O brave new world

Untitled Part 20

On my way back to the kitchen I hear a voice in the living room. Thinking they perhaps moved the meeting to let poor Dr. Green get some sleep, I poke my head in. The only person in there is an angrily pacing Kota. His forehead is furrowed, his fist is clenched and his phone is pressed so hard against his ear I'm surprised he's not yelping at the pain of pushing the frame of his glasses into his skull. "So, do we have any new leads on Volto?"

Kota listens intently to what the other person is saying before cursing. "There has got to be something on him. Anything. He can't just not exist!"

The other person talks. "Yeah, well, this is urgent. He's back. Silas and Victor were followed a few days ago coming back from the Jordan E. Douglas house of therapy. Guy knew all of the Academy protocol, but as far as we can tell he's not in the Academy. It's got to be Volto."

I remember that day. I had been so scared, but they had all assured me everything was fine. And now it wasn't. It had been this strange Volto guy. They had lied to me. Well, maybe not really that much, but still. And Volto guy was following us. Why was he following us? Why are they so worried? Who is this Volto guy?

"I'd swear it's Volto. No direct proof, but everything matches. And it's seriously freaking us out. Some of us have been swearing that they feel eyes on them throughout the day."

The guy at the other end of the phone call says something and Kota laughs, the anxiety completely washed from his face for a moment. "Fine, fine, I'm delusional. But we've got to get to the bottom of this Volto business, and fast. Talk to you later."

Kota turns around, hanging up, and sees my head stuck into the room. "Sang! What are you doing here?"

- Who's Volto?

He stops, than sighes quietly. "Why don't you come in so I can explain? This might take a few moments."

I step in, sitting down on the couch warily, ready to bolt at any moment. They lied to me. If they lied to me about who was following us, how many more lies have they told me?

"You know about the Academy, right?" Kota asks, running a hand through his hair. "We work together with the police, but we're Academy. We do the stuff the police can't do. We go places undercover, find the evidence and then the police comes in and locks up the bad guys. It's perfect that way: they can't go undercover because it's too obvious, and we can't arrest people because we're not police. We work together.

Anyway, our group was doing this undercover mission at a high school. Messed up place. We weren't getting anywhere, things were getting out of control, and we were just about ready to call the police when this Volto guy shows up. He helped us finish our job, but every time he did us a favor he'd hurt us as well. He kidnapped Gabriel right out of PE. Nothing happened, but still. You can't go around kidnapping people. And the worst part is that we have no idea who the guy is. Gabriel saw him, and Silas managed to get a photo once, but that was it. Both times he was wearing this creepy white full-faced mask over dark clothes. And there was a voice distorter in that mask, so we have no idea what his voice is. After that we know nothing about him. Nothing.

But Volto knows everything about us. He left notes on our beds, threatened the people we love most, stole our clothes and thought it was funny... It's like having a stalker, though you don't know anything about him." Kota shakes himself.

"Anyways, Volto knows tons about the Academy and that's bad. We try to keep secret, you know? We're doing the undercover work; we don't want to end up being so well known we can't help people anymore. Besides, our structures are a little atypical, and outsiders always want to change them, so it's just easier to keep it a secret. It saves us the hassle of having to explain everything again and again and again and still having people who think that theirs is the only way. But Volto knows everything. And he wants to destroy the Academy.