Coincidentally, a lot of the inspiration from this chapter was taken from We Regret to Inform You which was written by Ariel Kaplan. She also wrote Grendel which was the muse from the last chapter.

Year Three: The Prisoner's Dilemma

Sci-Tech Faculty Building - 12:39 PM

Daniel sits across from Dr. BV's office, meaning to meet with her about his second dissertation since he chose one of her, and coincidentally one of his father's, expertise. He's currently alone since his SO stepped out for a moment to check some growing heating argument with other profs. As he waits, he scrolls through his school email on his phone and his heart jumps when he sees a reminder about scheduling his upcoming field-test.

Daniel heard some people in his year delaying their field-test for fourth year for whatever reasons. Some aren't doing well in sci-ops and need more training, or for medical and personal reasons.

That's the one class Daniel despises. Every time he goes and runs some drills, his mind flashes to his Hulk and he counts down the minutes till he can leave. Daniel isn't sure how he could get out of this since he's expected to be an active agent on the field. It's not like James bypassing the Ph.D. requirement in first year since that's only an Academy requisite.

Then Daniel has the hacking issue with Keith and his second dissertation. And it's only two months into the school year.

Daniel puts his phone in his pocket when he hears Dr. BV walk back in, closing the door behind her. She shuffles back to her desk and adjusts her glasses as she sits at her desk.

"Sorry about that, the faculty here is antsier than usual," Dr. BV explains.

"Why?" Daniel asks.

"There's a sudden potential funding opportunity heading our way that everyone around here wants."

"Makes sense." Daniel remembers hearing his parents rant about funding for projects.

"It's your fiancée's scholarship money, or the scholarship she would've gotten if she came here plus extra."

Daniel nods. Usually, he would smile at the sound of Emily but now he only acknowledges her name. "Right, that."

Dr. BV raises a brow and leans forwards on her desk. "Are you alright? You seem spaced out."

Daniel finds that funny since she's actually been to space. "I have a lot on my mind. So, why is the faculty all antsy about the money? I doubt all that was some debate on how to divide it over projects or materials."

"I'm only telling you this since your fiancée's arrival depends on it. There has been a break into the academic mainframe which Emily would likely find out about the moment she arrives to sign some forms and distribute money. She'd likely put it into upgrading the security to protect you and your friends."

Daniel pretends to be shocked about the hacking but chooses to be more focused on Emily to drive away any suspicion. "Shit, she's coming. Do you know when?"

"Shouldn't you know that?"

Daniel should've known that. "She was probably going to surprise me."

"Oh, well, spoilers, but if I had to guess, maybe after Thanksgiving which I think will happen earlier this year, or at least Thanksgiving break will."

"How so?"

"Again, don't tell anyone I told you but Camp SHIELD is heading back to campus early."

Daniel doesn't question why since he has a feeling James is involved in their early departure. Probably Xavier too. Likely their prank war. His mind drifts to Emily since she might already be home in New York. If so, she'll make the drive to the Academy and handle the money, and return to school in Italy from here.

And he still has to do his second dissertation and think about his field-test.

-o-

On his way out of his meeting, Daniel starts calling Keith in the elevator.

"Meet me in Edison's parking lot and bring your computer. There's been a development," he says.

From the faculty building, Daniel sprinted to Edison's parking lot and already saw Keith beside his car with his stuff. He knows Keith hasn't slept or left his dorm since he got started on solving the case. Daniel played his part by going out and seeing if any of his classmates were acting off, which didn't help.

Daniel unlocks his car and they get inside.

"What happened to you?" Keith asks.

"I was meeting with my SO and she brought up the break into the transcripts," Daniel tells him. "From the looks of it, Sci-Tech is expecting to receive additional funding that might go to upgrading the school's cybersecurity if they don't clear this issue by then."

Keith nods. "Right, so how long do we have?"

"She said after Thanksgiving break which might come earlier for us."

"How?"

"Camp SHIELD is coming home early."

Keith curses. "Goddammit James! Do you know what this means? They'll blame it on me to look nice." He sighs, still tense. "I knew there was the chance that I'd get arrested and expelled, in that order too. Look, if we manage to fix things, nothing would happen to us. If we did nothing, then nothing still happens, possibly."

"Right."

"We just have less time now. How long do we have?"

"Three days at most."

"Okay, I have a week timeline in my head but I could just continue to cut sleep. I think I'm making progress." Keith opens his laptop and Daniel peers over, seeing a different and unfamiliar desktop.

