Chapter 26

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'That went rather well, didn't it father?', Raphael said as he stepped down the steps behind the stage they came down from. Edward stayed quiet and nodded as he walked towards their bodyguard, who waited near a black limousine and held the door open for them. The limousine had been isolated from the crowd that was firmly waiting to get a few more questions answered. Lucky for them, their windows would not open and they'd be left alone. They stepped inside the limousine and felt the engine start. After a few minutes of riding in complete silence, Raphael opened his mouth. 'Do you think they saw it?', he asked Edward. Edward nodded. 'Yes, there's little chance they missed it. It's a pity you needed my help though,' he said.

Raphael frowned his eyebrows. 'What do you mean? I had no one else to turn to!'

'That's exactly what I mean. Ever since I trusted you with independence, you messed things up and you were careless. Ever since that day, you were building your own lonely downfall,' Edward answered. 'Pathetic.'

Raphael kept quiet. He knew very well that asking his father for help was the only thing he could've done but he also faced the fact how disappointed his father would end up being. Instead of pushing through, he decided to switch the subject.

'What is our plan for now?', he asked with hesitation rising in his voice and body.

Being with his father after all these years was nerve wrecking. Especially if his father was the one who could erase all his work with the streak of his hand and make it look like he did it himself. His father was the only one in the world who could erase everything Raphael cared about behind his back. His father was the only one who can kill Raphael and make it look like an accident. He didn't expect a true answer. Ever since his father and he started Project X, he'd distanced himself from the world and never contacted Raphael and asked him how his research was going. Raphael grew his own distance to the world as well. When he created Scarlett, his first instinct was to call his father but didn't because he cherished Scarlett. Edward would take her away, show her to the world and use her for his own good. When he first looked into her eyes, those big green eyes, his heart was melted. The rapid and chaotic world around him seem to stop as Scarlett didn't make a sound in his arms. Her skin was soft and in his eyes she was perfect. He loved her and, if he just wouldn't make that call to his father, one day she might love him back. He didn't want to give that up.

And the time he saved that boy, Richard. At first, he didn't care too much about him but in the weeks he was his hostage, they had meaningful conversations at times. He found that Richard was enormously intelligent, knew good strategy and was good with computers. He concluded that he could never be happy if he stayed under care of his own family, so he roughly created a plan to keep him around. But now he was gone too and Raphael was left without a pot to piss in. That's why his father was mad at him. For making the wrong decisions for the greater good.

'Our plan is to find back those experiments of yours and disactivate their free will control. After that we'll erase any memory that might make them rebel and send them to one of the facilities, preferably each a different facility,' he said. Raphael swallowed and tried to hide his anger. He never wanted to send either of them away. 'They have names,' Raphael snapped. Edward didn't look at him and instead stared into the world outside the speeding limousine. 'That's pathetic,' he hissed with an accusatory tone to his voice. 'They're just Agent 1 and Agent 2. Giving them names was a stupid move, you'd get attached.'

'Where is our team?', Raphael asked after a while, 'because I know you send them out all over the world, but to which places? And what are their agents doing there?

Edward sighed and clearly showed he wasn't enjoying this conversation.

'My team is scattered across Empyrean, Uswana, Ruthaynia, Askington, Thoala and at last Atrana. They're, as I said earlier, doing good to the people of those cities and towns. I mean, that's why they exist don't they?', he smirked.

'Okay, and what are they really doing?', Raphael said, knowing that he couldn't trust anything his father said to him. Edward sighed but didn't answer. Silence crawled its way back into the car and left Raphael frustrated and without answers.

He leaned forward to the driver and tapped his shoulder.

'Stop the car,' he said assertively, 'I'll walk.'

Edward didn't stop him and watched how he angrily stepped out of the car. Somehow, he knew, when he saw his son, that he'd be back.

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