Davyn's research was not going well at all. When Benjamin had first entrusted him to find the rest of the jewels, he hadn't expected it to last more than a month, maybe two. After all, how many books could there be on the matter?

As it turned out, there were none, which made the task impossible at first glance. Upon second glance, he realized he had to exclude everything he had access to, and it drove him insane.

"It's a long-term thing, Davyn," Simon said calmly as he flipped through books. "Considering they've been struggling for nearly fifty years to find one jewel, what makes you think it won't take us another fifty to find the rest?"

"I don't have fifty years." Davyn slammed his book shut. His temples were throbbing.

The lack of progress had a negative effect on his mind, making the endeavor seem pointless. It meant his scattered brain was free to wonder about other things. Millie, Freider, Ron, Baron. The rest of his life. Things he'd rather avoid.

"You actually do. I think you're the youngest one here, after all."

Davyn waved him away. "You're four years older. That's nothing." But it was a lie. He'd always considered the age difference between himself and Ron very big.

"It is nothing," Simon agreed. "Especially since you're so much better prepared than anyone else here."

"Well, my dad did a really good job with me." It wasn't pleasant saying it, but Simon was a friend.

"Oh," he simply said.

Davyn squinted at him. "Is there something wrong?"

"Well..." Simon drummed his fingers on his chin. "I've been wondering something ever since we all returned. How exactly were we all able to leave our lives behind and come here?"

That was a very good point, one that Davyn had considered before as well. But he hadn't asked anyone and only deduced why Phillip could. The two of them were both running from things best left behind.

"So I asked Rachel," Simon continued. "Turns out, she's lost her family just like me."

"Wait, what?" Davyn shook his head. "You both lost your families?"

Simon shrugged. "It happened years ago, really. My folks were coming back from a late night function and got into a car crash. I was in collage when it happened, but as much as it sucked, they'd taught me to be independent. I don't have any brothers or sisters, so I'm alone. For her, it was a school shooting and both her parents were teachers there."

"Holy shit!"

"That's why we don't say anything about it." He gave another shrug, but the bitterness was obvious in his posture. "We know it's not something people want to talk about or even necessarily hear."

"But you both lost your families!"

"And I think you lost yours as well. It's why you're here, isn't it?"

Davyn pondered on this and realized Simon had found a pattern. He believed they were all orphans with nothing to lose, so it was much easier to get them together and make them forget about other people. The Counters gave them all purpose.

It would be easy for him to just nod and end it, but Simon had shared something private and he'd learned that for friendships to work, he needed to give something back.

"Not exactly," he said. "My mother is still alive, but she went insane when my father died. I also have three brothers."

Simon's eyes widened. "Really? You actually have a family?"

"Walt had a family, too. He had a wife and kid."

Simon fell into deep contemplation. "That's true," he said after a long while. "But why are you here, then?"

"Because my father has been preparing me for this my entire life." Davyn took in a deep breath. "And because I don't get along with the rest of my family. I have nothing to go back to." 

"That sounds even sadder than losing your whole family."

"It is. And then again, it's not." He had no idea how to feel about it really. Except crappy that some other people could lose family without spiraling.

"But I wonder... Why aren't you in college?"

This was still a sore subject, but as long as they were doing the honest thing, Davyn didn't see any harm in telling him. "I didn't apply. Sort of had a gap year. But I did get admitted for this fall." And he was still uncertain what to do with that information.

"You should totally go," Simon said at once. "With your brain, it would be a damn shame."

Davyn agreed, but for now, he didn't have a solution. He'd start thinking about it in the summer.

"I was wondering if we could talk about something else as well." Simon now seemed a little subdued.

"Sure."

Simon didn't seem convinced, turning more skeptical with each passing second. Finally, he seemed to decide he'd rather say it out loud than keep it in.

"The thing with Rachel..."

"Ah." Davyn couldn't keep a grin in. Watching the two of the flirting without realizing that they were flirting was highly amusing.

"What?"

"Are you going to finally admit that you're in love with her?"

"Well, yes."

Davyn hadn't expected him to be so straightforward, so any response was knocked out of him. "Well that's great. And obvious."

"Not to her. I have to tell her, but I don't want to freak her out because it's soon, so..."

Davyn had no idea what Simon wanted from him because there was no way he was telling her for him. Though it would be fun to phrase it in a dark and ominous manner.

"I was thinking," Simon continued. "I know you have a girl, and maybe you could give me some hints as to how to tell Rachel?"

