The Dead Fathers

Adam's head was pounding, hard along his heart, as it usually did whenever the BE influence waned. But it can also be contributed to his excessive crying. As much as he tried, he was unable to stop the tears that keep on running down. Funnily, as he searched inside his feelings, he felt angrier rather than sad.

He and Y-0 walked following the ever-talkative George. He didn't catch what he said at all. He only focused on the sound of their steps, his own irregular breathing, and the fact that he was on his way to meet his former lover. That was another can of worms. He preferred not to be focused on it now.

The lab door hissed open, followed by the sound of a double beep. Inside, they found Hagar and Y-14, leaned themselves on the lab table. Hagar looked at him straight in the eye, although he convinced that his visor was darkened. Funny feelings raised from inside his belly, and he imagined that his heart stopped for a while, but he was sure he was being dramatic. Y-14 squeezed her shoulder. What did it mean?

"Hagar, Officer Adam here demanded that he is to be partnered with you with the case," George said. He turned around to look at Adam with a weird smile before then turned back to face Hagar and Y-14. "I'm sorry Hagar, I'm telling you, not asking for your permission. You have to oblige."

Hagar shrugged.

Adam fumbled around, trying to find the button to open his helmet. He pressed it, and as its parts separated in one jolted movement, cool air blew to several parts of his face. It got stuck somewhere, so it was difficult to finally get it off his head. The silence around the room told him that all eyes were on him. He focused his gaze on nothing on the floor, to avoid Hagar's stare if she was staring. Then he looked up, and looked at Y-14, "hey."

"Hello, Adam. Welcome aboard," Y-14 answered.

"Good!" George exclaimed, "I guess you already know each other really well, right? Heheh…" George looked back at him with a patronizing look, "Two teams are better than one. I need you guys to solve this quickly. Now, if you'll excuse me, I should go to a security meeting which was caused by my underlings' incompetence."

After George left them, Adam started, "okay. Hagar, Y-14, sorry. But this case… I'm sure you… how can I…"

"We knew," she answered.

Adam looked at Hagar. There was a surge of the melancholy inside of him, that he missed her. He never learned how to handle the feelings of the distance created with a person who was once very close to him. It was usually he who was ending relationships, not the other party. He couldn't understand how he should act in a situation when the opposite happened. He saw Hagar clenched her fists on her sides of the body. He then tried to speak, "I… I…" Adam stuttered, "I hope George…"

"He doesn't know yet," she answered coldly. 'Why had she become like this? Did I do something wrong?' He couldn't remember what it was that made her broke their relationship. He remembers she cried, she cried a lot, and she screamed words that he couldn't understand. He never understood what was her problem exactly, and her screaming and crying made the effort even harder.

"Good. Thank you. Thank you, Hagar," Adam sat on one of the lab's stool. He leaned on the desk and closed his eyes. He suddenly felt so beaten. He breathed in and then, "We can't disclose that to George just yet. I mean… this is practically my father…"

The flow of anger appeared once more, and his unstoppable cry began to pour. He didn't want to appear weak in front of everybody, especially Hagar. She might think that he was desperate for her forgiveness. He couldn't afford that she thought about him in that way. But the tears were of anger. He was sure of it. Whatever they thought, he knew that he was crying because of anger, not sadness. Not loss of love.

"You're afraid you'll be dismissed from the case if you have a close relationship with the victim," she finally said, "I understand. You wanted to catch his killer." Adam was somewhat relieved that she didn't think that this is something else. He suddenly felt stupid. 'Why should she thinks about our doomed relationship in times like this?' he told himself. She then continued, "I don't think revenge would do you any good, Adam. You can still know the development of the case even when you're not assigned to it."

'Wait, what? Revenge?'

"No…" he said, feeling ridiculous, "I don't want to avenge Marco. I just want to know who is behind this."

"For what end?" she asked. 'How and when she became so assertive?'

Adam fumbled for words, and said, "Marco was the second worse thing ever happened to me, after my own father…" he said, "…I have this feeling that this is all connected. Whoever or whatever did this to Marco, must have some connection with what happened to my father…" he felt the anger. It finally real. He was angry. A thought raced through his head. His father's act of familicide was one thing, but a murder of his father figure made him suspect that this was something more about him.

"A feeling," Hagar commented, "very rich coming from you."

Adam opened his eyes and stared at her. The audacity of her to question his judgment. She was stupid, now he remembered. She was stupid of throwing away a good catch like him. He remembered he got tired of her anyway, so when she ended everything, he was rather relieved. Yes. He was relieved.

But he needed to play along for now. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and said, "I'm sorry, Hagar. Please believe me. I need to find them."

"Only if you promised not to be an avenging hero and break all the rules," she said, tried to be as cold as she possibly could. 'So that was all that she cared,' he thought, rather arrogantly.

"I won't," he said, "I promise," there was a pang of fear that for Hagar his promises didn't mean anything anymore.

"Very good," Y-14 said, "thank you Y-0 for telling us not to tell George just yet."

"Sure," Y-0 answered.

"Now, Adam," it continued, "do you have any plans going forward?"

"We should decide what to tell George first," Y-0 answered, "to keep himself on the loop."

"Yeah, no matter how small the loop is," Adam continued.

Hagar moved around the table and contributed, "well, we can start from your investigation of the Gallery. Care to share?"

Y-0 said, "the suitcase that we saw from the footage of the security feed matched with the suitcase found in your crime scene. At least, it was the same model."

"We can hypothesize that the perpetrator was murdered by his own employer," Hagar said, "maybe to cover some tracks?"

Y-14 chimed in, "leaving the same suitcase on the crime scene seemed to emphasize the tracks, not covering it."

Adam pondered, "maybe they didn't realize that we saw the same suitcase from DomArt."

"I doubt it," Hagar said.

"But we can use that a cover for George," Y-0 said, "we can tell him that Y-14 and I needed some time to scan possible origin of the model because we didn't find any prints."

After seconds of silence, Adam said, "good enough. Now Y-0, please create a report of today's progress," Adam gave an air quote over the phrase 'today's progress', "and send them to George in about…" he looked at the clock. 11 pm, "Forty-five minutes from now."

"Right away," Y-0 said.

"Alright," Hagar said, "now. Your plan," she said while looking straight at Adam. He never saw such fire.