Edited by: Waning_Crescents
After Sigal let go of him, Asher smoothed his collar. He stared at his impulsive colleague, whose fists were clenched and his eyes still brimmed with anger.
“What I said before,” Asher started to get Sigal’s attention, “I didn’t mean it the way you took it. If you had asked like a normal human being instead of resorting to violence, then I could have explained it.”
“Then explain.”
Asher let out a sigh. The attitude of Sigal caused his head to ache. “All I meant was that his memories hold clues to the case, and that’s a fact. Again!” The last words Asher uttered were spoken with precision, underlining their meaning.
“Even so, he doesn’t know that! What was your intention in bringing that up in front of him?” Sigal gnashed his teeth. “Your whole ‘I keep an open mind now’ bullshit was all for show, wasn’t it? You still think he is behind this all.” His eyes flared up, causing his red eyes to shine ever so brightly. “Even after everything that happened, right?”
Even though this had been the case for a while, Asher indeed succumbed to the idea of keeping an open mind. First, it had been because of Nowe’s request, but after he gave it some thought, he found it reasonable enough. “No, I did mean it.” Asher leaned against the wall and folded his arms. “And after he ran away, I was certain that I had been wrong all along. If he had been a spy, it would make no sense to leave. To be able to keep tabs on us, he needs to be around.”
Sigal let this sink in for a moment. He was glad that Asher finally came around, yet his actions were still worrisome. “Yet you still can’t keep your mouth shut.”
“I know I crossed a line, so shut it!”
“Why did you really help me?” Sigal narrowed his eyes. “What do you see Cal as? A tool that could provide us with a lead if he should remember?” The ‘be careful of what you say’ reflected in his eyes as he fixed Asher with his gaze.
“Nonsense.” Asher refuted quickly. “I am not that shallow. Yes, I am frustrated that we have no leads, and even more so that we are now back at square one, but…” He let out a sad sigh. “I also don’t want to see someone else die at their hands.”
Sigal’s eyebrows twitched. He almost forgot that not only he had suffered at that time, but everyone else had as well. “Good.” This answer relaxed him a bit. He wandered off to one of the two desks that were placed against the opposite wall and leaned against the edge of one of them. “Then start treating him like a colleague.”
“What’s going on between you two anyway?” Asher asked with a hint of suspicion. “Given your history, and even if I consider everything that happened, you are acting unusually weird when it comes to him. Unless…” His lips curved into a slight grin.
“I told you before, it is none of your business!”
Asher choked back a laugh. If he analyzed Sigal’s behavior—avoiding eye contact as well as not giving a clear statement—the answer became pretty clear. I see.
***
When Cal and Nowe entered Section 1’s main office, Kristian sat at his computer in full concentration. Beside him on the desk rested a coffee mug, but there were also small paper cups alongside it, which he had grabbed from the coffee station in the hall.
The IT specialist was so in his element that he didn’t even hear someone enter or draw closer. His tired eyes were plastered to the screen, typing some codes through the keyboard with one hand while he fetched another paper cup with his free one without taking his eyes off the monitor.
“Hey.” Cal and Nowe stopped in front of his desk.
Kristian almost spat out his coffee, lifting his head. With dark circles beneath his eyes, he glanced at them while strands of his red hair fell messily onto his face. “Oh, hi. What brings ya two here?”
Cal picked up the empty paper cups and threw them into the trash can with a sigh. “You should take a break.”
“Heh! I am fine.” Kristian grinned.
Nowe grabbed a chair and turned it around—so the back faced the front—before he sat down, letting his arms rest on the top rail. “Working to find the hacker?”
Kristian nodded. “It’s infuriating. No matter what I try, I can’t find any traces that lead me to the culprit.”
“We heard about the situation.” Cal walked around the desk and glanced at the screen, where thousands of weird symbols and numbers were displayed. “What could you find out till now?”
“Well…” Kristian took the last sip out of the paper cup and hauled it into the trash can. “As you already know, the evidence of Noin Keegan has been erased, but…” He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes in concern. “There is a possibility that whoever did this also dug deeper.”
“What do you mean?” Cal shifted his gaze to him. “Is anything else missing?”
“No, but there is a chance that they copied everything stored in our data or just parts of it. But as long as I can’t trace their movement around the network, this is just speculation. I do hope I am wrong though.”
“If this should prove to be true.” A frown spread across Nowe’s face while he clutched the back of the chair with one hand. “Then we could be in deep trouble.”
“I know.” This had been the reason why Kristian just couldn’t take a break. If the enemy had valuable information about them, then there was no telling how they would use it. He needed to find the source of the breach as soon as possible.
Cal thought this over. If he considered everything he knew so far, along with what he had just found out regarding the usefulness of his memories, he wondered if there could be any connection. “There is something I need to tell you.”
“Hm?” Kristian straightened himself in his seat.
Cal swiped his eyes from Nowe to Kristian. “I remembered something…”
Both of his colleagues stared wide-eyed at him.
“I remembered that Cal is not my real name…and after I talked to Sigal, he told me that I even forged all my background information.” The words got stuck in his throat, and he avoided their gazes as if afraid to see their reactions. “I am sorry…I don’t remember why I did it, but I am honestly sorry.”
