The Mark

Chapter 49

Chapter 49

"I don’t see my team here. Are they not back yet?" he asked the guards. "Strange. What’s taking them so long? They should have been back by now."

"Sorry, Sir. Only you have returned for now. Others are still out as far as I know," the guard answered to Xander, shaking his head.

"Alright. Thanks for the information," Xander said as he walked towards the lift. His team members followed after him.

There was a fingerprint sensor that was placed near the lift. Only the members of the APF could use their fingerprints to use the lift.

"Fingerprint accepted. Welcome, Sir Xander."

As the fingerprint matched, the system in the lift made an announcement before the door of the lift opened.

Xander and the others stepped inside.

Xander tapped two buttons. One was for the thirty-sixth floor while the other one was for the tenth floor.

The APF headquarters had a peculiar structure.

It had over forty floors. The first ten floors were assigned to the Delta Squad. The next ten floors were designated for the Beta Squad. Floor twenty-one to thirty-five were reserved for the Alpha Squad. Each squad was supposed to keep one floor separate from the floors that were assigned to them to hold prisoners that they caught.

The thirty-sixth floor was reserved for Delta Squad leader Xander. The next floor was for Beta Squad Leader, and the thirty-eighth floor was for Alpha Squad Leader Varant.

"They are carrying a heavy cage. That must be what’s making them so slow. Their flying speed would obviously be affected with that much weight," A Delta Squad member claimed as he saw Xander looking concerned.

"Yeah. I was thinking the same thing," Xander acknowledged. It made sense that they were moving slower than he did.

The lift stopped on the thirty-sixth floor.

Xander stepped out of the lift. He turned back and observed the men inside the lift.

"Take a rest. You worked hard in battles," he said as he watched the lift door close.

He soon walked back to his office, where another fingerprint sensor was placed.

He placed his thumb on the sensor, which opened the door.

Xander stepped inside the room and walked around the table to sit on the chair.

"Sigh... finally, it is all over. Soon, Lucifer will be brought here. Then it would be another hard effort to bring him to the right place. I must bring him to our side and make him see the wrong he committed."

"If he joins the good side and fights with us, he can be another Varant in the future," he muttered as he tapped the wooden table before him with his fingers.

"Where did they reach, though?"

He brought his phone out of his pocket to call Flourance to get another update.

He dialed the number and moved his thumb towards the call option; however, before his thumb could touch, the phone started ringing.

"Ayn? Her timing is just too bad," Xander thought as he smiled wryly. He accepted the call.

"Yeah, Ayn. Did you need something?" he asked right away.

In her office on the thirty-seventh floor, Ayn was looking at something inside her safe.

"What do you mean? You came back, and you didn’t even come to meet me? I wanted to ask you about the specifics of your mission," she answered to Xander as she rolled her eyes. "Hurry up. I will be leaving soon."

"Alright. I’ll be right there."

Xander disconnected the call and left his office again to get to Ayn.

He was curious about what she needed, and this concern diverted his attention. He had forgotten about calling Flourance to ask him where he and the rest reached.

...

"There it is," Ayn exclaimed as she found what she was looking for. It was a pendrive that was kept in the safe.

She brought out the Pendrive and closed the safe once again as she walked back to her chair.

After inserting the Pendrive into the laptop, she turned it on as she started waiting for Xander to arrive.

Knock!

She had just inserted the password of her laptop when she heard the knock on the door.

"Come in."

The door of the room opened, and Xander barged inside.

He walked straight to the chair that was placed on the other end of the table before Ayn.

Without asking for further permission, he sat on the chair. "You called for me."

"Yeah. It’s about your mission related to Lucifer. The kid you were chasing after," Ayn answered.

"What about him? It is my mission. I don’t believe Varant would take him from me now that I have captured him. If I put in some effort, I should be able to get my wishes. Other than that, I don’t see any problem," Xander emphasized.

"It’s not about him. It’s about Lucifer in a different way. I have some information," Ayn claimed, sighing.

From her looks, it seemed as if the matter was grave.

- : Missing Something

- : Missing Something

- : Missing Something

"What information?" Xander asked, wondering what could be the matter.

"I had a meeting with Varant recently. In that meeting, he gave me a mission," Ayn explained to Xander, breaking the silence that filled the room.

Xander knew that Ayn called him to talk about Lucifer. Now that she was talking about her mission, did these two things have anything in common? He wondered.

