If you don't follow me on Tumblr, the majority of the reason I haven't posted anything in two months is that I've been dealing with health issues of the mental and physical varieties. I'm on the mend but I was pretty much forced to shelve this chapter even though it was almost done because I was in a shit ton of pain.
The past two months gave me a lot of time to think though and I know I've said this a lot but I really am very serious this time about discontinuing ALYNA and just posting all of my notes. Even with my health on the mend and warm weather coming up, after two years I don't think I have the energy to continue this. I'm thinking of posting the notes as pseudo-chapters because otherwise it will be a giant mess and breaking it into probably three(?) chapters will make it more organizationally manageable for me and for readers. (Also I can pace it out a bit as though it were still a "story")
So thank you everyone for reading and for being here but I'm going to take the next couple of weeks to get all my notes together and tidy them up so I can post them.
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The rest of the ride back was uneventful, the adrenaline crash and the gentle sway and bump lulled Eren into something of a trance, the low voices of Erwin, Moblit and Nifa providing a white noise that washed over him. He settled into Mikasa's side, letting his head rest on her shoulder and feeling the long sigh that she let out, grabbing and squeezing his hand tightly before letting go and allowing herself to settle back and rest as well. In the dark of the van he couldn't see the road signs passing by but he could feel when they got closer to Trost, the traffic slowing and the sway of the van increasing as Moblit was forced to stop short a number of times. He could feel the swell of the road as they took an exit ramp off the highway and slowed to a stop, the red of a traffic light washing through the windshield and casting its glow into the back of the van. The red glow turned green and their van gave a lurch as they started to move again, navigating the slow traffic of the main areas before turning off and heading down smaller streets. The lights were replaced by stop signs that Moblit didn't fully stop for until finally there was a heavy bump and the nose of the van was slanting down as they descended the steep pitch of an underground docking bay, the screeching of a metal garage door closing behind them.
In spite of being out of the weather it was still cold outside of the van, Eren shivering as they left the warmth of the van. As they stepped up onto the loading platform he looked to the side and in the dim light cast by a single low watt bulb he could recognize Levi's car parked beside their van, the constriction in his chest easing at the sight of it. They all waited off to the side as Erwin went through the security measures on the only door off the loading platform, Eren pressed between Mikasa and Nifa as Erwin went through palm scans of both hands in addition to a typed out passcode and finally a regular key. Erwin walked ahead of them followed closely by Nifa before Moblit nudged Eren and Mikasa gently to follow, bringing up the rear himself. They followed along a dimly lit corridor until they came to another heavy door at the end, this one requiring only a passcode to open. The light on the other side of the door was far brighter than the corridor, causing Eren to squint and blink repeatedly as his eyes teared up at the sudden change. When his sight finally cleared he felt a sort of disoriented familiarity as he looked at the room before him.
Having only entered through what was presumably the main door into the Survey Corp's headquarters it took him a moment to place exactly where they were. While he had never really given it much thought he had figured that there must be other entrances to the building; this one just happened to not be readily visible as it was on the far end of the wall adjacent to the main entrance, obscured mostly by Hanji's work station taking up the majority of that corner.
Beyond the desk and filing cabinets and everything piled on top of them he could see the table that they used for seemingly everything from dinner to planning to debriefs, Levi sitting at it though Hanji was nowhere to be seen. Eren hadn't expected Levi to look much better than he had when they parted ways even with Hanji taking over the driving but the degree to which he looked unchanged – if not worse – made Eren feel slightly uncomfortable and as though he had missed something. The only positive change in Levi's appearance was that he had clearly showered and shaved and changed into fresh clothing, though Eren was slightly puzzled by the fact that he seemed to be wearing the pants from a set of blue scrubs in addition to what looked like a hand knit dark green sweater. The gentle pressure of Mikasa's hand on his arm brought Eren out of his own thoughts as they followed Erwin and Nifa out into the main area.
