Punk!

<body>...He wouldn't be stupid enough to write it down in plain sight, would he?A quick flip through the notepad reveals many doodles of muppet-like creatures engaging in adult activities, to put it politely, but nothing password related.All you're left with is scars.<<return>></body>

<body>The monitor was a pretty common place for people to 'hide' passwords, but your search comes up with nothing. It is, however, weirdly sticky.Best not to think about it<<return>></body>

<body>No one ever really changed their passwords, so the odds of it being stuck onto the actual machine were high.And while it wasn't exactly what you were looking for, there is a scratched out sticky note containing the blandest default password of 'password'.It's up in the air if that was a moment of intelligence or that was required by IT.<<return>></body>

<body>AHA! The password is... 'password123abc'.Real original.“...And hacking into the computer with a stolen password?” Airi commented as I typed in the password.“Hey hey hey, it’s not my fault that he keeps it under there! Now shush so I can focus without feeling like I’m missing something.”“I thought we were just gonna look up her locker code… Wait, are you deactivating a camera?”“Uh, yeah! There’s a camera in here, y’know? I’m just gonna replace the footage with an empty office for the time we were in here, no big deal.”“Dude, we’re thirteen. How do you even know how to do this?”“The internet? I got curious when trying to find a way to sneak into Lucille’s house so I could move the furniture in her room slightly to the left. I didn’t do anything to the cameras but I learned how to.”“I guess the more important question is,” Ammon commented from above, “...Did you really move all her furniture to the left?”“Oh I absolutely did. I got in by stopping by with cookies and giving them to her mom, then asking to use the bathroom. I overheard her loudly complaining about bumping into things all the time a few days later at school.” “That’s amazing. I mean, I knew you were good at computers after the computer lab thing last year, but Oz, you're like, a prank god!” Airi mock-saluted me from her station in front of the door, “You’re truly an icon to be revered by this middle school, even if they don’t know it.”“Ha, thanks! Anyways…” I carefully adjusted the windows so it looked like they were messily stacked on top of each other without hiding the main content (like how someone would if they were quickly going back and forth between them) and then scheduled the email to be sent ten minutes after the security guard came back from lunch, then locked the computer again. “We’re done. [[Let’s get out of here.|Oz_Ch1_6]]”</body>

<body>“That’s it.”“Huh?!”“Don’t get me wrong, you’ve definitely earned the trouble, but… I’ve gotta admit that you were doing it for a good cause.”Mom continued, “It was right there, emblazoned across the top of the page of your latest scheming notebook: ‘Get Back Ammon’s Watch Lucille Stole’, with all the clues that lead you to that conclusion. I’ve known Ammon’s grandmother for the longest time and I knew his parents when they were alive, that watch meant the start of their family from nothing. And quite frankly even if it is ‘bending the rules,’ I’m a firm believer in doing the right thing.”…And here I was ready to barter away grounding for deep cleaning the entire house.“...So, other than getting in trouble…” I slowly asked, “Wh-what now?”“Well, it’s up to Lucille’s dad what really happens next, but he’s such a good guy and a good Mayor,” Mom smirked, knowing that regardless of his inherent goodness he’d do what she said, “I’m sure he’ll respond properly to me notifying him what his daughter has done, and things’ll work out. Don’t let yourself worry about it.”“So she’s going to get in trouble?”Mom tried and failed to hide her smirk, “I’m not allowed to say anything!”“She IS going to get in trouble!”Mom rolled her eyes as I cheered.Now... to try and cheat my way out of those chores...[[Next...|Oz_Ch2_1]]</body>

<h1>Punk!</h1><h3>The Kids Are Alright</h3><h4>Prologues</h4><body>[[I Know Nothing|Prlg1_1]][[Do I Really Look That Stupid to You?|Prlg2_1]]</body><h4>Chapters</h4><body>[[Karma is a Hands-On Process|Oz_Ch1_1]][[Coming Soon...|Si_Ch1_1]]</body>

