Chapter 358 The Descendant Hunt

Leo pulled his chair closer to the wooden table, his fingers dancing across the keys of the un-networked terminal. The screen cast a cool green glow across the room, illuminating the quiet faces of the group.

On the granite wall, the projected image of the 2024 Miami student registry remained still, a list of twenty-nine names that had once been nothing more than pixels in Aethelgard.

"If fifty-three years have passed since they vanished," Leo said, his eyes scanning the green columns of data, "there should be probate records, estate liquidations, or death certificates. The municipal registry from the fifties is quiet, but we can search the public ancestry registries through the local node."

Ophelia leaned over his shoulder, her hand resting on the back of his chair. "Search for Marcus Thorne first. He was the center of their group. His family must have left some kind of paper trail after the banquet."

Leo entered the query, his keystrokes producing a series of dry clicks that echoed in the stone basement. The database searched through the historical census records of the High District, returning a family tree that branched down through the decades.

Most of the lines ended in gray boxes, indicating deceased relatives or closed estates. But one name at the bottom of the tree remained highlighted in active blue.

"He had a younger sister," Leo whispered, pointing his finger at the screen. "Lily Thorne. She was only five years old when Marcus vanished. According to this record, she is still alive."

Connor stepped closer to the display, his brow furrowing as he read the residency details. "She is living in the Serene Vista care facility. That is an expensive retirement community in the High District. The monthly fees there are astronomical."

"How is she paying for it?" Nelson asked, crossing his arms. "The Thorne family estate was fully liquidated in the late thirties during the economic collapse."

Leo tapped his fingers against the table, opening the financial ledger linked to her registry. He traced the monthly deposits, his green screen updating with a series of bank routing numbers. "The payments do not come from her personal account. They are routed through a private trust fund."

"Can you trace the trust?" Ophelia asked.

"The fund is managed by an agency called Meridian Holdings," Leo said, his fingers working to bypass the initial encryption blocks. "But Meridian is a shell company. I can trace the funding source back through two more dummy corporations."

Suddenly, the terminal chimed. A series of transaction logs appeared on the screen, showing the original routing from fifty years ago. Leo leaned in, his eyes dilating under the light of the monitor.

"The money originates from Aether-Conglomerate," Leo announced, his voice flat. "The company that acquired Raven-Systems. The corporate directors have been funding her care plan for her entire life."

Connor stood perfectly still, his hands slipping into his pockets. "They are buying her silence. Or they are monitoring her to ensure she never speaks to the media about what happened to her brother."

"It is a cover-up," Lucy said, her posture rigid as she stared at the glowing names. "They pay off the relatives of the disappeared to prevent any public investigation."

"Search for Redmond Vane," Connor instructed, his voice dropping. "We know his apartment, Unit 4B, was locked down. See what the police files say about his property."

Leo entered the name Redmond Vane into the municipal archive query. The search returned a scanned copy of a physical police report from October 2024. The document was yellowed, the edges frayed in the digital image, but the print remained legible under the bright light.

"Here is the property release form," Leo said, zooming in on the bottom of the document. "After he vanished, the city locked his room for ninety days. But the physical belongings inside were cleared out before the quarantine ended."

"Who signed the release?" Connor asked.

Leo highlighted a digitized signature at the bottom of the page. The letters were written in elegant black ink, spelling out a corporate entity rather than a human name.

"Raven-Systems," Leo read, his voice tight. "The company was waiting to clean out his room the moment he disappeared. They took his notebooks, his computers, and his clothing before the police could even finish the investigation."

Connor walked to the wall, staring at the projected photograph of the silver-eyed girl standing next to Redmond. "They knew exactly when the rift would open. They were waiting to sweep the evidence under the rug."

"They have been watching us since the beginning," Ophelia said, her fingers curling into her palms.

"We need to find Lily Thorne," Connor declared, turning back to the group. "If she is still alive in that care facility, she might have the physical letters or diaries that Marcus left behind before the reunion."

Ophelia rested her knuckles on the wooden table, her gaze fixed on the scrolling columns of credits. "The money routing is consistent. It travels through six separate municipal shells before reaching the account of the High District care facility."

Connor leaned over her shoulder, his eyes tracking the financial entries. "They started the payments three days after the 2024 reunion. They have been paying for Lily Thorne's medical stay for over fifty years."

"They paid for everything," Nelson added, sliding a scanned police record across the granite surface. "The property release forms for Redmond's apartment are signed by a Raven-Systems director. The company possessed the keys to Unit 4B before the city even declared him a missing person."

Connor took a quiet breath, feeling a chill run through his chest. He reached out to turn off the projection, and the blue glow on the stone walls died, leaving the basement lit by a single green lamp.

"This is not a corporate cover-up," Connor said, his voice dropping as he looked at the group. "They did not just find the rift in 2065 and build a game around it, but they knew Redmond, or at least kept tabs on him. They knew when the portal would open there."

"So that means that the purpose of that high school reunion was to get them all to a place where the portal would open?" Evan wondered.

"Could it be that they can actually control the rifts and where to open it?" Ilyas asked with a horrified look on his face.

"That sounds too far-fetched," Lucy muttered. "That's could destroy nations–"

Lucy stopped before she finished her sentence. There were too many nations that fell in the past decades, and she didn't want to make connections to them.

"And they have also been paying the families to maintain the silence ever since," Ilyas added.

Ophelia looked down at her hands, her fingers curling tightly into her jacket sleeves. "They paid his sister to forget him. Or to buy her silence while they used his code to anchor their server."

Nelson leaned back against the cold brick wall, his arms crossed. "And my family is part of the conglomerate that owns Raven-Systems. My father probably signed off on those audits without looking at the names."

"We need to talk to Lily," Lucy said, stepping into the circle of lamplight. "If she is still alive in that High District facility, she is the only person who can tell us who actually stood next to Redmond in that photograph. If the silver-eyed girl is indeed the thirtieth classmate, Lily must remember her."

Evan adjusted his collar, looking toward the concrete stairs. "Getting into that care facility will require a high-tier clearance. Connor's family has the social standing to request a visitation, but we cannot trigger the facility's local network monitors."

Connor stood, his boots scraping on the concrete. "We will go physically. No digital requests. We will use my father's corporate credentials to bypass the front desk and talk to her in person."