Gay casually smoked until Neshoba walked out of the hospital. He dropped his cigarette and stepped on it to give the hunter his full attention and a disappointing gaze. ‘You were told to come back home months ago, Keys. But you are sticking your nose into something that is beyond your authority or jurisdiction.’

  ‘Senior Agent, I assure you that I have every…’

  ‘You do not!’ Gay cut Neshoba off with a harsh growl. ‘This place is highly classified, and I'm honestly surprised you could even find this place. Everything has already gone tits up, and when you go back to the Order, I expect you to keep quiet about this whole thing.’

  Neshoba shook his head. ‘No, not until I know what happened here.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Gay shrugged his shoulders, confused as to why someone wanted to keep going. ‘The obvious should be clear, Keys. In 1941, MODOC conducted a kill order to remove Jackson Abernu. But I can tell you know that it wasn’t so clean, leading to the death of the entire town just for knowing him. There isn’t much to look into, and I suggest you stop there.’

  ‘I can’t. There is something wrong with this whole thing! I have reason to believe that there is more than just a kill order on Jackson. I believe the whole thing is a cover-up for something bigger. MODOC wasn’t the one who organised this whole thing. The council needs to know about this because I believe someone in the Order was involved and gave the order to kill them.’

  Gay squinted and curled his lips. ‘Alright, tell me what you know.’ He said calmly to him, relaxing his expression to give his old friend his attention. ‘Just know that I am within my rights to put you down for knowing too much. I am listening not because we were part of the same unit that robbed us of our childhood, but because you are my friend. Don’t waste this opportunity, Neshoba, not when there is a lot at stake.’

  ‘MODOC isn’t really destroyed,’ Neshoba said without delay. ‘Jackson was after people who were involved with MODOC, as well as the massacre of this entire town. In my car, I have documents from a ProTech research facility, which held those documents for decades, which led me to a hidden and well-preserved MODOC facility. They shouldn’t exist! Someone within the Order Diplomatics kept those documents and facilities around for some reason. I’m not sure what for, but whatever it might be, they kept some of our enemies alive.’

  ‘So you think someone from the inside helped some MODOC members out during the purge?’

  ‘Someone with that sort of clearance from the Order Diplomatics would have the capabilities to do such a thing. Typically, those facilities would be destroyed, but why keep them around? It is also strange as to why they didn’t just kill Jackson, only for him to show up 75 years later. This is not an accident! There is a reason this happened, the deaths, the destruction, The Cascade. I have reason to believe someone planned this to happen.’

  ‘Jackson had a poor reputation, even back then. They could just put him underground for a slow death.’

  ‘Maybe that is the case, but that doesn’t explain the cover-up. MODOC wasn’t interested in killing him. They were collecting something.’

  Gay frowned, thinking for a moment before uttering a word. ‘Collecting what?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Neshoba admitted. ‘But I know it has something to do with the kids. MODOC went into the town, gathering every kid and executing every adult. It makes sense because even with the file on Jackson at a MODOC facility, they barely have anything on him. They were more interested in his daughter. I have reason to believe they took them, and they are still in operation.’

  The old man thought for a moment. Reaching for his pocket to grab a cigarette, with a click of his fingers, he lit the end of it. ‘That is an elaborate theory, Keys.’ Gay said with a puff of smoke emanating from his mouth. ‘But we have no proof that MODOC did that sort of thing.’

  ‘You also didn’t have proof about the existence of abandoned MODOC facilities.’ Neshoba quickly pointed out. ‘If there is an insider, they would’ve helped MODOC transport those kids without the Order knowing, and the truth as to why and where would be here.’

  ‘And what are you going to do once you figure all of this out?’

  ‘We have to go to the council. We have to report my findings to the council and bring this to light. There is someone inside, and I suspect they are still alive within the Order, pulling strings and allowing this mess to continue. It makes sense because I was given an unlawful order to stop my hunt of Jackson Abernu and to return to Olympus. Which in turn led to all of this!’

  ‘But there comes a problem; who is pulling the strings?’ Gay said before smoking a cigarette. ‘Someone will have a good reason for all of this to happen, and they would have to have clearance to even look at Jackson’s file or know of your operation.’

  Neshoba wanted to say he agreed with Gay’s assessment. But the way he revealed that information in a cold and direct manner caused him to rethink the entire conversation and why Gay was there. How could he know Neshoba was in Appleseed? It started to click, the date, time, and Gay’s seniority now and back then. He must’ve known what happened.

  ‘What do you know?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Gay confusingly said.

  ‘Nathanael, I knew you long enough, and I remember you being a Representative of the Order Diplomatics during the late-70s and mid-90s. During the war against MODOC. You would’ve known everything about that rogue agency and its facilities and what happened here.’

  ‘I wasn’t a representative when Appleseed was massacred, Keys. I urge you to hold off on any accusations.’

  ‘So you do know something.’ Neshoba waited for Gay to respond, but he kept silent. Giving him a sour conclusion as to what happened. ‘You knew what happened.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll give you mercy and tell you.’ Gay flicked his cigarette to the ground as he approached Neshoba. ‘I gave the kill order.’

  ‘You ordered the hit?’

  ‘It was going to happen either way. Jackson Abernu is a shitstain and a fucking nightmare of an individual to work with. Now, you and I both know that the Order will do some morally questionable things to keep humanity alive, but we at least draw some sort of line in the fucking sand and uphold a simple moral code. We kill if we need to, sacrifice no more than necessary, and ensure we make the world ignorant of the matter. Jackson is different. Man looks like a monster, so his existence is an immediate problem, and we can’t create a believable cover-up story the longer he lives. He was also known for his unnecessary butchery of civilians, and worst of all, he keeps coming back to us after his “retirement”. Jackson had to go, and I took the steps to make sure that happened.’

