[8]

Edward stared into the screen, center of the large server. Mr. Harrison had just been escorted out of his daughter's old room; left alone with his thoughts as the grounds were being vacated. The large server hummed low, patiently waiting on someone to activate it. His eyes lingered on the screen, Then it scanned the walls around him. Pink paint, freckled with drawings and pictures. A small bed, loosely scattered dolls still scattered. The floor... Clean and sterile...

His jaw clenched at that.

The maid had cleaned the floor after they left; only the floor. They were trying to teach her self responsibility. It had been just another regret on his long list of things. He had hired a special crew to keep her room clean since that day - to keep it like the day she left. The house hadn't been lived in for a few years since that morning. It wasn't until the VR project had come to fruition, did they come back. Without her.

Cyril had wanted them to, and at her insistence, they had put her source code in her old room. They could "act" like a family again. Though, the "act" had only lasted a few days before neither of them could take it. Since then, Cyril avoided using primitive Hologram technology. Because they had begged her not too. Because they couldn't hold her...

His heartache at his selfishness. At the same time, it burned with rage to think that Jax had betrayed her. They both had wronged her... She was just a child and they had kicked her around because they couldn't handle it... Old age had brought wisdom and empathy. And with both, he hated the world, Jax, Maddin, and most of all, himself. Of the three, only he was left, old and wither. Stuck in this perpetual loop of wrathful self-hatred and reflection.

Then his mind brought forth the deadmen in his office. Vengeance had been swift, sweet, and short. Like his daughter's life.

He smiled as he held his palm up to his eyes. A square black object rested there, a short red lever on its side. It was marked for military use, but Edward had his ways of obtaining illicit goods. In fact, it had been easier to get than spiriting his brother out of prison. Easier than locking him away somewhere and starving him. Well, the easy part was collecting the man. The hard part was not putting him down as the mutt he was before tonight.

Edward looked to the window. A fake window. It was an LED screen hooked to a camera outside. It was to preserve a sort of "natural feel" to the room. Cyril had rebelled against the natural portion and pointed it to the sky. Instead of a view of the old forest that she used to play in, it looked to the sky. The beautiful purples and blues, framed by the void; freckled by distant stars.

It'd been a long time since he'd seen it. It seemed, in retrospect, he had a lot of "long times" tonight. It made him feel small. Insignificant. Once a tyrant of the American underground to most influential business owner - now a tired old man.

He was alone. He was lost.

Rich and powerful, yet because of it, he had lost his wife and daughter. That money had been nothing but grief since that day. Billions of dollars sunk into the medical field. They were regrowing limbs. They could make the blind see and the deaf hear. Autism could be cured to a certain point chemically, and cripples could walk again...

Yet his wife refused to be treated until their daughter woke up. And she never woke up. No matter how many medical breakthroughs they made; they could never wake her. Not without the unbearable wails of agony and pain. They couldn't figure out it until they... No... He had stopped it... He was just as guilty. He couldn't stand it anymore.

He too had given up on her.

Anger.

That was all that festered in him. At himself. His wife. Jax. The world. Everything.

Revenge had been a cold dish in winter, for those who'd wronged Cyril. He had the uncanny ability to singlemindedly march forth, till his objective had been met. These four men had only been the beginning. Mr. Harrison had done no wrongs, and thus, could have that accursed money. It was karma.

All of them had been stealing resources from the medical research he'd commissioned. Maybe that could have contributed to their failure. Hiring incompetent doctors to "save" money. Leaking company secrets for money, which in turn, made it harder to fund research. It had already been difficult to recruit the brightest minds. Most of them refunded to work for him, or even with him.

Pride.

Their pride had cost him his daughter.

Ring-dingdinginding--