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Marius is Fine.
He takes to things uprooting his life like a fish to water, all he has to do is drown.
Giann's death left a power vacuum in the company. He was the piece of flimsy duck tape that held it together until the part they were missing came back. Well, that piece is dead. It was never coming back and the piece of tape holding the company was being ripped apart.
He sticks to what he knows: Giann had enemies, he had fanatics, and the Pax Civil War was effectively over so the tabloids had nothing to talk about. Not that it stopped them. The cracked screen across the room let anyone who came into the room know how he felt about the accusations being hurled at him. Why in the ever-loving fuck would he want his brother dead?! For a war he had no intention of winning? For a war he backed out of, but still won?
Did these people think it was some type of joke? That he wasn't grieving in the same way his father was? Maybe he wasn't, he hadn't lost his mother in the same way he lost his wife, but they both lost a family member. His father wouldn't get up from the bed, not that he blamed him. If he slowed down he wouldn't be able to keep going either. He has to carry his father and brother's legacy, death only quickened its pace.
He's fine, though. He doesn't have any meetings for the next couple of weeks. Well, he shouldn't have any, but the snakes inside of the company wouldn't pity him for long. He's already heard of a couple of plans happening behind his back. Certain investors threatening to pull out if Austin von Hagen does not come back to the company.
His father wants nothing to do with PAX anymore. At the funeral— And god, he can't think about the funeral without wanting to cry. There was no body, no casket. Only an urn with Giann's brooch extruding out.
At the funeral, his father told him that he had no interest in coming back to the company. It was Giann's, a gift he'd given him after years of training. It was too painful, he wouldn't have the willpower to fight the monsters inside the company for the sake of his son's memory.
He was the one who had to pick up the pieces. (Not that he wasn't already. This just made it more real.)
The loss would affect the company, he put in a memo. It has undoubtedly shaken us to the core, but now is not the time to lose hope. We must strive for a better tomorrow, and let our grief and memories push us beyond our limits for the people that could not be here today.
He did not go home that night, locking himself at the office and getting a head start on the paperwork for the day after.
He only took the day for the funeral and went to his classes even if the professors had reached out and told him that they would not mind if he took time to grieve.
Vyn hadn't canceled their tutoring sessions. A silent agreement between both of them.
"We have to talk to the team eventually," He'd said one afternoon. He'd switch his earl gray for coffee that day, eyebags under his eyes more pronounced than he'd ever seen them.
"What, so we can investigate his death like every other case?" He growled. "Whoever captured him in that mountain died with him, there's no point in turning over that pile of rocks."
"DataLab was updated with new information about your brother's death. We owe it to him to try and figure out what happened."
Marius set his worksheet down, looking square at Vyn. "And then what? Investigating further won't bring my brother back ."
"But it will give you both closure," Vyn said, dropping his gaze to the cup of coffee in his hands. "It would give all of us closure. Artem too."
Artem?
Right, his professor died too.
They were both staying out of the spotlight right now, but sooner or later they'd be cornered into giving some type of interview. He wasn't looking forward to that.
"The team has to discuss the next steps. If we plan to investigate this, or even plan to investigate anything else. This was your brother's idea, and with him gone..."
"We've got to pick up the pieces. Yeah, I know."
Marius was fine, but...
He didn't want to pick up any more pieces.
It hurt. He was tired of hurting.
Lyra gently shook him awake. She was a sight for sore eyes.
He wanted to wipe that sad smile off her face, though. It reminded him too much of his dad's sad smile. She didn't deserve to be sad, much less for him.
Wait. When had he fallen asleep?
He sat up slowly. stretching his arms above his head. He froze as he felt her hands on his cheeks, her thumbs caressing under his eyes.
"Can't sleep, huh?" She asks, eyebrows knitting in worry. "Have you tried spraying your room with lavender scents?"
It's not that he can't sleep, it's that he won't. There's so much to do, the company in shambles after their CEO died, his studies, his art, the nightmares.
Too much keeping him awake.
"I'll try that next time," He says instead of deflecting. He knows that if he tries, his missy will call him out on lying. It's the last thing he needs right now, to worry her more.
He leans into her hand, placing both of his over hers. "Thank you for worrying about me."
"I'll always worry about you." She smiles at him, but even if there's still a hint of sadness in her smile, he can see the genuine truth in her eyes. It almost makes him smile back at her.
"Anyway, you fell asleep while waiting for the rest of us to get to the office but we're all here now."
