The problem, as it so turned out, was not in the lighting at all. No, his room was illuminated quite well, with artificial bulbs rather than sunlight. At a certain hour every day, they would automatically shut off, and Rex assumed that by then it was nightfall. So as far as sources of light went, he didn't have much to complain about because he knew that it could have been much worse. They could have shoved him in a dungeon somewhere.
He was kept from knowing the exact location of where he had been delivered to, given a room with no windows or exits other than a single metal door which could not be opened from the inside. He had a single bed which stuck out from the wall, but oddly enough no sheets or a pillow. He wondered why that was and, because he was given absolutely nothing to occupy his time with, spent too long of a time trying to figure out how bed sheets and a pillow could be used lethally. He kept drawing up blanks, perhaps because he only ever associated these things with sleep. It couldn't be that he wasn't creative.
The only other things in his room were a toilet and sink.
That was it.
"...that's why I never recommend anyone clean crystals in water unless you are absolutely sure you know what you're doing. My crystal lost all of its shine and was way too rough. It was horrifying-"
The real problem lay not in the lighting, but in the company. Feakins would not shut up, and it would have been alright with Rex if he didn't switch back and forth between the same three topics continuously: Rocks, complaints about how uncomfortable he was, wanting to go home, then repeat.
Having a roommate like him around made him miss having Bobo all the more. Though the chimp had been a messy roommate and was prone to stinking up any given place, his companionship could not be replaced by anybody. Sharing his living space with Feakins only reminded Rex of how much he wasn't like his best friend, of how different it was sharing his space with someone new. The stark contrast between the two of them was painful, and it made it too easy to resent him.
He had been putting up with his presence for what he estimated to be a few weeks, and in that time he had received no word on Caesar. Now and then, guards would slide open a narrow opening on the door and bring them trays of food. He had tried asking them for any news about his brother. Rex didn't know what the ruling on his case had been, whether he was being kept in a similar condition, or something worse.
If he was even alive.
The guards were unhelpful. The kinder ones attempted to let him down easy when they said they couldn't provide him with answers, either because they didn't know or couldn't say. Crueler guards just snarled at him to shut up, and jostled the trays of food so most of it ended up on the floor. It was uncalled for. It made Rex seethe within the tiny confines of his room. He didn't even try to figure out what he could have possibly done to deserve the harsh treatment, never having met these people prior to his imprisonment. But they'd succeeded in pissing him off to the extent of no longer caring if he had done something to offend them. He was glad for it. Good, he thought, viciously stabbing at his food.
But the lack of real answers did little to hinder Rex's pursuit to find out what had happened to Caesar.
It was a routine.
"Can you please just tell me what happened at the end of The Salazar trial?"
He would ask the same thing every time.
"Sorry kid, I can't help you."
And day in and day out, he got back the same results.
After another unsuccessful attempt at snaking information out of his jailers, he retreated to the furthest corner of his room, knees pulled up to his chest, glaring resentfully down into his breakfast oatmeal. He assumed it was breakfast anyway. His sense of time had been destroyed, now entirely dependent on when the lights were shut of. Guesswork.
"Who's that guy you keep asking about?" Feakins asked him, finally straying away from his usual conversation topics.
Rex considered ignoring him.
"The Salazar guy." Feakins asked again, "You keep asking about him even though the guards keep telling you that they don't know. Don't you ever talk about anything else?"
The last nerve keeping Rex together was lost. He gave a harsh laugh, making the man flinch.
"That's rich coming from you, Feakins." He was surprised he kept his voice even, because he felt like screaming. That didn't mean there was no acid in his tone, "The only things you think are interesting enough to talk about are a bunch of pebbles. Let me let you in on a little secret: Nobody. Cares. I'm sick of sharing a room with you. Just do us both a huge favor and shut up. "
His roommate averted his eyes quickly, but since there was no real place to hide for privacy's sake, they were stuck sitting there in awkward silence.
Then...
"Jeez. No need to be touchy, guy."
Rex rolled his eyes and dipped his spoon into his oatmeal. He knew he was behaving like an ass but he didn't feel like being nice at the moment.
"Look, I get it, Feakins. Trust me, I do." He leveled with him, "You have a normal life you want to get back to. This must really bite for you and it's kind of my fault, so I'm sorry for that. But neither of us want to be here, dude. If it were up to me, we wouldn't be."
"It is kind of your fault." He agreed wholeheartedly, "They only want me here because of you-"
At first it seemed like he was going to begin complaining about how this was Rex's entire fault.
"-but not many people would apologize for something indirectly their fault, even if it basically ruined someone's life. And not many people apologize to me at all… So, thanks."
