The ke shimmered under the golden hues of the te afternoon sun, its surface rippling gently with the touch of the wind. Birds chirped in the distance, their melodies blending seamlessly with the rustling leaves and the distant ughter of families scattered across the campground. The scent of pine needles and the earthy aroma of damp soil hung thick in the air, a reminder of the untouched serenity of the great outdoors. It was the perfect weekend escape.

  Ezra leaned back in his camping chair, stretching his arms over his head as he exhaled a contented sigh. He had earned this. Graduation had been a whirlwind of emotions, and with the weight of the future looming over him, this trip to the ke was the perfect opportunity to breathe—just for a little while. His father had set up the tents and the firepit, Julie was skipping rocks by the shore, and her parents were exchanging stories with Seth, their ughter carrying over the water.

  Julie’s father, Mr. Key, had been observing Ezra for a while, an unreadable expression lingering on his face. Eventually, he turned to him and, with a knowing smirk, cpped him on the back. “How about a little fishing, kid? Just us and your old man.”

  Ezra, caught slightly off guard, nodded. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

  Seth grinned. “Time to see if my boy can outfish me.”

  They loaded up a small boat, pushing off into the ke as the quiet hum of nature surrounded them. The rhythmic dipping of the oars cut through the water, lulling Ezra into a state of calmness. For a few minutes, the three of them simply enjoyed the peace, waiting for the fish to bite.

  Then, Mr. Key cast his line and leaned back, watching Ezra with that same thoughtful gaze. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Ezra. Smart kid. Ambitious, too. What’s the pn after this? College?”

  Ezra adjusted his grip on the fishing rod. “Yeah. I got into a solid program for physics.”

  “A fine choice,” Mr. Key said, nodding. “But I have something better.”

  Ezra blinked. “Better than college?”

  Mr. Key reached into his pocket and pulled out a sleek, pristine white card. He held it up between his fingers, letting the sunlight gleam off its smooth surface. His name, along with other cryptic information, was engraved on it. At the bottom was a barcode, a symbol of access.

  “A White Card,” Mr. Key said, letting the weight of the words sink in.

  Ezra felt his stomach tighten. He knew what that meant. White Coats. The scientific elite. The ones who dictated the boundaries of human progress with little regard for ethics or bureaucracy.

  Julie’s worst nightmare.

  “This isn’t something you apply for,” Mr. Key continued, his voice calm but firm. “It’s something you earn. You could go to college, study physics, get a degree, and grind your way to the top like everyone else. Or…” He tapped the card against his fingers. “You could take a direct path to power, wealth, and influence most people can only dream of.”

  Ezra swallowed hard. He could feel Seth’s eyes on him, waiting to see what he would say. His first instinct was hesitation. Julie would hate this. The White Coats were everything she stood against—the rewriting of history, the ck of transparency, the unchecked authority.

  And yet…

  Ezra stared at the card. This was more than an opportunity. This was a golden ticket. The White Coats had their own university, their own networks, their own way of shaping the world. To possess a White Card meant walking through doors others never even knew existed.

  Seth, ever the pragmatist, finally spoke. “Ezra, this kind of opportunity doesn’t just come around. You need to ask yourself something. Do you want to struggle your whole life, grinding away, hoping for success? Or do you want a foundation so solid that you’ll never have to worry about providing for your future family?”

  Ezra exhaled slowly. “Julie’s going to hate this.”

  Mr. Key chuckled. “She might. But that’s a conversation for another day.” He handed Ezra the card. “You don’t have to decide now. Just hold onto it. Think about what kind of life you want to build.”

  Ezra took it hesitantly, feeling the weight of the decision pressing into his palm. His fingers brushed over the embossed letters of Mr. Key’s name, the bar code at the bottom gring back at him like a silent promise.

  For the rest of the fishing trip, Ezra found it difficult to focus. Even as he reeled in a decent-sized bass, his mind wasn’t on the ke or the warm sunlight or even Julie’s ughter from the shore.

  Ezra sat in his tent, the dim glow of his holo-tablet casting eerie light over the mess of notes, schematics, and open dossiers spread across his cot. Outside, the muffled murmurs of the camp drifted through the still night air, punctuated by the occasional crackle of a distant fire. He should have been asleep. Instead, his mind reeled over the White Card—the little sliver of polymer that had found its way into his hands.