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  ‘So you allowed a whole town to be slaughtered?’

  ‘No, that was something MODOC did freely, that is true. MODOC added that to the mission, which made a lot of things complicated at the time and later on. It is true when I say they were out of line and refused to follow instructions from the Order.’

  ‘But the facilities!’

  Gay raised a brow. ‘You think we will put all of their resources to waste? MODOC was our best-funded puppet organisation we had at the time. $20 billion worth of resources and assets were dedicated to MODOC alone. Destroying those facilities would be a waste.’

  ‘No, that’s not the reason. Some members are alive, and there is no way you would let them live. There is no chance in hell they would’ve slipped through.’

  ‘Like what? Some of these members were valuable and retired before the purge. One of them was about to make one of the biggest breakthroughs in history until the reptile crawled out of that hole we put him in fucked over.’

  ‘We?’ Neshoba took a step back. ‘You knew they put him in there and did nothing!?’

  ‘MODOC did, I just turned a blind eye because I agreed that Jackson should suffer underground. To give you an idea of how revolting he was. Remember the Blood Room we all have to go through? If you killed a single person or had a hand in someone’s death, the tap in the room would release a single drop of blood. When we put him in there for the first time, the room fucking flooded and the door burst open! And now, he is alive! No one could’ve suspected he would survive after all of those years. That is true! His survival is as much of a mystery and shock to me as it is to you.’

  ‘So that was why you hired me? To fix a problem that you caused?’

  ‘The council called you to end your hunt and go home. Only they would have the authority to do so. So, unless you want to accuse them of being in this strange “conspiracy”, you’ll be mistaken, my old friend. Now, we have wasted enough time, and we should go back home.’

  ‘The kids.’ Neshoba said in defiance, refusing to take a single step out of town. ‘You didn’t mention anything about them or deny that MODOC didn’t take them. What happened to them?’

  Gay frowned, ‘dead, Keys. We realised that as soon as they took them that MODOC were running experiments on the kids to create a “better” human. They were not successful, and that was why we put an end to them. Unnecessary and barbaric for what they would do behind our backs. They had to go, and we were successful.’

  Neshoba’s hand hovered near his holstered pistol, not trusting the explanation his friend provided. ‘Why did it take 40 years after the fact if you knew they were running experiments? Why did it take so long for you to act?’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘There is no chance you didn’t immediately know what they were doing. You let some MODOC members live; you allowed facilities to stay around. What else did you allow? What else is there besides all of this? This goes beyond Jackson at this point.’

  Threatened, Gay unbuttoned his suit jacket to reveal his weapon. ‘Are you accusing me of something?’

  ‘You’re not being honest, Gay. There are a lot of things that don’t make sense. Why would the council tell me to come back when Jackson has a reputation? From what I understand, only your hands were deep in this mess from the very beginning.’

  ‘Now, why would I be involved? I despise Jackson like any sane person would.’

  ‘That is because it isn’t about Jackson.’ Neshoba pointed out. He didn’t have anything concrete to put on Gay, so he tried to put together a likely story that made sense with what he knew of MODOC and the evidence he had gathered after all of those months.

  ‘They were useful to your cause at the moment.’ Neshoba continued. ‘You couldn’t send assassins even if it would be easier. No, you needed to destroy something else. You allowed Jackson to live and do their business freely because you figured out who they were after and understood fully the level of destruction they would cause.’

  ‘I urge you to shut up, Neshoba.’ Gay demanded, his hand getting closer to his pistol.

  In response, Neshoba did the same thing. ‘So there was more to it? Taking so long to destroy MODOC, knowing the shit they are doing, and Jackson going after them. What happened? What did MODOC really create?’

  He didn’t reply. Gay blankly stared at Neshoba, his yellow eyes cold and unwavering. He had stopped entertaining his old friend, and it was clear that Neshoba wouldn’t be silent about his discovery. He would go public with the council about Gay’s involvement, which led to a global crisis. There were a lot of pieces missing, and Neshoba knew he had to search every inch of the world to find them all. But for him to figure out the truth, he had to kill his old friend.

  Neshoba tried to move his hand. But it froze in place. He tried to move it again, grunting while his mind screamed for his hand to reach for his pistol. Yet no matter how hard he pushed, it wouldn’t move.

  His body was paralysed, locked in place by Gay’s psychic attack. And while Neshoba was unable to move, and seeing that he was going in for the kill. Gay had no choice but to pull out his weapon and took aim.

  Bang!

  The world stopped; his ears rang while his brain tried to recognise what had happened. Neshoba looked down at his chest to see blood seeping out. When his mind was free from Gay’s grasp, he stumbled back. His hands clenched his chest while air rushed out of his lungs before collapsing onto his back. The force of the fall caused him to cough out what little oxygen he had left.

  ‘This shouldn’t have happened.’ Gay said, standing over his old friend with a sombre expression. ‘You should’ve kept your mouth shut and done what you were told!’

  ‘Nath… Nathanael!’ Neshoba struggled to whimper out a sentence, but his lips fell silent on death's ears. No one would know his last words, except for him saying the name of his friend, who had done a great injustice. To say the name of someone who caused the world to go mad.

  ‘Keep what little strength you have and listen. There is a lot wrong with this world, friend. People like me have to do things to save everyone, to do what is needed for humanity to survive for the next day. My methods are rotten to the core, and I know that.’ Gay aimed his pistol at Neshoba’s head. ‘But I will fix it. Just not with you.’