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The half-mast flag, a simple flag in plain blue and grey was not the only unusual thing about Deus Ex that particular Monday. Standing in front of the cemetery, a growing lot with rows, hundreds, of even grave markers, was a large assembly of Hunters. There were some notable faces: Allan, looking more serious than usual in a surprisingly ordinary version of his usual Hunter coat, Simon standing next to him, a few recognizable senior Hunters also added to the assortment.

There were at least thirty fresh grave markers, their stone slabs clean, newly engraved. Two from the last wrote:

Sandra Peirce- Morgans

Barney Espinoza

They were all quietly murmuring amongst each other now, giving the leaders a wide berth. It wasn't until Allan and Simon left that the Hunters began to speak up, whispers turning into heated debates. They were unhappy and most of all, they were uncertain. Afraid.

There was still plenty of room left in the cemetery.

Candace had awoken that day to see the flag outside lower than it usually was. Half-mast...death. She hadn't forgotten about it but she had managed to put Sandy and Barney's deaths out of her mind enough to not just mope about it, to not scream injustice and cry about how they had sacrificed themselves for them. She didn't want to think about the weapon tablets they had gone to retrieve, to think about how they had been left there in the lair with no owners.

They had had owners at some point..

She had made sure she looked respectable as she trudged across the grounds to the cemetery to find it was full of people gathering around the new graves. One, four..nine...thirteen...twenty...she stopped counting at thirty. Thirty new graves. Sandy and Barney were among them. Candace glanced in the direction Ben's grave also sat, frowning and rubbing at the back of her neck as she just looked out at the grave markers. She could be in one of those. Or Jerry, or Sasha, or H, or Harrison, or Jordan or...just anyone...it was always a painful dose of reality whenever she was reminded of the existence of the cemetery.

It made her sick.

As Allan and Simon left Candace stepped aside to let them pass her, and the murmuring she heard surprised her. What? This didn't sound like the usual...mourning conversation. At funerals people should be speaking of the deceased, memories and happy stories..

"- Searched the archives, all information has been wiped out. I'm telling you, there are no information on the archives about the last incident, that's a whole decade from 1990 to 2000 just freaking gone-"

Candace blinked, looking up and around. Wait, what? Incident? And a missing decade? She cast a look back at the facility, frowning. They were hiding something even from full-fledged hunters..?

God damn. God. ********- That rock in his gut was back and he didn't really enjoy it. Survivor's guilt. It wasn't an easy pill to swallow, less so when Marcus struggled with the fact that no matter what, nothing he could have done would have helped. He'd lived, they died. Hell- It had been a mass grave after all? Wading in the remains of rotting dead hunters. The thought was chilling to say the least. Not to mention, it was close to home.

It would be their fate if they were not careful. Hunters were around, silent whispers, many still and quite. Respectful of the dead. Perhaps also contemplating where they would end up as well. He'd come to pay respect to the dead.
"I just got word for the next big mission, they're deploying almost one-hundred of us, and that's not including trainees. That's kind of big numbers, why would they need so many of us unless-"
But death was unsettling. So was the snippets he was hearing. Were they right? Hell, they barely scratched the surface of the 1999 thing. Speculated. But the fact that hunters, not trainees were even picking up on- ******** hell if Marcus didn't feel a sense of dread, the rock in his gut getting heavier.

"I just got word for the next big mission, they're deploying almost one-hundred of us, and that's not including trainees. That's kind of big numbers, why would they need so many of us unless-"

One hundred hunters plus trainees? Did this have anything to do with the incident one of the others had mentioned? Candace didn't like this. She didn't like not knowing what they were talking about.

The next big mission...included over a hundred hunters and trainees...why so many?

Ami had never found graveyards disturbing. Well, most of them. There were always ones with shadows lurking around them, but for the most part? She found them peaceful. They weren't creepy sights for ghosts and undead. They were traquil. A place that everyone understood there was to be no fighting, only respect. Of course, now that she knew about real ghosts and undead ... well her opinions were mixed.

