Chapter Text
Cinders.
Ash.
Flames.
Fire near the nighttime sky was such a beautiful sight. Shame about the death and decay. Shame about the tears on the ground nearby and the screams of agony...The loss. The future nightmares.
What a shame such a lovely sight was a calling for the fallen.
Maybe that’s why he flinched when Phoenix joined.
He was calm though. Shook his hand. Made a joke. He was normal.
He treated a lot of the agents the same. So young. Maybe in an alternate universe his daughter grew up to be their age. Maybe that’s why Cypher felt so protective of these strangers.
Killjoy was a lot like his daughter.
Rhea would beg to help him with his gadgets. She would take his hat and ask to join him on jobs. She had no real idea what he really did. Cypher didn’t hide it from his family. He was very open with Nora the day he'd met her about the work he does. Rhea understood little amounts. What he did was you were not allowed to share. What he did would make him gone from home for several days. What he did was scary.
Never stopped her from wanting to do everything with him. He would feel so bad for being gone for a month, just to come home to his daughter wanting to spend every second with him.
He missed her.
Nora was always so patient and kind. She was so perfect. There was no flaw. Well, except maybe for that time she yelled at Cypher for not writing a will. Or that time she signed the contract with Kingdom. In all honesty, Cypher would have done the same. His flaw was always being a stubborn fool.
Not many people in the protocol reminded him of Nora. One did. One person reminded him of Nora if she saw the flaws that cypher held and choose to keep her distance instead of chase him. Cypher was glad that one agent disliked him. It was his goal. If he was likable he would make the Same mistakes from his past.
Getting good people killed.
Unfortunately, he often found himself surrounded by people who cared for him.
At least he hid every detail. That way, they can love him but not trust him.
—
Cypher turned the page of his book. He silently counted.
1
2
3
Knock knock.
It was a loud knock. More like metal clanking against metal. Cypher could tell who someone was based on their knock. Did anyone else notice that? Cypher didn’t need that knowledge anyway. 5 cameras outside his office was more than enough.
“Come in, Breach,” he sighed and leaned back, putting the book down. Face down, spine up. Chamber lectured him on good book care but Cypher could care less.
The doors opened and Breach walked in with a small box, “How’d you know it was me?”
Cypher stared at him for a while.
“Ah...” Breach gave an awkward chuckle.
“New part for my cage I ordered?” Cypher stared at the box. He knew it wasn’t the part, since it was a custom that would take months to be made and months to be delivered. He had ordered it last week.
“Oh no," Breach said, "It’s a hard drive Astra and I found it at our last kingdom raid,” setting the box down on Cypher's desk. Cypher's nimble hands immediately snatched it.
No scratches, hard drive type was one Killjoy used. No one understood how Cypher’s worked. He inspected it some more until he began to fidget with it.
“Thank you, Breach. Is that all?”
“Uhh yeah, I think so. Well, have a nice day! Brim wants that info from there asap!” Breach turned with a wave and walked out of his office.
Cypher grinned under his mask. He would have taken it off if it wasn’t for the fact it felt like someone walked into his office with a new issue every 30 minutes.
He turned the hard drive around in his hand before plugging it in. Distractions distractions distractions.
He never liked Kingdom.
A long history of distrust with them. Kingdom didn’t like him much either but he couldn’t blame him. Cypher was the sole reason Kingdom updates their cybersecurity every month. Cypher could still bypass it, but it was an attempt.
After two hours of working on it, he got the files.
It wasn’t anything too important. A lot of basic radiant farming operations. He marked them down to send to Omen. Possible new sites needing defense. He had gotten bored of writing down city names, so he moved to the next file.
It was locked. It shouldn’t be.
Cypher unlocked everything beforehand.
No, it wasn't locked. He needed a secondary hard drive to access the rest of the files.
Maybe Kingdom is becoming smarter.
He stood and grabbed his work and hard drive. Oh, how he hated meetings.
—
It was a smaller meeting. A proposal of a mission.
“I feel that the information in these secondary files might be bigger than we thought. Kingdom normally doesn’t hide things this well,” Cypher stated. The hard drive twirled around his fingers.
“So,” Viper placed her hand on the table to get him to stop fidgeting, “Where would the second hard drive be? Same location?”
Cypher laughed, “Nooo, Kingdom isn’t that dumb. Something hidden. Like a key under the floorboards.”
Killjoy chimes in, “Like an abandoned warehouse? Somewhere all information is thought to be gone?”
