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He hides behind a tree, dragging Giann’s unconscious body to him. The entire operation went to shit, and that was putting it lightly. He was sure that if Giann was awake, they’d give away their location simply because they’d be yelling at each other.
This would look… bad. If anyone found out what was about to happen, what led up to it, they’d surely look at Neil Hume as the villain of the story. No matter his intentions, no matter what was being done behind the scenes. Even worse, most of his work was half-baked. Ends of rope he was in the process of tying before Giann the Savior descended upon him and got himself captured. Granted, he thought they would’ve had a bit more common sense and got that he was telling them he was going undercover and not asking , but that’s neither here nor there now.
There has to be something he can do to throw them off. Mentally, he goes through the various backup plans he has and picks one. They won’t take Neil back, he’d be labeled as a traitor and be killed on the spot. He can’t go back to the NXX, that’d make Giann a bigger target than he is now and he would be labeled a traitor there too. Worse, what would his son protege think? Artem looks at the facts and with everything pointing at him being the bad guy…
He didn’t know if he’d be able to take Artem turning his back on him.
He doesn't even know if Giann trusts him. ( He will , he thinks as he takes off the soiled blazer the CEO was wearing. He’s saving his life .)
“Giann, if you want a say in this, you should wake up now ,” he grits out, shaking his companion’s shoulder. He doesn’t stir.
Pulling a knife from his side, he slashes his forearm, letting blood seep through the fabric. Giann will probably hate him, but he rips out a chunk of hair from his scalp and wraps the pieces inside the blazer.
If he was planning their deaths, he might as well leave a trace for them to find.
Neil chances going out of his hiding place. No one should suspect anything yet, and given how Giann was still unconscious, no one was going to stop him from going back undercover for three minutes. He knows it’s a matter of time before they see the cameras. He was the one to bust Giann out (after knocking him out because just to see the guy he had to antagonize the fuck out of him). He just has to put the ball of cloth back somewhere and rush back outside, pressing on the detonator and adding more stains to his name.
Walking through the halls for a final time felt… liberating. It felt daunting. This is where Neil Hume died. He died as a traitor. He only hopes that people will see he betrayed both sides instead of focusing on one side. As he heads into his office he can't help but wonder how the world will react to the eldest von Hagen being killed in the crossfire.
“DAVIS,” He says to the room as soon as he closes the door, “Initiate Phoenix protocol, append Giann von Hagen.”
“ Initializing Phoenix Protocol. Erasing all known elements. Prioritizing Case NXX-296 in X-NOTE Database. Appending mention of Case NXX-311. Explosives under facility are primed and prepped. Requesting voice recognition and code word to continue. ”
Neil nods to himself. “Blue.” Like the gemstones in Artem’s cufflinks. Of the tie clip he’d given him.
He tosses the balled-up blazer on the couch. Just as he’s about to leave, he stops. Giann’s blazer holds the von Hagen crest. Each von Hagen has one. Giann mentioned his brother wore his as a necklace, Giann wore his as a brooch. This place was going up in flames, he’d made sure to stock up on the very illegal explosives these guys were manufacturing. The metal might survive the blast and the blazer would ensure that at least some DNA was left over. He pulls on the chain on his neck, tossing it onto the blazer.
“ Hey! What brings you around here, my boy? ”
“ This is for you. The center gem is a sapphire. So we could match. ”
“ Artem, you shouldn’t have! Do you know why I chose sapphire for your tie clip? ”
“ No. Why? ”
“ It’s a gem that represents finding your true path. ”
It was Artem’s gift from his first paycheck as an attorney. A chain with a small sapphire as its centerpiece. One of his prized possessions, one he has to get rid of to make this whole death thing stick. It’d hurt, but it was what was necessary.
He leaves his office, locking the door on his way out. It doesn’t take long for his betrayal to spread. Someone must've noticed the empty cell of their singular prisoner and gone to the cameras to check what happened. He could play it off, claiming he got ‘rid’ of him. (He’d always known that after this mission, he’d never return to the courts. He’s gone too far, past the point of no return. The Phoenix Protocol proved this.) They’d believe him, maybe, but he would have to prove that he got rid of Giann. He had no gun, no blood stains on his person.
