Inevitability Case Incident

(Note: this is a side story)

Act 1 - Case's obsession

In a room secluded from the rest of the building, John Wellington was clenching his teeth hard, the same question keeping bothering him again and again. Of course, as a “man of action”, an impulsive person, he wasn’t the kind to simply keep these questions in mind :

“Jean, please tell me, what the hell happened in the Souther branch ? Did they erase your memory or something ? If not, why are you not telling me ? What did they say or show you so you won’t dare to give me even the slightest piece of information… or how bad the situation is for the stakes to be too high for someone like me ? Please, do tell me” he said to Vex-388 in front of him.

Useless to mention, this meeting was completely unauthorized, and could’ve leaded to serious consequences. Not that Wellington cared the slightest about it.

“I’m sorry John, I… I really can’t tell you anything” 388 said, clearly feeling guilty but being equally determined to keep his stance.

“Not even if your memories were or not modified after your visit of the Souther branch ?” Wellington asked.

“Not even that, I’m sorry”

“It’s ok. I understand”

388 raised his eyebrow : “Does that mean you’re going to do something stupid, dangerous or both to uncover the mystery anyway ?”

“What ? Noooo, of course, I’m just an obsessed investigator struggling on his most important case while nor his pal nor those fucking higher-ups even bother to give him a damn clue, even standing like walls in his way… what would I do, really ?” Wellington replied sarcastically.

“The whole zone is gonna end up in panic, wont it ?”

“...

Mayhaps”

As he left the room, Wellington clearly heard 388 sighing behind him.

‘Sorry pal, I guess I do am better at being a troublemaker rather than a friend after all’ he thought as he walked through the zone as if nothing.

As he went through the cafeteria, distracted by his thoughts, Wellington tripped, and the only thing that stopped his head from falling in a plate of mashed potatoes were two arms that helped him recover his balance.

“Hehe, I know you’re often hungry at this hour of the day, but is that so bad you can’t help but throw yourself at my modest meal ?” the one who helped him joked, a woman some years younger than Wellington.

“Hehe, modest or not, don’t you know the thing we steal is less important than the people we still from? I guess I can’t help but steal from such a sexy girl” Wellington joked back.

“Oh, really…”

She made him trip again but this time didn’t maintained him up, and chuckled as he fell on his behind with a “ouch”.

“Hey, not cool Karen” Wellington complained.

“At least, you didn’t steal this one, oh great investigator” Karen chuckled again before returning to her meal.

Wellington laughed a bit as he stood back up, and took his plate, eating his meal alone while thinking. A plan to extort more information on the Inevitability case from the higher-ups came to his mind while eating, but it wasn’t complete. One last piece was missing…

… a piece that he found while coming out of the cafeteria, passing right beside him toward one of the containment chambers of the Vexes in the zone.

‘Those damned Hazards’ Wellington thought aggressively.

But he quickly came back to the current situation. The person that just walked past him was doctor Gabriel : he was recognized as a talented person, a relatively important figure of Vex.CO and the rising star of the company. But more importantly for Wellington, he was like Vex-388, a man kind to both normal people and anomalies, though not naive in the slightest. Of course there were many differences between them, be it the intelligence, abilities, age or look, but the most important was that : compared to 388, he was a lot more curious and enterprising, and a lot less docile to the higher-ups.

A bit later, so he wouldn’t be suspected to stalk Gabriel, Wellington walked through the hallway of containment, the one where the few Vex containment chambers of the zone were. Walking past a chamber containing what seemed to be an grotesque monster of nearly thirteen feet that kept degenerating into something more disgusting each second that passed.

“Tssk, those damn Hazards” he couldn’t stop himself from slurring.

In the Easter branch, Hazard was fundamentally considered as an insulting and discriminating term. But so what ? Those damn abominations killed people and yet were still allowed to live… unlike his own friends… so treating them as decent beings wasn’t on his priorities list.

Finally arriving at where doctor Gabriel was, Wellington watched for a short period as the amiable man was studying Vex-048, also known as "It's always full", a coffee cup known to always refill itself with whatever the drinker wished.