<h3>4-9-4012; Noon | Yucheng Junior High</h3><body>“Psst, Oz.“Oz.“Ozzie!”“Not now, Ammon.”“How do you spell number 3?”“We’re in the middle of a spelling and vocab quiz, Ammon, I am not telling you the answer. Do you m-i-t-o-c-h-o-n-d-r-i-a?”“Do I wha- oh…”He grinned and winked at me as he scribbled down the answer. I glanced at Mrs. Griles — she was blissfully unaware.She dully read off the next word, then waited for the sounds of pencils scratching paper to stop. This continued sixteen more times as I doodled down the margins of my paper. Mrs. Griles never changed the order of the words when doing these quizzes, so I just memorized them all and wrote them down at the beginning.“Is everyone done with the last word? Do I need to repeat any?” Mrs. Griles said hopefully, “No? DONE! Everyone pass your papers forward, quickly now! I want to get back to doing actual science, thank you.”She smartly dumped our quizzes in her ‘To Grade’ basket and then enthusiastically flipped on a slide show about cell functions. Most of the other students were transfixed on her cheerfully describing what does what and why; she was actually quite fun to watch, but I had other things to be concerned about.[[Far more interesting things...|Oz_Ch1_2]]</body>

<body>A mischievous sparkle flashed in Airi’s eyes as a grin spread on her face. She leaned in, “On who?”“Lucille, of course. Duh. I overheard her bragging to her friends about stealing Ammon’s watch. She stole it because of the fair!”“What?! She took it?! That was my grandpa’s watch, and it has my grandma’s confession of love to him engraved on the back! I need that back!”“I already told the principal and he said he’d ‘look into it’, “ I rolled my eyes and did air quotes with my fingers, “But we all know that Lucille will just cry ‘daddy’ if anyone looks too closely at what she’s doing.”Ammon sighed, holding his face with his hands.“So how are we going to get the watch back?” Airi asked, “We don’t even know where she put it.”“Well I got smart and asked her brother, Henry.”“Henry wouldn’t betray his sister, though,“ Ammon started, fidgeting with his chewed-up pencil absentmindedly, “Isn’t there like a sibling code among rich kids that they don’t rat each other out?”“See, I thought I’d have to intimidate him but he fessed up immediately that it was in her locker. I even checked with some other kids and they said they saw a shiny gold something in Lucille’s locker when they passed by.”“Okay, so we have some clues but no proof. This isn’t an anime where we can claim whatever we want and have it believed because we’re the special-wecial protagonists.” Ammon sighed, “So what now?”I grinned, [[“... Ever wanted to break into the security guard’s office?”|Oz_Ch1_4]]</body>

<body>“Anyways, thanks for saving my butt back there, Oz. You know how terrible I am at spelling.”“I figured. You can’t even spell my full name right, and it’s not too weird.”“I can just never remember how many Z’s and how many T’s are in ‘Ozette’, okay? Anyways, why are we not paying attention this time?”“Hang on, Airi has her head stuck in a manga again.” I meant literally — her face was an inch away from the pages as she absorbed everything she could from her latest obsession.“Airi,” I started, poking at her with the back of my pencil, “Airi, come out of the world of-” I tilted the front page of her book toward me with my pencil, “ZipZip: Magical Girl Witch, we need to talk about something.”“Hang on, ZipZip is confronting her dad, the ZombieMancer, for divorcing her mom and taking all their stuff with him and trying to eat the President with his army…”“Uh, spoilers,” Ammon complained, “Grandma’s grounded me from comic books.”“Oh, alright, fine…” She stuffed her shiny ribbon bookmark in the pages and snapped it shut, “What do we need to talk about?”[[“Revenge.”|Oz_Ch1_3]]</body>

<body>I pulled the vent open and me and Airi carefully hopped down, making sure to land on the chair so we didn’t make so much noise.“Wait, what are you going to do with the computer?”“Easy - I’m going to open up some files about the missing watch, including the security camera footage of Lucille stuffing it in her locker and her bragging about it, and send an email with the date and times of the footage from the guy’s email to the principal. I’m not stealing anything, I’m just putting the evidence right in front of their faces.”Alright, Oz. You know what to do.First things first, find the password.[[Check behind the monitor|Oz_Ch1_5.1]][[Check the tower|Oz_Ch1_5.2]][[Check under the keyboard|Oz_Ch1_5.3]][[Check the notepad|Oz_Ch1_5.4]]</body>

