Reincarnated as an Energy with a System

Chapter 2052: Tinkered

Ning turned toward his own bed and saw what he had half expected to find.

His helmet was lying on top of the blanket.

He had placed it inside the drawer before leaving for dinner, and he was completely certain of that, which could only mean that someone had come into the room while they were away, taken it out, and left it lying in the open, whether out of carelessness or as a deliberate message.

He had a very good idea of who that someone was.

Still, he picked the helmet up and put it on, and the display flickered to life in front of his eyes almost immediately. Most of the interface appeared exactly as it should, with his schedule, identification, and academy map all where they belonged, but a pair of warnings sat in the corner of his vision that had not been there that morning.

<Camera input not found.>

<Audio input not found.>

Ning was still reading them when Jason let out a sharp cry from across the room.

"No, no, no."

Jason had pulled his own helmet over his head and was pressing at its side with increasingly frantic movements.

"Something’s wrong with it. The screen won’t turn on. It’s completely dark. It won’t even start up."

He tore the helmet off and turned it over in his hands, and his face had gone pale enough that Ning could see the panic plainly written across it.

"You’re not alone," Ning said, removing his own helmet and holding it up so Jason could see. "Mine has been messed with as well. The camera and audio inputs are both gone."

Jason stared at him. "Both of ours? At the same time?"

"At the same time."

"How could they malfunction at the same time?" he asked before coming to the answer himself.

"They can’t. It can’t be a malfunction," Jason said slowly, and Ning watched the realization settle over his face. "Not two helmets in the same room on the same night. This isn’t a mistake."

"No," Ning agreed. "It’s deliberate."

He did not really need to say the name aloud, but he did anyway.

"Liam, most likely. He told me a few days ago that he could get into any room in this academy, and I don’t doubt that he was telling the truth about that much."

Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen Liam or any of his other goons during dinner.

He turned his helmet over in his hands and examined the outer shell, which showed no visible sign of tampering whatsoever. There were no scratches along the seams, no loosened plates, and nothing to suggest that anyone had ever opened it.

"Though I don’t think he did the actual damage himself," Ning added thoughtfully. "Getting into places is what his Calling is good for, but disabling exactly the parts he wanted while leaving everything else working, without leaving a single mark on the outside, takes a very different kind of skill."

"If I had to guess, he took the helmets to someone else who knows how to do this kind of work and then brought them back here before we finished eating."

Jason looked down at the dead visor of his helmet as though it were something precious that had stopped breathing in his hands.

Ning watched him for a moment before speaking again.

"Should we report it to the staff?" he asked. "Two helmets damaged in the same room on the same night is difficult to explain away as carelessness. They might be more understanding than you think."

Jason shook his head immediately, and there was real fear in the movement.

"They won’t be," he said. "It doesn’t matter how many helmets break, or why they broke, or who broke them. It’s a cadet’s responsibility to look after their own equipment, and failing to do that is one of the worst marks you can get in this academy."

His voice dropped lower.

"You know what happened to the last person who tried to be my friend. Two damaged helmets, and he was gone. A mistake like this is costly, Ning, and it doesn’t matter whose fault it really was."

Ning remembered the story well enough.

He looked down at his own helmet, then at the one lying dark in Jason’s hands, and thought about it in silence for a little while, weighing the options available to him that would not require him to reveal anything about himself.

Then he set his helmet down on the bed and stood up.

"Wait here for a bit," he said. "I’m going to go get someone."

Jason looked up at him in confusion and alarm. "Get who? If you tell anyone about this—"

"I’m not telling the staff," Ning said, already moving toward the door. "Just stay here, and try not to touch the helmet any more than you already have."

He left before Jason could argue and closed the door quietly behind him.

Jason sat on the edge of his bed and waited, staring at his own reflection in the dark visor of his helmet. The minutes stretched on long enough that he began to wonder whether Ning had simply decided the problem was not worth his time and wandered off somewhere, leaving Jason to deal with it alone the way everyone else eventually had.

Then the door opened again.

Ning stepped back into the room, and behind him, glancing around the small space with a guarded and slightly impatient expression, came Naysha.

"What?" Jason blurted out in confusion. "What’s she doing here?"

"I’m not sure why I was brought over," Naysha answered with a slightly annoyed look as she glanced around. "Are you going to explain to me what is happening?"

"Yes," Ning said before grabbing his helmet off his bed. "I think Liam and his friends tinkered with our helmets. Mine is missing its camera and audio inputs. His screen is dark. Since your helmet was once damaged, I was hoping you could help us with them."

Naysha’s eyes widened slightly before she looked down at the two helmets in their hands.

After a quick thought, she nodded.