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        In the dark heart of the Biddle School’s library, Suzy popped out of hiding like a bright pink groundhog. Unfortunately, the only thing that she could see was shadow, which either meant the future’s forecast was unclear or that the Fimbulwinter had begun. She couldn’t hunker down for another six weeks to find out, which is what the wait had felt like for a clinically impatient girl who ran on pep and drama.

        “All right, Amorpheous,” Suzy whispered into her phone, stopping just short of saying “if that IS your real name” and making a fool of herself. “The coast is clear. Where do we go—I mean, uh, where do I go now?”

        “Why go anywhere,” crackled the voice on the other end of the line, “when, as you say, the coast is clear? There’s no better time to curl up with a book, Suzy, than when you have the beach: all to yourself.”

        “I’ve BEEN curled up with books,” Suzy complained. She exchanged a grumpy glance with Collin, who was still contorted underneath the desk where they had last ducked out of sight to dodge the Student Council’s sweep. “Not exactly my idea of summer fun. When I go to the beach, I wanna run around, dig up some dirt, sniff out some buried treasure—”

        “Literal dog activities,” said Collin, dusting Suzy footprints from his shirt.

        “...And there’s still salty little CRABS around, so can we REALLY say I’ve got the shoreline to myself?” Suzy snarled back at Collin.

        “...I fear I am losing track of the analogy,” Amorpheous replied. “My point is that, X marks the spot, which you are already currently standing on. And the treasure? Is the buried past. Of the Biddle School, and its vice principal: Devilora Demonelle DuNacht... if that IS her real name.”

        Suzy tried not to be jealous that Amorpheous had gotten to use the stock phrase she’d denied herself.

        “That is her real name,” Collin said. “I heard a rumor that she legally changed it to contrast Principal Pleezdoo’s. Like a reverse marriage for enemies who hate each other.”

        “...Is that a thing?” asked Suzy, wondering if Isabel would let her ditch her Starchman for a snazzy nom de guerre that clashed with Guerra—“Suzy Peacelove,” maybe, or something camp like “Suzy Ceasefire.” She swiftly decided that she was being absurdly embarrassing, and would have sounded even more like her Lady and the Tramp glamp-hippy parents’ daughter with these labels than she did with her dad’s surname.

        “I’m not going to marry you, Suzy,” Collin droned disrespectfully.

        “...he portends through gritted teeth, a bitter tear of pained acceptance rolling gently down his cheek!” Suzy traced its nonexistent trail down to his chin, which she tickled with a silly turkey sound to tick him off.

        “I hate to break the news to you, Suzy, since that feels like feeding omelettes to a chicken, but you might have to be likeable to find yourself a spouse,” Collin sighed, deflecting Suzy’s hand aside with a gentle Wing Chun parry.

        “...Who are you talking to?” asked the mysterious whistleblower that Suzy had left on the record.

        “Buddy, I’M not asking that question. You can do me the same courtesy, Amorpheous.” Suzy gave Collin an all-clear thumbs up gesture, preemptively deciding she’d already dodged the bullet streaking towards her. Luckily, that was exactly what you had to do to dodge a bullet in The Matrix, and Suzy’s source was nothing if not beholden to the spirit of his code name’s source material.

        “...I cannot deny your logic,” Amorpheous conceded. “Would that the Student Council could still say the same. They deny the logic they themselves were key in coding, and reshape the rules to better suit DuNacht’s capricious schemes. A corruption that has even reached: the Student Council’s President.”

        “Yeah! That cheesy cape dweeb in the mask?! That outfit’s an impeachment-worthy scandal on its own!” Suzy scoffed. “Hey, if stripping the skeletons out of his closet gets rid of the ugly costume that they share it with, he can THANK me in his resignation speech! I’d be doing HIM a favor by unmasking him!”

        Collin’s eyes flicked back from their patrol to glance at Suzy, an illegible emotion hidden under his own mask of disregard.

