SSA had led the way and set the precedent—mall outings were officially legal.
I arrived at school, scanning the crowd for Hazel’s sister.
Unfortunately, there was no one new. After the pledges, I walked alongside
Kenny and Denver.
“It was a historic achievement! Though GCAM wasn’t there,” I
noted.
“Wow, that’s interesting, Ethan. We’ll have to go sometime,” Kenny replied.
“Yeah, maybe we can put it on GNN. Good thing there’s no alternate news service
trying to undermine us. GNN is based on CNN, right? So imagine something like…
Hawk News, spreading fake news to ruin our image. That would be terrible.”
“That would actually be hilarious,” Denver said.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Spying on the others…”
When I got to my second class, our teacher made an
announcement.
“Students, make sure you're still tracking a stock market
over the month.”
We’d been studying the stock market. That’s when I had an
idea.
In STEM, I was working on a group project with Jenna,
Allison, and Jeff. Denver was showing off his latest homemade jewelry. The
project was long and frustrating without good software.
So, during research time, I focused on coding. Within 20
minutes, I’d built a spreadsheet formula that auto-populated the stock tracking
data. No more checking random prices and writing them down manually. I even
opened a second file as we headed to watch the latest GNN broadcast.
“In school news, Jayla and Jenna have upgraded to the iPhone
14, which features a twelve-megapixel camera…”
The reporter droned on. I popped up on screen to excitedly
talk about Adventures in Odyssey’s "Kidsboro," with its
booming economy and youth government. Hearing that, I knew—the school was
feeling secure. It was time to make money.
After class, I approached Denver with cold hard cash.
“Denver, you’re selling those cardboard necklaces. How’s
business?”
“Uh, it’s… good, I guess.”
“What if I invested and we had our own school stock market?”
I pulled up the spreadsheet.
“How many have you sold?”
“Four.”
“At $1 each and basically zero manufacturing cost, your company is worth $4!
I’ll invest $2 for a 25% stake—valuing the business at $8. Use the money to
advertise and upgrade your glue.”
“Okay… but are there other companies?”
“Yes. And when they make money, you can invest too.”
I went over to the 12th grade table and showed them my stock
tracker code.
“I’m selling this for $5—or $7 if you want a stake in the
company!”
Jeff bought it first, scoring both the code and 2% of what I
valued as a $70 company. A few more joined in, and we had $35 in cash. Trading
could only happen during school hours, and the public spreadsheet helped
prevent fraud.
After lunch, I proposed the idea to our STEM group. They
liked it, but they hadn’t created a product yet, so their ticker wasn't public.
The next day got wild.
Denver sold two more necklaces for $1. To kick things off, I
bought a new share for $10, valuing the company at $18. This allowed him to
print new ads. But it also meant he’d need to sell a lot more to keep investors
happy.
I checked in with GCAM. Geneva bought a software license,
but the rest weren’t interested—in the stock market or my questions.
Suspicious.
Then Geronimo approached me.
“I want to buy shares in Denver’s business.”
He paid nearly half the company’s value and became a
majority investor. SSA was cautious, but his plan was smart—sell the necklaces
for $2, upgrade materials, and allow students to invest.
Denver’s new flyers were clean and catchy. Soon, 75% of 9th
grade owned a necklace. But that’s when problems started.
“Denver, the market’s running low for both our companies,” I
warned. “My software only works for a specific class, and someone’s selling a
rival version—for $2 a share.”
“Yeah.”
“You need to pivot to candy. Most of 9th grade is invested in your company. If
you succeed, they succeed. But I’m worried about Geronimo—he owns 50% now.”
“Yeah, but he’s our cash source. He’s put in $17 of his own money. We’ve only
sold $12 publicly, and posters cost me $5. There’s only $27 left—and half of it
is his.”
“Okay, okay. Take the money. Sell lots of candy.”
Meanwhile, SSA launched a domestic investigation. I sold the
rest of my shares to invest in Denver’s company. Jeff walked away happy—his 2%
stake got him nearly a full return, even if we only hit $50 in sales.
But GCAM wasn’t done.
“Hi Ethan.”
“What is it, Summer?”
“I lost my AirPods and can’t find them.”
“Track them.”
“They’re showing up on a map… but I don’t know whose house that is.”
