Floor 25 - Epilogue 1 - Final Farewells

Jonathon Edmondson would admit, freely, that he was a lousy parent; a sentiment that applied to his biological children, and to his adopted children too. He often put work ahead of them, and when his job was rarely declassified enough to actually tell them what was going on, this had led to some... tension between him and his older children.

Gabriella, his eldest daughter (and technically goddaughter), had been the first to really explode at him some years ago. It hurt enough to hear all the complaints his once-loving wife had to say about him, and many of them were valid, but to hear it from the little girl who'd once almost idolised him?

That had stung far more, and for far longer, than he expected it to. Eventually, the pair had reconciled, and he'd promised to her that he'd put more effort into being a father to them all; a promise that had fell by the wayside as of now. Whilst Gabby wasn't here to give him a piece of her mind (and he had no doubts that she absolutely would when she saw him next), that hadn't applied for the rest of his now-growing children.

Even his twin daughters Elizabeth and Eloise, both of whom were relatively soft spoken usually, had made their stance on his parenting style (which Beth had christened ''no dad F-U'' as an insult) exceptionally clear. He also didn't doubt that, had his adopted son been here, he would have torn into him for his failings as a father by now. The lad had definitely got some of his father's genes in there - his temperament for one, and if the detailed analysis of the SAO servers was indeed correct, then his father's ability to gather people around him too.

Considering it was currently 6:15 in the morning though, his mind would usually have been focused on other things; things like work, whatever secret that moron Sugou was going to ''accidentally'' leak this time, or whether Dracula would be too busy attempting to take over some third-world country to remember why they were in Japan, and not California, but today was far from a normal day.

He'd been rung by the hospital that he knew both Gabby and Michael were staying to inform him that he needed to attend immediately. He wasn't stupid, he knew exactly why that was... even if he wished he would never have to face it. Hospitals only called you with bad news after all, and he raced to the front desk. In any other circumstances, twelve minutes from his apartment to the hospital would've been an achievement for him, but this morning, he couldn't care less - any traffic tickets he'd gotten were going straight to Dracula's bank balance, not his!

"Jonathon Edmondson, I'm here for..." He panted, slightly out of breath from sprinting the last stretch. "Gabriella Edmondson. I got a call."

The look on the receptionist's face was a look one never wants to see on any member of medical staff - a look of ''how do we tell him the bad news?''. Before a word was even exchanged, his hand began to shake whilst he felt himself shaking like a leaf in a gale. He put a hand behind him, reaching for any object to even stabilise himself, but found no such relief before a nurse ushered him into a nearby room…

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He hadn't been able to comprehend even a single word the nurse had said, even though he'd heard them perfectly. It was almost as if he'd woken into a nightmare, a nightmare that he knew would never end.

To most people, the thought of outliving your own children was one they paid little attention to, and for good reason. If you did, you would struggle to think about much else.

He knew that for a fact now.

The room he sat in was a plain affair, a normal hospital side room – a raised bed on the wall, an aging computer that took up most of the desk underneath it, and plastic curtains that could be pulled round for privacy. He wasn't sure why, but the sterile nature of it all, and the fact that the nurse's expressions seemed to tell him this wasn't the first time she'd had to break the bad news to a family like this.

There were ten thousand people in Sword Art Online when it had begun nearly six months prior.

As of last night, that number had dropped to seven thousand, six hundred and nineteen people. Correction, seven thousand, six hundred and eighteen people, now Gabby had lost her fight with the death game.

There was no chance this young woman hadn't had to tell other families of their loss, and witness almost every stage of the grieving process. He… he'd done it once, having to break the news of her father's death to young Gabby all those years ago, and it had nearly broken him then.

He dared not imagine what conviction would be needed to do such a task on the semi-regular. He suspected it would simply break a lesser person, and it also reinforced a point he'd made to Sugou, when the moron went on one of his self-centred tirades, regarding how it had inconvenienced him by delaying his marriage; that the death game hadn't only affected those ten thousand people, but rather a number so much larger than that. A number he could not count of families broken apart by this, parents who'd lost their children to what was possibly meant as a present and the guilt those people must've felt for it, the friends who would never see each other again…

Unsurprisingly, Sugou had shrugged it off, and claimed that people always made good off human tragedy, so why was he getting rinsed out for it?

Even less surprisingly, he'd walked away from that exchange with a black eye and gauze stuffed up his nose. It would have been considerably more of a mess, had Isaac not split the men up, like a teacher in a playground, and told Sugou, in no uncertain terms, that they were here to help the survivors, not to profit from their misery…

The sense of irony that stemmed from that sentence being uttered by a man who ran a PMC who had been linked to a considerable number of human tragedies where they'd profited from it, was apparently lost on Isaac.