But it wouldn’t work. One of the higher-ups has always had it out for him. They knew of his stunts as an undercover agent, weary of placing their trust in him.
“There! Stop him!”
Neil runs.
“Coming to you live from Channel Five news, I’m Amanda Wilson reporting from the SPD Station. With me is Captain Darius Morgan who is in charge of investigating the explosion up in Cloudbreak Mountain. Captain, what do you have for us?”
The reporter points their microphone to him, giving him a small nod of encouragement. Captain Morgan clears his throat.
“Currently, the Stellis Police Department is working closely with the NSB to understand what caused the explosions that lead to a portion of the mountain being blown.”
“Is there anything you could tell us about your findings? What leads do you have?” The reporter asks him.
“What we know so far is that the explosion brought attention to a facility that was well embedded into the interior of the mountain. It seems that those closest to the blast zone were incinerated by the heat of the blast, while those in the outskirts were more likely to have been buried under rubble both from the explosion and from the mountain itself. Rescue workers are at the scene to get those trapped under back to safety.”
The reporter nods, “Can you provide us with any details about the facility found in the mountain? Are there any casualties?”
Captain Morgan shakes his head, “What I have stated is the most I can give at the current moment. We have no estimates of the casualties yet, as those close to the explosion should have been incinerated.”
“Thank you, Captain Morgan.”
He’s on a moving vehicle with a massive headache. He doesn’t open his eyes, dreading how his head will pound as soon as he takes in the light.
The last thing he remembers was being trapped in a cell. The way Neil looked at him with disdain. Neil berating him for his childish endeavors, for thinking that he needed to be saved. The pressurized needle on his neck.
“ ...This is SILK-FM, Stellis’ hub for news, music, and so much more. My name is Kevin, and welcome to news hour. I’m here with my co-host Sarah Lee. Sarah, what do you have for us today? ”
“ Just an update on what authorities are calling the catastrophe of the decade, Kev. SPD has done some incredible work in identifying the unfortunate victims of this massive explosion in just under 24 hours. Two notable names in that list are CEO Giann von Hagen and renowned law professor Neil Hume of Stellis University. ”
Giann flinches at the sound of his name coming from the car radio. Dead? He’s not dead. He’s right here, in the back of a vehicle, breathing and listening.
The radio shuts off with a click and he feels something impact his chest. He lets out a wheeze, opening his eyes to see that what hit him was a water bottle.
“Heya sleeping beauty,” A voice from the front of the car says, “Saw you flinch so I know you’re awake. There are painkillers and chips in the back pocket.” He knows that voice.
“Neil?”
“Yup! Sorry about all that hurtful nonsense I said earlier. Didn’t mean it.”
His head is spinning (because of the residual drugs in his body? Because Neil was alive? Because he was motion sick? Who knows.).
“What the fuck?” He not-so-eloquently asks, looking at Neil from the rearview mirror. “Where are we? What happened?”
“Do you want the short version or the long version?”
“Short version,” he says, blindly reaching for the pocket with the painkillers. “But I would really like to know why the world thinks we’re dead.”
He hears Neil sigh, “Not my brightest idea, but it was the one that would buy us the most time. The whole thing basically boils down to this whole NXX thing being a government conspiracy and blowing up their base of operations will slow them down significantly, but not end them. Bonus points that it gets us off their radar. I would’ve liked removing the whole team entirely, but… we were the more, quote, ‘Dangerous Ones’.”
“What?” He asks, groaning, “I thought we were dealing with corporate research and greed? Also, how were we the dangerous ones? What about Vyn?”
“Vyn’s in their sights too, which I was trying to fix before you decided to become a martyr.”
“Well sorry for being worried that my teammate disappeared,” he grumbled, popping the painkillers into his mouth followed by a swig from the water bottle.
“As much as that melts my heart, you know that I do this shit often. Anyway, you hungry? You’ve been out for a solid day, which could be my fault since I wasn’t exactly sure how much of the serum that pen gave.”
