By the time Kagami's transfer hit my account, I was already on the move, soles soaked with rain and city grime. Montparnasse was silent in the early light, wet pavement glowing as if obsidian under the sodium buzz of the streetlamps. I stood outside Max's door, staring at the interface that hadn't been there last week.
Gone was the old doors standard lock. In its place now a sleek obsidian glass panel, displaying digital numbers and a swirling arc, above them fingerprint coded. Of course.
I pressed my index finger to the swirl. The scanner exhaled a puff of blue light, and quickly blinked green.
Click.
"T 1"
The door opened with a quiet hiss, and I stepped inside.
Max's apartment looked to have evolved again in my shorts absence.
The hacker's haven I remembered, half library of random goods, half trashbin, was now something more. Every surface was awake. displays hovered midair floating with what seemed to be a new prototype platform, showing heatmaps, raw data info, weather currents within and outside the house, as well as some sort of satellite feed. Tangled cables slithered across the floor like techno organic roots. The room smelled faintly of solder and room spray.
But the new centerpiece demanded all attention. a NAS tower unlike anything I'd seen before. Its core was ribbed in bronze, cooled by glass pipelines pumping a glowing blue fluid. Each beat of lights on its outer casing made a subtle hiss, like a CD being loading.
"You're early," Max said, emerging from behind a projection wall. His hoodie was wrinkled, his hair not as put together as it usually was, but his eyes still sparkled. He was wired and awake.
"You rebuilt the place," I said.
"Upgrade. It was completely necessary," he replied, with the kind of pride most people reserve for naming their first child. He pointed at the tower. "Meet Perseus. Faster than anything the government legally owns. What did you bring?"
I pulled a sleeve up showing the combined sleek design of my Miraculous and it's partnered enhancement.
"This here, will change the world," my Miraculous shined hitting something it Max's eyes causing him to cover them.
Max's demeanor shifted instantly. His fingers, always twitching, steadied. He walked closer to me from his chair and meeting me lifted my arm and stared at the object like it might move any second.
"I need everything," I said. "Anything u can discover about this object is welcome."
He nodded once, then moved with deliberate calm. The Miraculous slid off my arma and into a narrow chamber on the wall. Lights surged. The machine spun to life with a click and a rising computing wir. It spun, and on the outside it was as if rings unfolded midair like spinning coins while flooding the room with light.
I expected the usual ritual, Max pacing, muttering, running simulations or jotting quick notes.
Instead, less than a minute later, the chamber hissed open and he handed the Miraculous back.
I blinked. "That's it?"
"That was the surface level scan, an SEM or electron microscope," Max said, already turning back to his console. "It came out clean. No electronics, no oddities so far. But the real diagnostics? That takes time although simple in that all I needed was to zoom in. So give me.. two business days, maybe three."
"You're not even going to guess?"
"I'm a scientist, not a fortune teller. But my guess is that theres something weird about this bracelet, even just clicking to the atomic level shows some weird strucutures."
I smirked, tucked the Miraculous back into my pocket.
Max's fingers danced across his keyboard. Dozens of windows exploded open—charts, spiral simulations, cross-linked readings. Already knee-deep.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Somewhere overdue."
"That's not a location."
"Nope."
I pulled out my phone. The message had been sitting in drafts for hours, waiting for this moment.
"Going dark for a while guys don't wait up. I'll be gone for a few~"
I tapped send. Gone through my circle of allies. Alya. Kagami. Adrien. Etc.. The ones who needed to know.
Max didn't look up. "I'll contact you if I find anything."
"Use this node. I'll be checking it." I said slightly monotone while throwing him a flip phone.
"I also need your assistance with filming anything you could do right now?"
"Use Markov he comes in handy, he can mobilize and purchase anything you want with a word."
I simply nodded alough he couldn't see from behind and headed out.
The door sealed behind me with a soft hydraulic click. Outside, the rain had faded to mist. Paris, washed clean but no less treacherous, shimmered like something dreaming.
I moved through the low fog with quiet purpose heard only through my steps.
One more thing to cross off the list. Then absolutely nothing will be in my way.
Master Fu.
The self titled guardian of the miracle box. The unkown shadow behind centuries of bloodshed. He always smiled like he knew things you'd never understand. Taught in riddles. Hid behind humility.
But I had questions now. Questions that didn't deserve parables.
And I wasn't going to let him vanish behind silence again. Well,until he stopped being lf use.
I could use him not only to gain trust with ladybug but as a path to more Miraculous, I'm not sure if I can use more than a singular one but it was all a matter of time.
And with all this time I freed up for myself I was going to become the savior of paris.