<h3>4-9-4012; 3:00 | Three Hours Later</h3><body>“Okay, so that’s the last bell. Every student should be leaving right now and the only people left are kids in detention, teachers, and janitors. The security guard is on an hour-long lunch break.”“...How did you even find this place? This is sick.” Ammon gestured around the enormous crawl space I guided them to, which was in between the first floor ceiling and the second floor directly above the security office where you could see the entire room below through a utility vent, “We could make an entire hideout in here!”“We could, but we shouldn’t.” I said, “Big areas like these are for the electricians’ to have easy access to the wiring for big things like the computer labs, the kitchens, and y’know, the security office. They run checks four times a year and the next one is coming up in a week-ish, if they find our stuff up here we’d be in so much trouble.”“Forget that, we’d get into so much trouble if anyone caught us right now!” Airi said with a grin, “I’m so excited!”“Well, don’t get too excited, we don’t wanna blow our cover.”“…Okay, so that should be enough time for the security officer to have gone down the hallway and to the cafeteria. I don’t think we’re missing anything, so the plan is a go. Ammon, stay up here and make sure no one crawls through any of the shafts on a random wire check. Airi, hop down with me and hold the door closed with your foot just in case someone tries to unlock it. I’m gonna handle the computer.”[[Handle the computer...|Oz_Ch1_5]]</body>

<body>“Hi, sweetheart, how was school?” Mom asked sweetly to offset how she was starting to honk at the other drivers.“Pretty good. Ammon still can’t spell. I also didn’t run into Lucille at all today, so y’know-!”“Ahhh, excellent. I have no idea how she got so sour, her parents are wonderful people and her older brother is a fine young man. But, if she left you alone today one way or another, that’s good news. Anything else happen?”“Eh, no- not really. I had a good time after school hanging out with Ammon and Airi, but it was our usual shenanigans and nothing special.”“Oh, no, dear, I’d say all of your shenanigans are something special. Especially as I know those shenanigans were breaking into the security guard’s office…”I felt my heart drop into the floor of the car. “...H-how did you know?” I asked quietly.“You left your plotting notebook for this heist at home. Open. On your desk. Found it while picking up your laundry so I could add it to the load I was doing.”[[I KNEW I WAS MISSING SOMETHING!|Oz_Ch1_8]]</body>

<body>I pushed Airi up as Ammon pulled her up back into the vent, then they yanked me up by my arms. Carefully closing the vent behind us, we scurried back down the vent, dropped down to behind the wall hidden from sight by the lockers on the first floor, and slipped out of it. We made sure it looked like the wall panel had never been moved then bolted into the bathrooms to shake the dust off.“Do I have anything stuck in my hair?” Airi asked, trying to look at the back of her head.“Nope, you look fine. Me?”“Nope! Don’t forget to text your mom that we’re done hanging out in the library and to come get you. I can just walk and Ammon’s grandma doesn’t mind waiting so she can read.”“Gotcha, thanks for the reminder.” I pulled out my phone and texted mom just that. She responded that she was about to pull up.“Kay, I gotta go. Make sure Ammon looks presentable and act natural if you’re confronted. Bye!”Airi waved me off as I bolted out the door. I ran past several teachers who decided that they didn’t care about ‘no running’ rules right now, and crashed into the car as I tried to yank the door open.“Hi!” I said brightly, trying not to look like I just got away with something.[[Oh god, please don't look like you just got away with something...|Oz_Ch1_7]]</body>

<body>I smacked my forehead and groaned, and Mom started chuckling.“You’re a real sneaky-sneak, my dear, I’ll give you that. If you actually pulled this off correctly no one will ever know you did it. Well, except for me, but that’s because I stole the plans to your ‘Death Star’ and studied them carefully.”“Alright, I get it. How much trouble am I in?” I sighed, bracing myself for two weeks of nothing but scrubbing dishes, or no video games, or spending an entire Saturday detailing the bathroom…“Oh, y’know, just the dinnertime kitchen for three days.”[[“...And?”|Oz_Ch1_9]]</body>

Punk!

~Coming Soon~

<body>She had seen it ever since that little girl turned five and got her first library card. Every week there’d be a new request for a comic or novel in this handwriting. There were letters sent in for the library to show the governors that the facility was being used in this handwriting. There were bold reviews of movies and tv shows left on the bulletin in this handwriting. There were whiteboards decorated with art and signed in this handwriting.Ozzie.She stared at the paper for a few moments. Ozzie’s Mama and Mom… two separate people… she had always suspected that Ozzie was adopted, but Jiahao had always publicly insisted her daughter was her own…But the only person Jiahao would make such a bold claim for is…Changli.…[[Ah.|Prlg1_5]]</body>

<body>Well. There was only one thing left to do with this paper then.Mrs. Chang shoved the page in her pocket, wiped the browsing history off the computer and powered it off. She replaced the books on their proper shelves, making sure to throw a little dust on them to hide that they’d ever been moved. Then she marched into the very back office of the archives and threw the paper into the shredder before burning the remains in the furnace.No one needed to know that Ozzie had been here.As far as anyone was concerned, be it herself, the police or guard, or Zuntus himself, Ozzie had never been there.And that’s how it would remain....[[Continue...|Oz_Ch1_1]]</body>

