There they were, before him, the one who had been ruling over both of them for years. Ethan and Marcus gulped, a sense of dread creeping up their spines. Here they had thought their names were clear. Captain Karisa had done her job.
But maybe, just maybe, there had been an error, and they were already caught.
Step!
Step!
The chief kept walking left and right, left and right, slowly but intensely. Marcus wanted to calm down, to think positive, but that stare, those steps, and that aura of a high-ranking presence made it impossible. The sweat on his forehead was inevitable.
"You both..." Chief Barry finally spoke.
"Yes, sir?!" both of them answered.
"What were your names again?"
"Ray, sir!" Ethan replied.
"Charlie, sir!" Marcus replied.
The chief smiled, looking at their names on their badges. "Hmm, it looks like it’s the other way around."
Marcus looked at his chest and bit his lip. It read Ray. Ethan’s read Charlie.
"What happened? Did you both lose your nerve so badly that you forgot your own names?"
"Ye...yes, sir!"
"No...no, sir!"
"You both, I knew you were somewhat young and idiotic, but I didn’t know you were naive on top of that." The chief commented.
"What do you mean, sir?"
The chief turned to Marcus. "You."
"Me?"
"Yes, you. You think you can just walk away? Just like that?"
"Walk away?"
"Yes. You’ve already seen too much, so there’s no backing away now. Either you keep moving forward to the inevitable end, or you die now."
Marcus and Ethan looked at each other, a thought rising between them. "Chief, do you mean...?"
"Are you both still numb in the mind? You would have already lost your lives if it weren’t for me..."
Then it clicked. Everything.
The realization was visible in both their eyes.
"It was... you?" Ethan asked.
The chief nodded.
"But... how is that possible?" Marcus asked. "Then that order... wasn’t yours?"
The chief gave a small smile, pressing a button on the wide keyboard nearby. The whole screen lit up, showing everything, who had signed the order letter, who had passed it on. Everything.
"It wasn’t me who was trying to get rid of Ethan. It was the whole system itself."
Ethan stepped forward, following the many links connected to his death warrant. He read it, everything. He had thought the kill order for him was some simple matter. But no. There was something more. The order hadn’t come from simple military higher-ups. It was beyond just a centurion.
It came from those who led the army from the shadows, those who controlled the military might that could wipe out a whole kingdom.
Those were the people after him. But the biggest question was why. Did they know he had the blood of Zeus himself? Did they know about the 100x system?
"I know what you’re thinking..." the chief said. "Why target a simple young fella like you? That’s the question I asked myself at first. But watching you this whole time, surviving Marcus, then my leviathan crew, and finally this..." he said, clicking another button.
A whole new chart appeared, a chart of profit and loss, showing the budget clearly.
Marcus smiled a bit seeing it, because what he saw, what they all saw, was the entire budget in the negative.
[ – $234,673,731]
The chief pointed. "That’s how much the empire lost from your stunt there, call it the imperial insurance. Every worker who was present that day is now in the hospital, and it’s reflected in their accounts. Most of the money is being transferred according to their contracts."
Marcus smiled even wider, and so did Ethan, both of them looking at each other, unable to contain the grins on their faces.
"You madman!" Marcus said, his right hand raised high.
"Yeahhh?" Ethan said, raising his hand as well.
Slap!
Their hands collided. "You did it!" Marcus said.
"No, it was us, you and the captain."
"Well, I don’t mind the inclusion. But another question remains..."
"What?"
Marcus turned to the chief. "Why? Why order me to kill him, when you were trying to recruit him all along?"
The chief paused, huffing, then turned to Marcus. "Marcus. At first, it wasn’t Ethan I was after recruiting. I was after you."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"You heard right. Karisa wanted Ethan to join the cause and wanted to cut you loose along the way, but no." He stepped closer. "I saw something more in you, something you’re trying so hard to bury."
Marcus gulped as he gazed at the renowned, merciless chief, seeing him now with a strange light, a glow of hope.
"What do you mean? I’m just a normal man, Chief. Whatever you saw in me is just a lie I pretend to show."
The old chief simply smiled. "Time will tell."
***
The morning light passed through the window, falling right on the giant oval bed. The red drapes fell as she stood up from the bed and went to the mirror, her pale body bearing red marks all over. Her eyes were utterly red and tired, on the verge of tearing up, but she withstood it.
She looked back, watching her big sister, still sleeping. Tiptoeing, she grabbed her uniform and walked out right away. She no longer wanted to stay there. No longer.
Obsession, not love, but pure obsession—that was what her sister carried for her own little sister. It wasn’t always like this.
In her past memories, her sister was bright, playful, strong. They played together, sang together. But at some point, their time together became something else.
Their usual bath time together grew longer and longer. Sometimes she was placed forcefully in the bath, and her sister had her way.
She didn’t know any better while she was just a child; she only thought of it as her sister’s way of love and care, even though some part of her sensed something was wrong.
Only when she was twelve, and her sister had just turned eighteen, did she finally understand, when their mother screamed upon seeing her eldest daughter giving mouth-to-mouth to Karisa, her hands in obviously unholy places.
That was when Karisa finally knew. Their whole family had been turned upside down, and in the end, not a single word of apology came from her sister. Instead, she turned angry.
The always-obedient girl, the heir to their noble house, changed then and there, finally showing her madness. With no choice left, their father registered her for the front lines using his military connections, and that should have been the end of it.
There was peace... for a while. The horror of her sister’s actions against her gradually surfaced. She cried for many days and nights, and gradually the trauma faded as she grew up.
Then the glory of the Hound began to spread, the Hound who handled the rebellion in the north with nothing but death, killing everyone linked to it, like cleaning a bowl without leaving even a smudge of dirt.
The same military connections that had helped their father fight back proved useless. Even though their family had money and power, the sheer strength Olivia possessed was greater, and the empire sided with her.
One day, when her father was on a military post, something happened, an accident, and after that news, Karisa never heard from her father again.
She knew what must have happened, what must have come to pass. So she enlisted in the army quickly, using her mother’s connections, and found a post in a faraway place. Far, far away from her.
Bang!
She punched the mirror, bits of glass scattering everywhere. Some even stuck in her knuckles, only scratching the surface, not enough to draw blood.
"No longer will I be afraid."
***
On the other side, Ethan simply shaved his white beard, looking into the small mirror as he cleaned up his face. He looked at himself—or his new self. Marcus was right; he had changed drastically. He had never seen his jawline so sharp, his once-oval face now something more defined.
Ting!
A notification came through on his wrist mobile, an email from the chief himself. He wanted to open it immediately but didn’t. He didn’t know why. He swiped the notification away for now, still remembering the chain of command the chief had shown him, the ones who had given the order for his death.
He had stayed calm before Marcus, before the chief, not letting the chaos show. But he was shaken. So many powerful people, coming for his throat. Who could have thought a death could be so precious—his death.
All I wanted in life was just to be a part of something big. Something monumental. And from a young lad’s perspective, he had seen that in the military of the Emperium.
It was a place where heroes were born, at least in the headlines. He would listen to the broken radio in awe, hearing about Percy, Hercules the Fifth, Odysseus the Third—so many great people.
I wanted to be like them... he thought.
"But I guess it’s not possible anymore," he muttered, putting on his wrist mobile.
Knock! Knock!
"Hey Ethan, hurry up—Captain Karisa is calling us to the chief’s office," Marcus called from outside.
"I’m coming..."
He looked again at the mirror, taking a long breath in and a long breath out.
I will matter... soon enough, as Father Zeus is my witness.