Malcolm looks at his watch again, an exhausted sigh escaping his lips. He had already foreseen that he would be coming home late, but he hadn't expected to spend the whole night on that island. It's a good thing he had called Carmen the day before. But still, an all-nighter is overkill if you ask him. Although, as excessive as it may seem, he hates to admit that it's necessary. It's like he's gaining entry to the Library of Alexandria—all sorts of forbidden knowledge are now being laid in front of him, and he can't look away. He has to know every detail, otherwise it would be useless that he's even taken his oath. On their boat ride to their destination yesterday, the president had revealed to him and Charles that things were going to get interesting from that point on. Later that afternoon, they've finally arrived at Yeager's Isles, the name of President Yoon's private island, which definitely sounded curious to the deputy, but he didn't think too much of it. It was, after all, the company president's private property, and he had all the right to name it however he saw fit. They were instantly greeted at the port by several men on guard duty, which at first had confused the hell out of Malcolm, until he finally saw the castle in the middle of the island.

​​​​"Holy..."

"You're always easily impressed," Charles had commented and laughed. But he couldn't help himself. The castle, as he loosely refers to it, because even considering the modern architecture, from the white walls to the two towers that divide the left and right wings of the infrastructure, like a contemporary reimagining of the living space of an ancient medieval King, what else would it be? 

​​​​"And you're not? You just saw it first, that's why you're already used to it," he taunted back. "Your jaw must've been on the floor the moment you saw that thing."

"It's crazy, right? I mean, in 2020? Really?" Charles cackled.

But that had been hours ago. His fascination had long since died out; the reason for being there had ultimately snuffed the joy and wonderment beholding a 21st century citadel that didn't need to be there. Like the effort and time they are investing in this whole operation, it does start to feel excessive. The meeting room they are in—that does look more like a meeting hall more than just a room: from the sheer enormousness of it, with the marble floors and long wooden table and chairs with intricate carvings on the backrest that makes it uncomfortable to lean your back against; up to the giant crystal chandelier that grants the room its luminous ambiance, the refreshing quality even more enhanced by the high ceiling and the top-to-floor windows that allow the air to flow unrestricted. Granted, it is the crack of dawn, and the world is relatively colder, but the temperature is regulated in the room anyway, with the help of thermostats. It's honestly more awe-inspiring at night, but earlier in the afternoon the deputy was still able to appreciate how the setting sun shone through those giant windows and how the rays of light spilled over the shiny floors. But as of right now, he could no longer be bothered to savor the rest of this one single room's superfluous details. Malcolm's head begins to spin from trying to list down all the luxurious and extravagant features of a building that no one lives in on the daily anyway. He would have been impressed, albeit feeling discomfited, had he not been neck-deep in the byzantine nature of their investigation. The combined results of his own research and the truth bombs dropped on him by President Yoon had thrown him for a loop. His mind calls back to when he had been sitting at The Right Course's cabin after Andreas had called for him and Charles, and how he had told him his questions were about to be answered.

He hadn't even gotten cozy on the couch yet when the president started. "You know about Santi and Howie now, right?"

​​​​"Yes," he replied. "Just like you told me before we boarded the yacht earlier, they were products of an illegally conducted human experiment."

​​​​"Illegal, and not to mention extremely convoluted," Charles chipped in. "We don't even know who they are, much less how they got to do these tests under everybody's noses."

​​​​"They're not the only ones," Andreas admitted.

The deputy had been quick to note that his friend got silent in that instant. For the longest time that they had known each other, Charles was never one to shy away from uncovering secrets. That would have been uncharacteristic and could even be a liability given his chosen profession. The fact that he got mum all of a sudden made Malcolm think it was because of either one or both of two things: that his friend already knew what Andreas was about to impart, or that it was going to be much wilder than what the deputy was expecting to hear.

​​​​"There's more?" He waited; his forehead scrunched in worried anticipation.

​​​​"The two other bar employees of The Roundtable. They go by the names G and Wolfgang," said Andreas. 

Charles had shifted beside Malcolm that he could feel the cushions underneath him move, but he was too focused on the company president that he didn't even look to check what was going on with his friend. He could only mumble a disgruntled "," as he recalled the results his snooping around had uncovered. "There are four victims?"

​​​​"They are the four out of the six people we know of, at least," Andreas corrected. The company president had picked up his glass of brandy using his bionic right arm and brought it up to his mouth to drink. Malcolm remained silent during the brief pause. When Andreas finished, he spoke as he set the glass back down on the coffee table. He said, "The fifth test subject is me."

​​​​"You?!" Malcolm's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

The president nodded. "In fact, I'm one of the first two. The initial experiments happened way back in 1998."

"What?! Wait, does that mean you...you were dead too?"

​​​​​"That's the only reason I know the experiments done on the four others have been run by someone else. Dr. William Kim couldn't perfect his research during our time and failed multiple times. The cost of which had taken the life of my friend, Vernon, Isaiah's real father."

"Wait..." Charles' voice had been toned down to almost a whisper, but both Malcolm and Andreas could still feel the unease emanating from the rogue detective. He looked at the president just as his friend had turned to face him. "You didn't tell me about G and Wolfgang..."

​​​​"It's not part of the plan for you to know," Andreas answered bluntly.

Charles swallowed the feeling of being deceived and strung along that had fused with the air that was caught in his throat. It hurt to think he didn't have a bigger part in this grand operation, and having to accept the fact that he was no longer in charge stung. He could've proven how useful he would be had he known everything about their objective, but he had to remind himself that this wasn't his task force, and he wasn't the head of a unit anymore. "You could've at least told me. I wouldn't be able to do anything without your go-ahead anyway."

