Chapter 210: The Hostage Incident [4]

Adrian Keller was twelve years old.

He liked mechanical toys, disliked mathematics, and had apparently spent the morning before the occupation arguing with his mother about whether he could purchase a new pair of shoes.

Four days later, his parents were waiting outside an Imperial medical facility to receive his body.

Ilya learned those details from a newspaper someone had left in SkyRune’s workshop. The article included a photograph of Adrian standing beside his parents at a family celebration, smiling with the kind of confidence children possessed before they understood how easily their lives could change.

He folded the newspaper and returned to his work.

There were nearly two hundred people still trapped inside Saint Aurelia Preparatory Academy. Several had already complained of illness, and the machinery beneath the western wing continued operating despite the Imperial government’s demands.

Adrian’s death had confirmed what the researchers feared.

The environment inside the school was becoming dangerous.

Professor Antoine had spent the previous night with the Imperial rescue command. When he returned to SkyRune that morning, he carried a collection of revised technical diagrams and enough exhaustion to make Ilya wonder whether the man had slept at all.

"Good morning, Belozersky. Have the others arrived?"

"Most of them. There’s coffee in the next room, Professor."

"Excellent. I believe I’ve reached the point where drinking another cup is preferable to admitting how many I’ve already had."

Ilya decided against informing him that caffeine couldn’t replace sleep. Antoine was an accomplished researcher who presumably understood the human body well enough to recognize his own increasingly poor decisions.

Besides, he had already heard the same warning from three different colleagues.

Once everyone arrived, Antoine explained the situation.

The Imperial Guard was preparing an emergency intervention, but the machinery beneath the western wing remained the greatest obstacle. Even if combat wizards breached the containment field and defeated the hostage-takers, the environmental circuit might continue operating.

The original Aegis Array possessed a standby function that could interrupt its internal machinery without collapsing the outer barrier. Unfortunately, the modified system required authorization from a control apparatus located inside the school.

Their task was to find another way of activating it.

For the next two hours, the workshop examined the available diagrams while senior researchers tested several possible command sequences.

Ilya contributed where he could, although much of the equipment involved was unfamiliar.

Their first successful result came shortly before noon.

By reproducing the environmental circuit’s control channel in a laboratory model, the researchers managed to force the apparatus into standby without interrupting its surrounding formations.

The model remained stable.

Antoine immediately requested another test under different operating conditions.

It succeeded again.

A third attempt produced the same result.

Several researchers began discussing the possibility of adapting the method to the actual containment system, but Antoine stopped them before the excitement carried them too far.

"We’ve established that the principle works. Now we need to determine whether the modified apparatus recognizes the same instructions."

The distinction mattered.

The original design included safeguards that might have been removed or altered by the perpetrators. Sending the wrong command could cause the machinery to malfunction, and nobody wanted to discover the consequences while children remained inside.

Still, Ilya found the progress encouraging.

For once, they had something that could potentially solve a problem rather than merely explain why it existed.

Unfortunately, the Imperial Guard had another matter demanding its attention.

Shortly after midday, the hostage-takers contacted the negotiators with an unexpected proposal.

They would release three children whose conditions had deteriorated, provided the government agreed to transfer one of the six prisoners named in their original demands.

The authorities initially refused to move anyone without receiving the children first.

After several exchanges, the perpetrators accepted that condition.

The three hostages would be released through the containment field’s designated access point. Once Imperial medical personnel confirmed their identities, the government would transfer the prisoner to a secure facility while maintaining custody.

It was the first agreement that promised to remove living children from Saint Aurelia.

When Antoine received the news, he immediately asked for their names.

Lucile wasn’t among them.

The professor accepted the information without complaint, although Ilya could see the disappointment beneath his relief.

"Three children," Antoine murmured. "At least three of them will get out."

The exchange was scheduled for the following morning.

That left the authorities with several hours to prepare, and the Imperial Guard had no intention of wasting them.

Medical teams were assigned to the designated release point, specialized wizards examined the surrounding barrier, and negotiators established procedures for verifying the children’s identities without allowing the perpetrators to approach Imperial personnel.

The rescue command also prepared for the possibility that the exchange was a trap.

According to the briefing forwarded to SkyRune, every participating unit had been instructed to maintain defensive formations throughout the operation.

Ilya approved of the precautions.

The hostage-takers had already demonstrated their willingness to endanger children. There was no reason to assume they would honor an agreement simply because they had accepted its terms.

Nevertheless, the prospect of a successful exchange brought some relief to the workshop.

Several researchers began discussing whether the released children might provide information about the machinery beneath the western wing.

Antoine immediately objected.

"They’re sick children who’ve spent days being held hostage. Let the physicians examine them before anyone starts asking about experimental equipment."

