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“Wait, what? Really?”

“Yes. I couldn’t make out what you were saying, though. Just something about… ‘peacefully.’ I figured you’d wanted me to surrender.”

“Elliott…”

“When it all first started, I couldn’t sleep. I’d get up and go look around. I had to. I couldn’t just lie there and pretend I hadn’t heard it. I couldn’t reason myself out of it. But no one was ever there. Everything was still, and quiet. Again and again.

“Then over time, it got worse. I’d hear things crashing, like something falling over, or off of a shelf.

Someone messing with something. Clear as day, and loudly.

I could never find anything that had fallen over, though.

Eventually, I’d confuse myself too. I knew I’d left something in a particular place, but then it would just be gone. I’d find it somewhere else entirely.”

“So, are you saying this place is haunted?”

“No, Niko, of course not. I was just unwell. It was slowly driving me into an awful state. The worst was when I started having nightmares. I—I heard—” He paused and took a deep, slow breath.

“I heard Cleo’s voice, once. I didn’t want to get up for that one.

I just laid in bed. And when I finally fell asleep, I dreamed she was here, wandering the halls, lost. Looking for me.

Coming to finally take me with her. I started wearing my earbuds more and falling asleep to music every night after that. ”

It was too much. Niko swallowed, trying to take it in.

The sheer horror that Elliott’s isolation and his own breaking, lonely mind had wrought on him made Niko ache so deeply it stole his breath away.

He’d had no idea Elliott had truly been so close to falling apart and losing himself completely. Niko reached up and touched his sleeve.

“You’re not alone here anymore. We’re here. If you ever see or hear anything and need to question it, you can ask me, okay?”

“I know that. But sometimes, hearing him walking around out there, or coughing, or talking to you… It reminds me. And some part of me still instinctually wonders if it’s real.

Any of this. Like I just dreamed you up because I was so desperate.

” He hesitated. “I was that way when you first arrived here, too.”

“You didn’t dream me up. I’m really here, Elliott. It’s not going to be like that anymore. You’ll never be isolated like that again. Okay?”

Elliott nodded. He picked up a small, transparent chip and inserted it into T1-N4’s side with a little bit of jury-rigging.

They fell into a deep silence before he finally spoke again, pulling Niko out of his wandering thoughts.

“Speaking of Zann, though, and your original question,” he started, haltingly. “Did you… believe anything he said?”

Niko frowned. “Don’t listen to him. He’s an asshole and was just trying to get under your skin—”

“No. I mean on Celelast.”

“No, Elliott. I didn’t. Honestly.”

“He seems very adamant I’m just using you, and nothing more,” Elliott said. His tone was distant and detached, his eyes somewhere far away, lost in a thought unreachable to Niko.

“He can be adamant all he wants, Elliott,” Niko said. “I know that’s not what’s going on. Besides, he recently admitted that he doesn’t really think that anymore.”

“In the end, it’s not so important what he thinks.” Elliott met his gaze now. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t actually think it too.”

“I don’t, Elliott. I never did. Not even for a minute. I believe in you. And I always have.”

For the first time since Niko had come to check on him, a small, sincere smile graced the other man’s lips.

“Niko!”

Niko twitched, glancing up from the game he’d been playing on his phone hologram as two voices called his name in unison.

He sat on the bed, looking now at a pair of excited, urgent faces peering back at him from the doorway.

Even Zann had come, though he hesitated awkwardly at the threshold of the bedroom, refusing to enter.

“We figured it out,” Elliott said, his tone hurried and breathless. “We were finally able to piece it all together.”

“It wasn’t Taal. Or even Galapol. It’s Khaathra,” Zann said.

Niko’s blood turned to ice water as he stared at them both. His brain vaguely registered the game over music playing from his phone now.

Imperator Khaathra.

He remembered not long ago, Elliott had wanted to finish what he’d started and take her down. He himself had argued against it.

This whole thing could have been avoided. Niko had only gotten in the way all over again.

Elliott must have seen it on his face, his own expression shifting into a worried frown. “Niko. This isn’t your fault. We had no way of knowing.”

All Niko could do was nod.

Over the past few days, the three of them had pieced together that it was likely someone else who was particularly desperate and would have it out for Elliott, narrowing down their list significantly.

Imperator Khaathra had already had a straight up attempt on her once, so she was one of their prime suspects, along with Iincha’cul, Uru Taal, and three others for various separate reasons.

“Kestrel’s actually the one who figured it out in the end,” Zann said.

“Well. Only because Zann started piecing it all together.”

The two of them paused, glancing at each other and seeming to awkwardly regard one another.

Niko shook his head, but in truth it made him relieved—and as marginally happy as the situation allowed—to see.

He’d always known if they could overlook their differences and put both their brilliant minds together, that they would accomplish incredible things.

And now they had.

“Kestrel managed to finally find and hack into some private security footage from that parking garage across the street from Dad’s place.”

“And Zann ran facial recognition on one of the assailants as someone who’d done work for Khaathra in the past.”

“Good job, guys,” Niko said, and meant it. “Now, we just need to get there.”

“Right. Let’s not waste any time,” Elliott said.

Zann glanced between them. “I’m going with you guys.”

“Uh.” Niko paused. Elliott froze, too.

He hated the idea, hated Zann being out there with him. Especially knowing the kind of preparation Khaathra undoubtedly had awaiting them. “I don’t know that that’s a good idea right now.”

“What? You think I can’t do it? Don’t insult me, Niko.

I may not be a big dumbass linebacker-slash-bounty-hunter like you, but I’ve been an officer of Galapol for just as long as you’ve been doing this shit.

I know how to work a gun and how to handle active situations.

Besides, this is my fucking dad. I’m not going to sit on my ass while his life is in danger. ”

“No,” Niko started uneasily, “I know you’re capable.

But Zann, I think it’s best you lay low for now.

Nobody knows you’re with us right now, and I’d like to keep it that way.

You can still come back from all of this.

We can’t. You can still return to society and have a normal life if nobody associates you being with us.

They probably still think you’re just laying low somewhere. ”

“It’s Dad.”

“I promise we’ll bring him back, Zann,” Elliott said, making Niko do a double take. “I won’t let any harm come to your family. I’m the reason they’re even in this situation. I’ll make sure they come home to you.”

Zann eyed him, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.

He looked ready to argue, when Niko stepped in again too.

“It’s okay, Zann. He’s right. We’ll get them.

We’re just going to be in and out. I’m calling D’s people in for backup, just in case, because it’s probably going to get messy there.

But I need to know you can still have a life outside of all of this. Okay?”

“Fuck,” Zann muttered. “Fine. Okay. But only because you said you’re bringing backup. Don’t do anything stupid. I mean, unusually fucking stupid.” His gaze flicked to Elliott. “Same goes for you, asshole.”

“We won’t,” Elliott said.

Niko had a phone call to make.