Regardless of all this, he'd asked to go and visit his son, who was apparently in just a poor of a state as Gabby had been, though they believed he would pull through.

Even as a soldier, seeing injured or ill people never got any easier, just more commonplace. Most soldiers, however, did not tend to see their own loved ones in that condition, at least not in a professional setting, anyway. "Morning, son." He asked, despite knowing he would get no response.

"I'm sure you already know, but…" He sighed. Once had been enough to have to do this, but it was his job as father to break the bad news as well as the good. Through thick and thin, he always thought. "Gabby passed away. She, uhh, she decided to go on her own mission into that blasted game."

He decided to leave out that he knew exactly why she'd done so; to find her little brother. Michael already struggled with guilt, he knew that, and telling him that it had been because of him that his sister had thrown herself into a death game to find him, and perished in the death game, was sure to be a bad idea.

He still blamed himself for getting stabbed by some drunken lunatic, and scaring everyone, so he didn't even contemplate what his son's reaction to that revelation would be. No doubt, it would be something self-destructive.

"I'm really not good at breaking bad news, am I?" He asked, again to no avail as the comatose Michael simply lay there. The only motion came from the rising and falling of his chest as he continued to breathe, and the perpetual movement of the line on the monitors beside them, and yet, it felt like the most time he'd spent with his son in years.

He couldn't help but think of just how miserable of a father he was, that the most time he'd spent with his son in recent years had been whilst he was barely conscious, or unconscious, in hospital beds. Perhaps he'd get the chance to make it up to him once this blasted game was over, take him to see things; concerts, museums, or hell, even just go along with him when he went out wandering with his sisters.

Things he could never do with Gabby anymore.

"I'm sorry son." He wiped away a tear from his eye at that thought. "I will make it up to you, I promise. All of you. I need to go now though, so… until we meet again, son." He held his son's hand in his own, and hoped that, for once, he knew his dad was there.

He wasn't optimistic about that.

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He had seen plenty of horrors in his career as a soldier, but this would be one thing he would never forget until his dying day…

In front of him lay the body of his niece/daughter by adoption. It really was hard for him to even form a coherent thought at what he was looking at. Almost impossible even, as he tried not to consider the pain she'd suffered through in her final moments, as her mind burned, and she bled out through her eyes, ears and nose.

The one thing that did strike him though, was just how peaceful she looked despite all that; she even had a faint smile on her face as she lay there, almost as if she was at peace with everything in her final moments of life.

Maybe she had made peace with everything? After all, he didn't know what was really going in Aincrad, other than what the data mining retrieved, so perhaps she'd finally made peace with her brother. He hoped so, as he remembered seeing them as children playing about – usually Gabby trying to demonstrate some concept to Michael in the most ridiculous way possible and getting a bollocking from their mom for it.

He might not have been there for them all the time but having watched the two yelling at each other before telling each other quite clearly that they didn't consider each other family anymore had hurt more than anything. If anything, those two were the closest thing to family they each had; since their father passed on, anyway.

He often claimed he was agnostic; he didn't particularly believe in heaven, but he'd certainly seen hell in his career, and he knew exactly where he would end up in the afterlife, if such a thing existed, of course…

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Nearly eighteen months it had been since their family had split apart, thought Eloise, as she went through her normal routine for that day. It was a Thursday, so her lessons didn't start until after lunchtime, so she would go and indulge in her hobbies for a bit beforehand.

She would be the first to admit that she missed having her brother and sister along for her rides out, but she supposed that was a part of growing up – watching people you were once close to, drift apart. Of course, she couldn't exactly blame either of them for that; Beth still called her every night, and the sisters would often spend hours on the phone, talking about whatever had happened in either of their lives, and Michael, well… SAO had happened. It wasn't as if he could talk about it to her right now anyway, as much as she wanted to spend hours just listening to the stories he'd no doubt have…

Their father had told her about the nitty-gritty of it, about the attempts to break through the myriad of protections that the NerveGear had installed, and the data mining that had told them a bit more about what was going on inside SAO.

She couldn't help but find it mildly funny to watch her parents both flip out when they'd discovered that, not only had Michael become an integral member of the frontline efforts to clear the game (though she'd found it amusing that he of all people would go by Jet, given his middle name and love of aviation, and the less said about his nickname, the better…), but had also gotten a girlfriend, a protégé and an actual friend circle. She really hoped they were all different people, now she thought of it!

Her thoughts were interrupted as the next stop announcement above her told her that she was nearing her stop for the academy. Just one more day at school, but she supposed it would be worth it when she got into uni and got her foot on the ladder at work. That was all hypothetical yet though, and first, she had to pass her A-levels.

Unlike her siblings, she was a straight-A student, though unlike her siblings, it had helped that she'd picked relatively easy subjects; Business, Media and… okay, calling Computer Science an easy subject was probably against the Trade Descriptions Act somehow, but she'd always had a knack for that sort of work, unlike her brother, who was… technologically challenged, as Beth had called him.

