Just Average

"Excuse me! Please wait a second!"

A desperate reporter shoved his way past his frustrated colleagues, abandoning the polished elegance of Brielle Vance entirely to thrust a foam-covered microphone directly into Vivica Locke’s face. "Hi there! We are from Bayport TV. Could we have a brief moment of your time? You look so strikingly relaxed compared to your peers. Are you an arts major?"

Vivica paused for a fraction of a second. Her brow furrowed slightly as she met his eager, searching gaze. "No," she replied flatly, her tone giving away absolutely nothing.

"Then what did you think of the difficulty of today's Literature exam?" The reporter pressed closer, sensing an unusual story and eager for a soundbite from the notoriously calm girl. "Especially the essay prompt? Many of the top students are saying the analytical portion was incredibly brutal and quite draining."

Vivica stood with a relaxed slouch, her worn canvas backpack slung casually over one shoulder. Her voice dripped with nonchalant boredom as she delivered her two-word verdict. "It was average."

"Average?" The reporter froze for a beat, blinking his eyes as if he had misheard her. "Do you mean it was visually moderate? How do you feel you actually performed on the paper as a whole?"

Vivica considered the question for a brief second. Deciding the word 'average' covered the scope of her experience perfectly, she offered no further explanation. With a slight nod, she sidestepped the stunned man and walked straight out of the swarming crowd without another glance.

Her fleeting but effortlessly cool soundbite stole the entire media spotlight, completely ignoring the carefully curated, intellectual image Brielle Vance had just spent minutes building.

Standing just a few feet away, Brielle’s pristine smile finally crumbled. She gritted her manicured teeth, a silent, suffocating fury tightening her chest until it hurt to breathe.

Average? The word echoed mockingly in her mind, fueling a spike of dark disgust. Cut the crap, you total fraud. Did that nap scramble your brain? I bet you did not even bother to read the essay prompt before you gave up, you pathetic loser!

Brielle sneered inwardly, digging her fingernails painfully into her palms. She relished the thought of the exam scores being officially released. Enjoy your little moment of fame while it lasts. Once the results are public, I will make sure this arrogant interview goes viral as the biggest public humiliation the internet has ever seen. We will see who holds the last laugh when you score a zero.

Down the bustling avenue, safely insulated from the frantic exam-day chaos, a sleek black Bentley idled quietly by the curb. Passersby cast curious, lingering glances at the polished chassis but kept a respectful distance. A customized vehicle bearing Haven City plates of that specific caliber meant the occupant commanded immense, untouchable power.

The heavy rear door swung open, and Poppy Mercer slipped inside the luxurious leather interior.

As she buckled her seatbelt across her chest, the quiet, powerful hum of the twin-turbo engine filled the soundproof space. Rowe, sitting rigidly in the driver's seat, remained perfectly still.

From the deep, cool shadows of the back seat, Damian Prescott broke his silence. "Where is she?"

Poppy blinked, looking back at her uncle before realizing exactly who he meant. "Vivica?"

Damian did not elaborate.

"She booked a modest hotel room nearby," Poppy explained. "She said she did not want to be a burden and decided not to come with us."

Poppy understood that the fiercely independent girl refused any special favors. Vivica operated with firm, unyielding boundaries, preferring to rely solely on herself rather than accepting handouts from powerful families.

Damian shifted slightly, his dark gaze drifting past the tinted windows to observe the bustling crowd dissipating from the exam center gates. His sculpted face gave nothing away. Slowly, he murmured a quiet, barely audible acknowledgment.

Sensing the cue, Rowe gripped the steering wheel. "Shall we head back to the estate, sir?"

Damian gave a faint nod. The Bentley glided smoothly away from the curb, heading toward the sprawling Prescott estate nestled in the elite district of Bayport City.

***

Afternoon brought a sharp shift in the testing atmosphere. The temperature inside the examination halls seemed to plummet the moment the Mathematics papers were distributed to the desks.

The second the thick booklets were flipped open, the room vibrated with muffled gasps and low, distressed groans. This paper proved to be an unprecedented, brutal nightmare. The questions featured convoluted, collegiate-level logic problems requiring massive, intricate mathematical calculations. Even the top-tier students began weeping in cold sweat, quickly realizing their standard textbook preparations meant absolutely nothing in the face of this test.

Brielle stared blankly at the dense clusters of unknown symbols and complex geometry proofs. Her palms grew uncomfortably slick with perspiration. Her heart hammered a frantic, panicky rhythm against her ribs. Even the first five multiple-choice questions—usually an easy opportunity to build momentum and secure basic points—were tangled traps requiring pages of scratch work. She stared at a major proof section, utterly incapable of forming a single starting equation. The wooden pencil trembled slightly in her tightening grip.

Desperation firmly mounting in her throat, she cast a furtive glance toward the back corner of the room out of the corner of her vision.

Vivica sat exactly as she had that morning. Her posture was relaxed to the point of outright defiance. But what Brielle saw made her stomach churn with disbelief. Vivica’s pen glided across her scratch paper without a single pause. She solved equation after agonizing equation, her hand moving rapidly, seamlessly translating abstract numbers to solid answers.

