# CHAPTER 14
The First Break-In
### Zestle Street — 8:40 PM
Two buildings down from the imposing silhouette of the Stark Institution, tucked away inside a dark, unassuming residential garage, sat the black van. From the outside, the house and the garage were dead silent, giving off the perfect illusion of an empty property.
Inside the van's chassis, however, hummed a state-of-the-art tactical command center.
A sleek bank of high-definition monitors lined the upper walls, displaying real-time feeds hacked from the institution's perimeter CCTV and ground-floor security grid. Harrison sat anchored in a swivel chair on the left side, his fingers hovering over a mechanical keyboard. Luna stood directly behind him, her arms crossed, her eyes locked onto the massive center monitor. Two auxiliary laptops flanked Harrison's main setup, their screens resting on dark home menus, ready to deploy secondary protocols at a second's notice.
Most of the security feeds on the main monitor had been minimized into the background. Pinned front and center was a single, high-resolution video feed of a man dressed in a sharp business suit and a fedora, confidently standing in a elevator.
"What do you think he's going up there to do?" Luna murmured, leaning over Harrison's shoulder.
"No idea yet," Harrison replied, tracking the man's fluid movements. "But we're about to find out."
Suddenly, Krist's voice crackled through their earpieces, sharp and questioning. *"Wait. How do you guys even know someone is heading for the top floor? I thought we only had access to the ground-floor security cameras."*
Harrison grinned, leaning back in his chair with an arrogant smirk. "I've told you a thousand times, Krist—I know everything. You really need to stop questioning me. I am, quite literally, a genius."
*Smack!*
"Ow! What the hell did you do that for?!" Harrison swiveled around, rubbing the back of his head where Luna had just cleanly clipped him.
"Jesus Christ, Harry, be serious for once in your life!" Luna glared at him, her eyes flashing.
He glared right back. "But I *am* being serious! I'm a genius!"
*"I swear to God, Harry,"* Maya's angry voice cut through the comms, vibrating with pure irritation, *"if you don't stop wasting our time and explain exactly how you know his destination is the top floor, you are going to deeply regret it."*
Harrison rolled his eyes, leaning slightly toward Luna to whisper, "How do you survive hanging out with her? Seriously, she is so annoying and boring. What do you guys even do for fun? I actually can't—"
A low, dry cough interrupted him over the frequency. It was Krist. *"Umm, Harry? We can all hear you. Your mic is hot."*
Luna closed her eyes and slowly dragged her palm down her face.
*"HARRISON!!"*
Maya's earsplitting shriek tore through the audio channel. Both Harrison and Luna winced in synchronized pain, tearing their earpieces out of their ears to save their eardrums.
---
### Rooftop Plaza — Dexdia Street
Up on the windy rooftop, Krist was the only one who had survived the acoustic blast unscathed. Having anticipated the exact trajectory of Maya's temper, he had smoothly pulled his earpiece out and covered his ear just a second before she blew a fuse.
Once the screaming stopped, he glanced at Maya, whose face was completely flushed bright red with pure fury. He shook his head, a wry thought crossing his mind: *How do I always end up surrounded by chaotic people?*
Brushing the distraction aside, Krist locked a heavy carabiner onto his tactical belt and snapped his safety line onto the high-tensile polymer rope spanning the gap between the plaza and the school. He stepped onto the ledge, preparing to launch himself across the dark void.
Maya noticed his movement and instantly lunged forward, grabbing his arm. "Wait! Didn't you hear what Harry just said? Someone is up there!"
"I did," Krist said calmly, checking the tension of the line. "And that's exactly why I need to go *right now*."
"What do you mean?" Maya asked, her voice tight with genuine worry.
"I need to move fast," Krist explained, locking eyes with her. "If whoever that is is heading for the server room, I need to get in, download our data, and get out before he arrives. If I'm quick, I won't get pinned down. I can escape before he even knows I was there."
"But can't you just wait until they leave?" she pressed, her grip tightening on his jacket, entirely unwilling to let him take the risk. "It's too dangerous."
Krist knew Maya wouldn't let him cross without a flawless tactical reason. He paused, looking across the dark alleyway at the institution. "Maya, why do you think a total stranger in a business suit is sneaking into the building at this hour?"
"I... I don't know," she admitted.
"What if Bellatrix sensed something was off?" Krist suggested, his voice dropping to a serious whisper. "What if she deployed a fixer to the server room to wipe the mainframe clean of anything that could implicate her? If we wait, everything we came for might be permanently erased."
Maya's grip instantly weakened as the weight of his logic hit her. Seeing his window, Krist let go of the parapet and slipped into the darkness.
Because his tactical belt was securely latched to the zip-line, he didn't plummet straight down. Instead, gravity caught him, launching his body forward in a silent, high-speed glide across the alleyway toward the school's fourth-floor terrace.
Realizing he was already gone, Maya reached out into the empty air. "Good luck," she whispered into her comms. "And please... don't take any unnecessary risks."
Right on cue, Harrison's voice returned to the channel, completely deflated of its previous arrogance. *"Uh, guys? The target just stepped onto the top floor."*
Krist, mid-glide through the night air, adjusted his posture. "Harry, do you have a way to tap into the upper-floor cameras now?"
*"No,"* Harrison replied.
"Then how do you know the second he stepped off?"
*"Because I managed to slip a drone inside the building. Pretty cool, right?"* Harrison boasted, his voice instantly recovering its proud edge.
Krist smiled faintly as the wind rushed past his ears. "Actually... yeah. That's incredibly smart of you."
