Welcome to Gaia! ::

Jordan picked a route along the inside of the wall, a path where the grass was worn down with the tread of many feet. In the mornings, he ran here; at this time of day, though, it was usually unfrequented. Once they were far enough from the graveyard and the groups of hunters and trainees paying their respects, he looked over at Candace, his expression somber. "I'm assuming you overheard something disturbing too."

"I'm probably not supposed to know any of this," Jordan said. "Just a Sun and all that. But I've been finding some seriously disturbing data." He tucked his hands into his pockets and frowned, thinking about where to start. "Okay," he said after a moment. "Have you heard anything about the mission in 1999? A mission comprised of 200 hunters, related to the Horsemen and the Apocalpyse. Two out of 200 came back."

He looked sideways at Candace, waiting for her reaction.

"They seem to be repeating it; as far as I can tell, though, we may be stronger and better prepared for it. Back then, there were Hunters who used only runic weaponry. Unbonded. I've been unable to find out why, but the implications there are clear. The Death division has been doing research into that mission and the incidents that led up to it. I got a look at some of that, purely by accident."

He took a deep breath, continued. "One of the reports I read stated that the Horsemen were keeping humans trapped in their Lairs and using them to farm Fear. The Lair we were searching recently may have been a site, judging by the amount of bone and the lost weapon tablets there." He hesitated. "That's what I was talking about at the park. I hope I'm wrong."

"It makes me wonder what happened to make the jump in runic tech possible, and when it happened. Deus Ex has been here for long time, but if there have been significant advances in the past twelve years, some kind of breakthrough must have happened." Jordan shook his head; this was a tangent. Wasn't it? Or was it related more closely somehow? "I wish I had clearance to get at the relevant files," he grumbled, frustrated. "Keeping all of this quiet seems counterproductive. There's enough information available just from observation and hearsay to scare everyone. Are the prospects bad enough that having it out in the open would do more damage?"

He nodded in agreement. "It's horrifying. What it implies is also horrifying. The Horsemen are stepping up activity and gathering Fear; the files mentioned signs and omens, and we've been seeing repeating motifs and occurrences at investigation sites. On our side, there's a large-scale mission planned, and there was a note in Sandy's phone that stated it was Apocalypse level and gave a date of April first." He grimaced. "God, I wish I could have talked to Sandy ... she's the one who caught us cleaning up the files, and she helped us cover for it." His voice held a note of regret; he fell silent for a few moments before continuing. "At any rate, there's someone, probably in Death division, who disagrees with the policy of silence. I don't know who, and I don't feel safe using the contact in the phone; someone was trying to trace it."

"The information I have didn't state who the survivors were. I haven't yet had a chance to talk to the person whose notes I found; she seems to have had a look at a primary data source I haven't been able to find myself."

"I'd like to know the reasoning behind the secrecy." Jordan frowned thoughtfully towards the main complex. "There has to be some justification, reasonable or otherwise. There's more to this; we've only uncovered the edges of something big, something with a lot of history. The reasoning could even be as simple as this: if there's enough casualties expected, depending on what must be done, perhaps they can't afford to have anyone attempting to back out." He refocused, shook his head. "There's no way for us to know. Not now, anyway. Maybe once we're - er," he paused, and shot a look at Candace, "if we're eventually in a position to have easy access to that kind of information."

"I wish I was kidding. Harrison thought someone was pranking me. But there's enough separate evidence that I don't think it's a joke." He ran a hand through his hair. "Not strange at all, considering that I think someone sent me the phone without official authorization, and there's sensitive information on it. Nothing's come out of the attempted trace, though. Well, yet, anyway."

"You've met Clerise?" he asked. "One of the lambs, Life division. I'll text her. Give me a moment."

"Sorry about the message," Jordan said, and smiled apologetically. "Didn't mean to freak you out. Just needed to talk to you. You were in the Life labs last night, right?" He extracted a folded piece of paper from an inside pocket of his coat and handed it to her - the notes she'd left behind.

"Heya," Clerise waved at Candace next, grinning a bit at them both. Turning back to Jordan, she shrugged lightly. "It's no big deal, I was kind of freaked out any-"

She stared at the paper in his hand, wincing. Obviously, she had not meant to leave them there.

"Aaaand that would be why." She took the notes, reading over them with a sigh, then met their gazes with her own. "What about 'em?"

She sighed in relief, launching herself at Jordan for a quick hug.

"You have fully earned your named as 'the brains', dude. I owe you," she said, nodding resolutely.

Clerise debated giving away who her source was. She trusted Jordan, as much as she could for only having met him a few times, but Candace hadn't quite earned it yet.

"Someone," she settled on, refusing to give the other ginger away for now, not knowing that he and Jordan were on half decent terms.

"They told me that the mission had been gigantic, and that there had been two survivors and that's about it. Four division leaders perished, all but Mist. It was in Time's Square." Clerise looked uncomfortable. "The last horseman I saw demanded to know what lair we'd been in-- they wanted to know the one Caelius took us to."