Since he had remembered and talked to Sigal, he couldn’t help but feel guilty. Even though Sigal told him to not worry about it because he had a valid reason for what he had done, he was still afraid that the others might not see it the same way.
He bowed in an apologetic manner while he fiddled almost unnoticeably with the fabric of his shirt.
“Don’t be an idiot.” Kristian let out with an unconcerned smile on his lips. “It’s fine. We know ya didn’t intend to do any harm with that, so stop being a human boomerang.” He chuckled. “No one holds that against ya, rest assured.”
“Of course not!” Nowe patted him on the back. “So, stop apologizing. There is no need for that!”
As if a huge weight got lifted off his shoulders, Cal relaxed again, fixing his posture before summarizing the important details of what he had recalled on his little journey.
“I see. So, Rhys is yar real name.” Kristian let his hand wander to his drawer and fished a hair tie out, tying his hair together. “I will give it a shot.”
Everyone had their eyes plastered on the screen as Kristian let his fingers dance over the keyboard in quick motion, but the result left them disappointed.
“Hm. I kind of expected that. Without having a last name it’s hard to trace, and yar name is not that rare either. There is also the chance that ya weren’t born in this city, so I need to broaden the search, which could take some time.” Kristian actually could be certain that Cal had not been born in Colst. According to their understanding, Cal had been on the run for a while, so it wouldn’t make sense if he just hid in the same city, but he decided to hide this information for now and conduct a more thorough search later. “When Alicia is back, we will split the work and search on both ends; maybe we will stumble over something useful in this process.”
“Thank you,” Cal said, but then he noticed Nowe lost in deep thought. “What’s wrong?”
“I was wondering…” Nowe tapped his arm with two fingers. “What should I call you now?”
“Oh.” Cal thought about it for a moment. “To be honest, I don’t feel very familiar with my real name. Even though it felt pleasant when I heard my mother say it, it is also accompanied by an eerie sensation when I think about it. So please continue calling me Cal.”
“Alright!”
“Kristian.” Cal turned his attention back to him with a serious expression. “Can you please show me what I wrote on my sheet when I joined? I want to see.”
“Why?”
“Maybe it will give me some clues.”
Kristian had a bad feeling about this. It appeared as if, now that Cal finally started to remember events from the past, he had been eager to find out more—maybe even wanting to try to force his memories to the surface. “Are ya sure?”
“Yes. Please.” Cal insisted.
Kristian hesitated for a while, but then accepted his proposal and opened his file.
At first, Cal’s eyes swayed over his name, which he already concluded to be fake, then he moved down to his family situation:
Relationship status: Single
For a short while, he put his focus on this one line. I guess I am not anymore? Neither of them said the actual words, so Cal wondered if they really could be considered to be in a relationship.
He pushed that thought aside and read the following entry:
Mother: Lianne Vaughn
Status: deceased.
Father: Alex Vaughn
Status: deceased.
Cal drew back a little from the screen and brought his thumb and index finger to his chin. “There should be another person there.”
“Yar father’s girlfriend or second wife? If that’s what she was.” Kristian asked.
“Yeah.” Cal put all his concentration on this matter, trying to jog his memory into remembering some more details. “I have a faint feeling my mother’s name might not be wrong…or at least similar to her real name, but it’s just a feeling.”
“Alright.” Kristian opened his notebook and wrote that information down. “Anything else?”
“I am also not sure if my father really died. My mother did as far as I know now.” The fact that he couldn’t even remember his mother’s face filled his heart with regret, and he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.
“You okay?” Nowe asked.
“Yeah.” Cal smiled at him, but then turned back to Kristian, “Did I provide any death certificates?”
“Ya actually did.”
“Show me, please.”
With a few clicks, the death certificates of both his parents were displayed on the screen. At first glance, it looked like a legit document with all the necessary data along with a medical certificate that stated that the cause of death had been an accident but nothing specific.
Cal narrowed his eyes, reading carefully through it. “Are there any pictures as well?”
“Yes.” Kristian closed the certificates and opened a new file, showing him the IDs of his parents that he had provided. Cal scrutinized the pictures of his mother first, but nothing seemed familiar at all; even the shape of her face deviated from what he saw in his memory. It was clearly some random woman, but not his mother. Then his gaze fell upon his father’s picture. He had light brown hair and a round face; he looked rather handsome.
No…that’s not him. Of course, it is not. He dug up the image of his father in his memory once more. He must have been a little younger than the man in the picture, and his hair was of a different color, a light blond, no, almost white like his. His eyes were cold and domineering—a hue of dark brown or almost black shone through.
The deeper he dug, the more he needed to concentrate to keep his breathing in check. The image of his father made him feel very uncomfortable.
I need to know! Cal closed his eyes and pushed for more. Why does he frighten me so much…what…?
As soon as he reopened his eyes, his surroundings changed once again. Everything around him vanished, leaving him in a darkened space. He turned from one side to the other, scoping his surroundings, but there was nothing but pitch-black darkness as far as the eye could reach. A mix of a chilling coldness and an unbearable heat crawled up his skin as if two temperatures collided with each other, not being able to decide what time of the year it was. Where is this?
