A Just Cause.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I walk through the doors of the main office, heading into the principal's office. Before I had started anything, I had to listen to a short briefing about my plans here at Brooklyn High.

"You must be Carl," says an old man, holding out his hand. He was a decently tall man, looked very professional, and seemed in charge.

I looked down at his hand and saw the wrinkles, which reminded me of my father.

"Yes, indeed it is, sir," I replied with a sarcastic smile. "And you must be principal Johnson. Very nice to meet you. Shall we head inside the office?"

I closed the door behind me, took my bookbag off, and reached for a chair to sit on. Looking around the room unlocked a nostalgic moment where I briefly could remember the days of going to high school. Oh, the great and simple times, when just staying comfortable was enough to pass by.

"You can call me Travis here," said the principal as I sat down. "Seems odd to keep the act up in privacy, but that is unless, it's cool with you guys."

"Yeah, it should be alright. Nothing too big of a deal." I replied, not knowing if this was allowed to happen. "I'll just stick with Carl for now since I'm unsure if I could do the same. Protocols, you know?" Truthfully, I simply didn't want anyone to know my actual name. It was confusing, and plus, Carl was an excellent name.

"Yeah, no worries. Carl sounds great. But anyway, welcome to Brooklyn High Academy." he says with a welcoming tone. "And, thank you so much. The staff here, as well as myself, are very thankful for your service here."

Principal Johnson's words made me realize something I had never learned before. I am the good guy now, the protagonist in the case, a hero to the community. To be honest, it felt alright. It wasn't the rush I was expecting to handle all the time.

"You're very welcome, Travis," I replied, now staring into his eyes, giving him a securing look. "But it's always an honor to serve the community, am I right?"

"Indeed, indeed, it is Carl. But moving on to your case here as well as your schedule, it is all set for you to be in contact with the suspects as much as you can." he said with a raspy voice, "meaning, each and every one of your classes contains one or more suspects. Also, you don't need to ride through this school curriculum, but just make sure to do the best you can to blend in. Plus, you won't be acting as a smart student, but rather the opposite."

"Yes, I understand, Travis. I've already been briefed, so we have everything under control. With the way things are set, we all should be smooth sailing from here." I said. I could feel the tension being held within Principal Johnson's body, him clearly wanting to continue whatever he wanted to say was obvious, but I didn't really care. I needed to go attend the last class of the day.

"Sounds like we're all good here then," he said, standing up swiftly. "It looks like there's sometime before the bell. Would you like a quick tour?"

"I would appreciate that."

While walking through the hallways of the school, I began noticing all the factors of the building, noticing the caged windows, the bulletproof door panels, and the cameras. I wondered how good the security systems were in the building. The cameras, at least. I was sure I wasn't the first to ask, but I still wanted to know.

"So the cameras, they didn't help at all? I'm guessing not since I'm standing here right now, but they must have caught something." I always knew the cameras couldn't do much, but I needed to see what kind of situation I was in.

"They seem to be fine, no major issues. We have also caught our own share of young criminals using those handy things, but they do have blind spots." he began explaining, "The first investigation already took days playing the clips from that day, back and forth, all day, looking for the criminal. They didn't seem to have any luck with it, I suppose." I had always wondered why some useless things would be constantly cared for, instead of the things people really used. The world was an unfair place. I couldn't sympathize over it though, I had work to do.