Marcus was convinced someone was pounding a spike through his head and not just because of the pain drilling through his brain. There was a hammering sound...a slow, heavy BANG! every few moments causing a sharp agonizing ache to reverberate through his skull.

Rolling over on the uncomfortable...wait, where was he? He pried open his eyes, blinking groggily. Speaker, large screen tv, black and green…he must've fallen asleep on the couch at the hackerspace. He tried to swallow and flinched, groaning, as the pain in his throat vied for dominance over the throbbing in his head. The cough that shook him and rattled his chest set everything on fire and woke up aches the full length his body.

He remembered now feeling like ass when he arrived earlier, exhausted, chilled and achey all over. There was a meeting with everyone as they discussed their next plan of attack against Blume and ctOS 2 though he really couldn't recall anything they'd discussed. Then Josh asked if he was ok. Sure, man, just really tired. Ray said something about everyone taking care of themselves while they all stared at him and then the older man headed off for a beer. Then he'd laid down on the couch for a nap and that was that.

At least the pounding's stopped , he thought gratefully. Feeling unbearably hot, he shoved the blanket off ( where did that come from? ) and struggled to push himself into an upright position. His head swam as he finally managed to sit up fully, weaving a bit. He rubbed his hand down his face and forced his eyes open again but everything was blurry without his glasses, which suddenly appeared, floating in front of him. He took them with a mumbled thank you and slid them on his face, blinking a few times to clear his vision.

His view was filled with a pair of black studded Converse and a sledgehammer. He slowly raised his eyes to find Wrench in front of him, leaning casually on the handle of his sledgehammer and watching Marcus carefully.

"You look like shit, man."

"Thanks," Marcus croaked and saw Wrench cringe at the sound.

A cup of water came floating into view from his left. He grabbed it with another whispered thanks, glancing behind him to see Sitara hovering. The cool water felt good going down though swallowing was still painful as hell while the chills had set in again making him shiver. He felt the blanket settle around his shoulders and he grabbed onto it, snuggling it tightly around himself. He turned his attention back in front of him as he heard Wrench start speaking.

"Sorry, M. Didn't realize you were that sick or I wouldn't have…," he gestured vaguely behind him where Marcus could make out some piece of equipment Wrench was apparently "fixing" with a sledgehammer.

"Told ya, you idiot." Sitara gave Wrench a disapproving look before grabbing the water cup from Marcus to refill it. "You should lay down and rest some more. Wrench'll be quiet. Or go away." There was a threatening stare this time and Wrench just raised his hands in surrender, setting his sledgehammer in a corner.

"It's all good," Marcus rasped before drinking the second glass of water and then curling up on the couch in a blanket cocoon, too tired to add anything else to his response. He felt someone gently slide his glasses off before he faded back into unconsciousness.

Sitara set the glasses back on the little table near the couch and gave Marcus a worried look before joining Ray and Wrench at the table.

"He pushed too hard. His body's tellin' him to take a break," Ray said, taking a swig from his near empty beer.

"He's going to be ok?" Wrench flashed a colon and S to express his worry.

"Eh, he'll be fine. Just has the flu or something. Needs rest." Ray finished his beer and headed to the fridge for another.

"We'll keep working on our next step and bring him up to speed when he's better." Sitara said. "Meanwhile, you can go to your garage or something so you don't wake him up again."

"Yeah, yeah. I got some things I need to take care of anyway. I'll see you guys tomorrow." Wrench headed up the stairs, pausing on the second step and turning back.

"Hey," he waited for Sitara to look at him. "Let me know if he needs anything?" She gave him a little smile and slight nod. Satisfied, he turned and ran up the stairs.


"I need this taken care of NOW!" After a brief pause that Brandt assumed was to give the person on the other end of the phone time to grovel properly, Philips slammed the receiver down before turning to his son sitting patiently in front of his desk.

The Philips were, undoubtedly, impressive looking. Father and son were both broad-shouldered, obviously in good physical shape, with handsome, friendly looking faces, square jaws and golden hair. Either one could easily have done some modeling for GQ and not looked out of place. Michele Philips was no less attractive, fitting the bill of "trophy wife" perfectly as far as looks and public personality. She had curves in all the right places, blonde hair that was almost platinum, and a delicate face. According to both Philips, neither had resorted to artificial means for their visual "perfection," though Brandt knew otherwise. Michele had very definitely had some nose work done when she was a teenager-apparently her family features ran to large, hook noses.

However, looks aside, it was easy to understand why the Philips were as rich and successful as they were. Not only was William a formidable businessman, his wife was impressively skilled herself at running a large corporation and brought three businesses with her into the marriage, two of which made up close to half of the Philips' empire.

Lance was almost a watered down version of his parents. While he was smart enough, he lacked decisiveness and a certain level of grittiness that his parents had. He made up for it with a ruthless streak that bordered on sadism, at times, taking pleasure in firing people and sneaking off to gamble on dog or cock fights when he could. Brandt expected William would probably make sure he had a strong advisor in place to actually run things when he was gone, with Lance as the figurehead. That was if Michele didn't get involved and find some smart, ambitious woman for Lance to marry, instead.

