The group moved quietly into the security building.
The sound of leather shoes striking the cold tiled floor echoed in steady rhythm, like heartbeats quickening beyond their normal pace.
It took them a while to reach the central CCTV room the campus was simply too vast.
Harsh blue-white fluorescent light spilled down from the ceiling, casting a pale glow over the young security guard’s face.
He bowed his head slightly, trembling fingers resting on the keyboard.
Rapid clicking filled the heavy silence, like rain falling on a tin roof during a sleepless night.
The computer screen lit up.
Then… nothing.
Only a solid black void still, empty, without a single frame, a single streak of light, or a single moving shadow.
As if that stretch of time had never existed at all.
The guard looked up, his voice shaking, almost a whisper:
“Yesterday… the CCTV system was still working normally…”
White let out a soft, brief sigh short, yet cold enough for everyone nearby to feel it.
“They’ve already erased the traces.”
Mariana refused to let the heavy atmosphere linger.
Her voice cut clearly and sharply through the silence:
“Split into two groups.
Team One checks the nearby café Rise Byte Café and the entire dormitory complex.
Team Two, come with me to the private boarding houses around the campus.
Collect every CCTV recording you can find and send them immediately to the central phone.
We’ll meet back here in exactly two hours.”
Everyone nodded and immediately dispersed in two directions, the sound of hurried footsteps fading into the distance.
White remained alone in the wide corridor.
She pulled out her smartphone and opened the Letter Z app.
Her fingers moved quickly across the screen.
[Lucas, where has Ryan been going most often on campus lately?]
Across the city, Lucas had just woken from a restless night of shallow sleep.
The notification chime made him snatch up the phone; his eyes were still half-lidded, but they snapped fully awake the moment he saw the sender’s name.
[Supercomputer, 10th floor, Block B.
He’s working on a project reconstructing Selena’s memory data with AI.
On Saturday afternoons around 5, he prefers to work alone for the quiet.]
Avis froze.
Her artificial blue eyes softened for the briefest moment, then were quickly veiled by a deep layer of sorrow.
“He’s… still unable to forget her…”
The words escaped in a near-whisper, so soft that the cold wind drifting through the corridor could have carried them away.
Previously, Ryan had asked her and Christina to gather Selena’s data—old videos, photographs, voice recordings, anything they could find.
She hadn’t expected that even now he was still continuing the work alone.
White’s fingers slid across the screen again.
[Give me the exact location.]
Lucas replied at once:
[Block B, 10th floor, room B-07.
Keycard access.
Ryan has special clearance requested from the president.]
[Thank you, Lucas.]
The chat ended.
White put the phone away and turned to the young security guard who was still standing there, his face pale.
“Could you… lend me a spare keycard for room B-07?”
He hurriedly rummaged through a drawer, hands slightly trembling as he held out a small plastic card.
“Here… this is the spare.”
White took it; her cold fingers brushed against the hard plastic.
She lifted her head, her voice even yet carrying just enough weight:
“Crime-scene team, Knight follow me to Block B, 10th floor.”
Outside, the first drops of rain began to fall on White and K9.
Together with the forensic team they hurried along the corridor at a rapid pace.
In front of the elevator she paused, one hand resting on her chest as she steadied her breathing.
The crime-scene unit consisted of five people: the team leader, a forensic specialist, a photographer, and two technicians.
All seven of them pulled on gloves and shoe covers before stepping into the elevator.
The cabin lights reflected off their solemn faces.
Tenth floor.
When the keycard swiped through the reader, the door to room B-07 swung open with a cold electronic beep.
A wave of chilled air drifted out, slipping under collars thin as the breath of someone who had only just left.
Avis entered first.
The cold made her nose tingle slightly.
The ceiling exposed its steel framework; industrial air-conditioning ducts hung overhead, the cooling fans turning steadily to keep the room locked at a constant 19°C.
The air was dry, almost sterile.
To the right stood a row of servers.
Tiny LED lights blinked like weary heartbeats.
Ahead, an L-shaped desk was cluttered: nine screens in total three mounted on the wall, five on the desk three sets of keyboards and mice tangled together, cables snaking like metallic roots.