The table looked at her. Sova stared up from his paperwork he was doing during the meeting. Viper and Brim exchanged looks before looking at the young engineer. Omen had no reaction. Sage leaned forward.
“I know exactly where they would hide it, but it’s not fully abandoned. It’s a well known meeting spot for higher ups in kingdom. To the public, it’s nothing more than a warehouse that was just not needed anymore.”
Brimstone leaned back, arms folding under each other, “And how do you know this?”
Killjoy laughed, pushing her glasses up closer to her face, “I have my ways!”
“This is why you're my favorite!” Cypher laughed and gave a nod toward her. He pretended he didn’t see how proud she looked at herself.
“I just don’t see how this is related to our main concern with Omega Earth?” Sova started, looking directly at the hard drive between Cypher’s fingers.
“I second this concern,” Omen spoke.
“Ahh, you all know well my priority is not necessarily the protocol’s priority. I want to destroy Kingdom. Any step we take to get to stomping that ant hill is worth it.”
“Fine. You and me alone. We can’t spare too many agents. Not with the Batra group out and our focus on Omega Earth. Fade will take up your work. We leave tomorrow morning. Killjoy please send both of us the information we will need for this mission.” Sova stood, neatly stacking his papers. He walked towards the map and pinned his and Cypher’s ID photos next to the Kingdom logo.
Viper seemed upset at this compromise, “I don’t understand? Why spare some of our best agents for a mission that could be futile?”
“It will last no longer than a day, I'll be sure of that,” Sova nodded and began to make his way out of the room.
“Well, it seems the issue is settled. I should start packing. Thank you for entertaining my curiosity,” Cypher tipped his hat and left to return to his room.
He hasn’t been on the field in a long time. When Sage found out he was purposely dying on missions, he had been banned from field work for months.
He was excited. Room to blow smoke from his gun, find new, fun information, and time to spend with his favorite owl.
What was not to love?
—
The flight to the location was long. Around a few hours. KAY/O piloted while Sova and Cypher sat in silence. Occasionally Sova would stand and check on things with KAY/O.
“Surprised I didn't know of this location. I’ve always found a love of exploring abandoned places,” Cypher spoke up once Sova had gone over the medical inventory for the 5th time.
“You enjoy breaking and entering?” He placed down the gauze and looked at Cypher.
“I’ve been a criminal since I was a child, Sasha. You’ve also done your fair share of not so innocent acts.”
He huffed, leaning against the wall of the aircraft, “Don’t call me that.”
“Hmm?”
“It’s not fair.”
They’ve had this argument far too many times.
“Alright, we landed,” KAY/O's voice boomed, interrupting Cypher's next words.
By the time they arrived the sun was already setting. Cypher smiled under his mask, bowed, and let Sova go in front of him.
With quick instruction from KAY/O regarding when they would be picked up, they exited the aircraft.
“While flying, I saw a hatch on the roof which might be an easy access point in, if this place isn’t really abandoned,” he gave a point toward the direction of the building. It stood on the horizon. Tall, Kingdom logo standing proud.
Cypher gave a quick nod and pulled out one of his wires as he left to walk the path. He crouched down to get his wire in a tricky spot, glancing over to Sova and KAY/O who were talking about what he assumed to be the mission. Cypher chuckled and stood, continuing down, not waiting for Sova. He reached the fence line and moved to set up his camera when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Why do you hate Kingdom so much?”
He whipped around to stare at Sova. Of course a good hunter makes sure their prey can’t stalk them. He brushed Sova’s hand off his shoulder and continued setting up his camera.
“Well, we all know of the horrors behind Kingdom. It’s natural for many of us to dislike them.”
Sova titled his head and walked closer to the fence, “Well yes, however we only know so little. You seemed so determined to destroy them ever since the day I met you. Going out of your way to propose we send people away from more important missions in order for this,” he waved his arm, gesturing to the building.
Cypher looked away from him, finally placing his camera where he wanted it and tapped the bark of the tree, “Do you have wire cutters?”
Sova made a noise, halfway upset and halfway giving up. Cypher moved to set up another trip while he heard the wires of the fence slowly getting cut.
When it was done, Cypher moved to get in front of Sova, ignoring his calls of worry. Instead, taking the time to look through his tablet and find a way on the roof. Sova always hated when Cypher brought out his tablet in the middle of missions. He looked just about to snatch it from his hands. Cypher eventually pointed to the side of the building where the fire escape lies.
“They may mistreat their employees, but they still have to keep up with building regulations.”
They walked silently toward the building, helping each other up onto the fire escape and making their way to the roof. The ladder creaked, rusted over.