Slowly, Rex nodded, but he thought it kind of bizarre. His apology had been an offhand addition, half-assed and barely even genuine, but it had seemed to pacify his cellmate. Was that the only thing he wanted this entire time?
"So who is he? Caesar Salazar. The name sounds familiar." Feakins prodded once more.
Rex kept his eyes down at his food, moving around the contents inside.
"You've met him before… sort of. He was pretending to work for Black Knight when she had you kidnapped by Providence. Caesar is my brother. The trial you were taken to was for him."
"Ohh. Is he in trouble for taking her side?"
He shook his head, "No… He helped create nanites. He's 'in trouble' because they're blaming him for the EVO outbreak."
"Yeesh." Feakins mused, "No wonder the guards have been ruining our food."
"What?"
"Life ruining has got to run in your family. I'm guessing maybe some of the guards blame your brother too. They must really hate him... and you. Sorry, guy."
Rex hadn't even thought about that. It had never crossed his mind. Of course he knew that EVOs were destructive or that people's loved ones had mutated into them. He knew that a lot of people had been hurt. He simply hadn't put two and two together, hadn't considered that the guards might have been taking their losses out on him. He felt dense now, and even though he held something akin to empathy for them, the explanation didn't completely cool his ire towards them.
"I don't care if they do." He replied, pulling a small scowl.
The metal door slid open with a swift clang. Rex tensed, looking up at the two guards who stood there bravely armed with weapons and armor, as if either of the two prisoners posed any sort of risk to them.
"Shower time, ladies." One of the guards gestured his gun toward the door, "You know the drill."
Rex slid his tray away and stood up with a grimace, heading toward the door. Back home, he reserved showers for after missions. They were warm, relaxing, and served to unknot his tense muscles. Here, they were only cold and felt like a chore rather than a way to loosen up after a long day. He and Feakins were lead toward separate shower rooms, and the door was opened for Rex via keycard.
"You have ten minutes." The guard stated.
He stepped into the room and it shut behind him. Once he was alone, Rex washed up as quickly as he could before time could run out. The harsh spray of the water had his teeth chattering as he scrubbed his hair and skin clean. He was trembling from the temperature by the time his ten minutes were over, ears and nose having numbed.
The blast of water was shut off, and that was cue for him to get moving and get dressed. He hadn't been given a towel to dry himself off, so he just pulled his clothing on, dampening them in the process.
Rex was lead back to his room after that, noting that Feakins hadn't made it back yet. That was odd. Usually they were returned to their room at the same time. He took a seat on the bed, attempting to warm up after the shower.
A moment later, the door slid open again. He expected his roommate, but he was not there. Instead, a woman in a white lab coat stood there with a guard. There was a painful tug on the strings of his heart, but the lab coat is where her similarities with Holiday ended. He was automatically wary of her.
"Hold out your arm." She instructed, no nonsense about her. He didn't have a choice really, hesitating before holding it out. His shoulder was stuck with a needle and he hissed as he was injected with some kind of substance.
"What… was that?" Rex asked when she had pulled away from him, leaving his skin with an angry red mark. Sore, he rubbed it with a palm.
"You will no longer be sharing a room. We developed a new method to suppress your abilities using Feakins' blood samples. It's more efficient this way." She stated, heading toward the door without a second glance.
"He's… gone?" Rex asked slowly, but received no answer.
The doors were shut, the metallic slide containing a note of finality in it.
Silence took place of the idle chatter that Feakins had once filled the room with. The guy had probably been returned home, back to his normal life, where all of this would be just a bad memory for him.
Rex envied him.
He thought he would feel relief now that the guy was gone, but it was just the opposite. In solitude, everything was worse. Formerly, there had been someone there to suffer with him and share in his pain as horrible as that sounded, but now he just felt completely alone.
For some reason, White Knight came to Rex's mind. After he had been stripped of his nanites, he was stuck suffering in captivity too. He had to wonder how the man was able to stand it and what he was doing now. Rex hoped that in his absence, Knight had finally stepped out of his shell to enjoy his freedom. He had spent years in his isolated chambers because he was the only man on the planet without nanomachines in his system. Now, Rex was going to spend years in isolation for being one of the last humans to still have them active.
They didn't even allow Rex a phone call or letters home. He had no contact with the outside world whatsoever, not even minor news like current events. Slowly, by the hours, he felt the connection between himself at the rest of the world being severed. He knew that eventually he was going to be buried by time. He wondered how long it would take to be forgotten. But...
But Six had promised they were coming for him.
He promised.
Rex bit the inside of his cheek.
He had to believe that.
"Can you please tell me if you have any information about my brother? His name is Caesar Salazar." Rex asked pathetically through the slit in the door that slid open when his food was being delivered, "He was on trial I don't know how long ago. Please? I just want to know."