She'd been a little annoyed to discover that he'd managed to get into a game that promised to be the biggest revolution in gaming since someone at Nintendo watched a plumber accidentally fall down a drain, and got an idea for a platforming game, and that hadn't gotten any better after she'd talked to Michael about his experiences from the beta test, though she was curious to meet this Koharu girl she'd heard him gush about.

Perhaps it wasn't the first time he'd had a crush on someone, but it had been the first time he'd been open about it, even if he probably hadn't meant to be.

Still, she had more important things to attend to; namely school and getting the grades she needed. Stuff like that could wait until she was at home, and besides, it was depressing to think of her brother's condition, and it wasn't as if school wasn't depressing enough as it was!

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Later that day, Eloise was on a free period, having spent the first handling the nitty and gritty subject that was the world of corporate regulations and liabilities, before spending most of media doing what most media students do… bugger all.

That wasn't strictly true; she'd also spent some time reading through a blog that was compiling the many leaks from the world of Sword Art Online and noticed a recurring thread.

That thread was mourning the loss of someone called Strea.

The woman was apparently one of the frontliners and based on the details that an unnamed source had handed them, had become an almost unsung darling amongst those left in the real world. She was sure that the drawings some people had done of her had absolutely no reason for some of the adoration… She was absolutely gorgeous.

Too gorgeous, she'd decided. There was no way that was someone's natural appearance…

"Thought I'd find you here."

"I was just checking the progress. Looks like they've cleared the 25th Floor, but at a massive cost." She filled him in.

"Yeesh. This is the first time in ages there's been massive casualties, right?"

"Yeah, especially amongst the Assault Team. I keep reading obituaries for some of them. That Strea woman was one of them."

"Welp, that means the supply of images for your comic is going to dry up then." He joked, and she glared at him. Yes, he probably had a point there, but this woman was still human! She still had a family that were no doubt mourning the loss of their daughter, sister or mother, and she still deserved some basic respect!

"I see why my brother got annoyed at you sometimes." She voiced her thoughts in one succinct sentence.

He simply shrugged, as if he hadn't reduced a human life to nothing more than a protagonist in her story, and not the life she'd actually led. "It's not like we know her, is it?"

"And that makes it alright?"

"Says the girl who writes a comic about her brothers adventures with a group of women…" He mock coughed as he rebuked her statement.

"Hey! I at least make it clear they aren't just characters in a story, they're real people, and I'm just a storyteller… "

"You're not exactly innocent in any of this yourself." He sat down next to her and looked over the blog post on her laptop. "You're looking to see if Michael was amongst them, right?"

"I know it sounds dumb, but… he's always pulled through before." She admitted. "It's just that seeing him listed as MIA makes me worried."

"Eloise, if I can offer you some advice?" Sam stood back up and started to offer his advice anyway, even before she could tell him she didn't want it. "You can't keep doing this – living vicariously through your brother. I know this sounds harsh, but do you really think he's constantly thinking about you guys?"

"He's in a death game though! What have I got to do; my A-Levels, and then what? An entire summer of nothing but living with mom and Beth before uni starts…" She said angrily. "If you're just going to be an arse, do you mind doing me a favour?"

"And what would that be?"

"Get lost!" Had she had anything smaller than a laptop to hand, she'd have thrown it at him. As it were, she settled for shouting instead…

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After the day she'd had, sitting on the Y6 home felt almost like a chariot ride to heaven, rather than the torture of school kids and mildly annoyed pensioners it normally was. She made a note to find the person at Scania whose work had made the N280s feel more comfortable than their older Volvo counterparts that had ran the route before her family had self-destructed.

Despite that, her mind wandered back to what Sam had to say. He had no right to tell her what she could and couldn't do with her life! He wasn't even her friend, not really – he was Michael's friend, and she put up with him, because in him was someone she could discuss stuff to do with the SAO crisis with.

She'd tried to do so with a few other people, and other than Lisa, her old Primary School friend - who had simply nodded along, and only rarely added her own thoughts, something that she admitted was down to her simply not knowing what she was on about sometimes, but still finding it important that she had a way to talk about it – everyone else chose not to talk about it. It was seen as still rather unpleasant of a subject to talk about, given the human toll of the crisis, and she didn't expect that to change any time soon.

It wasn't as if anyone was going to be rushing out to buy waves of action figures of their favourite front liner (although she secretly hoped that would happen, because a figure of her brother would be a hilarious thing to show him…), or films being made of them any time soon, she supposed.