“Why in the absolute fuck did you feel the need to knock me out like that?!” He shouts, sitting up. He regrets it instantly, his head pounding like there was no tomorrow.
Neil… looks different. Back at the cell, Neil still had his purple-ish gray hair in a low ponytail. He wore his gold-framed glasses and his signature stubble. The only thing different about him then was that he was wearing a black suit. He knew Neil didn’t like to stay in a crisp, perfectly put-together suit. He liked to be what he called ‘tastefully disheveled’. That’s why it was so jarring to see him in his cell all dressed up and ready to tear him a new one.
Now he looked like a completely different person.
Short, black hair that still looked messy, but he assumed it was because Neil gave himself a haircut. He was clean-shaven and without his glasses, making him look a couple of years younger. His eyes held that same infuriating spark of determination he’d come to know, but somewhere deeper was sorrow and regret. Dark circles accentuated his eyes, and he was sure the only reason he was driving was because he had contacts on.
“If you touched my hair in any way, you’re dead.”
Neil laughs, “Of course I wouldn’t touch your hair! I do, however, have bleach and a couple of hair dyes for you to choose from in a while. Glad to know what you’re more worried about.”
“No, you’re not off the hook yet,” he says, flopping back down onto the back seats, “I want the long version now.”
“Alright,” his companion sighs, “We have time before the next rest stop anyway.”
“Do you remember the work I did at Stellis Orphanage? Usually, no one checks up on the kids after the adoption. Something about letting them have their happily ever after. I decided to check up on one, on a whim, and I found their parents had died in a car accident and that the kid was MIA, presumed dead. Once was a coincidence, twice is a pattern, three times is cause for alarm.”
“I looked into it, found a child trafficking ring posing as a sister orphanage to the one I work at, but there was something off about the whole thing. The orphanage was too taken care of. The kids never left with any real parents, and I kept seeing the same two people show up. So, naturally, I went in.”
“Giann,” Neil says, tone shifting into something that chilled him to the bone, “They’re experimenting on children. ”
Artem was in his office when Celestine rushed in, slamming the door closed behind her. Celestine had never rushed into his office like that, much less looking like she had cried up a storm. Her eyes were bloodshot and her mascara was dripping. She looked seconds away from collapsing, her entire body shaking. He stood up from his desk, making his way towards her.
She threw herself at him, grabbing onto his suit. She wasn’t crying anymore, likely having out-cried herself earlier.
“Art,” she croaked, her throat scratchy and her nose stuffy, “Artem. Your mom called.”
He frowned, confused. Had she and his mother gotten into some sort of fight? He put his arms around her, patting her back. She needed comfort, and he was willing to give it to her.
“What happened?”
She gripped his suit tighter. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“I-It’s Neil. She got a call from Captain Morgan before the news broke on national tv. They found him at the Cloudbreak Mountain Slide. They found enough evidence and DNA to declare Neil dead.”
Artem’s heart sank, feeling as if it would fall out of his body at any given moment. His mentor was… dead? She had to be lying. This was just an elaborate con that she and his mother conjured up. But…
He knew she was telling the truth. Deep down. Neil was as much a mentor to her as he was to him. His mother was Neil’s primary emergency contact just as she was his. Even then, he couldn’t believe it. His mentor was at Cloudbreak and he hadn’t looked there. How many times had he been up on the mountain? Has anything he had done in the past years been worth it? His failure had caused his mentor to turn up dead .
His entire body shook. With fear, rage, sorrow, he didn’t know. He just held on to his friend and cried.
“Alright,” Giann says, gingerly touching his freshly cut and dried hair. “Let me get this straight. The National Security Bureau is using companies by proxy for Flora X testing, their primary target is children, all for a superior breed of super soldiers?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
Neil looks over to him, now in the passenger seat. His hair went from purple to brown, his eyebrows now donning a slit, and his eyes using color-changing contacts. It was the best that they could do on the run and in a gas station bathroom.
“So now what? We’re essentially dead, you’re a traitor to both sides even though you explained what you were doing, and even if we’re dead we’re enemies of the goddamn state. Where are we going?”