  To the average citizen, White-Coats were just an internet meme—shady, eccentric weirdos who cimed to rewrite history for ughs. They were known for ridiculous antics, cryptic messages, and spreading bizarre conspiracy theories that looped back on themselves. The legend of Bajookind—an ancient, nonexistent nation—was one of their biggest inside jokes. No records, no historical evidence, yet people pyed along.

  It was harmless fun.

  Except, it wasn’t.

  Because behind the memes was a real force, one that shaped entire industries, steered civilizations, and, if you squinted hard enough, nudged history in directions most people never noticed. The White-Coats were a joke, but the White Cards?

  They were the punchline that no one dared to ugh at.

  Credit cards had long since evolved past their simple pstic origins, but the elite bck cards had always been the highest status symbol—until now. Those gave you unlimited borrowing power, the ability to spend millions at will. But a White Card?

  You didn’t need to borrow.

  Owning one meant you had access to infinite wealth, no debt, no restrictions—just raw purchasing power, backed by forces unknown. If you had a White Card, money was irrelevant. You weren’t bound by governments, ws, or banking institutions. In fact, those very entities bowed to you.

  And that was the problem.

  Julie hated them.

  To Ezra, the White-Coats were an enigma wrapped in absurdity. Their reach extended across the entire sor system, their hands dipped into every major industry—medicine, tech, research, energy, military intelligence. They took failing projects, broke industries apart, and reshaped them into titans. And they did it with such unpredictable precision that nobody could figure out why.

  But Julie?

  She saw through the smoke and mirrors.

  "The world just pys along with them," she had scoffed once. "Because it’s easier that way. But don’t kid yourself, Ezra. They’re not some internet pranksters—they’re the real deal. And I don’t trust anyone who can rewrite history on a whim."

  Ezra had heard the conspiracy theories—that the White-Coats answered to an unknown higher power, something older than nations, older than human civilization itself. The Illuminati? A myth, a cover story. These guys were the real shadow-government, the ones who owned the intelligence agencies, who knew the past wasn’t what the history books said it was.

  Julie knew better than to fight something like that.

  And that’s what angered her the most.

  No one fought them.

  Because pying along was easier.

  The White-Coats didn’t just hold power.

  They held narratives.

  Their most infamous trick? Bajookind.

  It had no location, no borders, no record of ever existing in human history. But somehow, everyone knew about it. It had different names—Bajookiworld, Bajookistan, Bajookirealm—but it always circled back to the same ridiculous, nonsensical pop-culture fad that refused to die.

  A joke that never got old.

  And yet… its existence—or ck thereof—didn’t matter.

  The White-Coats had seeded the idea, and through sheer force of memetic influence, they had convinced the world to py along.

  It was brilliant.

  And terrifying.

  Because if they could convince the entire human race that a fictional country had a pce in history, then what else had they rewritten?

  Julie despised them for that.

  She was a historian—or, at least, she wanted to be. The idea that history itself was just a pything for a bunch of meme-spreading weirdos filled her with a quiet rage that Ezra couldn’t quite understand.

  But Ezra?

  He wasn’t sure if he hated them.

  Or if he wanted to know how far down the rabbit hole went.

  The White-Coats had only one rule:

  Py along, or don’t. It makes no difference to them.

  They never forced their hand.

  If you ignored them?They simply moved on.

  No punishments. No threats. No consequences.

  But if you chose to indulge their absurdity, to go along with their madness and unpredictable theatrics?

  That was when things got interesting.

  There were stories—whispers of people who had humored a White-Coat’s request for a random favor. The requests were never logical—wearing a chicken costume to a business meeting, agreeing to name a spaceship “The HMS Fpjack”, or signing a contract in invisible ink.

  The rewards, however?

  Accidental bajillionaires.

  People who suddenly found their start-up bought out for an obscene sum, or their tech innovation mysteriously catapulted into mass production.

  It was never predictable.

  And that was what made them dangerous.

  Not because they held power.

  But because they had fun with it.

  Ezra sat on the wooden dock, the White Card banced between his fingers, smooth and weightless—and yet, it felt heavy. The air was thick with salt, the faint rocking of the water beneath him steadying his thoughts.