And they were. All gathered on the seats around the coffee table, anxious energy from across the board. Vyn was stirring his tea, black this time, and taking occasional sips from it. Artem was, oddly enough, in a hoodie. He doesn’t think he’d ever seen Artem in anything other than his suit and tie. He’s heard about the mysterious cable knit sweater from Lyra, but other than that he thought Artem’s closet consisted of only suits.
Luke looked the least affected by… all of this. And he was. He didn’t lose someone dear to him. His only stake in this was Lyra, childhood friends separated by time only to be reunited again by a drug reaping havoc in their city.
“So,” Luke says, clapping his hands as if to dispel the weird energy that permeated the room, “Cases. What do we do about them?”
“We keep going.” Artem doesn’t look at them while talking, preferring to look at his interlocked hands. “We tie up loose ends and figure out how it got so bad so that it never happens again.”
Marius scoffs, “What, you really think that this is going to happen again? This isn’t a hydra. Whoever finished the job finished it for good.”
“That’s what we thought about Tyson, and then Crimson. We don’t even know where this was on that chain, we don’t know what got cut off or if they got it at the source.” Lyra says, looking at him. “We need to be thorough in our investigation, even if we’re just wrapping stuff up.”
He can’t say no when she puts it like that, can he?
“Alright,” He sighs, “The doc says there was something in DataLab that was interesting?”
Luke perks up, pulling his tablet out from a bag by his feet. “Yeah! I thought someone hacked into Datalab again and changed the cases, but this just seemed like an… update? Normally I’d just ignore it, but it’s what case was updated that made me suspicious.”
Luke flicks his fingers on the tablet and the hologram lights up. It was a standard case format, a description of the case, and their comments. He hears Artem take a sharp breath. Clearly, he recognizes the case but doesn’t interrupt Luke at all.
“The case NXX-296 was updated minutes before the explosion of Cloudbreak Mountain and a marker was placed in case NXX-311.”
He felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. 311 was Giann’s assigned case number. The one he would stare at for hours at a time when he couldn’t sleep, the numbers engraved in his memory.
“Using that marker, I was able to find an encryption key. With enough digging, I found this.”
The screen changed from the case files to a screen with a picture of Neil sitting on a couch. There was no way to tell where he was, the setting was too generic to pinpoint anything. Marius felt his blood boil. The first thing they hear about and it’s Neil? The guy who probably betrayed the team and most likely had something to do with his disappearance?
“What good is a picture going to do for us?” He says, snark barely concealing the venom in his tone.
“Not a picture,” Luke responds, not at all phased by his question. “It’s a video. ”
Vyn sets his empty tea cup on the table, “What are you waiting for? Play it.”
The video begins with Neil looking at the camera for a couple of seconds without saying anything. The bags under his eyes are extremely pronounced and his hair is extremely messy, contrasting the neat and tidy suit he was wearing.
“Uh, Hi.” He starts out. He looks unsure of what he’s doing, cringing at the sound of his own opening.
“I… If anyone is watching this, my name is Neil Hume. I was a professor at Stellis U some time ago. I sat down to record this in case I… In case I die. I don’t know who’s watching the video or how they’d get it, but if you can get this to Artem WIng or Vyn Richter, I’d really appreciate it.”
He laughs, soft and self-deprecating.
“If they are watching, well… I’m sorry. I never meant to die. I don’t think anyone does, really. But it was a risk I was willing to take. I’m sorry I left you behind,”
He looks away from the camera, down at his hands instead.
“I left the NXX at the start of October 2029 to go undercover at a local orphanage right by the base of Cloudbreak Mountain. I later learned that they were funneling children into an organization and using them as test subjects. I’m still in the middle of investigating who the people are, but I have a feeling I might not make it back alive for this one. If I’m dead, you should be able to start there. DAVIS has been programmed to set a marker in the case of my death. I mean, you probably found it if you’re watching this video. They hold much more data than just this video, so keep looking.”
He sighs.
“I guess you were right, Vyn. Like always. I wasn’t making it out of this one. I should’ve listened to you, but we both know I cared too much about these kids to not give them a fighting chance.”
He takes off his glasses, rubbing at his eyes.
“Art, I’m so, so sorry. Knowing you, you’re probably blaming yourself. Don’t. It was my choice, and if this is how I go out, then it’s not so bad. My only regret is not being with you more. For bailing on you so much when you were already bailed on by your parents. But I’m so proud of the man you’ve become. I guess that means there wasn’t much left to teach you, huh?”
He pulls at the chain around his neck, playing around with it.
