RISING PHOENIX ACT SELECT

CHAPTER 4: CRITICAL TASKS

At his classes, Marco couldn’t help but feel paranoid about everything around him. In his mind, anyone who looked at him for more than three seconds could be someone associated with the mystery person trying to spy on him. He was on high alert in both his English and his Filipino classes, but thankfully they were both just lectures, so his academic performance wasn’t affected. After the bell rang, he quickly made his way to the BLOB, with his eyes darting around to make sure no one was following him.

He glanced around and quickly found Brianna at her usual table. He brisk-walked towards her, but she was busy with something. As Marco walked up to Brianna, he noticed that she was listening to music on her earphones. Upon closer inspection, he realized that it was the latest single from BTS.
"...you still listen to that trash...?" he asked her. Brianna took off her earphones and gave Marco a dirty look.
"Are you done insulting my music taste? It's not even that bad, maybe try listening to it first for once."
"You should listen to more underground artists, Bri..." Marco replied. "Have you heard of Radiohead by any chance?"
"Ewan ko nga sayo..." Brianna told him as she began to put her headphones back on.
“Wait…I have to talk to you about something important. We have to go to the gazebo. Now,” he ordered while motioning at her to get up. Brianna was left feeling confused by this sudden change in demeanor. “Um…what…?” she asked as Marco continued to look around.
“I’ll explain later…just come with me.” Brianna reluctantly got up and they both made their way to the gazebos.

On the way there, Brianna continued looking for answers. “Marco, anong nangyayari…?” she asked him. “I’m starting to find out who stole the perio papers…this is much, much deeper than I could’ve imagined,” he explained while he began to lose his breath walking so fast. Soon, they made their way to the gazebo furthest from the SHB, which was shrouded in trees. They sat down and Marco continued to explain.
“We have to go here because…we might be watched.”

“Watched…? By who?”
“I don’t know…at the library, we looked at the CCTV footage and saw these two masked men carrying papers in the middle of the night…!”
“Wait, who’s we…?”
“Oh, I approached Glenn at the archive room this morning. He helped me get into the system…anyway, before we could take a screenshot of what we saw, I noticed this…man…wearing a red mask watching us. I tried to catch him, but he slipped away…”
Brianna felt shocked but also a bit skeptical of what she was hearing.
“...and he somehow managed to wipe or modify any incriminating footage we could’ve used. I can’t report this to Pisay since I have no proof, and now I’m pretty sure this guy’s hunting me down. I…I don’t know what to do,” Marco said dejectedly as he sunk his hands into his face and faced the floor.

Brianna sensed that Marco was under a lot of stress. “Hey…look at me, Marco,” she told him. “It’s okay. You can figure this out…I know you can. Alam mo ba kung sinong tumingin sayo…?” she asked. “No…his entire face was obscured, and you know how bad I am at remembering people’s faces…” he replied. “Glenn was in his bag looking for his charger, so he didn’t see him…I’m never going to find him.”

“Hey…”, Brianna said to Marco, “you can still think of something…!”
“But how…?! I have nothing to go off of…I literally have no idea who he, or any of the guys I saw on the cameras are…!” Marco explained angrily.
“If he’s met those people, I haven’t a clue where they would possibly meet…and he’s probably wiped the footage anyway.”

Marco took a deep breath in and out and attempted to calm down. As he did so, Brianna thought about what he just said. “If they have met somewhere, they probably would’ve done it in secret…parang ganito,” she told him. She paused for a while, contemplating what she was about to say.
“I don’t know if this will be useful to you…but I noticed something last quarter.” Marco perked up, eager to hear what she had to say.

“Alam mo na may SCALE ako sa 4th Floor Audi, diba? Well, I noticed that that door across 409 is always opened, just slightly. Electrical room ba ‘yun? Di ‘ko alam. Pero, I have walked past it a few times on other days, and it’s always closed. Just on Wednesdays is it open,” she told Marco.
“It could be anything else, but…maybe that’s where they meet.”

Marco was slightly cheered up by this. “I could look into that. There’s a big chance it’s not, but at this point, I have to try everything. I have to bring them to justice. Is there any other place you’ve noticed weird things about…?” he asked her, to which she shook her head.
“Alright…I’m going to try to catch them in the act tomorrow. Then this can all be over…” he told Brianna.

