CHAPTER 57: PROPHET GOES PROWLING
"This is stupid."
I said it out loud to make it real. The words echoed off the DynaTox Industries building's exterior wall, twelve feet below the window I was currently climbing toward.
"This is stupidly awesome," I added, because lying to myself was a survival skill at this point.
11:47 PM. Encino corporate district. Empty parking lots. Minimal security. Terry Silver's legitimate business front, which definitely wasn't a front for anything because billionaires always started chemical companies immediately after returning from decades of martial arts obsession.
The Valley Vandals' parkour lessons had seemed like an indulgence when I'd started them. Sixty bucks a session to learn how to jump off buildings. Now, scaling the exterior of a four-story office building while avoiding security cameras, those lessons felt like prophecy.
Prophecy. The word tasted bitter. Everyone thought I was psychic. Even Johnny, drunk and rambling, had noticed I knew things I shouldn't.
The truth was worse than psychic. The truth was transmigration, meta-knowledge, a System only I could see, and the growing certainty that everything I knew about the future was becoming unreliable because I kept changing things.
My fingers found the third-floor window ledge. Hauled myself up. Checked the camera angle—blind spot just like the building plans had shown—and tested the window.
Locked. Obviously.
I pulled out the credit card Demetri had given me, claiming it "worked in movies." It didn't work. I tried the window again, harder.
Still locked.
"Come on," I muttered. "Give me something."
The universe, apparently, was listening.
"Hey."
I nearly fell off the ledge.
A face appeared in the window. Black man, sixties maybe, wearing a janitor's uniform and an expression of mild curiosity.
"You're that fighter kid," he said through the glass. "Underground Prophet."
My hands gripped the ledge so hard my knuckles cracked. "You're... that janitor guy?"
He laughed. Actually laughed, like catching a teenager dangling outside his workplace at midnight was completely normal. "Name's Frank. What are you doing on my building?"
Lie. I needed a lie. A good one, a believable one—
"I'm breaking in to steal information from Terry Silver because I think he's planning something terrible and I can't prove it without evidence."
Not a lie. Perfect.
Frank studied me for a long moment. Then he unlocked the window.
"Silver's been a bastard to everyone who works here since the day he bought the place," Frank said, stepping back to let me climb through. "His enemy is my friend."
I tumbled into the hallway with approximately zero grace. My knees hit industrial carpet. The building's air conditioning bit through my sweat-soaked black clothes.
"How long have you worked here?" I asked, brushing myself off.
"Thirty-two years. Was here before DynaTox, before Silver bought the building, before it was anything but a paper supply company." Frank leaned on his mop. "Watched a lot of good people get fired when he took over. Watched a lot of bad people get promoted. Man doesn't care about chemicals or commerce. He cares about power."
"You're not worried about getting caught helping me?"
Frank's smile was tired and knowing. "Son, I'm sixty-three years old, my wife passed last spring, and my pension's secure no matter what Silver does. At this point, I'm just waiting for something interesting to happen." He nodded toward the stairwell. "Elevator to the fourth floor is broken. Maintenance hasn't fixed it yet. Probably won't until tomorrow morning."
"Convenient."
"Isn't it just." He winked. "Stairs are that way. He's usually in the corner office. Lots of pictures on the walls, like a movie villain. Security does rounds every forty-five minutes—you've got about thirty before the next sweep."
"Frank."
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
He was already pushing his cleaning cart down the hall. "Thank me by bringing that psycho down. And kid? Whatever you're looking for, make sure it's worth finding. Sometimes the truth is heavier than the lie."
The words echoed in my head as I climbed the stairs. Heavier than the lie. If only he knew how heavy my particular lies had become.
---
The fourth floor was executive territory. Thick carpet, wood paneling, the kind of aggressive luxury that screamed I have money and I need you to know it. Silver's corner office dominated the entire east side.
The door was unlocked.
Of course it was. Why would a man who bought me breakfast and texted me surveillance reports bother locking his office door? He wanted people to look inside. Wanted them to see.
I stepped through.
And immediately understood why.
The wall.
Photos. Dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe. Every Cobra Kai student. Their families. Their homes. Their schools. Pictures taken at practice, at tournaments, at the beach club just this afternoon.
My section was the largest.
Red string connected faces to locations to documents to more faces. A web of surveillance so thorough it made the FBI look amateur. And at the center of my section, pinned like a butterfly to a board, was a single note in elegant handwriting:
Subject appears to have precognitive abilities. Investigate further.