It was then that her wild blue yonder thinking was interrupted by a text. Probably Sam apologising to her, she thought, but she'd give them the benefit of the doubt and check it anyway…

Ellie, its mom. Ring me after school please xx

She decided to wait till she got home to ring her, save the annoying Year 9s at the back of the bus from making sex noises down the phone, simply to annoy her. Whatever it was though, it must have been important to text her now, rather than wait till the evening when she called anyway…

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Putting the phone down, Eloise almost fell back onto the counter. Her field of view had gone fuzzy, and she'd lost her balance too, almost as if she'd been concussed.

Unfortunately for her, she wasn't concussed, but rather, in shock.

Her sister had died.

She'd known that Gabby had, for want of a better word, disappeared shortly after she'd talked to her some months ago, but she'd not expected her to go and find her way into that stupid game.

Despite what her mom had said, she was going over there to see her family, sooner rather than later. She still had time till exam season, and she could spare a bit of time away from her studies anyway…

Pulling up one of the barstools, she regained her composure, and dialled a number she'd not rung in a long time – her father. Each ring of the phone felt so much longer than it had any right to, almost as if the world had been left on 0.5x speed, the tone distorted to her ears. Eventually though, the man picked up his phone… "Dad?"

"I really can't talk now, Ellie. Work is…" He answered, before being interrupted.

"Your father is busy. Go away. Oh, and if you tell another soul about this… I know exactly where you live."

"Who-who the hell are you?" She shouted down the line, as the hang up tone sounded, and she thought about what had happened. That voice, it wasn't her uncle – the cadence was arrogant enough, but there was a sense of… something to prove there, that her uncle never had in his voice.

Just what the hell had her father gotten tangled up in now?

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There was only a finite amount of time he could stand to spend in a hospital, and he did have to work for a living too, so despite his better judgement, Jonathon Edmondson had found himself in a meeting with his boss, and the patsy-sorry, "valued member" of his team, Sugou.

That meeting had been enlightening, when Tellerby had revealed exactly what Sugou had been playing at in his role – he'd made copies of SAO wholesale.

Not just the game data, but player data too; a simulation of all 10,000 occupants of the death game, living or dead, and used them to "test" his theories on how the world would react to any attempt to break in.

All in all, twenty copies had been made, and it was only when it was realised that an entire server farm was been used for his projects that anyone had noticed.

Sugou had been so cavalier about life because, in his twisted mind, he did have reign over life and death. Not necessarily his own, but still, it had been enough that he'd seen Dracula show even the faintest hint of emotion… that had been to threaten to defenestrate the man (a valid threat when you were eight stories above ground level), and have his remains placed into a drum somewhere, liquified and used in mixing concrete for an interesting new housing development, the only place where the man may ever prove himself useful apparently.

Say what he would about Dracula, the man was at least creative in his retribution.

Needless to say, it had resulted in a rapid trip to the bathroom for Sugou.

"You told him about my project, didn't you?" Sugou snarled at him.

He shrugged. "Didn't need to. It wasn't hard to tell you were doing something disgusting. So, even if he hadn't found out, I'd have had to put a stop to it before too long."

Sugou, even at full height, was not a tall man. About five foot seven, the man was a good eight inches shorter than he was, and it showed when the weasel of a man tried to stand up to him, and still had to look up to see his face… "I told you, Edmondson, I am a patient man, but you do push my limits to a breaking point…"

He snorted at the implicit threat. Sugou really was a businessman first and foremost… he had absolutely no idea how to threaten a man; coming across as more of a petulant child throwing a tantrum, instead of the ever-present threat he wanted to appear as.

"And what, pray tell, is so amusing?"

"It's like watching a kitten try to be threatening. It'd be cute… if you weren't such a complete arse."

"I think you forgot exactly who you're talking to, Edmondson…"

"A narcissistic ephebophile, with a god complex and a misjudged policy of "money makes me look more powerful". No, I know exactly who I'm talking to, Sugou, I think you don't though…"

"It's interesting that you forget just how much power I wield over your family. Remember what I have access to, and-"

"Do anything to him, and I will ensure you meet with a fate worse than death. I promise you that much…"

"It's a shame you weren't so protective of your daughter then, isn't it? At least you have a son still… for now, anyway." Sugou grinned, as if he'd won that battle… before a fist slammed straight into his nose. Wouldn't it have been a shame if that one had broken the nonce's nose, he thought to himself, as Sugou picked himself up off the table he'd collapsed onto.

"If you think this is over, Edmondson, just you wait… just you wait!" He snarled through the bloody nose as he fled down the corridor…

Sugou knew that he was too tough of a target – he could easily break the man's neck, before he'd had to put up too much of a struggle, but he a bad feeling that the patsy would view that as more of a reason to harm someone close to him… someone he had control over…

"Crap." He muttered, realising exactly what Sugou meant by that.

Michael. A defenceless target in his present condition.

Sugou was right about one thing, and only one thing – this wasn't over.

Not by a long shot.