Michele entered the room as William finished explaining what he needed from Lance and sent him on his way. Her heels made a tapping noise on the polished parquet floor as she crossed in front of William's desk and settled in the wingback chair nearby, gracefully crossing her legs and resting her elegant hands along the arms of the chair. She looked regal and, in Brandt's opinion, utterly deadly. Of the three Philips, she was by far the most dangerous because she was a master of manipulation. Most people would be mesmerized by her pretty tongue and not even realize those elegant fingers were preparing to stab them in the back. He'd watched her do it multiple times over the last 6 years, fascinated in how effortless she made it appear. When he'd first been hired, he was sure that Lance's sadistic streak came from William but after a couple of years, he realized his mistake. Michele Philips didn't just use manipulation to get what she wanted, she enjoyed leading people on, making them feel safe before landing the killing blow that would destroy their lives. Brandt made a note early on to avoid getting on her bad side.

The biggest surprise to him was the fact that she never used the same methods with Lance and very rarely with William. She genuinely cared for Lance, behaving like most protective mothers, supportive and encouraging. Brandt had the impression that she also felt some affection for William though he was fairly certain she wouldn't hesitate to rip his heart out of his chest if he ended up proving to be a hindrance at some point.

Which brought him to the fourth member of the family. The younger son that no one spoke about. Until recently, he didn't even know the man existed. There were no pictures, he wasn't in any of the family portraits; it was like he had never been born. Apparently with DedSec exposing Blume for some very sketchy and illegal behavior, for which the company promptly threw their CTO to the wolves, William had once again become concerned about some data he'd had stolen 9 years previous. By none other than the mysterious younger son. William and Michele refused to give him any details about the young man himself. William gave him the barest description of what had happened, while Michele gleefully filled him in on the then 16-year-olds virus that he left behind when he stole the data. Brandt had been mildly impressed the kid had managed to put something like that together but wrote it off as an act of rebellion, figuring once he'd run away, the young man had probably moved onto other things, like surviving. Brandt tried getting additional physical details from some of the staff that had been there, but the only thing he could get them to talk about was the birthmark which was universally disliked in the household.

When William first approached him about tracking down his data, Brandt's initial response was that it would be a colossal waste of time. The data would be obsolete at this point. Anyone who stole the data would assume it was useless by now-the son likely got rid of it years ago. But William was insistent, leading Brandt to the think that perhaps there was still information there that could cause his corporate group problems. So he set out to collect whatever he could find, even trying to dig up William's old system to see if he could tease any information out of it. Unfortunately, it had been discarded years ago, the hard drives destroyed when the system had been upgraded. He had nothing to go on. Until the feelers he'd put out with various associates finally paid off with a rather interesting lead. A lead that had him standing in Philips office with both Michele and William, preparing to offer up information that would likely cause the man to burst a blood vessel or two.

"You should watch this," he told them in his usual brusque manner, walking over to the desk to hand William the flash drive.

William gave Brandt a sharp look before sliding the usb into the port on his laptop and opening the file. It was a video, apparently pulled from the FBI, of an interrogation-one of the members of DedSec that they'd managed to get their hands on before the group brought Blume's CTO down. They could see a clear view of two FBI agents, one of them obviously angry, practically yelling and waving his arms about dramatically. This was directed at a third person they could see from the back. It was hard to tell whether the hacker was male or female, though William was willing to bet male, based on the way the person was sitting, the clothes they were wearing, hood pulled up over the head, the large tennis shoes. The hacker was hunched over a bit and it was impossible to see where the person was looking. There was something about the person's stance that seemed familiar and William found himself holding his breath waiting for the camera view to change so they could see the hacker's face.

"It can't be…" he whispered, watching the screen intently.

When the camera finally swung around to reveal Wrench's face, William was ready to break something.

"Son of a BITCH!" William shoved his chair back, hearing it crash into the wall behind him as he stalked across the room to avoid throwing his laptop in a fit of rage.

The video had Michele's rapt attention as she watched it play out to the end. She looked thoughtful as she followed up with, "Well, isn't that something." Her attention moved from the computer to her husband as he paced back toward the desk. She smirked at him, as a predatory look settled over her features.

"He's been here the whole time, under your nose, wearing a mask and not one of your men could find him." Brandt could practically hear William grinding his teeth from where he was standing.

The man stopped before reaching Michele and pulled out his cell, aggressively dialing someone.

"Reece! I need a tracker. Yes, I'm aware that you've never taken care of that problem and it's been a month. Is that your way of telling me you don't have anyone left who's up for this sort of job? Because I'm sure I can find a new team if I have..." he paused while Reece answered. "Fortunately for you this isn't someone with as much skill or experience as Trevor Grant so it really shouldn't be a problem for you to find him. Of course, it shouldn't have been a problem 10 years ago, either…," another pause as Reece said something. "Yes, that's exactly who I mean. Fine. I'll have Brandt get with you. He has a lead for you," William finished up, ending the call as he looked over at his head of cybersecurity who gave him a slight nod.

Michele was still watching her husband with that predatory gleam that almost made Brandt shiver.

"Between Brandt and Reece, we'll find him," William promised her.

"He's part of DedSec. The group that gave Blume such a beating and put a huge dent in our business portfolio." She was almost blatantly accusing him now.

"I'll have Lance check around, as well. He has some...interesting contacts that might prove useful in this situation." Husband and wife met up in the middle of the room, facing one another. "We'll find him. And then we'll get the data from him, by any means necessary."

"You'd better, darling." Michele all but purred. She reached up to fiddle with his tie. "If you think I'll hesitate in the slightest to throw you under the bus, think again."

Brandt turned toward the exit and almost made it out of the room before the sounds of moaning filled his ears. He closed the door quietly and was fairly sure he heard the telephone and pen holder hit the floor before he made it down the hall toward his office.

This was proving to be a much more interesting assignment than he initially expected.


A/N: Feel free to comment or hit me up if you have any questions, suggestions, comments or critiques.

Thanks to everyone who's been reading along!