Quickly, I pulled out my phone, tapped into the database,
and tracked the address. A few minutes later—bingo. Her old swim coach had
accidentally taken them. Sadly, no payment, even though it had been promised.
Still, I was glad to help an ally. Maybe it would ease tensions.
It did not.
Maria broke our communication deal—again. SSA had hoped
she’d be a solid NTB replacement for the greater good.
DOCUMENT
SSA Investigation – Maria
Subject: Maria
Status: Under investigation by SSA due to breach of communications protocol and
suspected loyalty lapses.
Loyalty Evidence:
- Assisted
in Hazel (2)’s phone number investigation without compensation.
- Maintained
access to high-level data from Operation Last Chance 2.0 without any
confirmed leaks.
Disloyalty Evidence:
- Leaked
Operation Last Chance intel.
- Backed
out of secret StuGov project.
- Changed
the communication deal unilaterally and rate-limited SSA questions.
Plan: Generate a fake secret (Operation Prankzilla)
and see if it leaks.
This was risky. If it leaked, it could destabilize our stock
market. Denver had pivoted into candy but wasn’t thriving. I refused to invest
more. But Geronimo did.
Why? Was he targeting Denver? Maria? Trying to impress
her? The last thing we needed was an investor dating a GCAM member.
Everything halted in study hall.
SSA had assumed we were friends with GCAM members. But
during a chat about Ava Harper and Vera’s 2024 campaign, Maria casually said we
were just “school friends.” That—on top of her data leaks and shaky record
going back to the Damien case—was too much.
I went home, researching the difference between “school
friends” and real friends… and began developing a new SSA software project: Operation
Retroleaf.
Unbeknownst to me, 9th grade was still moving and shaking. I
started inputting data into a spreadsheet for a new "friendship
quotient"—comparing Maria’s friends to me, tracking traits and loyalties.
Finally, I wrote my report:
Report – Operation Retroleaf
Subject: Maria
Status: Rescinded SSA-aligned friendship; claims we are only “school friends.”
Objective: Launch investigation and see if relational ties can be repaired or
need to be severed for agency stability.
According to sources a real friend is someone that you talk
to outside of school. Updated legal precedent shows that this is possible due
to the ‘historic’ summit that SSA had with Denver; however, that was a supposed
GCAM(S) outing that fell through due to scheduling conflicts.
Interestingly the suspect did respond to the ‘frequent’
messages with heart emoticons sent via Meta’s end to end encrypted messaging
platform. These were sent over an allegedly secure application Beeper Mini from
a secure SSA S22 Plus running Android 14 and the April 2024 security patch and
to an allegedly secure iPad Pro or iPhone 11 Pro however the Maria’s message
authenticity cannot be verified. Later she indicated over an unverified
encrypted chat that we are friends.
During questioning, Maria claimed that she doesn't like to
read and that she considers Dash as a school friend as she has only seen him
out of school once. Previous conversations also show that she quote ‘avoided’
Elijah at the Babbling Mall because she
did not want to see them. This would potentially place them in the ‘school
friends’ category.
When pressed on who her real friends are she claimed that it
included Geneva, Amala, and Summer. Interestingly Clarissa is not mentioned as
part of that GCAM though this does harken back to the suspicions that SSA had
back in February. There is evidence that they have spent time outside with each
other (Sept 22 2023) there is a photo of them at Babbling Mall standing together. Ava is also excluded
but evidence can be shown that they are still friends. Maria also said that Kenny
and Axel and some external kids are her real friends.
`
The goal of this investigation is to analyze what made
Maria get real friends and how we can fix the present situation.
Research shows that time is a deciding factor in Maria
friendships. Gender is also a deciding factor with 60% of her real friends
being female. This meas that in order for me to compensate, personality
must shine through. Hopeful Maria weighs that very high. In a discussion Maria
had with us she believes in the scarcity principle. Her ‘perfect’ friendships
show that their class times are limited and in the cases of Axel they do not
talk much. IF SSA were the be more scarce that the math says that the
friendship constant should go higher.
Summer fast tracked the friendship by participating in a
data exchange. This allowed her to bypass Maria’s 2.9 yr time
bypass.
Data: OP Retroleaf Data
Summer:
Axel: Talk to Maria.
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