My stomach dropped.
Too accurate. Way too accurate.
I forced my hands to move. Phone out. Pictures. Everything. The wall, the documents, the filing cabinets—
The filing cabinets.
I pulled open the first one. Recruitment files. Senseis from around the country, the world. Cobra Kai International. Plans for franchises in a dozen cities, each one staffed by fighters Silver had identified and corrupted.
Second cabinet. Financial records. Money flowing through shell companies, into real estate, into politicians' campaign funds—
Third cabinet. My name on the label.
I opened it.
Everything. They had everything. My apartment lease. My work schedule. My training locations. My relationship with Sam—pictures of us at the beach, at restaurants, at her house. Tory's work schedules. Miguel's mother's nursing schedule. Hawk's home address.
And at the bottom of the file, a single document marked PRIORITY.
Neutralize LaRusso permanently.
The words blurred. Came back into focus.
Neutralize.
Footsteps. Outside in the hall.
I froze. Phone still in my hand. File still open.
The footsteps stopped at the door.
Move, my brain screamed. Hide.
I dove under the desk. Cramped. Dark. Carpet pressing against my face, dust tickling my nose. The phone went into my pocket, brightness killed.
The door opened.
Footsteps entered. Soft-soled shoes on expensive carpet. A pause, and then—
"Yes, accelerate everything."
Silver's voice. Phone pressed to his ear.
"The boy's influence is spreading faster than anticipated. The students are unifying."
He moved to his desk. His chair rolled back. His legs appeared inches from my face.
"No, killing him creates a martyr. We need to discredit him first, then absorb his followers." A pause. "Yes, the LaRusso girl is leverage. And the mother—Carmen Diaz. Miguel would do anything to protect her."
I stopped breathing.
"Barnes and Snake arrive next week. They'll help with the pressure campaign." Another pause. "No, Kreese is manageable. He wants the same things we do, he's just too sloppy about getting them. We'll use him, then discard him."
Silver's foot tapped against the carpet. Inches away. If he dropped something, if he looked down—
"The underground connections are accelerating faster than planned. Rebecca Chen's 'semi-professional league' is perfect cover. By the time anyone realizes what we've built, it'll be too late to stop it."
Twenty minutes. I lay under Terry Silver's desk for twenty minutes, barely breathing, listening to him plan the destruction of everyone I cared about.
He talked about timelines. About contingencies. About what to do if Ivyn Mikaelson "proved resistant to conventional recruitment."
The phrase made my skin crawl.
Finally—finally—he stood. His chair rolled back.
"Tomorrow, then. Make sure the scouts report everything."
He left.
I waited. Counted to a hundred. Counted again.
Then I was out. Through the door, down the stairs, through the window Frank had left unlocked, down the building's exterior with none of the grace I'd shown on the way up.
I hit the ground running.
Made it to the parking lot. To my car. To the driver's seat before my hands started shaking too hard to hold the keys.
---
The roof of my apartment building. 2 AM. Stars invisible through the LA light pollution, but I stared at the sky anyway.
Barnes and Snake arrive next week.
Mike Barnes. Dutch from the original Cobra Kai. Names from canon, from my memories of a TV show that was supposed to be entertainment, not a survival guide.
They weren't supposed to arrive yet. They weren't supposed to arrive for seasons. But I'd changed things—the underground fighting, the dojo unity, my very existence—and the timeline was adapting.
Accelerating.
I pulled out my emergency Snickers bar. Stress ate it in three bites.
"Too early," I said to the empty roof. "Everything's too early."
My phone buzzed. Miguel.
You okay? You left the beach club weird.
I typed back: Fine. Just tired.
Not fine. Not even close to fine.
Another buzz. Sam.
Are you doing something stupid tonight?
Maybe.
Want company?
I thought about Silver's surveillance photos. About the file on Sam. About the phrase neutralize LaRusso permanently sitting in a cabinet in an office I'd just broken into.
Stay home. I'm handling it.
That's not reassuring.
I know. Trust me anyway?
A long pause. Then: Always. But you're explaining everything tomorrow.
Everything. Right.
"Hey, universe?" I said to the stars. "I wanted chaos. I asked for chaos. This is my fault. But could you maybe chill for like five minutes?"
The universe did not respond.
I went inside. Set my alarm for 4 AM. Pulled out my phone and started composing a mass text.
Everyone. Wake up. Emergency training. Dawn. Location to follow.
Tomorrow, we started preparing for war.
To supporting Me in Pateron .
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