"What's that?"

"Head academic officer's computer screen. I've latched it onto mine, like when you share a screen on a video call but I have control over it and can do whatever I want. Anyways, yesterday I emailed him and all the academic advisors an encrypted and modified keylogger invisibly attached to a PDF. It's like an untraceable and non-harmful virus that automatically implanted in their computers' systems when they opened the file, and it recorded everything he typed which was sent back to me."

Daniel isn't sure which part of that explanation to grasp. "How did you email it?"

"My SO wanted me to send out some emails so I figured to send two birds with one stone, or better yet, two attachments with one email. It helps that my SO made me use their email. This file for good ol' Agent Newton and company was a new layout for the mechanical engineering courses next term."

Daniel nods, still processing what Keith said before about the keylogger. "Okay, so we have suspicions but those aren't leads."

"Please." Keith scoffs. "SHIELD is on the same boat of suspicions. What more can they do?"

"This is the prisoner's dilemma."

"The what?"

"Us and SHIELD can't prove a case without a confession and we can't get a confession without proof."

"So you're saying we need a confession from this loser."

"Pretty much."

"Waterboard?"

Daniel has moved on from the keylogger to that. "I didn't say anything similar to that."

"Touché. Okay, while I browse through Agent Newton's files and look for something interesting, start spewing more potential leads to give us ideas."

Daniel nods as he sits back in his seat, watching people pass by as Keith types away. He recognizes most of his classmates and doesn't even think of their placements on the class ranking. Hell, he isn't even sure if they knew their places or even cared. He knows the Academy is tough and competitive, and has lived through Sci-Tech's crying and complaining when midterm and exam season roll in. Still, he isn't sure who would sabotage others because he doesn't know the possible real benefit from doing any of this. He's speaking from a prestigious view but what was the point of being so high up? Why sabotage someone else when they could've just put themselves higher?

"Why do we assume that we're not good if we're not number one?" Daniel asks rhetorically.

Keith pauses from typing and looks away from his screen to glare at him. "Have you ever felt that?"

Daniel is about to answer but stops himself when it hits him. The rank list. Top ten. Percentiles. Placement.

"Keith," Daniel says, "we've been looking at this wrong."

"How so?"

"We've been looking at the top percentile of the programs as the suspects, thinking one of them sabotaged another."

"And?"

"The victims weren't looking to take the top out for malice because my grade is still perfect."

Keith sucks in a breath. "Literally."

"Tampering with me would've been obvious, is what I'm trying to say. Keith, what if the person who did this isn't looking for revenge but personal gain? This loser wasn't looking to be at the top of the list but just, on the list. They just want a place in the percentile to be up there with us."

Keith nods slowly. "Okay…?"

"We're looking for eleventh place."

Keith's jaw drops a little and he cheers in the passenger's seat. "Banner, I knew I could rope you into this."

"Wait, what? It's only a potential lead."

"That's the most you've contributed, aside from the top ten list and telling me we have a shorter deadline."

"Sure."

"In a usual team-up, you could've played the less I know the better card but you don't want to do your field-test or your second dissertation so you're helping me instead which is touching. You've risked sight to jump a feral Rogers and now you're losing deniability for me."

Daniel makes a mental tally of getting involved in criminal activity. They installed a virus onto many faculty computers through another agent's email. He wonders what would happen if they got caught. Then he reflects on getting involved just because he was scared and procrastinating. Him, Daniel Banner, becoming an accomplice in potentially illegal activities because he's scared and procrastinating.

" … wow, you're right," Daniel mutters.

Keith nods. "Now you could sit there and watch me type or get me a sandwich while I find our eleventh place loser."

-o-

Daniel came back to his car a half-hour later with sustenance for Keith. A sandwich that he asked for and a bottle of ginger ale. (He would've been here sooner if the line wasn't so long.) Keith's been living on a diet of jolly ranchers even before their self-given mission and Daniel isn't sure how he's made it this far on that and nearly no sleep.

"Okay, so this loser was smart enough to have masked their IP addresses," Keith says as he bites into the sandwich. "I checked and double-checked the metadata. Do you know how long it would take to get the IP address of every device connected to the school's wifi? Assuming they used it and not their own router or even a fucking Starbucks."

Daniel shrugs. "They're 11th place, they can't be that smart."

Keith nearly chokes on his sandwich. "Jesus, Daniel."