“Fascinating, even if in appearance, this Vex seems trivial, its ability to refill with anything wished is truly incredible” praised Gabriel, not knowing he wasn’t alone. “If we manage to determine precisely the limits and risks of this ability, it could-”

“Humpfumpf” Wellington coughed.

Gabriel turned to see him : “Hello mister, I’m sorry I didn’t greet you right away, I was absorbed in my research and… wait, aren’t you the famous investigator, Wellington ?”

He asked it with more curiosity than caution, which was pretty strange considering how “chaotic” Wellington's reputation was.

“In person, glad the rising star of the company knows about me” Wellington replied humoristically. “I came to-”

“Ask me to help you in an investigation, and more precisely in a way that’s completely unauthorized by abusing my current position to advance on a case despite the interference of the higher-ups” Gabriel cut him. “Am I right ?”

“Ok, it might sound disrespectful or something, but…

HOW THE FUCK did you guess !? I heard you're some lucky guy but even I can’t see the link with mind reading, nor an high enough probability for you to just randomly guess my thoughts”

Gabriel laughed sincerely : “Haha, no, not really mind reading, nor am I particularily lucky, I just used my brain. I’m not as good at deduction as our star investigator, but I can still make connections : with my recent promotion, I got access to information on some cases, including the Inevitability case. I know you’ve started it and been stuck with it for long, and I heard about your obse- devotion for your cases. Linking it to the way you were looking at me earlier, I managed to make a guess” he smiled “I wasn’t sure though, thank you for confirming my guess.”.

Despite Gabriel’s obvious lack of animosity or bad intent, Wellington couldn’t help but contract his facial muscles after concluding his interlocutor was as smart as him, if not smarter. Even in Vex.CO, he was used to always finding a way around but there, his interlocutor wouldn’t be easily fooled. He had to be more cautious in his method.

“Welp, guess you would make a good investigator if you weren’t already so good at… mostly everything I guess. But tell me, what do you know about the Inevitability case ?” Wellington asked.

“I know the big lines : Despite the resources of the company, it was absolutely impossible to learn which crime the house of Bergerac committed to get executed, and Vex#388 himself refused to say anything about it either. The investigator in charge of the cases concerning Vex#388, you, deduced the strong probability of a link between this crime, the acquisition of his supernatural powers and immortality by Vex#388 and the "Inevitability effect" 388 occasionally mentioned, and theorized the existence of a mighty, and likely dangerous Vex pulling the strings of the Begerac's execution in the background. This theory led to the opening of what's now known as the "Inevitability case"... but right now, the case is at a brutal stop” Gabriel concluded, unsuccessfully trying to hide he was out of breath after all this talk

“You’re correct, on everything. Except for one thing : the higher-ups hide something. I’m sure of it. And right now, only one person can help me extort the truth from them and it’s you”

“I see…”

Gabriel’s expression shifted according to his thoughts accelerating, becoming more serious and pensive :

“I won’t lie to you: honestly, I’m very curious about this all and I really want to help you” he said. “I only met 388 a few times but he genuinely looks like a good person. But is this really worth going against the company considering even he chose to keep you away ?”

Now was the time to choose : either Wellington chose to manipulate him to accept, or he chose to be honest. He chose the second option:

“Because the truth is always worth it, and with it, we could help, do something that’d help on a larger scale than ever before, at least in our position” he said before holding out his hand to Gabriel. “Please”

Gabriel looked at him, hesitating for a moment before sighing and taking his hand.

“I’m gonna regret it but fine” he said “So, what’s the plan ?”

Wellington grinned and told him.

“Oh my god, you’re completely cray, i’m already starting to regret all of this” said Gabriel “Fine, let’s start before I change my mind”

A bit later, in a certain zone of the Easter branch, an alarm suddenly started ringing loudly, creating panic through the staff : [ALERT. ALERT. CONTAINMENT FAILURE. CONTAINMENT FAILURE OF VEX-048. ALL STAFF NEED TO EVACUATE WHILE THE ACCIDENT IS MANAGED BY THE APPROPRIATE TEAM]

Needless to say, the panic quickly spread. And while everyone was panicking, Wellington used the occasion to join Vex-388. Despite the panic, he was spotted by multiple other members of the staff, but he didn’t care. Everything was going according to his plan.