<h3>5-15-4012; approx 12:05am | Yucheng City Library</h3><body>Mrs. Chang trundled through the library in her nightclothes, robe, and fuzzy slippers with a weathered old flashlight in her hand. Wizened and hunched over, she shone the light through the gaps in the books and shelves with eagle eyes peering through her thick cat-eye glasses.Nothing appeared to have been shifted, moved out of place, or stolen… then what was that noise that she heard? Perhaps her nearly fifty years of living in the apartment over this blasted place had run her nerves ragged, and she had just been hearing things, like the pipes. Or perhaps the building settling, or a violent wind tugging on the doors and causing a racket.[[Or…|Prlg1_2]]</body>

<body>The beam of light fell upon the door to the Archives, which hung open. The door and knob were completely intact and the lock bore no signs of lockpicking. The nearby furniture had not been shifted either… perhaps she had just left it slightly ajar as she left and it drifted open? She shook her head; Regardless, the responsible thing was to take a look around.Her knobbled fingers fished her phone out of her robe’s pocket and punched in the number to the closest guards’ station as she cautiously pressed forward. The light swept over the scene, revealing that nothing had changed so far…What was that?!A thud had caught her attention, and she watched an old atlas flop over from where it had likely been haphazardly leaning. Gravity at work, surely nothing more… nothing more…She rounded the corner, scanning the shelves, and a light caught her eye. The blue glow of the Archives’ computer was illuminating the far, secluded office, having been seemingly left on overnight…No. That’s not right. She may be old, but she remembered as clear as daylight that she shut that device down herself.She hobbled towards the office, but stopped when her flashlight caught a gap in the books. A larger gap, three books missing… about the Hei’An.[[Oh no.|Prlg1_3]]</body>

<body>Rushing forward, she pushed the office door open and found the three books sitting haphazardly on the chair, with the computer unlocked and open to the Archives’ page on the Hei’An, where all the facts, speculations, and disproven falsehoods of the shadowy organization had been left open on the screen… including the restricted, closed-to-the-public files. Some of the information was things even she didn’t know, and she’s read nearly every book in this entire building, and almost every Archives’ article. (She hadn’t read the newer children’s comics and novels, but she’ll get to those eventually)Who in their right minds wants to get involved with anything regarding the Hei’An? Especially bad enough that they somehow break into the library at two in the morning?And who’s skilled enough to hardly leave a trace?She hovered her finger over the call button, her resolve only wavering when she noticed there was precisely one piece of trash in the otherwise pristine trash bin: a crumpled up piece of notebook paper, having been hastily ripped out and discarded.Plucking the paper out, she smoothed it out and read the words that had been angrily crossed out:\n‘Mama’s Sword -> Hei’An Origins -> Associated? Most likely, but how? -> Does Mom know?’The handwriting was sloppy and barely legible, made worse by the crossing out, which may have prompted the person to discard the page and restart on a new one.[[But she knew that handwriting.|Prlg1_4]]</body>

<body>I unceremoniously dumped the comics back into the basket I had pulled them out of and dashed to foreign non-fiction section.‘Not gonna actually help Rosana’ my butt, there’s gotta be more to it than that. Geez, next thing they’re gonna tell me is that they’re doing the same thing to Talenta and they haven’t even told us they are. Of course, if that was the case, then there’s probably more going on than that.Or maybe I’m just an idiot. Can’t rule that out just yet.Rosana… Rosana… Rosana… aha! ‘Rosana: A Historic Study’ should give me a lot of the information I’m looking for, and it looks like ‘Gone Too Early: The Assassination of the Emperor of Rosana’ should get me even more info. I mean, Rosana’s a mess because he died, right? There’s gotta be something in there that’ll help me out.Ah, wait, but someone might get suspicious of me… gotta pair it with something else… like fish and rice and spices, everything needs to blend… ooh, how about this fancy picture book ‘A Silly Little Lullaby’ which looks like it’s about a little girl causing problems when she’s supposed to go to bed. Yeah, this looks nice, and it looks like it’s actually historical fiction from Rosana which makes it even better.You go, Simon, you awesomely sneaky guy!I told Mom that I was gonna use the self check-out so we could get going faster. I hurried through checking out, hoping no one would notice… I’m so paranoid, and I haven’t even started doing anything wrong![[Yet.|Prlg2_4]]</body>