---
**A While Ago...**
Immediately after dropping Krist and Maya off, Luna had taken the wheel and expertly navigated the van into the hidden garage. Harrison had immediately gone to work, scanning the perimeter feeds.
The live footage currently pinned to his large monitor wasn't from a stationary camera—it was a dynamic, moving feed transmitted from a micro-drone. Harrison had been scouting for an structural vulnerability on the ground floor when a flashy, ultra-expensive luxury sedan pulled up to the front entrance.
A man stepped out, wearing a tailored business suit, dark sunglasses despite the night, and a fedora. He casually smoothed down his lapels before walking up to the main doors. Harrison saw his chance. The moment the automated doors slid open for the businessman, Harrison expertly piloted his micro-drone right through the closing gap.
Using the ground-floor security layout he had already mapped, Harrison navigated the drone through the corridors, masterfully dodging the few remaining evening staff members.
As the drone hovered silently near the ceiling, Harrison caught a strange interaction. The front desk receptionist subtly slipped a sleek, unmarked keycard across the counter to the businessman. The man took it, slid it deep into his inner coat pocket, gave a brief, tight nod, and walked deeper into the building.
Inside the van, Harrison's gut told him this wasn't a standard corporate visit. He toggled his controller, keeping the drone at a safe distance. Because the campus was mostly deserted, trailing him was a breeze.
The man took a sharp turn, stopping outside the one area strictly off-limits to students on the ground floor: the administrative staff quarters. He swiped the keycard. The heavy security doors slid open with a soft chime, and he stepped into the empty office space. Walking straight to the back wall, the man pressed a hidden biometric panel. A concealed wall panel receded, revealing a private elevator.
Just before the elevator doors closed, Harrison gunned the drone's thrusters, slipping it into the elevator shaft just over the man's shoulder. The man turned around and pressed the button for the 4th floor. That was the exact moment Harrison had alerted the team.
Harrison kept the drone perfectly positioned behind the man's blind spot. If the man shifted his head right, Harrison eased the drone left. The drone was a high-grade prototype acquired from Stark Tech; its whisper-quiet rotors produced nothing more than a barely audible, low-frequency hum that easily masked itself against the elevator's mechanical whir.
The elevator dinged. The doors slid open to the top floor, and the man stepped out into the dimly lit hallway. Harrison navigated the drone right out behind him. The man paused, surveyed the empty corridor, and began walking directly toward the high-security server room.
---
### 4th Floor — Stark Institution
At that exact moment, Krist's boots hit the concrete flooring of the 4th-floor terrace with a muted thud.
The campus layout was massive, but Krist had timed his entry perfectly—his insertion point on the terrace was physically closer to the server room than the elevator bank. If he moved quickly, he could intercept the terminal and finish the extraction before the man even walked through the door.
Krist unhooked his safety rope from his belt. Then, reaching down, he unlocked the mechanical arrow prongs from the parapet, completely severing his only bridge back to the plaza.
Over the comms, Maya let out a terrified gasp. *"What the heck are you doing?! How are you supposed to get back across?!"*
Krist winced, rubbing his ear. "Maya, please. You have to stop shouting. The audio sensitivity is perfect; your voice is firing straight into our eardrums. It hurts."
*"Tell her about it,"* Harrison muttered over the channel, clearly still recovering from her earlier scream.
Maya paused, her voice instantly dropping into a quiet, embarrassed mumble. *"Sorry... Krist is disconnecting the line he used to cross over."*
*"Krist, what are you doing?"* Luna's voice broke in, laced with heavy concern. *"You're trapping yourself."*
"I know exactly what I'm doing," Krist said smoothly. "Maya, do me a favor and reel the line back in before a security patrol spots it hanging between the buildings."
With a powerful heave, Krist threw the detached arrow shaft across the alley void toward the plaza roof. Left with no choice, Maya quickly began winding the high-tensile line back into her kit.
Krist drew a deep breath. He reached down, pulling his black tactical mask up over his nose and mouth. Shifting his weight, he dashed through the terrace doors and into the school corridors. He moved like a shadow—blistering speed married to absolute silence, tracing the blind spots of the wall-mounted cameras with practiced ease.
Two minutes of intense, silent sprinting brought him to the corridor hosting the main server room.
A single night guard was stationed outside the heavy door, but his chin was buried in his chest, snoring softly.
Krist tapped his earpiece. "Harry, is our guest still heading this way?"
*"Yep. He hasn't changed course. He's one hallway over,"* Harrison confirmed.
Krist took a slow, calculated breath. He crept up to the sleeping guard, his footsteps making zero sound on the polished floor. Reaching into his utility vest, he pulled out a small, chemically treated cloth. *I knew keeping this handy would pay off,* he thought with a grim smile.
He gently pressed the cloth over the guard's nose and mouth. The man didn't even wake; his tense shoulder muscles simply went entirely slack, his breathing deepening into a profound, drug-induced sedation.
Krist let out a quiet sigh of relief, letting the guard slump comfortably against the wall. He turned to the heavy, reinforced steel door of the server room. His fingers flew across the digital security keypad, punching in the access code they had spent days acquiring.
He hit enter.
A sharp, harsh red flash blinked on the screen: **ACCESS DENIED. INCORRECT PASSWORD.**
Krist's eyes widened in sudden, icy shock. *Damn it.*
*"Krist? What's wrong?"* Maya's voice asked instantly, sensing the sudden spike in his heart rate.
Krist let out a low, dangerous growl, his knuckles whitening against the keypad frame. "Bellatrix changed the password."