," Sefu said bluntly, tapping a pencil against a brick building facing the schoolyard. "Second floor of the tenement on Elm Street. Room two-B."

"Room two-B?" Maya looked up from her tablet. "That matches the angle on photograph number six."

"I saw optical glare from behind the lace curtains," Sefu explained. "A high-magnification telephoto lens mounted on a surveyor’s tripod. Two men inside taking shift turns."

"Can we surround the school with your porters?" Ruby asked.

"We could," Sefu stroked his grey beard. "Put six burly dock workers in reinforced leather jackets outside the gates... but those spotters aren’t stupid. The second they see an armed phalanx guarding Jolly, they’ll call an audible, abort the school run, and snatch her off a grocery run next week."

"Sefu is right," Fin agreed. "If we spook them, we lose their timeline."

"Then let me tell you how to do it," Jolly spoke up from the stove, sliding a plate with two sesame toasts across to Sefu.

"We’re listening, Jolly," Fin said, leaning against the counter.

"The corner market across from the school gate gets thirty crates of winter cabbage delivered every single morning at seven-thirty," Jolly said.

"That’s Orson’s regular produce run," Sefu said, blinking in surprise.

"Exactly," Jolly nodded. "Orson and Corin can push their handcarts right up to the market awning. They can sit there with their delivery clipboards for three hours, drinking tea and complaining about the wholesale vegetable prices, and nobody will look twice."

"That puts two veteran brawlers ten meters from the school gates without raising an eyebrow," Ruby observed, a genuine grin spreading across her face.

"And what about Bram?" Fin asked.

"Bram parks his delivery van in the alley behind the auto repair garage," Jolly said. "The bakery next door dumps their morning bread flour at seven-forty-five. Bram can pretend his radiator is leaking while he watches the ambulance lane."

Sefu took a bite of the toasted sesame bread, chewing slowly with an expression of pure, unadulterated admiration.

"Fin," Sefu said around a mouthful of toast. "Your little sister has a better tactical head than half the guild lieutenants I worked with in District Five."

"She grew up on packaging line margins," Fin said with a quiet smile. "Every second counts when you’re moving crates."

"Adults handle the actual breach, though," Ruby reminded Jolly gently. "You’re staying behind the cordon."

"I know," Jolly sighed. "I can’t parry a stun baton with a wooden spatula. But I’m not hiding under a bed while you fight people who are watching my classroom."

"Nobody is asking you to hide," Fin assured her. "You go to school with Orson and Corin on the corner, just like any normal morning."

"And what do you and Ruby do?" Jolly asked.

"We visit room two-B," Fin said, his tone cooling into pure steel.

"The observation nest?" Maya looked up, her fingers flying across her keyboard. "I just pulled the municipal building permit for that address. The lease is held by an inactive logistics front called Apex Frontline Logistics."

"Apex Frontline Logistics," Ruby repeated. "Another corporate shell."

"We breach the room at sunrise," Fin instructed. "Before their afternoon extraction team mobilizes."

"What’s the rules of engagement?" Ruby asked, checking her spearhead.

"We take them alive if possible," Fin said. "We need their radios, their encrypted codes, and the original copy of Malan’s transport invoice."

"Paper evidence," Maya nodded. "If we hold the signed invoice with Malan’s wax signet, the municipal council can’t bury the scandal as an unverified rumor."

"Nila covers the tenement stairwell with her foil," Fin added. "Nobody runs down the fire escape, and nobody calls for backup."

"And after the room is clear?" Sefu asked.

"We move Jolly and the families into the Pine Street shelter before the two o’clock extraction window," Fin said. "We turn that decommissioned fallout bunker into a fortress."

"Orson’s boys already have the reinforced blast doors standing by on the flatbed truck," Sefu confirmed, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "We can hang those steel slabs in three hours flat."

Jolly picked up the empty breakfast plates, carrying them to the sink with deliberate, steady movements.

"Fin," she called out over the sound of running tap water.

"Yeah?"

"Don’t break their radio before Maya copies the codes."

Fin couldn’t help but chuckle softly, reaching into his pocket for his whetstone.

"I won’t break the radio, Jolly."

"Good," she said, scrubbing the cast-iron skillet. "Because replacing electronics in this district costs an arm and a leg."

Fin looked across the sunlit kitchen at Ruby and Maya, their expressions set with shared, unwavering resolve.

Genesis thought they were hunting an easy target in an impoverished outer ward.

Tomorrow morning, they would find out what happened when they stepped into Halden House’s territory.