  He thought back to Mr. Key’s words from their fishing trip:

  "Be the giant on whose shoulders others can be thankful to stand on."

  At the time, Ezra had nodded along, thinking it was just another one of those wise-old-man phrases that sounded good in the moment. But now? Now, with the weight of a decision that could alter his future, those words had cemented themselves in his head like an anchor.

  The White-Coat University was an invitation few people ever received, let alone someone like him—someone whose name wasn’t tied to money, old bloodlines, or corporate legacy.

  They didn’t just invite schors. They invited those who would shape the world. They wanted him. Why? He didn’t know. But Julie… Julie hated them.

  “You can’t seriously be thinking about this.”

  Julie’s voice was sharp, cutting through the stillness of the te afternoon like a well-aimed knife.

  Ezra had been expecting this. Dreading it.

  “I don’t see why not,” he said, keeping his tone even, his fingers tightening around the White Card. “They’re offering me something no one else can. I’d be stupid to ignore it.”

  Julie scoffed, crossing her arms. “Oh, right. Because selling your soul to the biggest puppeteers in history sounds like such a great idea.”

  Ezra’s jaw clenched. “They’re not puppeteers, Julie.”

  “Oh, come on, Ezra! You know what they are! They don’t just own companies, they own history!" She took a step closer, her blue eyes bzing. “You think they want you because you’re talented? Because you’re smart?” She let out a bitter ugh. “No, they want you because they want to own you. That’s what they do.”

  Ezra pushed himself up from the dock, the frustration boiling just under his skin. “And what if they don’t?” he shot back. “What if this is my chance to actually be something bigger than just another worker scrambling to survive?”

  Julie’s fists clenched. “You think you need them to be ‘bigger’? That’s bull, Ezra! You’re already bigger than that! You don’t need their money, their power, or their stupid, cryptic games to be someone who matters!”

  Ezra exhaled sharply, trying to rein in the heat building in his chest.

  “What’s your problem?” he snapped. “Is it because it’s them, or is it because it’s me? Because if I didn’t have this card, you wouldn’t be acting like this.”

  Julie flinched.

  For a second, just a brief second, she looked hurt. But then her walls smmed back into pce, her lips pressing into a thin, furious line.

  “You think I’m jealous?” she hissed. “You think this is about me?”

  Ezra didn’t know how to answer that.

  “I’m trying to protect you, you idiot,” she said, stepping so close that he could see the frustration etched in every tense muscle of her face. “Because once you take that card, you don’t get to be Ezra anymore. You get to be whoever they want you to be.”

  Ezra shook his head. “And what if I can change that? What if I can be the one who makes the rules for once?”

  Julie let out a sharp breath, her hands shaking as she threw them up.

  “You sound just like them.”

  And that? That hurt.

  For a moment, neither of them spoke.

  They just stood there, the tension between them crackling like an exposed wire.

  A few yards away, Seth and Mr. Key watched from a distance, their conversation fading into silence as the argument reached its peak.

  “You want me to turn this down,” Ezra said, quieter now. Not accusing. Just… tired.

  Julie swallowed, her anger still there, but something softer creeping in behind it.

  “I want you to be you,” she admitted, her voice quieter. “Not some shadow version of you that got shaped into something you don’t even recognize.”

  Ezra’s heart twisted. Because he got it. He understood. Julie wasn’t just mad at him—she was scared for him. And that, more than anything else, made him hesitate. The silence between them stretched for what felt like forever.

  Then, Julie sighed—tension bleeding from her shoulders. “I don’t want to fight with you,” she muttered.

  Ezra exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah… me neither.”

  Julie hesitated, then, with an irritated groan, grabbed him by the colr and kissed him—fast, messy, full of everything they didn’t know how to say.

  Ezra barely had time to react before she pulled back, her face burning.

  “You’re still an idiot,” she grumbled.

  Ezra blinked, his brain short-circuiting for a moment before he smirked.

  “Yeah, well… at least I’m your idiot.”

  Julie huffed but didn’t deny it.

  Seth, watching from afar, leaned toward Mr. Key with a smirk. “Think they’ll figure it out?”

  Mr. Key chuckled, shaking his head. “Not a chance.”