“ I’ll figure out who these bastards are, and hopefully no one ever gets to see this. ”
He doesn’t look over at Vyn or Artem. He keeps looking at the face of his brother’s colleague. Of one that was able to get a message out.
“What did the marker say?” He asks.
Luke doesn’t respond immediately, so he turns to look at him. He’s looking at his tablet, brows furrowed as if he didn’t understand. “Self-sacrifice.”
The room falls silent.
“What?”
“Well, I’m still not done running a lot of programs on it, it has a lot of layers and even more failsafes, but that’s the first thing I got.”
“No,” Artem says, using the palms of his hands to brush away the tears, “Neil wouldn’t do that. H-He would’ve tried his best to stay alive. He very clearly did not want to die. Someone else had to have done it.”
He doesn’t know where the anger came from, where he got the energy from since it wasn’t too long ago that he was asleep. He knows that Artem probably meant anyone else, anyone at all. A plea for the change of events past. But… something about it rubbed him the wrong way. Because his brother was in that explosion, the only one who knew Neil. Marius gets off his seat, stalking over to Artem.
“Are you implying my brother , you know, the one that was very much obviously kidnapped by your teacher pulled the trigger that killed a shit ton of people, including himself?”
Artem stands up, meeting him eye to eye. He’s only a few inches taller than him, so the intimidation effect is lost for both of them. He can see the redness of his eyes, bags that he’s sure matched his.
“The marker was on his case, wasn’t it?”
He doesn’t know what possesses him. One second he’s standing in front of Artem, the next they’re on the floor, punching one another. He doesn’t feel the blows to his eyes or face, only relishing in the fact that he’s punching Artem just the same. He feels someone loop their arms around his armpits and pull , taking him off Artem. He doesn’t go quietly, kicking and throwing wanna-be punches at Artem’s figure. He starts to move more as he sees Lyra rush over to Artem, pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing at his bloody nose.
“GIANN WOULD NEVER DO THAT,” He screams, still thrashing, but the person behind him won’t give an inch. He feels his eye start to swell. “GIANN WAS KIDNAPPED AFTER RECEIVING THAT STUPID EMAIL FROM YOUR PROFESSOR.”
“Like he wouldn’t fake his disappearance.” Artem spits out, voice full of poison and disdain. He sits up from his place on the floor, grabbing the handkerchief offered. “He could’ve just deleted the email and that’s why we’re having so much trouble recovering it. He covered up his tracks.”
“ Listen here you piece of— ”
“Enough!” Vyn shouts, obscuring Artem from his line of sight by standing in front of him. “Fighting like this is not going to get us anywhere.”
“We don’t have the full scope of information yet,” Luke says, placing his tablet on the table. “I’ve only gotten through a fraction of the entire thing, and we still have the lead Neil left for us.”
Lyra stands up from her place by Artem, helping him up. “And if we’re going to do this, which we agreed we are , you have to put all of this hostility and accusations to the side.” She turns to look at him and he feels himself wilt at her stern gaze. “Innocent until proven guilty. That means neither Giann nor Neil are off the hook for causing the explosion and we’re treating it as such.”
Luke lets him go and he rolls his shoulders out. “Watson’s right. The last thing we need is for all of us to be fighting, especially if we’re closer than ever to finding out the source of all of this.”
“I get it, I get it.” He says, rolling his eyes (or, eye? He can’t really open one of them.)
“We should let everything settle, a month or so should be ideal. I also recommend grief counseling. For all of us, no matter if we had ties to both of them or not.” Vyn says, making his way over to Marius and looking at him from one angle and then another. “You might have a black eye, but I don’t think there was any major damage.”
“Yeah, because Artem can’t throw a punch.” He gently prods his eye, hissing with pain.
Luke sighs, walking over to the mini-fridge. “I have some ice packs in here. Are there any rags around here?”
As the three of them start to move about the office looking for first aid materials, he sits down on the couch, tilting his head back. After a few seconds, he feels the couch dip beside him. He doesn’t have to turn his head to know that it’s Artem who sat down next to him, the hiss of pain is all that he needs to hear.
“I’ll prove you wrong.”
“Hm?”
“I’ll prove you wrong,” Artem repeats. “I know you think Neil kidnapped your brother, but he didn’t. I’ll prove it to you.”
He sighs. All of the anger and energy drains out of him. “For your sake and mine, I hope you’re right.”
Maybe Vyn and everyone else were right. Maybe he wasn’t okay. Or maybe he just needed to punch it out, who knows?
What he knows is this: Giann is gone, life is going to have to move on without him, and even if he fucks up, he has the NXX to fall back on. They were going to get to the bottom of this.