As they approached the table, Hanji came out of the kitchen with two large teapots and gave them all a tired smile before heading back to the kitchen, Moblit following and the both of them reappearing a moment later with a number of mugs. Erwin stepped away from the table as well, coming back with three folding chairs just as Hanji was halfway through pouring everyone a cup of tea. They all settled in around the table, seating somewhat tighter than usual with the additional people. Nobody moved to speak immediately as Nifa sat down next to Levi and put her first aid kit on the table, Levi removing his sweater and rolling up the sleeve of his t-shirt to keep it out of the way. He looked exhausted and deeply unhappy to be sitting there, Nifa having forced him to shift over so that he was sitting near the corner of the table, practically next to Erwin and avoiding his calculating gaze. For all that he felt bad that Levi looked uncomfortable, Eren was somewhat relieved that while he was sitting similarly close to Erwin he was not receiving the same focused and intense stare. What he was receiving was Mikasa's intense stare, something he was avoiding acknowledging as he watched Nifa cut the bandage around Levi's arm. At least the look her received from her was approving as she looked at his patch job and began to clean it, frowning as it began to bleed again and handing off some gauze to Levi to press over it while she went through the first aid kid again. It was at that point that Erwin seemed to decide that he was done waiting for everyone else to settle in.
"I know that this is a very broad question but what happened?" Erwin's gaze slid from Levi to Eren. "Levi didn't tell us much before."
"We…" Eren trailed off and stopped, the sheer breadth of what had happened over the past few days silencing him. The homophobic manager from the first place they stayed over was irrelevant, but was Irene – was Madam Immateria – similarly irrelevant? The deposit at the bank was relevant but was the woman who brought them to it? There were too many details to relay at once, too many divergences and questions potentially significant insignificant details. He glanced up at Levi again, everything weighing on him readily visible to Eren as Nifa applied liquid stitches to the wound on his arm. "There's a lot."
"Let's start smaller; Levi said something about a hard drive."
"Yeah." Eren ducked down and pulled Levi's bag up, hesitating as he unzipped it and saw the gun on top. Levi spoke up to fill the space of Eren's hesitation.
"Also a gun and badge from the two men who attacked us earlier today." Moblit stood up from where he had been sitting next to Mikasa and walked over, taking a glove out of his pocket and picking up both the badge and gun, frowning slightly at Levi. "Sorry, didn't have anything to bag it with on hand and we were in a bit of a rush."
"If there are any intact prints left I'll run them. This badge is Shiganshina PD and officers are required to be fingerprinted so even a partial will help. The badge number is filed down though so they might not even be officers. Not many people actually look at the badge." Eren nodded and ducked down to the bag again, frowning and looking up at Levi.
"Hard drive is in the inside pocket."
"Okay." Eren unzipped the pocket and pulled the hard drive out, sliding it across the table towards Hanji.
"And supposedly this is the key to everything?" Hanji turned the hard drive over in their hands, lips pursed as they looked down at it.
"There were files but –" Eren was quickly cut off by Levi.
"We had to leave them. Two of what were supposed to be three boxes were destroyed. We were being shot at, I pulled Eren down and everything scattered." Out of the corner of his eye Eren watched Mikasa's hands tighten into fists, her knuckles white. "Everything was handwritten and it was a downpour; those files are gone."
"And the third box?" Erwin kept his attention fixed on Levi who shrugged in response, avoiding eye contact.
"There was severe water damage in the basement storage locker we found them in; if the remaining box is there those files are probably gone as well. If they aren't – isn't the hard drive necessary to decode them anyway?"
"And how do we know the hard drive is the key?"
"There was a letter." Levi didn't elaborate, eyes flicking to Eren with an inscrutable look on his face, leaving the decision to him.
"It was with the hard drive, I have it in my bag." He ducked down to get it, hoping that nobody wanted to read it immediately. As he straightened up again he took in Mikasa's stony silence and saw Hanji and Levi exchange a look.
"May I?" Hanji extended their hand and Eren leaned forward to hand it off, holding his breath and feeling his pulse speed up as they opened the letter and skimmed it briefly. "So Grisha's dead then."