Nobody argued.

The Imperial investigators would naturally want to interview the survivors, but there was little reason to conduct technical interrogations before the children received medical attention.

For the moment, their safety took priority.

Ilya returned to the laboratory model while the others continued refining the standby mechanism.

Their recent success had revealed another complication.

The modified system appeared to possess an additional verification sequence that wasn’t included in the original Aegis Array.

Whenever the researchers introduced an unauthorized command into their reconstructed control channel, the model rejected it immediately.

The behavior resembled the safeguard that had prevented previous attempts to manipulate the containment barrier.

After examining the results, Ilya suggested that the command might need to originate from an authorized section of the distribution network.

One of the senior researchers agreed.

"If that’s the case, we’d have to reproduce the signature of the central apparatus."

"Can we?"

"With the original specifications, perhaps. But if they’ve changed the verification method, we’d need measurements from the actual system."

That presented an unpleasant difficulty.

Obtaining those measurements would require either access to the machinery or another experiment against the containment field.

The Imperial Guard had suspended such tests during negotiations.

Antoine reviewed their findings before deciding that further laboratory work would be more useful than requesting another risky field experiment.

"We’ll prepare several possible configurations. Once the rescue command authorizes another test, we’ll have something worth examining."

The researchers accepted his instructions.

By late afternoon, they had developed three potential command sequences, each based on a different interpretation of the modified system’s verification mechanism.

None was guaranteed to work.

However, the Imperial Bureau now possessed several additional options for disabling the machinery during an intervention.

Ilya considered that a worthwhile result.

The situation remained dangerous, but the authorities were gradually assembling the information they needed to act.

Their greatest problem was time.

That became painfully obvious when another message arrived from the perimeter.

The Imperial medical team had reviewed the information provided about the three children scheduled for release.

According to the captors, all three were suffering from symptoms similar to those Adrian had experienced before his death.

The physicians consequently requested that the exchange occur immediately rather than the following morning.

The hostage-takers refused.

Their representative insisted that the agreed schedule would be maintained.

When Antoine heard the response, he became furious.

"Those children are ill! What possible reason could they have for making them wait?"

The Imperial official responsible for the briefing had no satisfactory explanation.

The negotiators were already pressing for an earlier release, but the captors remained unwilling to cooperate.

For several minutes, Antoine argued that the authorities should insist more forcefully.

Then he stopped himself.

He understood the situation.

The Imperial Guard could demand whatever it wanted, but the children remained inside the school. Unless the authorities were prepared to force an entry, their ability to compel the perpetrators was limited.

Eventually, the professor returned to his desk.

Ilya continued working alongside the senior researchers, although the atmosphere had become increasingly tense.

Nobody wanted to imagine what might happen if the children deteriorated further before morning.

Shortly before the workshop closed, Antoine received a personal message from Lucile’s school administration.

It contained a copy of the academic presentation she had delivered shortly before the occupation.

Apparently, the school had been preparing to distribute recordings of the event to the participating students’ families.

The original transmission had been delayed by the hostage crisis, but an administrator outside the building had recovered several copies from the school’s records.

Antoine opened the file.

Lucile appeared before a small audience, confidently explaining the basic principles of magical communication.

Her presentation was thorough, although she occasionally spoke too quickly whenever she reached a topic she found particularly interesting.

At one point, an instructor asked whether her proposed design could function without an external mana supply.

Lucile answered that it could, provided the device included a sufficiently efficient internal circulation mechanism.

The professor watching the recording laughed softly.

"She’s been reading my research notes again."

Ilya smiled.

"At least someone’s putting them to good use."

"Careful, Belozersky. I still grade your work."

For a few minutes, Antoine looked more like the professor Ilya remembered from before the crisis.

He watched his daughter explain her calculations, occasionally commenting on small mistakes she had made.

When the recording ended, he saved it and returned to the unfinished diagrams.

"She’ll want to know what I thought of it," he said.

Ilya agreed and helped organize the laboratory results for the Imperial Bureau.

The exchange was still scheduled for the following morning, and the rescue command had requested that SkyRune keep its researchers available in case the barrier behaved unexpectedly.

Antoine intended to remain at the workshop overnight.

This time, Ilya didn’t bother telling him to rest.

He simply asked one of the senior students to arrange another meal for the professor before returning to the calculations.

Outside Saint Aurelia, the Imperial Guard completed its preparations for receiving the three children.

The medical teams were ready, the prisoner transfer had been arranged under strict supervision, and the negotiators continued requesting an earlier release.

For the moment, the captors maintained their agreed schedule.

And beneath the school’s western wing, the environmental circuit continued drawing mana.

Strengthen the Chapter’s central escalationReduce repetitive short transitions