Placing both his palms on the smooth surface of the table, he asked, "Is your mission related to Lucifer?"

"Not really. My mission is related to something else. It is just that Varant mentioned something interesting when I was with him." Ayn explained after refuting Xander’s assumption.

"What did you hear?" Xander inquired as he scooted forward in his seat while sharply looking up into Ayn’s beautiful eyes.

"It’s about the Variant Uprising," Ayn answered, hinting at something vaguely.

"Variant Uprising? How are they related to Lucifer?" Xander asked, not understanding why such a big organization is linked to Lucifer when their goal is entirely different.

"I thought you would be able to guess just from that. Apparently, you are getting slow," Ayn concluded as she started laughing. Her chuckle was light, laced with a hum of amusement at the observation.

"I am not guessing here. Tell me what it’s about," Xander answered as he rolled his eyes. He didn’t feel embarrassed at the fact that Ayn was laughing at him since she was a friend. He knew she was just teasing him.

Even though he said that he wasn’t going to guess, his head was constantly trying to find a relation between the two.

He asked instantly as he thought of something, "Are they after Lucifer for some reason?"

"Bingo. It looks like you still got the zeal," Ayn acknowledged as she smiled.

"So they are after Lucifer? How do they even know about him? And I don’t think we have any spies on their side. How did you know they were after Lucifer when even I had no clue about it?" Xander inquired, feeling suspicious. What was it that they knew and he didn’t?

"You know about the facility that you were investigating regarding Lucifer?" Ayn asked a question in return.

"Yeah. I didn’t get permission to investigate that place. That General Maxwell has the authority of that place. He didn’t even let me see the facility. What about it?" Xander remembered the facility Ayn talked about.

After finding out that the kid who was slaughtering innocent civilians was the son of Zale Azarel and Clarisse, he had gone to the facility himself to find out why the son of such great people turned out that way and how he supposedly died inside the facility. Even though he had hoped to investigate the facility, he didn’t get permission.

He would’ve needed to put in a lot of effort to get permission, and even then, the chances of him succeeding were too low. That was why he had decided to use the illegal methods.

He used Ayn’s help to get her prisoner to hack the surveillance systems of the facility. That was how he got the footage of Lucifer’s t*****e to know why he hated humans.

He still had that footage that he didn’t share with anyone since he could be punished for having that footage that was received using illegal methods. He could not only be arrested for this but also removed from his position as the Delta Squad leader.

That wasn’t all. Even Ayn could have been punished for helping him. That was why he hadn’t released that footage to others.

"Varant is trying to catch all members of Variant Uprising. He found out that a few well-known members of Variant Uprising were seen near that facility," Ayn explained as she turned her laptop around, which had the image of that location.

"When his team went there, that place was found empty, but a few hints were seen that made it obvious that those guys had camped near the facility," she continued.

A few packets and plastic glasses could be seen loitering around. Some holes of pillars could also be seen in the image that Ayn was showing.

"You know what this implies, right?" she asked in complete seriousness.

"Yeah. It’s that..." Xander started answering, but before he could finish, Ayn started speaking.

"It’s that they were there for an extended period of time. The question remains, why were they there? And why did they leave without doing anything? The answer to that question is up to our assumption since we can’t read their minds, but I have some ideas as to why they were there," Ayn answered.

"Lucifer....’ Xander muttered.

"Yeah. I believe they were there for Lucifer. Lucifer is a strong kid with immense potential for the future. Any organization would l**t after him, especially the evil organization of Variant Uprising, which aims for world domination. What better candidate for them than Lucifer, who hated the humans just like they do," Ayn implied.

"They must have known about Lucifer being the one causing the slaughters. After all, it’s easy finding his identity. They have many powerful variants which are expert in tech related fields. It isn’t below them to find out about Lucifer," she continued as she stood up from her seat. The seat moved up a little as Ayn stood up.

She turned back and walked towards the window behind her.

Gazing outside the window, she said softly, "A kid that spent half his life in the facility... his heart burning in flames of revenge... slaughtering everyone that came in his path... it’s not tough to find out where he would go."

"If I were in their place, I would also think that he would go to the facility to destroy it. What better way to bring a kid who hated everyone to their side than to help him in his revenge. I believe that’s why they were there, thinking that Lucifer would come there," she said.