"He didn't write the letter?" Erwin's brow was furrowed.
"It's an "if you're reading this I'm dead" letter."
"So this has likely been sitting there since he opened that deposit box." Erwin steepled his fingers and leaned forward slightly, touching his fingertips to his lips. "This must have been his insurance that if he didn't finish whatever it was he was doing then everything would be set in motion regardless." His brow furrowed deeply as he paused in thought. "Though that doesn't explain why he would open a safety deposit box in Trost. If that even was him."
"Misdirection?" Hanji pursed their lips. "Make them think he moved everything to Trost… or that he was about to."
"And it's likely the last thing he did."
They all went silent, Eren grabbing Mikasa's hand and squeezing it reassuringly; he wasn't the only one who Grisha had walked out on. And yet he supposed that Mikasa had handled Grisha's disappearance better than he had. She had taken that familiar pang of loss in stride and moved on, focusing her love on their mother until she was no longer there either – that was when she had broken down. Though even then she hadn't been quite so angry, had never railed against Hannes the way he had or held out some sort of sick hope that Grisha would return in the wake of their tragedy. No, she had focused on him, her remaining family and created a space for the two of them; a life raft in a violent ocean, love a shield against the waves of grief and violence that threatened to capsize them. Back then he wouldn't have given Hannes credit for anything, would never have thought that he belonged on that life raft and yet now, years later he recognized him for what he had been – the sail that brought them out of troubled waters.
"Well, let's see what's on it." Eren was pulled out of his thoughts and he looked up, watching as Hanji brought the drive over to their work station, attaching it to the computer and bringing the hard drive online. Their brow furrowed as they leaned over the keyboard and looked at the screen.
"Is something wrong?" Erwin's eyes were narrowed and focused on where Hanji was standing.
"Yeah, we have a problem." They straightened up and turned back to everyone, their mouth twisted into a frustrated grimace. "This drive is fully encrypted and I know next to nothing about encryption, never mind decryption."
Eren watched as everyone around the table seemed to wilt, Levi bringing a hand and letting his head fall forward into it as Erwin's jaw clenched. Nifa's gaze was fixed on Eren's bandaged hand, her face slack and her eyes conveying some amount of horror. Even he felt despair welling up, pushing past his anger with Grisha for adding one more layer of complication to everything. Only Mikasa seemed to have retained some amount of determination as everyone else sank.
"So what if it's encrypted?" She looked around incredulously. "We have an AI, we're fine." Hanji's face slowly eased out of frustrated tension into slack relief, everyone else's posture straightening and coming to the alert.
"Well I guess we didn't get shot at for nothing." Levi's voice was barely a mumble but he held Eren's gaze, a sardonic smile pulling lightly at his mouth.
"Armin?" Mikasa tapped at her phone and placed it in the center of the table.
"Are you okay? Is Eren okay?" There was worry pitched in Armin's disembodied voice and Eren couldn't help but feel a tug of fondness and allow his lips to quirk slightly; he'd missed Armin.
"We're both fine, but we have a bit of an issue."
"What kind of issue?" Mikasa was about to explain when Erwin broke in, interrupting her.
"The short version is that we have an encrypted hard drive and we need to see its contents." There was a pause after his words, Armin not responding immediately and Mikasa's lips pursed as she tossed an annoyed look at Erwin.
"I'm sorry but I can't do that. It's not in my programming. Marco designed me to work with people not decryption algorithms. Sorry."
"Then your friend Marco, maybe he can…" Hanji caught the looks on Eren and Mikasa's faces. "Oh."
"Maybe if he weren't in physical therapy still trying to get full control of his dominant hand back. Or wasn't still dealing with all the fucked up fallout of being kidnapped and having a burning building come down on him." Eren's glare was furious and Hanji held their hands up in front of them, an apologetic look on their face.
"I'm sorry. I got ahead of –"
"Ask him." Erwin's voice was commanding as he fixed his gaze on Eren and Mikasa. "Ask him if he can do it or I will."