Davyn winced. As much as he wanted to not care, the mere thought of Millie sent daggers into his soul.

"Did I say something wrong?"

"No, it's just that... We broke up." It felt liberating to say it for some reason. "And I'm not the best to come to for advice. She was the one to confess first and I basically told her to get lost."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not exactly boyfriend material." He'd turned out being right, after all. Millie couldn't handle his life, his lingering darkness. His weakness. It was clear as day when she chose to run to Freider the moment things got rough.

A big part of him wished he wouldn't have given in to her, that they'd never been together in the first place. The other part would sell his soul for one more night with her. Not that his soul was worth much. He would sell it for much less.

"I'm sorry, Davyn."

He was sorry, too, but there was no point obsessing over it. Maybe if he said it enough times, he would actually stop obsessing over it. But he did. Over and over again, he thought about his interaction with Millie and Freider and his threat. He hadn't done anything about it, not yet. He wasn't sure what he could do and where he could hit them.

"I'm sure Rachel feels the same about you, so just tell her."

Simon didn't seem convinced, but he stood and stretched. "Ready for training?"

"Oh, hell yeah!" Getting pummeled by Kato was just what he needed to get over his obsession.

♣

Simon actually followed Davyn's advice, and over the next few days, it became more than obvious to everyone that he and Rachel were a true couple. No longer did they hide their affection towards each other, and even if Davyn gagged every time he saw them, he was happy for them. Well, as happy as he could be with the cloud of misery above his head.

Over the next week, Phillip and Rachel were dispatched to another location to work on a different project while Simon, Davyn and Alan continued to pour over endless maps and books to try an determine the location of the other jewels. Alan proved to be very impatient and he preferred to bring them books and maps rather than read them. Davyn tried to force him to read, but he kept talking after every paragraph, so he ended up being sent to help Harrison with administrative mumbo jumbo.

Even if Simon insisted that they couldn't expect to find anything this fast, the lack of progress was really getting on Davyn's nerves. It left him with too much time to plot other things. Unpleasant things. Even that part wasn't going well as his mind swirled with possible revenge ploys that were never good enough.

In an effort to tire himself out, he remained in his office well into the night. It wasn't uncommon for him to fall asleep on the desk and wake up in the same place next morning. Simon pointed out how unhealthy that was, but he didn't care. Being healthy was a ship that had long sailed.

But after a while, staying late became the key to move out of his slump. One night, while he obsessively analyzed the photographs he had taken in the room where he'd found the jewel, voices drifted down the corridor.

He frowned, checking his watch. It was almost one in the morning. Why was anyone else still there? But the voices and their laughter drifted through his open door. Careful not to make a sound, he walked to the doorway and looked out into the hall. It was empty, but the voices were coming from further down the corridor where Benjamin's office was.

More laughter drifted towards him, and Davyn walked closer.

"I believe they'll crack it," Benjamin said.

"Yes, young Grant is fairly obsessive about it," another man said. "He is doing better than Lindenbrock himself."

Davyn frowned at the name. He'd never heard it before, but he could guess it was the person who had found the first jewel. Why hadn't anyone thought of giving him that bit of research to start off from?

Leaving the joyous voices behind, Davyn headed in the opposite direction and down the stairs into the archive. The door was locked, but he'd picked a helpful skill or two from Alan, and all of them already had locksmith kits, so he opened it without issue.

He'd been in the archives before, on a tour of the facility. It was a cavernous space filled with metal shelving which in turn held numerous boxes. Fortunately, they were alphabetized, so it was easy to skip to the Ls and find the entry on the mysterious Lindenbrock.

Once he got his files, Davyn headed back upstairs. The corridors were dark and quiet, so he guessed that Benjamin and his friends had retired for the night. When he settled at his desk and started reading, it was like a light turned on inside his head.

It made so much sense. This Klaus Lindenbrock had been a german scientist who sought refuge in the US from Eastern Germany during the Cold War. As a former member of Hitler's occult science division, his use was obvious. It was him who'd come forth with all the information on the jewel in Egypt. A lot of the papers were in German, but the little that was in English was very enlightening.

There were many legends which spoke of gods, pyramids and human sacrifice. And the deeper in Davyn dug, the more he realized that the interpretation of the Counters was wrong and all the clues pointed to another civilization.

"This is amazing," Simon breathed as he took in the documents.

"It is, isn't it?" Davyn said, unable to hold back his excitement. "And it isn't even the Egyptians that all this information refers to. It's the Aztecs or Mayans or whatever!"