For now, she was solemnly dressed in a black, appropriate outfit. She noted how many new graves there were. It was unsettling. She'd fought in the hunter trial to live, not to die. It made her efforts feel futile.

"I just got word for the next big mission, they're deploying almost one-hundred of us, and that's not including trainees. That's kind of big numbers, why would they need so many of us unless-"

Who had just said that? One hundred people for a mission? Ami hadn't heard anything about that ... So maybe she wasn't slated to go? Being in a graveyard of dead hunters ... it was a tad relieving to hear that she might not go on a mission for once.

The flag was at half-mast again. For a split second, as Wilson had woken up and stared outside he had almost forgotten the lowered flag’s meaning, but a flash of green in his mind reminded him. Death. Mourning. His jaw clenched. How long had it been since his last trip to the cemetery? Last time, there had been no faces to connect the names to, and only a vague name that he had nearly forgotten. He habitually tugged at the goggles hanging around his neck as he slipped into a fresh set of clothes. This time would be different.

When he arrived, he noticed how much the area had expanded since his previous visit. He attempted to search out the grave marker from last time, but found himself drowning in a sea of unfamiliar names. Wilson shifted his attention to the newer markers. His eyes narrowed. How many new additions were there? One. Two. Four. Ten. Twenty. He couldn’t stand to count out the rest. It was like equating the deaths to a number, a statistic, not to a person with a name and a history and friends. Instead, he read the names down the newest row until he settled on the pair of names he knew. His blank expression turned slightly curious. So that was her full name. He began to wonder, wondering if the brother she had mentioned was somewhere on the island as well, wondering if she had regretted her decision at all.

There was a quiet murmuring. The voices only registered in his mind once it grew louder, snapping Wilson out of his thoughts. He looked around until he caught fleeting glimpses of Allan and Simon leaving. At first, he had not recognized Allan with his simpler coat. Although he moved to leave—he didn’t want to stand around with all the noise—a snippet of conversation convinced him to stop and listen.

"- never came back. They found something, they found something big, and now the higher ups are trying to cover it up. They know something we don't, and if they're not telling us then-"

Who never came back? His eyes immediately shot toward the fresh graves before drifting toward the older ones. Whoever they were, their names were somewhere in the cemetery. It confused him. What had they found? His lips pulled into a frown as he stood in place, a blank gaze focused on Sandy’s grave. What were the higher ups hiding from them?

Oh. So... they really DID die. Mercedes had left the portal at the lair without any sort of second thought to look around for their missing leaders. She figured that kinda came part of the package here at Deus. Sucks but.. you gotta want to survive to survive and little did she know... Sandy did not want to survive.

The implications behind the months to follow did not settle for miss Chenoweth. Any sort of talk about 2012 was greeted usually by her positive inflection of the date in that it was by Mayan standards a new age where the standard of living should change. That is, what those TV documentaries and such had taught her. However, it was no coincidence that a 200-man mission meant something big for this year... and with the negativity behind some of the more experienced hunters' voices she was not convinced it was some dawning of the new age celebration. Nope. Mercedes was certain that the more bodies that went on a mission in Deus, the less returned.

Great.

"It's the goddamn apocaly- look, we don't talk about it, not here, not now. God knows they'll send us in first to die." It was said in a whisper, two hunters standing in front of a grave in the next row, barely audible but still enough to make Jordan feel cold all over. He'd really been hoping that Harrison and B0nez had been right, that someone had been playing a cruel prank on him through the phone, but it was looking like that wasn't the case at all.

April Fool's Day - what a day for the apocalypse to start.

A hand was laid lightly on Jordan's shoulder then, jolting him out of his thoughts; when he looked up, he saw that it was Candace, and the carefully controlled expression on her face told him that she might have heard something just as disturbing. He'd been half meaning to talk to her after the external mission, but other things had kept him busy.

"Yeah," he answered. "I think we should." He frowned faintly, thinking about good locations. "Want to take a walk around the walls?" he asked after a moment.