Some hours later, once everything was settled, he joined Gabriel.

“I did what you said, and managed to provoke an “accidental” containment breach of Vex-048 with acid flowing everywhere without being suspected” he said

Wellington raised an eyebrow, unable to believe Gabriel would’ve done something so dangerous : “Acid… wait, it was actually sprite, wasn’t it ?”

“Nope” Gabriel said while smirking. “Pulco. Anyway, more seriously, did you manage to make 388 give you the information we need?”

This time, Wellington was the one to smirk :

“Nah, not even a bit. In fact, I didn’t even ask at all”

He watched with joy as Gabriel was finally losing his composure.

For the next days, Wellington secretly met 388 on multiple occasions: on the surface, it was to discuss some important-super-secret matter but in fact, they really just discussed and played video games. Some days later, Gabriel was walking and accidentally bumped into someone.

“Ouch… oh, I’m sorry, uhm… Karen, is that it?” he asked while giving an apologetic look.

“Yes, happy that the great rising star of the company remembers me” Karen replied humoristically, not really angry. “But really, you guys should be careful, last week it was Wellington and now you”

“Someone talk about me?” Wellington asked as he joined them from nowhere.

All three discussed for a bit and then Wellington said he needed help to repair his room’s lamp. Karen apologized and said she had something to do while Gabriel, always willing to help, agreed to assist him repairing the lamp.

Arriving at Wellington's room, the doctor saw that the lamp was in fact really broken.

“Was it really worth breaking an innocent lamp just to maintain the illusion ?” he asked.

“Of course it was, do you know how far the company’s eyes go ? If they verified and there wasn’t any broken lamp, it would’ve been far too suspicious” Wellington replied. “Especially after one of their surveillance’ phone was stolen”

Saying that, he reached into his pocket and took out Karen’s phone.

After 388’s trip to the Souther branch, Wellington was always sure of one thing : there was someone sent to observe 388 and be sure he didn’t leak any information. Based on this theory, he planned to uncover this surveillant and extort some information from them but didn’t find a way to do so. Until of course meeting Gabriel : then his plan started. First, the ‘accidental’ containment failure of 048, that he used to meet 388 “secretly”. It was obviously a distraction, and he was sure the surveillant would understand it, and therefore start to spy on him more closely every time he met 388. So every time, he asked Gabriel to discreetly note who was present close to them and, after examination, they deduced that the only one always present was Karen. Therefore, they schemed to steal her phone, Wellington stealthily taking it while Gabriel was distracting her. The former sighed :

“Aren’t you a bit too good at this? I’m even starting to think you’re better at this than at investigation”

“Hehe, do you know how they called me before joining Vex.CO? The king of scam” Wellington said a bit too proudly. “Anyway, would you be kind enough to quickly unlock our dear friend’s phone and search it so we can FINALLY get our much needed information ?’’

“Sure”.

Gabriel started working on it. Even while using all his abilities, he struggled to bypass the security of Karen, which only strengthened their certitude other being a surveillant.

Finally, hours later, he finally managed to unlock her phone, and indeed found a few information on 388’s visit to the Souther branch. Except it wasn’t eat all what he was expecting, which Wellington understood really well by seeing Gabriel’s face sinking into uncomprehension.

“What is it?” he asked “Is it so terrifying that it leaves you speechless ?

“No, John, it’s not that” Gabriel said, even calling Wellington by his first name due to the shock. “But, from what is there, we can confirm one thing. Vex-388, “traveler of the prism” also called Jean de Bergerac…”

Wellington snapped : “What? What the hell is the thing with Jean?”

Finally, Gabriel answered: “388… Jean…

… he never went to the Souther branch”.

End of act 1