There was a tiny bead of sweat slowly falling down the back of Red's neck as they stood outside the heavily guarded door - and as much as he wanted to wipe it away, his arms seemed to be frozen at his sides. The hallway was dark, but there was just enough light coming from the outdated yellow string of halogen lights for Red to make out the tarnished brass handle of the door. Other than the eclectic buzz of the lights, there was barely any sound in the claustrophobic hall. Even the rat-masks beside the door said nothing as they led him and Cil here, past what felt like endless rows of analog doors and dusty stairwells. This building must have been ancient - definitely off the main city grid.
It was the small tug of his sleeve that snapped him out of it. Cil, standing close beside him, was growing impatient. Her eyes had that same familiar fire - the same manic tension that came whenever they watched those Vermin vids back at his place. This was her chance to finally meet her hero, the mysterious "N".
Lucky her.
Red watched as Cil gestured to the door once again.
"Come on," she mouthed.
Red responded with a tight nod, then closed his eyes. He could do this. He had to do this. But everything in his body screamed for him to turn back, run now - there was still time. It wasn't that he was afraid of his brother - no. But it was more than his brother past the over-painted black wood door. Every painful memory of his past - every thing he wanted to run from brewed behind the turning of that dirty brass handle, and it was the glaring poetic irony that Red hated the most.
With a final quick breath and sharp shake of his head, Red reached for the handle - perhaps too quickly as Cil gave a little jump before he turned the knob. With an exaggerated creaking groan of its hinges, the door was open, and Red locked eyes with his twin brother for what felt like the first time. Not only because of the amount of time it had been since they had last seen each other, but the man sitting at the cluttered desk in front of him was so unlike what he had remembered. Broad, tense shoulders replaced once lanky arms. The brother he once knew always shaved his head, tight to his slender and sharp face, but the man before him had black, slick wavy hair, dramatically falling over one stern brow. Although they were twins, they weren't identical, but most traces of the few things they had in common in appearance vanished since he had last seen him. But the stern, serious glare of the man looking back up at him was unmistakably his brother. The cool, icy stare - haunting at times, with the blue-white eyes of his mother - their mother, pierced him with an aching pain at the pit of his stomach that he had not felt in years.
There was a moment of silence - a tense exchange of stares between the two brothers that felt longer than it probably was, before Red saw the corner of Nero's mouth turn upwards. Then, much to Red's horror, Nero began to laugh. Quiet at first, then it transformed into a loud, cackling groaning laugh that echoed off the small rooms tight walls, booming through the silent corridors behind them. Red watched as Cil turned to him nervously, an awkward smile on her face, looking for any sort of cue on what this meant.
Nero then slowly came to a stop, holding on to the edge of his desk seemingly in an effort to center himself, before slapping it hard with both palms with a BANG! causing a ricochet and a few of the books stacked high on his desk to fall to the floor. Cil gave a little jump before taking a cautious step back, the smile on her face now gone, but Red stood firmly in place.
Nero slowly turned his head upwards, an unnatural wide smile against his still-serious stare looked unnatural, unnerving even, and Red felt his upper lip tighten into a not-so subtle grimace.
"Brother. Red. You're finally here," Nero spoke in his same unmistakable low tenor, before giving a single loud clap of emphasis. "Please, sit," he added, gesturing to the two wooden chairs in front of him.
Red didn't want to sit - he wanted to stay right where he was with his back to the door, but Cil didn't hesitate for a moment before perching herself right in front of Nero's desk. She turned to Red over her shoulder, eyes glaring at him, nostrils flared. Red cracked his neck reflexively before sitting next to her, wooden chair creaking a little too loud for his taste.
"I waited for this day, brother. Really," Nero continued, "And you brought the lovely Cil - even more beautiful in person."
Red watched as Cil straightened in her seat.
Her hero knew her name - how special.
Red shook his head and looked down, trying to hide the cynical smile starting to form on his face.
"So what do I owe this pleasure - come to finally answer your call and join the cause?" Nero laughed, "Only joking! No need to be so serious, Red - really. That's my job. Honestly, I'm happy to see you looking so... healthy? No, no, that's not the right word."
Nero pushed his chair away from his desk with a sudden forceful push, and Red couldn't help but jump this time. He watched as Nero stood and began a slow pace behind his desk, casually straightening the books lining the walls as he walked, hands behind his back.
"No, no. It's different this time. You would never come to me for help - at least not for yourself. Every time I watched you pass out in an alley, Saged out of your skull - or when people came knocking at your door looking for payment - I waited - waited for you to reach out to me for help. But no - no. You still had your pride, you still had to prove that you could make it out there all by yourself."
Red shifted in his seat, resulting in another obnoxious creak in the wood.
Of course he was watching me.
"Proving to whom, though? To yourself? To me? To mom?"
Red looked up sharply, to see Nero fidgeting with something on the shelf. Its golden delicate parts just catching in the dim lights as he twisted it in his still-slender fingers. But even from here, Red could tell what it was.
The broken music box.
"So she finally broke your pride, hm?" Nero added, looking back at Red's tight expression. "No, not you Cil - poor thing," he coaxed, now carefully placing his hands on the back of his chair, "But Sabrina. That glorious girl, whimsical maiden that came to you out of nowhere - like a dream rich with only your best Sage. A sudden respite -"
"Stop," Red finally spoke, feeling ripples of tension tighten through his arms.
