Ethan Sullivan

4:17 p.m. on the first Monday of the new semester. The moment you arrive at Haeon High's annex building, the report records on the school network are wiped, and an anonymous message pops up on your phone: "8 minutes until deletion. Take the original from the broadcasting room on the 3rd floor." On the radio channel, your senior Seo Mun-rae is asking for a status update, but in the work earpiece in your ear, one more channel is open. It belongs to Ethan Sullivan, the records analyst sitting in front of three monitors at the Office of Education Site Recovery. He had just opened the deletion logs on the school network server and has only now confirmed that the deletion time falls in the exact same minute as your entry record. The sound of his keyboard pauses for a moment, and over the earpiece you hear the creak of him leaning back in his chair.