"What?"

"Nothing. You have a point but I didn't expect you to make it."

-o-

After unravelling through the metadata and digging through masked IP addresses and configuring multiple devices, potential router use, or a trip to Starbucks, they were finally able to hone in on their 11th place loser. Keith and Daniel have been silent ever since they pulled up the mystery man's student ID. Their result from the concealed IP addresses matched who was 11th place in their student rank before the transcript break-in.

"So that's him," Daniel states.

"Yup," Keith says, "Warren Becket."

"Kind of anticlimactic, I'll admit. I think I've seen him around."

"Maybe had a class or a lab. Is he even on our floor in Edison?"

"I barely know who's on our floor." Daniel sighs. "So are you going to attack him digitally?"

"Why digital when we could go analog?"

Keith turns around and points a boy out for Daniel. It can't be a coincidence that the moment they find out the true identity behind 11th place loser, he was leaving Edison with a bag and heading home for Thanksgiving early. It had to be a sign from possibly the Camp SHIELD gods.

"We're not waterboarding him," Daniel states.

"Come on!" Keith exclaims. "He's leaving for Thanksgiving and the bastard still thinks he got away with it."

"I said we had three days, not three hours!"

"Now we have three minutes!"

Instead of wasting time yelling at each other, Keith and Daniel get out of the car. Their guts told them to run after 11th place loser but they weren't fast enough and his car was already pulling out.

"Fuck it, we're already going to jail," Daniel says.

He looks on the ground and finds a reasonably sized rock beside the curb. Daniel winds his arm back and launches the rock forwards. Seconds later, it shatters the car's back window and it screeches to a stop. Daniel's body freezes. Fuck, he really did that. People around them stare as Keith alternates his view from Daniel to the shattered car window.

"Christ, Daniel! Where did you learn to throw like that?" Keith asks.

"Sometimes I played football with Xavier and Apollo," Daniel responds.

" … I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. I only played to do trajectory physics in my head. The only difference between then and now was distance and factoring in the weight of that rock. Not to mention throwing that rock took all my energy."

"And now 11th place loser is about to come out and beat us up."

"Ah, well."

"Okay look, we know you tampered with the rank list!" Keith yells before Warren, who is a full head taller than the both of them, even comes close.

"What?" Warren asks.

"Don't play dumb with us, 11th place, you messed with people's lives for a bump up!"

"Says who?"

"Says the data, dumbass! SHIELD is coming after me for this bullshit you pulled."

Warren puts his hands up. "That's not my problem."

"So you don't care if me and the two people you've sabotaged go down? Sociopath."

"Why would I care? Not all of us could be in your spot, or even Daniel's."

"So you admit to hacking into SHIELD and messing with those transcripts."

"You broke my car window!" He points back to his car.

"You broke into their mainframe."

"So did you!"

"To bust you!"

"Don't even lie, we know you've done it before."

Keith pauses, hands balling into fists. "That's not the point."

"Whatever, Keith, have fun trying to get yourself out of this one."

"Have fun with your broken car window."

Warren looks at Daniel. "I'm billing you for that."

"No, you won't." Daniel pulls out his phone and grins. "I've recorded your confession."

Keith and Warren look at Daniel in shock.

"New Jersey is a one-party consent state," Warren says.

Daniel nods. "Yup, I know. Bill me if you want but I'll just slip this to the Academy."

"Prisoner's dilemma," Keith adds. "You can't bust Daniel for recording you without busting yourself for screwing with the rank list."

Daniel hides his grin as he and Keith stare at Warren. Daniel doesn't know about Keith but he's expecting to get beaten up or at least a call from Warren's insurance company. Sci-Ops didn't train him for this. But to their surprise, Warren gets in his car and drives away, broken window and all.

Keith and Daniel stand silently in the middle of the parking lot before facing each other.

"Again, anti-climatic," Daniel states.

"Sorry if you were expecting a fight," Keith adds. "I wouldn't have lasted."

"Neither would I."

"Mr. Avoiding Field-Test."

Daniel can't deny that. "Right, so, I'll give you the recording to hand over and clear your name. If you could, don't mention me."

"Only because you recorded it."

"So this is it."

"Okay, I guess I should thank you."

"I guess I should say you're welcome."

Keith smiles. "So what's next, your field-test or your dissertation?"

Daniel scoffs. "Fuck those, I'm going home early for Thanksgiving."