Under the desk sat several CPU towers; nearby a black backpack leaned at an angle, close to four empty gaming chairs that had been spun in different directions.
On the left stood a separate workstation, three silent monitors reflecting the ceiling lights.
At the far end of the room, two more rows of server racks stood in formation, more than sixty hard-drive trays all of their LED lights extinguished, sunk in darkness.
white approached the main desk.
She bent down, pulled out the backpack, and gave it a light shake.
Inside there were only a few books.
She lifted her head and rested a finger on the Enter key.
A soft click.
Cobalt-blue light flared to life.
A sine-wave graph flickered, trembled, then oscillated sharply.
On the screens, terminal windows displayed long strings of interrupted, unfinished commands as if the owner had left the chair only minutes earlier.
She frowned slightly.
The machine hadn’t been shut down.
Only the display had frozen.
Avis placed both hands on the cold desk and exhaled a long breath whether from fatigue or pity, even she could not tell.
Behind her the crime-scene team began their work.
The sharp click of cameras, the rustle of evidence bags, the soft scrape of footsteps across the polished floor.
The sterile scent of disinfectant mixed with the faint ozone of electronics.
A forensic officer swept a UV lamp along the floor; the violet light glided over every gap beneath the desks, every edge of the walls.
No bloodstains.
A technician checked the trash bin.
Inside: a half-finished chocolate drink, only a third remaining, and a few crumpled tissues.
An hour passed.
All the traces they found were these: Ryan’s backpack under the desk, fingerprints matching his on the keyboard, the chocolate cup, and shoe prints that existed only inside the room never once appearing in the corridor beyond.
Mariana leaned against the doorframe, her voice low, almost speaking to herself:
“We’ve searched the whole morning and there are no shoe prints in the hallway.
Only inside this room.
How did the killer get Ryan out without the guards noticing?”
White tilted her head slightly.
Her gaze swept the floor, the desk, then stopped on a faintly wiped streak near the door where the tiles were just a shade brighter than the rest.
She answered slowly, quietly, yet clearly enough to freeze the entire room:
“Disguised as a cleaner.”
A beat of silence.
“Ryan could have stepped out to use the restroom.
The killer was waiting, drugged him, then came back and wiped the floor clean.
Erased every trace.
When security checked the cameras, all they saw was a janitor.
Who would question that?”
White said nothing more.
She sat down in the main chair and her fingers flew across the keyboard.
Ryan’s computer was unlocked a small oversight the killer either hadn’t expected or hadn’t had time to fix.
She opened the Letter Z app and logged straight into Ryan’s account.
The last known location of Ryan’s smartphone appeared: still on campus, less than a hundred metres from Block B.
After that… the signal vanished completely.
White stared at the final red pin on the map.
Behind the disguise glasses her cold grey eyes gradually darkened.
“After he was drugged… the killer destroyed the phone on the spot.”
White stood in the middle of the freezing supercomputer room, her ash-grey eyes behind the false lenses sweeping every shadowed corner one last time.
Outside the window the rain still fell in heavy sheets, drumming against the glass like a thousand invisible fingers.
“You’ve all worked hard,” she said, her voice even, neither rising nor falling, yet enough to make the entire forensic team pause.
“Pack it up.
This killer… works far too cleanly.”
No complaints, no sighs.
Only the rustle of equipment bags being sealed, cameras powering down, and quiet footsteps retreating toward the door.
White turned to Knight, a sharp glint flashing briefly in her eyes.
“Knight, we’re going to Glass Tower Police Headquarters.
Major Crimes is waiting.”
The group hurried out of room B-07.
The rapid thud of shoes on tile mixed with the fading sound of rain behind the closed door.
White and Knight ran toward the parking area.
Rain had already soaked the shoulders of her white coat; cold droplets slid down the strands of her false black hair.
She opened the Lamborghini door, dropped into the driver’s seat, and gripped the wheel with almost crushing force.
The V8 roared to life the moment she pressed the start button.
The golden car shot out of the campus like a bolt of lightning tearing through the rain, tyres hissing and spraying water across the wet road.