Suddenly, he was filled with overwhelming hope when the woman answered. Because she paused and said, "Yeah actually. There was a video message that arrived here about the Salazar trial."
"A message?"
"Yeah, it came in a few weeks ago."
Weeks ago?
"What?!" Rex demanded incredulously, "Why didn't anyone say anything?!"
"We were advised by the higher ups to give it to you at our discretion."
That revelation was such a kick in the teeth. They'd known the outcome of his brother's case all along. They had purposely deprived him of that knowledge. And for what? They didn't have to do that but they chose to anyway. It was at their discretion. It wasn't necessary. So why?
"When will you let me see it?" He asked, hurt coloring his tone. Because god did it hurt, being barred from knowing for this long.
The guard took a step back, "I'll go ask. Hang tight, I'll be back."
He didn't even touch his plate of food. He waited by the door with a sense of desperation thrumming through his body, like a dog waiting to be thrown a bone. He had to know. He had to know.
The woman returned as she said she would, slipping a video player through the door.
"When you're done with it, leave it by the door with your tray and someone will be around to collect it with your plates." She instructed, and left him with it.
His breath hitched. Without sparing another second, he sat cross legged on the ground and hit the play button.
On the dirty, fingerprinted screen, an image of his brother appeared, proving that he was very much alive. Rex let out a huge breath of relief, feeling as though his accumulated stress had been drained out of his body all at once.
The one thing that struck Rex as strange was that he wasn't giving the camera his sunny smile. He looked solemn for once. He found that he disliked it, as much as it annoyed him when Caesar did not take certain issues with the severity they needed to be handled with.
"Hello, I'm Caesar Salazar." He greeted with a forced smile that didn't reach his eyes, "I'm one of the last surviving inventors involved in the creation of nanites. The only other respectable member alive today is Dr. Peter Meechum. Unfortunately, our little invention caused some bit of trouble for all of you over the years..."
His smile turned sheepish.
"That wasn't the initial goal of our project. Things… got out of hand you can say, and my hand was forced by those who funded our research. They wanted to use our work to make themselves into gods. I felt that the only way to stop them was to destroy our research. I apologize for any disruption in your lives that was caused by my actions. Please understand that at the time, I did give thought to how the Nanite Event would impact the daily lives of other people. The explosion was not caused without taking into consideration the rest of the world. It was simply clear from my standpoint that your momentary discomfort was but a small sacrifice to make when compared to the consequences that would have followed if the Consortium had succeeded in their plans. Not many people see it my way." His brother gave a little dissenting hum, "A difference in opinion I suppose, and that is fine. So I've been sentenced to my execution."
All at once, the wash of relief Rex had previously been feeling at the sight of his brother vanished. Stricken with panic, he found that he could not move a muscle. He couldn't do anything. Nothing but a choked sound left his mouth.
"I would like to close by saying to Dr. Meechum that I still consider us friends. I hold no animosity toward you for telling officials that I was responsible for the lab explosion-"
So… It hadn't… been… Van Kleiss…
"-since you weren't present at the time anyway. It wouldn't be very fair to you if you were given part of the blame, when you couldn't have been aware of what I was doing until after the fact. And of course, I know you have a daughter that you can't leave without a father.
"To Providence, thank you for looking after my troublesome little brother. It is regrettable that I was not there to see him grow up. Ah well, at the very least I know he was in good hands.
"Which brings me to the final person I must address before I go. Rex," Caesar's smile became affectionately warm, "I owe you the most apologies, mijito. I'm afraid I'm out of time to make it up to you."
No.
"I know there are many things you still don't understand, and I haven't done a very good job of explaining them to you. But you have already become so smart, so strong, so good without me or our parents. I know you are good. You are much more than just a weapon. You have to remember that your family, we love you so much."
No. No. NO.
"Please, continue taking care of yourself. And… continue being good."
Caesar's smiling face faded, screen going dark and cracking beneath Rex's fingers.
"No!" Moisture gathered in his eyes, but he was unable to keep it at bay this time. Rex was crying, really crying, tears streaming down his cheeks. Furiously, he turned to strike at the wall of his room until his skin became a blotchy red, soon to be purple from repeated impact.
The last thing he had said to his brother, his very last words to Caesar had been in the form of an irritated snap at the court tower. That's how Caesar was going to remember him.
"Don't hurt him, don't hurt him, don't kill my brother, please!" He was begging now, and stopped his assault on the perimeter of his enclosure. His shoulders shook with sobs, he choked on them, palms slipping defeatedly down the cold wall. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew it wouldn't make a difference. The woman had said that this message had been delivered to the facility weeks ago, "Please!"
There was no answer.
Caesar was now gone-
No, he had probably been gone for days already.
Rex hadn't even known.