“Wait…you can’t just go up to them. Baka bugbugin ka nila…! Sikreto ‘yun eh. Ingat ka…” she warned him.
“You’re right…that’s too dangerous…” Marco said as he pondered his options.
“Maybe I can infiltrate them…” he suggested.
“...I know what outfits they wear. Black balaclavas with that red bird mask. And I got a better look at it when I saw that guy at the library. It had this bird beak at the top…two wing shapes on both sides…and orange beads all around.”

Brianna continued to listen intently as Marco outlined his plan. “I can print the mask I saw at the Infinity Lab since I’m in Tech. I’ll try to recreate that mask as best as I can and get a balaclava, and when next, next Wednesday comes around…I’m going to impersonate one of the guys I saw on the cams. He has a very similar build to mine.” Brianna was taken aback by how ambitious Marco’s plan was.
“I know I’m operating on so many assumptions here, like…they might not even show up there…they may not be in the same outfit…but I have to try. What do you think, Bri…?”

“I think that could work. Pero mag-ingat ka…huwag kang gumawa ng hindi mo muna inisip,” she told him. Marco seemed to be brought at ease now that he had a clear plan before him.
“Don’t worry, Bri…I’ll do my best. I promise,” he reassured her. He got up from the gazebo sitting area and prepared to leave, but not before saying one last thing.
“By the way, pretend this never happened. Don’t talk about this to anyone. Not even your friends”, he warned her.
“Wala naman akong kaibigan na hindi ikaw, Marco. Huwag kang mag-alala,” she replied.

Marco walked away from the gazebo, leaving Brianna to process the conversation she just had. From that point, he was dead-set on his plan, and over the next week he worked tirelessly on it. Every night at home, he worked on modeling a replica of the bird mask on AutoCAD for hours at a time. He made sure to add every fine detail he could make out from his encounter at the library, from its size to its curvature in all axes. While he was working on this, he also ordered a black balaclava, orange beads, and red paint online, which arrived at his doorstep shortly after. He continued to look out every school day for anyone who could be the mystery man to no avail.

Two days before Wednesday, he went to the Infinity Lab with Brianna to 3D print the finished replica. He made sure to pick the 3D printer that was least visible from the CCTV camera in the room and started the process. It took the entire school day, but when he went back at dismissal, he saw Brianna waiting by the replica. He picked it up and was thankful to find that it had printed with no defects. Right before Wednesday, he painted the replica bright red and carefully stuck the orange beads around the edge just like he had seen. He glued it to the balaclava, creating his final disguise.

“What do you think of this? Is this convincing enough?” Marco messaged Brianna on Discord, attached with a picture of him in his bedroom wearing the mask.
“looks good” she replied, along with a thumbs-up emoji right after.
“good luck tomorrow, be careful” she messaged one final time.

Wednesday finally rolled around, and Marco was more than prepared for it. He arrived as early as he could in the morning and quickly made his way to the electrical room. When he got there, he tried to open the door, but it was locked. “They’re not here yet…” he thought. He decided to hide in SHB room 409 next to the door and wait for the culprits to arrive, if they ever did. He waited for hours, killing time by playing games on his phone on silent. Around two hours later, Marco heard a set of keys rattling across the hallway. He held his breath as he heard a door open along with a voice that was clearly a student’s say:

“We’re in. Go.”

This was it. There was no turning back. He heard multiple sets of footsteps, which told Marco that around 2 to 3 people entered. A few seconds later, Marco heard them close the door, but he could tell by the sound that they didn’t close it all the way. He didn’t hear any footsteps outside, so he deduced that no one was outside guarding the door. He could’ve gotten up and walked to the door at that moment, but anxiety made him unable to move. He thought very carefully about his next course of action just like Brianna said, and as he was doing so, he heard another set of footsteps coming from the hallway. Marco got startled and made a slight sound, which caught the attention of whoever it was.

Marco realized what he’d done when the footsteps suddenly stopped. He held his breath as hard as he could and sat completely still, hand on his mouth as time seemed to stand still. The footsteps continued to get closer. And closer. Marco was exerting so much effort to be silent. He was on the brink of shedding a tear. But suddenly, he heard the door open and a voice call out “Come in.” The footsteps then went in the direction of the door, which closed shortly after.

Marco gasped for air as a tear rolled down his cheek. He looked up as he caught his breath, thankful that he wasn’t caught. He knew he couldn’t stay there any longer. He gathered himself, wore the mask, and placed his hands on the ground. He pushed himself up and stood on his feet, ready to face whoever would be on the other end of the door. He made his way to the entrance of the hallway as quietly as he could and walked normally to the door to trick whoever was guarding it. He took a deep breath before opening it slowly.