Chapter 10 - The Federal Oversight Notice
The digital timestamp on the incoming email read 8:02 AM, exactly two minutes after the warning bell had echoed through the crowded hallways. Leo stared at the sender’s domain name—*ed.gov.audit.compliance*—his brow furrowing as he processed the implications. The local district investigation was supposed to have concluded with Coach Miller’s arrest and Marcus’s disqualification, but this new notification bypassed the principal's office entirely.
Maya noticed Leo freezing in the middle of the crowded corridor, pedestrians parting around him like water around a stone pillar. She stepped back, letting the flow of students sweep past them into the nearby English classroom before turning back to face him.
"What is it?" Maya asked, dropping her voice as she noticed the sudden tension in his jaw. "Did the principal’s office release another statement about the athletic department?"
"No," Leo said slowly, his thumb tapping the screen to expand the encrypted PDF attachment. "It’s not from Harrison. It’s federal."
Maya’s eyes widened slightly. She stepped closer, shielding his phone screen with her binder to block the view of passing students. "Federal? Why would the Department of Education be emailing you directly? You won a state scholarship, not a national grant."
"That’s what I thought," Leo murmured, his eyes scanning the dense legal text of the attached document. "Look at the case file number at the top. It matches the tracking hash from the decoy files I uploaded to the shared server last week."
"The ones you used to catch Coach Miller?" Maya whispered, her breath catching in her throat. "I thought those were just internal district lures."
"They were supposed to be," Leo replied, scrolling down past the legal boilerplate until he reached the highlighted summary paragraph. "But the server routing protocol was tied into a broader multi-district database sweep. The algorithm didn't just flag local grade tampering; it flagged a four-year pattern of fabricated scholarship allocations across six different high schools in the county."
Maya stared at him in absolute disbelief. "Six schools? You mean Marcus and his uncle weren't the only ones doing this?"
"They were just the loudest," Leo said, his voice entirely devoid of triumph. Instead, a heavy, sinking realization settled over him. "The system I exposed wasn't a local anomaly. It was an organized pipeline designed to siphon regional academic grants away from public candidates and funnel them into private preparatory accounts."
Before Maya could formulate a response, the classroom door behind them swung open, and Mr. Henderson, the AP Government teacher, poked his head out into the hallway. "Leo, Maya, tardy bell rang a minute ago. Put the phones away and get inside."
"Coming, Mr. Henderson," Maya called out smoothly, grabbing Leo’s sleeve and pulling him across the threshold just as the heavy wooden door clicked shut.
They took their seats in the second row, far away from the empty desk where Marcus usually sat. Maya kept her eyes forward, pretending to copy the lecture outline from the whiteboard, but her hand slid a blank sheet of notebook paper across the aisle toward Leo.
May you like
Leo picked up his pen, his fingers still wrapped in protective athletic tape, and wrote three words in block letters before sliding the paper back: We're not done.
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