While Aria and Aurora trended across Avalon like a cultural detonation—
while Veritas lit up with Swan Lake hashtags and Veritas feeds pinged with aesthetic replays—
Aiden just smirked.
"Typical Aria," he murmured, almost amused.
He didn't watch the footage. He didn't need to.
He knew the performance before it even started.
He wasn't chasing visibility.
He was dissecting it.
Because while the island watched the girls flood the TrendBoard,
Aiden had just finished his Strategic Simulation module.
He closed the module twelve minutes before the standard sync cycle reset.
Not because he needed to.
But because he liked finishing before the system expected him to.
No deadlines. No alarms.
Avalon wasn't about pacing.
It was about pattern disruption.
"Reminder," Vox said softly, projecting from the edge of his Slate. "Optional Forum Mixer is live. Attendance will register as a minor prestige uptick—social grid contribution."
"Decline," Aiden replied.
"Logged. Would you like a mental reset or suggestion loop?"
"No," he said. "Find me the optimal zone for House Challenge concentration. Private. Focus-tier eight or above."
Vox registered the command immediately—no clarification needed.
Most students would've phrased that request conversationally, layered with soft qualifiers or vague targets.
But Aiden didn't speak to AI like a user.
He spoke like someone who had already reverse-engineered the language.
Because he had.
There was a beat.
Vox didn't offer locations lightly.
"Recommended: Null Tier Alcove. Subfloor L-1. Echelon wing."
"Cognitive isolation metrics outperform standard pods by 8.3%. Environmental static reduced by 12%."
"Social penetration: 0%."
Aiden paused. He hadn't used it before.
But he'd seen the design specs.
The Echelon private study pods were silent, yes—sealed and acoustically perfected.
But silence wasn't the same as absence.
In the pods, there were still glowline reflections from passing students.
Occasional ONYX shadows flickering at the periphery.
The faint, unavoidable rhythm of others thinking nearby.
In the Null Tier Alcove?
Nothing.
No proximity. No glass-to-glass signal bleed.
Just the machine.
Just the mind.
"Reroute me there," he said.
"Already done."
* * *
YOU ARE READING
Valmont Series - Inheritance Code
Teen FictionWhat if your perfect life was just a rehearsal? On their twelfth birthday, Aria and Aiden Lancaster wake expecting luxury, freedom, and the future they were promised. Instead, they're given an ultimatum: Leave everything behind - their friends, thei...