Cypher worked his way to the latch taking out his gadgets to unlock it, feeling a hand on his shoulder.
“My owl, you can’t keep touching my shoulder. You’ll ruin the leather,” he teased.
Sova grunted and couched down next to him, “Let’s wait for it to get darker before entering. It's easier to get in and out.”
Cypher looked back at him, staring for a bit, “For someone who dislikes breaking and entering you seem to know a lot about it.”
Sova rolled his eyes and stood up, walking away.
So they waited.
Cypher set up more of his trips and cams, sending in reports to Brim and even calling Fade about his work. Sova messed with his bow and sharpened his knife.
“I wish you would at least tell me your name. That is all I ask,” Sova spoke up .
Cypher didn’t look at him, instead messing with blueprints on his tablet, “I can’t. You have this strange need to follow these unwritten rules of morals you have. I’m similar, I need to follow my personal rules. Rule one, I can’t share anything.”
Sova flinched and looked down at the mention of his morals. He shook his head and walked toward the hatch giving it a small kick, “Open the hatch, we can go now.”
They did that a lot. Never finished a conversation. Someone hit a sore note and now they were done with the conversation and moved on to a different topic or back to the mission. Cypher considered Sova an acquaintance, but via definition they are moreso strangers.
—-
It didn’t take long to get to the room Cypher suspected to have the information. Sova stood watch while Cypher slid into a chair. He connected a small generator to the computer, giving it power as he sketched his fingers and got to work. Cypher really didn’t need a guard because he already had his setup, but he still appreciated the protection. Sova was strong, if not one of the strongest non-radiant agents. He had a good eye. Cypher would know, he built it after all, and perfect aim. Cypher admired how perfect he was.
Sova prepared his bow while Cypher worked away. The clicking of his typing was loud but never annoying. Cypher loved the sound of typing.
“You can’t take too long or else I’ll break my promise with Viper that this would be a short mission.”
“Right, right,” he looked back at Sova for a split second, “You are always a man of your word.”
Sova grunted in disapproval of the teasing.
The files started to get interesting when he finally unlocked them.
RTEP.
It was an acronym that kept popping up. Cypher couldn’t think of what it stood for, but he kept reading through the files. Hundreds of files with names and locations and … numbers.
Ages.
Young ages.
These were files about children.
Cypher went further, finding a file that finally explained the acronym. Radiant Training Exchange Program. Kingdom was training children.
Kingdom was taking children born during the waves of the first light, who were born radiants, and training them for whatever reason. He felt himself click on the name files again. Sorted by last name.
He was shaken from his thoughts by a calm voice, “Cypher we have to leave soon. I hear people,” Sova was a master at not sounding panicked or worried.
“How much time do you estimate we have?” Cypher spoke gently but his voice shook.
“4 minutes before we start to head back up.”
“I’ll try,” he returned to the computer screen. He had one goal. Well, multiple. He needed to download this information. Destroy the generator and the computer. The last goal was to make sure a certain name was not in the files.
He inserted a hard drive to download the contents, then kill the computer once downloaded, and began his search. The download would take 4 minutes. There were so many names filed that he didn’t know how long it would take to find the one.
C's
B's
Finally, A's.
El Amari. Rhea El Amari.
He heard Sova say things to him but he ignored it. This was important.
Rhea El Amari.
Age: 10 years old
Date of birth: ———
Parents: Nora El Amari (deceased), Amir El Amari (missing).
Status: Located in the United States. Alive. Healthy.
Radiant: Unconfirmed. Suspected light related.
The world felt like it stopped. Maybe he was crying underneath the mask, but he couldn’t feel nor notice. Maybe it was a joke. Maybe they knew he would chase after this lead.
But he knew Kingdom wasn’t that smart.
“CYPHER!”
A voice called to him, one normally gentle but when pushed to limits can be upset. It brought him back.
“We have to go now or we have to fight the people making their way up the stairs. KAY/O already landed, we have to go now!” He pleaded with Cypher.
The computer beside glowed its bright light from its monitors. He needed to start a second download just to keep the file about his daughter. It would take another minute.
“Please, Cypher.”
“My daughter might still be alive, let me have a little more time,” his voice shook. Maybe those tears really were real. He readied the second download with shaky hands.
“You have a daughter!?” Sova stepped back. He seemed shocked but shook his head and returned to the door, “2 more minutes and then if you're not ready I’m leaving you.” He sounded confused, unsure.
Cypher nodded.
3
2
1
“File downloaded.”