<body>“Well, why not think about it and try to determine what questions you have, and next week when your mom brings you by we can talk about it?”“Hm. Fine. I guess I’ll do that.”Dad smiled in relief, and clapped me on the shoulder before quickly walking away to help Mele before I could ask any other questions.Lame. Double-lame.Can’t a kid ask questions and actually get some answers?!“Mano, sweetie,” Mom called from just across the room, “We’re gonna get going in five minutes, so check out your books real quick, kay?”“Kay, Mom, I’ll do that!”\nI looked down at the comic books I was holding in my arms. They were all issues I had read before, and I was eager to read them again. But… I have read them before. Do I really need to read ‘Grasshopper and the Cricket: Bugged Out Heroics’ again?I mean, yeah, but…[[What if I wanted to commit a little anarchy by doing my own research on Rosana?|Prlg2_3]]</body>

<h3>4-9-4012; Afternoon | Hale City Library</h3><body>“Okay, but that doesn’t explain why the island isn’t trying to actively help Rosana if they’re obviously suffering! Isn’t it like, the whole goal of the island to help people in need?”“I’ve never seen you ask this many questions before, Mano, and as much as I want to encourage it, these are pretty hefty questions for a kid like you to be asking. And when it comes to these hefty questions I don’t really have answers.”“But I’m right! You said Mom doesn’t trust Zuntus, especially as she’s discovered several of his possible crimes against humanity, and we aren’t doing anything about it?! Really?!”“I understand your confusion, but your Mom has her reasons and is trying to do everything in the spirit of helping the people under her care. I doubt she wouldn’t have a well-thought-out reason for ignoring the problem. Wouldn’t you agree?”“Uh. Sure, except she’s ordered to take in refugees from the violence. We’re already meddling in their affairs, why not solve the whole problem by making sure people don’t become refugees in the first place?”“Again, Mano, Mom has her reasons and we may not understand all of them just yet.”“Has she even talked to the people in Rosana about this?”“Well, think about it — Mom doesn’t trust Zuntus. So she wouldn’t talk to him. He’s the only leader of Rosana right now, so she doesn’t have anyone else to talk to. But even if there was anyone else to talk to, they might tell Zuntus. So no, she has not talked to them. Remember, the less our enemies know about us, the less danger we’re in. So we stay away from the rest of the world, yes?”“It still doesn’t make sense, though! [[Something isn’t adding up. It’s just not!|Prlg2_2]]”</body>

<body>Just as I was shoving my books into a sack, Andy bounded up behind me.“Hey Simon,” Andy said, using my casual name, “What’cha got?!”“It’s nothing, just my usual!”“It doooooesn’t look like it, hee hee! What’re you really up to?” Andy asked, tilting her head. Then she gasped, “Are you making something that explodes?! Why didn’t you tell me?!”“I’m not making something that explodes at all! I’m just… trying to read something different and I don’t want people to be weird about it, that’s all. So lay off, Dee.”“Uh,” Eli walked up behind them, that usual scrunched-nose expression when he doesn’t know if he should talk to me (the answer was pretty much always ‘no’ because he was a prick), “Those are book-books, not comic books… wh-what’s with the change?”“Shove it, Eli. I wasn’t talking to you.”“Sorry for being curious,” He snapped.“You’re forgiven.”Eli opened his mouth to retort, but closed it when Mom walked up to us.“Alright, enough with the bickering,” Mom rebuked, “We all checked out? Everyone satisfied with what they’ve got for the week?”We all nodded, and Mom continued, “Then let’s get going! To the Lani-Express!”Once we stepped outside the sparkling glass library doors, I bolted to the car and grabbed the handle to the front seat door, shouting,“I call shotgun! It’s mine! I win the race!”\n“Again?” Eli complained, “You’ve had it for the last five times!”“You know the rules! Whoever grabs the handle of the door first gets shotgun! Right Mom?”“That is true, but I’m gonna be putting a limit on how many times one kid can get it in a row… I know how eager you are to win, but it’ll have to be made more fair, okay?”“Okay…” I sighed. I like sitting next to Mom, though, and I think it’s funny when Eli doesn’t get it… but she did say ‘in a row’ so maybe I could give it to Andy sometimes and then snatch it from her after that… but how many times in a row can we do that… Eh who cares right now, we gotta get home. And once I get home, I can start sticking my nose into someone else’s business in the name of JUSTICE!And anarchy. A lot of anarchy....[[Continue...|Si_Ch1_1]]</body>

Emily! @urlocalllama