“My grandfather had a cabin on the outskirts of the state. I changed the title to Kim’s name, it shouldn’t be linked to me anymore and she shouldn’t go snooping back in here. There’s a stash of money there that we can use and…”
Giann raises his eyebrow at him, “And?”
“And,” He sighs, “I figured out Davis was sentient a while back, so money won’t be a problem.”
He blinked. One, two, three… “ WHAT DO YOU MEAN DAVIS IS SENTIENT!? ”
He was in the conference room when the news broke. Surrounded by the predatory gazes of the board of directors and their masks of fake pity. He’s not sure when he was ushered out of the room, only that he was. He could feel the way his phone was vibrating like crazy in his pocket, but he could care less.
His brother was dead .
It wasn’t a nightmare where he could just wake up and remember that things weren’t real. No. This was real . Giann von Hagen was burnt to a crisp, never to return to the CEO seat he was just keeping warm. He knew that his father would come and return to his CEO seat if he asked, but Giann and he had promised that they would do everything in their power to keep their father in retirement. Not because they were greedy, but because their father deserved it.
God, how was his father taking this? He was halfway across the globe searching for a son that was dead.
“Sir,” Vincent says, pulling him out of his thoughts, “Is there anything you need?”
Oh. Vincent must’ve ushered him out and into the room.
“No,” he exhales shakily. Aside from teleporting his dad to his side, he doesn't think Vincent can do anything for him. He’s not even sure if he wants anyone. He doesn’t know how to feel grief. He doesn’t know how to work through it. Giann would know, he’d grieved his mother when they were younger. His father would know.
“Make—” His voice cracks. He clears his throat, willing the lump lodging it down, “Make sure my meetings are canceled for… I don’t know, a month? B-But let all the paperwork and all the stuff I can do on my own through.”
“I don’t think—”
“It doesn’t matter what you think,” he growls, not looking at his assistant. He knows it’s an asshole move right now, but he can’t find it in himself to care. “ I have to keep going. Giann… Giann’s not coming back, we can drop the act and get to work .”
He doesn’t see the look of worry his assistant sends him. All he can do is stare at the files in front of him, not at all processing the words on the papers.
“As you wish, Mr. von Hagen.”
The door clicked shut. Only then he allowed himself to cry out. The world lost CEO Giann von Hagen. He lost his brother. All of the work he put in, all of the hope he had for his brother to come back and claim his rightful place on the throne, all for naught. He let himself fall to his knees, letting out a gut-wrenching sob.
After all, if a tree falls and no one is there to hear it, did it really make a sound?
“Where’d you get the car anyway?” Giann asks him as they get out of the car. The cabin in the middle of the woods was nice, they off-roaded for about an hour before coming up to it.
“When your entire base of operations is being buried under a metric fuckton of mountain, no one is going to worry about a missing car.”
“You stole the car?”
“I stole the car.”
He huffed at his companion, “Well, at least they won’t be able to find us here.”
“Probably not,” Neil says, closing and locking the car, “But we should stay cautious. I’ll go into town later to pick up some stuff, but there’s enough land here for us to live off it.”
“What, so we’re just going to live our cottage core lives until the end of time?”
“For the meantime, yes, if it keeps us from dying.”
The cabin itself wasn’t so big. A nice log structure that didn’t seem out of place among the trees surrounding it. It was musty, but after being left alone for god knows how long, it makes sense. The inside of the cabin seems almost like a time capsule. Its interior was decorated rustically, furniture seemingly carved from the same wood the house was built from.
It had your typical log cabin amenities: a kitchen, a fireplace, and a decent enough living space. Good enough to spend months… years in.
Giann sneezed as he made his way inside. He’d have to find a way to fix this place up.
The teacup in his hand kept shaking, regardless of the number of times he’d set it down and willed himself to stop shaking. Normally he’d be able to assess his own emotions and speak to his recorder.
Normally.
Having two friends die on you wasn’t normal.