Simon stared at him with wide eyes. "You know what this means!"

"Yes! We could be on our way to finding another jewel soon enough." He faltered and his excitement vanished some. They didn't have Walt anymore. The team was still broken.

"We will need to get over that," Simon said, as if reading his mind.

"I'm not sure I want to." Davyn tossed the papers on the desk. "Do they deserve this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Our blood? Do the Counters deserve it?"

Out of reflex, Simon glanced over his shoulder. At that moment, something became very obvious to Davyn, something he'd been trying very hard to push under the rug.

Ever since returning from their mission, he hadn't trusted the Counters. Sure, he was doing what he was supposed to be doing, but not out of loyalty to them. It was instead an intangible form of panic and the weight of the potential importance of this project. Without giving it much thought, he'd started locking his research in his drawers and locking his office in the few hours he wasn't there. Who was he even protecting it from? They were all in this together. Simon's reaction only proved that he wasn't the only paranoid one.

"What are you afraid of?" he asked.

Simon jerked back to attention. "Who? Me? Why would I be afraid of anything?"

Davyn leaned over his desk, his eyes narrowed. "I'm not blaming you for it. I lock my things away. I just want to know what part gave you the feeling that something's not right."

Simon visibly relaxed at his words and glanced over his shoulder again. The door was open, and even if he seemed to want to close it, he didn't, leaning closer instead.

"Every since Rachel left, I've been spending a lot of time here, just like you. I've heard some... Weird stuff."

"What kind of weird?"

"Something about--" Simon stopped himself and straightened in his seat.

Davyn had heard the voices, too. Like a ghost, he slid off his seat and turned off the light. In the dark, they could hear footsteps approaching.

"...if we should do something about it," one voice said.

"No, it's fine." The second voice was Benjamin. "He should have asked, not broken in, but I think Lindenbrock's research will help them. It's not a secret."

"You know there's more there."

"Yes, what the others are already researching. Once the project is successful and we will have our first super soldier, the cat is going to be out of the bag anyway."

The voices faded as the two shadows passed the office and headed further into the building. For ten whole minutes, Davyn and Simon sat in silence, in the dark.

"Something about that," Simon finally whispered. "A weapon. A super soldier."

"I've never heard anything about this," Davyn said between his teeth.

"They're not very keen on people knowing. But that's what I think Rachel and Phillip are working on. I've spoken to her on the phone and she can never tell me much, but I did gather that they're testing something. It's probably this super soldier serum thing."

Davyn couldn't wrap his mind around this. He hadn't found anything on that in Lindenbrock's papers, but to be fair, he'd focused on the aspects regarding the jewels and he hadn't even started on the german bits. It now felt like a massive oversite from his part.

"I think your reason for paranoia is very justified."

"I'm glad you do, because Alan doesn't. He thinks I'm just being nosy and trying to stir up trouble."

"Really?" Alan's position was surprising seeing as he seemed the most rebellious out of all of them.

"There's something you don't know about Alan." Simon's tone was careful. "He's a great guy and fun and everything, but he comes from a very poor family. The Counters pay good money and he doesn't want to endanger this opportunity in any way."

Davyn could see logic of that. All of them had been paid handsomely for their first field mission and were now receiving regular payments for their work. He'd never cared, but he already had loads of money. For someone like Alan, it meant a lot more.

"So don't expect them to want to leave this job too soon."

Davyn nodded, even if Simon couldn't see him. Even so, agreement floated in the air, as well as the fact that they'd most likely have to leave this career behind as well. Davyn didn't want to think about it then. It tilted his already precarious life. Maybe they were being hasty to judge. Maybe there was nothing wrong. After all, Benjamin claimed Lindenbrock's research wasn't a secret. But what exactly was in it? 

"We should really read all of these papers and soon. Before they decide that it's actually not okay for us to have them."

"Agreed. I mean it's great that you think you have another jewel, but... Maybe not let them know about it right away?"

Simon made an excellent point. After making sure that they were indeed alone, Davyn turned on the light again and closed the door. It was only a reprieve. After the murmurs he'd heard that night, he knew he never wanted to close that office door again.

♣♣♣

Well, things are getting... Complicated. Because Davyn is starting to see and hear things that he doesn't like. And this job is his last tie to any sanity and a normal life. It's keeping him focused on other things than his misery.

But maybe Simon is right and things are much fishier than they seem. Let's read on and find out, shall we?

Thanks so much for all your support and don't forget to vote and leave a comment. I need your feedback for improvement. And also writing juice.