"Exactly," Andreas remarked. "So why do you have to know? You would just place us at a disadvantage."

Charles got up and wordlessly exited the cabin, leaving the deputy and the company president on their own. Andreas shook his head and sighed. "One day that man's ego is going to get him killed. I'm actually surprised how it hasn't yet."

Malcolm, in spite of himself and how sorry he felt for his friend who had gotten his ego bruised, had to agree. But more than that, he got curious about what Andreas had just insinuated. "Why would Charles knowing your plan become a disadvantage?"

"I believe the shadow your friend is hunting had brushed shoulders with him already," Andreas mentioned ominously.

"And he doesn't know?" Malcolm grew more puzzled to the point that he was slowly getting impatient.

"That's precisely the point. If he knew, then the man he's chasing will know too."

"What? Why?"

The company president sighed. "You know my son," he began, his voice dreamy and far away. "He's smart and admirable. I raised him all his life but it's as if he grew up with a different, and much better parent, because I have no idea where he got all his qualities from. But I guess that's probably just heredity from his biological parents..."

Malcolm shifted his eyes momentarily, trying to look for context in the air between them. But when he found none, he just expected Andreas to get to the point.

"He's too smart, in fact, that sometimes he's overly secretive too. Maybe it's because I won't get him anyway, that's why he doesn't try. But one day, way before this whole operation began, he just approached me and said, 'The Crows are bullying businesses again.' I wondered what was so different about that. Crows, Kwon, and JH Corp have always been bullies, so what's all the fuss? My son, he said, 'We need to set up business in the 17.' I thought, this boy is too career focused. I guess he truly meant it when he chose to run the business instead of becoming a doctor. But it was still strange because we already had a franchise in Sector 17, so we've already been dealing business there. He then told me that, no, we have to invest in this bar."

"...You mean, The Roundtable?" The keen look in the deputy's eyes grew more concerned.

Andreas leaned back against the padded couch. He put his hands together and rested his arms on his thighs. He looked at Malcolm as if the words he was about to say were the most unbelievable string of thought that would ever come out of his mouth. "He believes that G is Augustus Kim."

"Logically speaking, he can't be someone who's already dead," Malcolm countered, but even he knew that there could still be a possibility with what the president had said. If there was a way he could explain the bizarre coincidence, and if he would be able to connect the dots from the records to the human experiments, then it could be a lot closer to the truth than it might seem. "But that doesn't explain why Charles would mess up your plan. I mean, with enough research, he could also access that information and come to the same conclusion."

"Augustus Kim died because someone killed him."

Malcolm nodded. "The records show. It was allegedly Santino Wen."

"And that someone just so happens to look uncannily similar to Wolfgang, right?"

The deputy's heart began to race. His knitted eyebrows could nearly carve the wrinkles in between them permanently.

"Isaiah came up with the plan. The entire street where The Roundtable was located had been bought by Jesse Hong. All establishments along that block belonged to him. He loaned the owners money, and made the interest grow until they could no longer repay him, and thus gave him free rein to take their spot. JHC was planning on building something there, but we trashed their whole scheme. Because Isaiah immediately got in their way when he saw that small bar in the middle of all those JHC-owned businesses and saw the struggling bar owner who had recently lost all his employees due to bankruptcy. My son told me to hire the bar owner, and in exchange we would protect his bar from being absorbed by JHC."

"Why?"

"Because he told me how funny it was," Andreas' face is a pool of mixed emotions: pride and excitement that he felt for his son, combined with the confusion and hurt that he felt for himself. It was a specific look of quiet despair, the one where you thought you would never be able to experience a certain kind of pain again, when you're finally able to relax your shoulders and be comfortable at the sense of security you have just started to learn how to feel, only for you to realize that that pain had been there, in the same exact spot you thought was the safest place you could hide yourself in. "It's so funny how right after losing his entire bar staff, he was able to hire two employees almost immediately. He said that it was funny that G and Wolfgang just happened to look just like the kids of two of the most prominent people directly related to the experiments: one was the son of CROWS Facility's CEO and founder, Dr. William Kim, and the other one being the son and successor of CEREBRI, the company that Dr. Kim had originally worked for, the same company that abetted to him conducting the experiments on us, Vernon and I."

"...The bar owner deliberately hired them?" Malcolm thought out loud. He tried to put together the pieces of the picture Andreas was throwing at him, but still, there's a giant chunk of it in the middle that was missing.

"The shadow Charles is chasing is the bar owner himself. A man called Lawrence Jeon," said Andreas, his voice exhausted but clear. "We recruited him so we could work with him and get closer to the two sons. Santi came along almost at around the same time. Isaiah found him being hunted down by Kwon. When he told me what happened, how Santi came to life, we knew he was involved with the experiments too, so we had to keep an eye on him. We told Lawrence to hire him as well to see what we could gather with the resurrected amnesiac pharmacist's case. That was all there was to the plan in the beginning, until Charles and Howie showed up. Everything we had set up didn't include those two, so we had to adjust. We can't confront Lawrence because we still don't know who he is in all of this. We haven't figured out why he's here."

And in that moment, realization dawned on Malcolm. He couldn't believe how he hadn't done research on the bar itself, even after gathering all the documents about every single one of the employees at The Roundtable. He wasn't even sure he knew what the bar owner looked like.

"Now do you understand why we didn't tell Charles, Deputy?" Andreas asked him. "Do you see how he could potentially get in the way?"

The deputy met the president's gaze. He sighed as he thought of Charles. It must have been tough for his friend to admit that to himself, but Malcolm knew Andreas was right.

He looks at the files Andreas and his team are able to gather through the years, and he just knows the Bureau would kill for these golde