"Right, right. I won't tease you - but you really must have it bad, especially after knowing what she did - the horrors she's capable of. All those people on the street. And even before that - she took out about thirty of my own men. Let alone - let alone what she did to you."
Red shook his head. Of course he knew. He knew everything.
Nero sat back down, placing a hand down on his desk in front of Cil, eyes staring with the same familiar intensity.
"I'm grateful that I finally get the honor of thanking you in person for saving my brother, Cil. Not only for this time, but all the times in the past. You were there when I couldn't be. And I know he may not show it, but I know that he is grateful too to have someone like you in his life."
Red really, really wanted to stand up and punch his brother just then. Who was he to talk to Cil like that? He knew nothing about their friendship - what they had been through in the past ten years. But Red did nothing but stare at the same crack on the wooden floor - crumbling into the same little cowardly child his brother always knew he was. Nero knew what he was doing - he was testing to see what Red would let him get away with, the same old tricks, the same old buttons to press. He wanted to get under Red's skin, and it was already starting to work judging by how white Red's knuckles were on the arms of the chair.
Red shook his head again in a desperate attempt to snap out of all his old habits. He needed to remember why he was here.
"Are ya done yet?" Red asked, and Nero finally broke his stare away from Cil.
"If yer done showing off," Red continued, "I think we can get to the point."
Nero leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms, amused.
"You have to know by now that they aren't the enemy," Red started, clearing his throat, "Yer smarter than that. Sabrina... and the rest of 'em... they're being used. Used by Optica -"
Nero put up his hand, "Spare me. I know. I probably know more than you do, Red. So tell me, what is your grand plan? Do you need help hiding her - no, that's not it. You want me to help you both run away together so you can forget about this whole mess, Saging your days away into old age if she doesn't kill you first. That's more your style. Or -"
"Or, you could let me finish... I think, I think Optica might have a cure - some way to stop them. When they took all 'em kids from that bunker, they must have also took all the old files from the people that put them there in the first place. The people who were trying to save them. I mean, that's why they put them in the bubbles, right? So they could find a cure. There's gotta be some answers in there -"
Red looked up at Nero, hesitant, "I know it's a long shot.... I know. But it's all I have."
Nero was silent for a moment, brooding features quiet in contemplation.
"There's some logic there. Optica wouldn't care about curing them - their affliction is what makes them special. But they should still have all of the old information from when they stormed the lab... But I'm sure if they had that information on any of their systems as secure as they may be, you would have found it by now," said Nero.
"That's why I need your help. Optica has their own secure closed server, I know it. They have to. I need to get close enough to jack in directly to their systems. I need to get in their walls to do it. I need to go -"
"Off-island. To the East City. Right," Nero placed his hand on his chin, spinning slightly in his chair.
Nero then suddenly stopped, eyes wild. Red half-expected him to hit his desk again.
"You both fans of Queenie?" he asked, a wide grin forming over his face.
"Queenie?" Cil asked, turning to Red.
"What are you talkin' about?" said Red.
"You know," Nero continued, waving his hand, as he flipped through the digital pages on an outdated News-Pad on his desk. "The spokeswoman, the creepy model lady for Optica."
"Yes," Cil shook her head, "We don't live under a rock. We know who Queenie is. She's everywhere."
"Well," Nero continued, turning the pad around and pushing it towards them, "She's holding a very special event soon."
Red and Cil leaned forward, looking at the bright pink and blue digital flier. A scantily-clad Queenie danced at the bottom of the page.
Annual Queenie Super Event!
See the star where she lives.
Passes start at 15k credits!
"The only time a year we get to see how the better-offs live. The one time we Downtown scum are allowed off-island to see what life could be like if we only worked a little harder - the only time we-"
"Right." It was Red's turn to interrupt Nero. He could tell a monologue was coming. "I've seen what these events look like though - packed with security. Probably more Hologuards than people."
"You make us the fake ID chips, I can take care of the rest," nodded Nero.
But something in Nero's expression made him feel uneasy. His mind flashed to the factory explosion. The screams. The chaos.
"No... No more innocent people need to die. I was there... I was there when the ID factory exploded," his voice was shaking now, "You... You did that."
But Nero's expression stayed the same - the same serious look of consideration.
"It was... unfortunate what happened," Nero started. Red bit the side of his cheek until it started to bleed. "And you may not understand it. But it had to be done. In the greater scheme of things, it was a necessary action."
Nero was standing now, looking down at the desk with the perfect calculated expression of just enough remorse. It made Red sick.
"In my position, I have to make these choices. And sometimes there is collateral damage-"
"Collateral da-" Red started, but Cil put her hand on Red's arm, pushing him back into his seat.
"I understand your frustration. I really do. But please understand my frustrations too... They have been slaughtering my best men and women almost nightly - doing everything they can to stop the cause. They might not have Sabrina under control, but I suspect that they have at least one or two designated, trained agents from that batch of kids working for them now. These attacks... they're too perfect for any off-the-street Hologuard."
Nero stood up again, looking between Cil and Red, considering.
"Two days from now, we'll meet at your place. Iron out the details..." Nero spoke, and Red took his que, standing also to leave.
"And Red?" Nero said just as Red's hand started to turn the handle, "Bring Ami with you."