Chapter 2 - Digital Surveillance
Miles away in a sleek glass-walled boardroom on the fortieth floor of an upturn tech tower, Evelyn sat staring at a high-resolution laptop screen. Her tailored charcoal suit jacket draped over her shoulders, but her posture was rigid. On the display, the live security feed from Oakridge Elementary’s Room 104 played in crisp, terrifying detail. She watched Helen loom over her son Leo, saw the yellow ruler raised too high, and witnessed little Julian expose the hidden lens that connected the classroom directly to her private corporate terminal.
Evelyn’s breath hitched. Her fingernails dug into the polished walnut surface of the boardroom table. Without blinking, her eyes suddenly flushed with a deep, unnatural red glow that reflected off the laptop screen as she glared forward into the empty room.
"Stop!" Evelyn’s voice rang out fiercely in the silent office, carrying a weight of raw, maternal fury that seemed to rattle the glass partitions. "Get away from my son!"
On the laptop screen, Helen froze in the classroom, her hand still raised with the yellow ruler, looking up in sheer shock and panic toward the security ceiling camera as if she could hear Evelyn’s voice echoing through the intercom system. The other children shrank back into their seats, terrified by the sudden shift in the teacher’s demeanor.
Evelyn’s hands trembled, but her focus remained absolute. She snatched her smartphone off the table, her glowing red eyes fixed intently on the real-time footage of Helen trembling beneath the gaze of the hidden lens. Without hesitation, she swiped the screen and dialed an emergency extension that bypassed the school’s front desk entirely.
"Get me the school director," Evelyn commanded into the phone, her voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register. "Now."
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On the other end of the line, heavy breathing crackled through the speaker before a nervous, stuttering voice replied, "This is Principal Vance. Who is speaking, and how did you access this frequency?"
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