To Brielle, it looked like senseless, chaotic scribbling. With a paper this savage, she will probably just write down the basic formulas, pretend to work, and leave the rest totally blank. It had to be a desperate, pathetic bluff.

In less than an hour and a half, while the vast majority of the room was still wrestling blindly with the middle section of the booklet, Vivica capped her pen with a quiet, definitive click. She flipped the thick test booklet face down against the wooden desk. Without a single backward glance to check her work, she folded her slender arms over the paper, rested her face down, and dropped right back to sleep.

Brielle scoffed inwardly. A failure to the core.

When the final bell shrilled through the air, Vivica woke up precisely on time. She unhurriedly gathered her simple belongings, swung her canvas backpack onto her shoulder, and departed the room.

Outside the main gates, the scene resembled a grand tragedy. The atmosphere was incredibly heavy. Distraught teenagers were sobbing openly in the arms of their parents, mourning the brutal, Hell-Mode test that had just crushed their academic dreams.

The persistent television reporter from the morning spotted Vivica strolling out. He recognized her calm demeanor instantly—a stark contrast to the widespread grief surrounding her. Eager for another viral hit, he rushed forward alongside his cameraman, wedging his microphone right into her path.

"Hey! It is you again!" The reporter beamed, practically vibrating with excitement. "Everyone is saying the Math exam was impossibly savage. A true complete disaster for students. How did you manage to endure such a difficult paper? What did you think?"

Vivica stopped. She cast a slow glance across the plaza, taking in the sight of the weeping candidates and their devastated parents. She paused in slight amusement, looking back at the expectant reporter.

She titled her head gently, her expression untroubled. "It was average."

The reporter’s jaw dropped. "Seriously? Again? Just... average?" Against a backdrop of collective despair, her two words felt like dynamite.

Vivica nodded once. Feeling the conversation was over, she bypassed the reporter and continued walking down the street.

Shocked murmurs began to spread like wildfire through the gathered crowd.

"Average? Are you kidding me?" A nearby classmate scoffed loudly. "I was in her room. She slept the entire time!"

"Wait, isn't she that notorious rural outcast?" Another student piped up, pointing a finger. "The one the Vance family took in? She was just kicked out of their house for thievery!"

"She has the lowest grades in the entire school. Of course she thought it was average—she did not even try!"

The reporters eagerly recorded the overlapping accusations. Seeing her golden opportunity, Brielle smoothed the fabric of her skirt and stepped smoothly before the flashing cameras.

She flashed a sympathetic, pained smile to the reporters. "Please, everyone, do not be so harsh."

The cameras swiveled immediately to capture the newly returned Vance heiress, a known medical prodigy and model student.

Brielle gently deflected the praise directed at her own pedigree, lowering her voice into a soft, poisonous tone masked as deep concern. "The curriculum here is very demanding. Vivica was likely just overwhelmed by the immense pressure of big city examinations. Being in such a hyper-competitive environment can be terrifying."

Brielle paused, letting the silence stretch for maximum effect. "Her sleeping through the exams... it is probably just a sad coping mechanism for sheer panic. We should wait for the scores before we judge her too harshly."

Her diplomatic, carefully chosen words skillfully cemented the rumors of Vivica’s undeniable failure into public fact. The media had their tragic, failing villain and their sweet, forgiving heroine.

Brielle turned and walked away, a triumphant smirk finally curling the corners of her mouth.

***

Inside the quiet confines of Hotel Room 1808, the setting sun cast long, orange shadows across the carpet. Vivica had just tossed her backpack onto the chair and leaned back onto the bed when a subtle alert chimed from her encrypted laptop resting on the desk.

Her eyes snapped open, a cold sharpness instantly replacing her casual demeanor.

She moved to the desk and popped open the screen. A foreign IP address was actively probing the very periphery of her firewall. It was not a brute-force attack. Instead, it was hovering, lingering right at the edge of her defenses like a cautious digital tap on the shoulder.

They were testing the waters, throwing a stone into the dark to see if she was watching.

Vivica’s fingers settled onto the keyboard. The lethargy from the exams vanished. Her slender fingers blurred into motion, flying across the keys with punishing speed. Lines of complex commands and green code streaked downward across the black monitor.

She systematically unraveled the breadcrumbs left behind by the probe, slicing through layers of obfuscation in mere seconds. She traced the signal back, past decoy servers and dummy relays, straight up to the highest echelons of the Federal Network Security Agency.

She paused, staring at the core server readout blinking before her. She hesitated for only a fraction of a second.

Bypassing their final, heavily guarded security layers with practiced ease, she dropped a single line of clean, untraceable code directly into their central communications core.

[Nameless Drifter]: ?

She leaned back in her chair, waiting.

The response did not take minutes. It arrived in seconds, lighting up her screen.

[Security Hub]: 49, sorry for the intrusion. This is an emergency. We need your help.