Epilogue

Deici sheathed his blade and looked with regret at Typhon, blood seeping from the wounds he had inflicted, the expensive carpet marred by scorch marks.  His arm was obviously broken and hung limply at his side, a wave of pain rippling through his body with every step he took.  He pushed the pain to the back of his mind like he had been taught and stepped over the body.  He lifted the phone from its cradle with his working hand, pushing the button for the front desk in one motion.  "I need a thorough clean for the penthouse apartment immediately." 

"Understood," was the crisp reply, no wonder they were the best money could buy.  He went upstairs to his room picking up a small duffel bag with everything he needed, a change of clothes and all of his weapons.  He could buy clothes anywhere, not like he was poor. The 'cleaners' would be up here soon, purging the entire apartment and removing any trace that anyone had been here.  They would strip everything and cleanse every part of the apartment, new furniture and carpeting, even the unused dishes and cutlery would not be spared, they were efficient and effective.  The one thing they would not have to deal with was Typhon, he would take care of him personally. 

Heading back downstairs only one thing bothered him, he could not understand the elaborate and unnecessary game they had played, why had they gone to the trouble of ensuring he and Ayla would meet again, there was no way she just happened to get assigned to this specific apartment after all, whoever got her put here had practically signed her death warrant.  What had she brought to the equation that he was not seeing?  He stopped mid-step as it dawned on him that it may not have been the G.E.D.A. but Zeus acting on his own.  His agile mind added this new information to the data on Zeus and G.E.D.A already stored there and his face hardened, his eyes ablaze with anger and unadulterated hate. 

She had been a distraction from what had happened at the meeting, always on his mind, always under foot.  She should not have been here that night with no one home, yet Typhon had played if off as a mistake, the cleaner he had hired, had known about.  He kept replaying what had happened that night and found nothing out of the ordinary, then another epiphany.  Typhon had cold clocked him, he was only out for a minute at most although he had pretended to be out much longer.  Typhon was no fool, he had to have known his time was short.  They had been to a few meetings together, the G.E.D.A. and clients always pestering him for demonstrations, him always refusing, but this night was different, they had given him a job he couldn't refuse in exchange for his performance. 

"The timing was wrong," he said to himself.  Typhon knew he always reveled for a few days, he knew he wouldn't go to that meeting unless forced.  He had been playing the fool for over two years and it had become like second nature to him letting Typhon reel him back him, while he gathered as much info as he could on hie targets.  Maybe he had played the fool too well that evening.

He went back to his room and activated the beacon.  This was the best place to do it, his room was completely tiled had no recording devise or cameras, of that he was sure.  The beacon was only active for five seconds before she arrived.

"Hello love, what shit have you stepped in now?"

"Nice to see you too Fallis," he said smiling.  "I think I may have a parasite."

She stepped back from him and activated the scanner her red eyes blazing, "You are one dumb cunt, you know that? Lazarus would have both our heads if he knew!"  The scanner beeped and her eyes widened, then hardened.  "This is going to hurt like hell and you're not going to be conscious when I'm done, any last requests."

"The body out there it needs to go back to base, and I need a safe place to crash."  She nodded then activated the decontamination protocol imbedded within his body.  He had been through it only once before and he had been very young and very sedated, the parasite being removed back then was his body's defense mechanism, that was the only way to allow the successful integration of his augmentation, the survival rate had been five percent.  He had always been lucky.  Base was where he called home for years, he trained day and night to become a lethal killing machine, Typhon hadn't stood a chance against him.  He seemed to have developed a soft spot for the watchdog and he had paid for it with a broken arm.  He smiled again at the memory before the pain came sudden and unrelenting.  He passed out and fell into Fallis' waiting arms. 

She cradled his limp body as he convulsed.  He had noticed his broken arm during the scan and injected a dose of nano mites to heal the arm while he was out, she also gave him a protein shot, the mites used a lot of energy. 

She teleported to her place and left him and his bag on the bed.  The sun was setting and the beach was a gorgeous shade of orange, pity she had to miss it. 

She teleported back t his room and scanned the apartment for monitoring devices, she found two, one I the large television in the living room and another in one of the bedrooms.  Luckily the body was in the kitchen but she would not take any chances of being recorded,  she activated the jammer and stepped out of the room.  She leaned over the warm body, wait, warm?

He had been dead for minutes his body should be cool to the touch.  She looked closer and noticed the metal shining under the wound.  She would have finished him off there and then if not for Deici's request, he knew he wasn't dead, this one had won him over.  Always the fool. They would have to wipe his memory, that much she knew from the reports Deici sent, and the last report was like a movie at Gore Fest.  This one must be talented and he already had implants, thy could work with that.  She had just injected him with a sedative when she heard the elevator arrive. 

"That's my cue," she said as she and Typhon disappeared. 

The doors to the elevator opened and the cleaning crew stepped out. 

....

"Get the fucking signal back, I want to know everything that happens in that apartment!" Zeus screamed at his tech team as they flapped around like headless chickens, afraid to incur his wrath.  As  suddenly as it disappeared the signal was back and everyone breath a sigh of relief.  Zeus stared at the screen intently scrutinizing the room.  "Where is he?" he asked gruffly. 

"Where is who sir?" his attendant replied. 

"Typhon! The dead body in the kitchen."  Everyone turned to look at the screen and the feet that had been visible behind the counter were gone.  No one said a word, it was safer to be silent. 

Cleaners walked into the apartment and began the job of erasing evidence.

Zeus stood and left the room his aide had following him.

"Find them both!" he said through gritted teeth.

....

Detective Themis stared at reports on his desk. Three murders, two with correlation and connection with a full investigation already underway, the other could be written off as a separate case, but it still felt connected somehow.

The department didn't even know where to begin or how to explain it to the media. One of the Salmone Towers Attack survivors ends up dead in the forest opposite her estranged sister's house and her best friend is found tortured and dead in a time-share miles away, with supplies, passports and a car ready to go. Kidnapping or ransom seemed plausible at first, maybe even a human-trafficking attempt gone wrong, until he revealed what one of the victims had told him over the phone, even going so far as to tap into his phone's conversation logs to use as evidence. Obviously this was far from simple ransom or kidnapping, they even had reason to believe she had actually made it to the time-share before miraculously appearing miles away, since they found a few of her fingerprints on the floor, very fresh as if she was there just before he got there...

Themis grit his teeth. It was obviously a cover-up, silencing those who had even the slightest clue as to whoever was behind the previous attack... maybe the other murder victim was silenced for the same reason...but it just didn't add up. The victims were all over the place, Ayla had sounded serious but not distressed when she had called, like she was in a rush, Themis could see why now, but it was too small a timeframe, from her calling him and heading to the time-share, to her friend's corpse being found. She had been killed shortly before or after he arrived where she had asked him to meet her, miles away.

Themis closed his eyes. trying to see anyway it would be possible to get all of this done within such a small timeframe, maybe a group? No, someone would have at least been at the place with the friend, there weren't even any extra tire tracks in the driveway...and it would have been easy to spot any other vehicles. Maybe...an actual government cover-up.

Themis racked his head but eventually sighed, he was far from giving up. If the same people who killed thousands had come back and killed someone who knew what happened...he'd figure it out...he would find a lead and he would find these killers.