Chapter 2 - The Confiscation
The silence in the room became so heavy that Claire could hear her own heart hammering against her ribs.
Mrs. Whitmore abandoned Jordan and began marching slowly down the aisle toward the back of the classroom.
The rhythmic clicking of her heels sounded like a countdown to absolute disaster.
Claire quickly closed her tablet, shoved the data cable into her pocket, and pulled out a notebook to pretend she was studying.
Mrs. Whitmore stopped right beside Claire's desk, casting a dark shadow over the open notebook.
"What exactly are you doing back here, Claire?" the teacher asked, her voice dangerously calm.
Claire forced herself to look up with a confused and innocent expression.
"I was just finishing my history essay for detention, Mrs. Whitmore," Claire lied smoothly.
The teacher did not believe a single word of it.
Without asking for permission, Mrs. Whitmore reached down and snatched the tablet right off the desk.
"Hey, you can't just take my personal property!" Claire protested, standing up from her chair.
Mrs. Whitmore smiled a terrible, victorious smile as she tapped the screen to wake it up.
"School policy clearly states that any electronic devices used during detention are subject to immediate confiscation and search," the teacher recited.
Claire's stomach dropped because she knew the video file was still processing in the background.
Mrs. Whitmore forcefully pressed her thumb against the home button, demanding the passcode.
When Claire refused to answer, the teacher simply pulled a small, strange device from her purse.
She plugged it into the tablet's charging port, and the screen instantly flashed bright red before going completely black.
"There, I just wiped the entire hard drive using a military-grade data destroyer," Mrs. Whitmore announced triumphantly.
Claire stared in genuine horror as months of her personal schoolwork and the crucial evidence evaporated into nothingness.
"You can have this useless piece of glass back tomorrow after school," the teacher sneered, tossing the dead tablet back onto the desk.
Mrs. Whitmore grabbed her coat, shot one last warning glare at Jordan, and stormed out of the classroom.
Claire collapsed into her chair, feeling utterly defeated and hopeless.
Jordan rushed over to her desk, looking frantically at the destroyed electronic device.
"Tell me you backed it up to the cloud, Claire," he pleaded desperately.
Claire shook her head slowly, fighting back tears of frustration.
"I didn't have time, the school's Wi-Fi blocks large video uploads during detention hours," she explained.
Jordan ran his hands through his hair, realizing they were completely out of options.
But then, Claire reached into the lining of her backpack and pulled out a tiny, black plastic square.
"I didn't use the cloud, but I always set my recording software to save directly to a micro SD card," Claire whispered, holding up the tiny chip.
Jordan's eyes went wide with renewed hope as he realized they still had the weapon they needed.
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Before they could celebrate, the heavy classroom door suddenly slammed shut and locked from the outside.
A thick, pungent smoke began pouring into the room through the air conditioning vents.