        “You misunderstand,” replied Amorpheous. “The President is: as pure as snow. The perfect politician. Neutral on every single issue. Unbiased in his willingness to sign whatever law has reached his desk. He is: a flawless vessel for his people, and their democratic will.” There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. “It’s just that sometimes people use the system wrong, and then things get bad, even though the system is still flawless.”

        “Oh, totally, totally,” Suzy concurred with her fingers crossed behind her back. “I’m flawless in a vacuum, too. That’s why I had those geeks in the Computer Club ‘accidentally’ scrub my neighbors from the yearbook.”

        “And yet, we are still, on the same page,” said Amorpheous, “if you will help me to bring down DuNacht. And her unchecked and unbalanced Black Saint lackeys.”

        “Oh, yeah, those guys,” nodded Suzy. “They’re soooo... bad... I think.” She turned to Collin for clarification, since her eyes always glazed over once nerds started listing factions. 

        “They’re the Student Council’s highest ranked members. Numbered one to twelve. The squad who clubnapped the Activity Kids.” Collin sighed. “You literally wrote a hit piece with their names and full addresses in sixth grade.”

        “Their days are numbered one to twelve,” sneered Suzy. She vaguely recalled the gist of their lore from her dead end exposé on the Detention Fortress, but Suzy was a shark: she kept on moving straight ahead until she hit something fishy that she could sink her teeth into.

        Suzy and Collin crept between one maze of shelving and the next, following Amorpheous’s cryptic directions through the labyrinth, scanning the shadows of the library for stragglers and Student Council scouting parties. The lights in the library had been shut off when the last shackled captive was dragged through its doors; unfettered education was a privilege of the law-abiding, and there were more important lessons to be learned down in the cavernous expanse below the Biddle School.

        Suzy was beaming brighter than her phone flashlight. She could see Isabel’s face now—how humiliated and blushing she would be once Suzy blew the lid off the Detention Fortress, and then reached in, and picked her up and saved her like a hamster from a cage. SHE would show that Activity Club jerk which of the two of them was playing into harmful un-feminist tropes, once Isabel had proven herself a damsel in distress, in need of rescue by a man but not in want of it because Suzy had found her first, or something like that but coherent ha ha ha!

        “Listen, Amorpheous. The slime you’re leaking’s great for an ignorable opinion piece,” said Suzy, “but I need facts to pen a proper takedown. If I have to fetch the story that you’re selling from a shelf, you rang up the wrong girl! I’m a reporter! I report the news! I don’t research it, like some kind of...”

        “Journalist?” Collin helpfully suggested, earning a huffy scowl from Suzy.

        “I understand,” Amorpheous assured her, “but know this: I could not reach the treasure trove to which I lead you now. I have been attempting to access these records through legitimate channels for some time. And yet my forms and follow-up emails have fallen on deaf inboxes. Which is strange because, that violates, a number of Code of Conduct statutes. If I didn’t know better, I would think, that all bureaucracy is ultimately vassal to the naked blade of power. But it’s likely: human error, or, a problem with the Wi-Fi.” 

        The whistleblower cleared his throat, cleaning his whistle of cognitive dissonance. 

        “The library. Was DuNacht’s lair. Long before the day that she came became the school’s vice principal. Her sins and triumphs are recorded here... but she is super old, like wildly old, like it’s wild how old she is. Suzy. Look to your left.”

        Suzy looked to her right (to test Collin, who passed with flying colors and reoriented her). A crumbling door concealed a long-forgotten office, shuttered blinds, and through the slats, an old projector and a wall of dusty boxes.

        “I apologize, but. To find the truth. You may have to: peruse some stray newspaper clippings. And examine some old microfiche.”

        Suzy gasped with delight, a sudden gulp of dust that instantly gave her the world’s first human hairball. Collin couldn’t help but smile, even as he winced on her behalf. Vicarious joy, like their unlikely friendship, was often just as nice as the real thing.