When he first evaluated Neil, even before joining the NXX, he knew that he would end up dead. Neil was a protector, the first line of defense. He had a big heart and wanted to shield his loved ones from danger. At some point in their interactions, he had become one of Neil’s loved ones. So had Giann.
The first line of defense always gets hurt. In the worst-case scenario the first line of defense is breached, never to be re-established. Neil had so much of a bleeding heart, he knew that he would be willing to die for any of his causes. When he gave Neil his analysis, he was trying to help him. Against his better judgment, he had gotten attached to Neil. His evaluation was supposed to save him.
Giann was a whole different can of worms.
If Neil was the first line of defense, Giann was the hope that they carried. The camaraderie the soldiers had, making them work like a well-oiled machine. Giann had endless optimism for the world, believing that it could do better. It’s why he was so interested in working closely with the biomedical branch of his company. How he was the one to find out that other people were beginning to investigate Flora X. Giann was the one to pull the thread, he just couldn’t believe that thread pulled at the end of his life.
They were both at the mountain disaster together. Where he should've been. He was the tactician of the group. He should’ve been able to foresee Neil’s rebellious nature. His defiance against sitting on the bench. He should’ve been able to see that Giann’s optimism would’ve blinded him from traps set.
He threw the teacup to the wall, watching it shatter, tea dripping down the wall and onto puddles on the floor. He had failed. Both as a psychiatrist and as a friend. Why was he so weak-minded!? He took off his glasses, roughly wiping his eyes.
Vyn Richter would not fail again. He would not let his new teammates suffer the same fate as their predecessors. He wouldn’t, couldn’t , allow for it. No one would die because of his failed plans. He would make sure of it.
Neil remembered coming to the cabin with his parents when he was younger. His grandfather absolutely hated the ‘new fandangled technology’ and kept as little of it as possible. Growing older, when his assignments drove him to the internet, his grandfather relented and installed a way to get internet that far out in the woods.
It wasn’t wholly reliable and it would cut constantly , but it was there. He had to thank his grandfather’s paranoia to get the most security possible on his signals, making them extremely hard to track. (Now that he thought about it, was his grandpa also hiding from something?).
He hooked up a small, puck-like device into the wall, connecting it to a rouge ethernet cable. It took about three minutes for the puck to start glowing green, and another couple of minutes before Davis projected himself onto the puck.
“Davis, report.”
The little AI nodded. “NSB forces have mobilized to rescue and recover assets from the facility. There are an estimated 200 deaths and 529 injured from both the explosion and the subsequent demolition of the mountain.”
Those numbers didn’t surprise him. If anything, he was sure that the number would only grow over time.
“And… The team?”
“Of the current members, only four are in active distress. Agent Luke Pearce has been recalled for the time being.”
He frowned. Davis had been updating him on the members, but he wasn’t too convinced on the NSB agent. He knew that some of their operations and missions were just coverups, but placing him there felt like a way for the NSB to keep tabs on them. The agent looked like a good kid, but he wasn’t sure if he knew about his boss's plans.
“Keep a close eye on Luke. Let me know about his reports.”
“You got it, Neil!”
Save for the whirring of the roomba and the humming of the servers, the office was completely silent. He doubted anyone would come by, especially after losing two members. He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Artem or Marius. From what Lyra told him, Artem had rushed out of the office with Celestine in tow to his mother’s house. She’d tagged along. After all, Hume was also her professor.
Marius had yet to make any statement on behalf of PAX. His father was seen arriving at Stellis Airport hours after the news broke, presumably to be with his remaining son. He also refused to do any interviews, stubbornly staying silent and keeping his sunglasses on.
He wasn’t sure where Vyn was.
It didn’t matter, though. The NSB wanted answers, and he was going to give answers to them. He pulled out a USB stick, shoving it into one of the ports the server had. Foul play was suspected at the scene. There was no way for any explosives to have detonated as they did without serious hacking and planning. Their intelligence suggests that this was planned a full year in advance.
His teammates, some of which he helped train, were always at the detonator’s mercy. He would find that son of a bitch if it was the last thing he ever did. It was his mission, his duty. Who was he to deny orders?