Bab 115: Secret Figured Out?
Edward Teach was sitting at his desk with his hands folded over themselves and a worried expression across his face. "Margo, are you sure the data was erased this time?"
Margo materialized to the side of Edward Teach, "Yes sir, this time we got even the archived original that were missed before."
"Good, but we still don't know what they were able to keep and what they want."
"Shall we request assistance from the military to help us silence Caleb Waldowski and anyone he has shared the information with?"
"Yes, keep it quiet though, we need to protect my heir until he can take over. If Caleb can be bought, do it, I don't care about the cost."
"Understood sir, I shall get in touch with the general then."
Edward Teach nodded and Margo faded away.
"So close… So very close…" Edward whispered to himself.
__________
As Gray and Jono returned to the simulator room, a message came through from Kelly with the invite to the private room.
"Dare I tell Jono that I'm going to be all alone in a small tiny room with Kelly?" Gray thought to himself. "Nah, he's a little fragile right now"
Gray accepted the invite once he logged in to the simulator pod and then found himself in a classroom where Kelly was sitting at the teacher's desk.
Without greeting her, Gray opened his mouth and said "Miss Lagerty! Why are you sending me to detention again!"
Kelly raised one eyebrow at Gray and then said with a slightly amused tone, "Because you fell asleep in class again student Wilhelm!"
Gray smiled sheepishly and said, "Come on, it wasn't that bad! I still did well in class!"
"Yes, and that made all of us jealous, I mean imagine how well you could've done if you actually put in effort." Kelly had a hint of anger in her voice when saying this.
Gray could only scratch the back of his head in response, as this was not the first time this had been brought up.
"I'm sorry. You probably got enough of that for several lifetimes and it isn't why we're here."
"Thanks, but you know you were right as well as all of the others, I can't change the past but I'll make the most of the present."
"Look at you acting mature for once! Only took you almost a decade!" Kelly grinned at Gray.
"Don't remind me! How weird would it have been if I had stayed in the military and became your superior officer?"
"Dunno, maybe I would've been insubordinate and you would have to reprimand me…"
Gray and Kelly felt the room start to get warm despite the environment being completely virtual. Kelly looked down embarrassed and quickly added, "I'm sorry, old habits die hard, and we went different ways, plus it looks like you found someone new, Yurika, right?"
Gray smiled at Kelly "Indeed, old habits do die hard. Yes, it is a bit more complicated than we'd like it to be, but we're trying to figure it out."
"Anything I can do to help?"
Gray knew he could count on Kelly if she was still the same as before, but he also didn't want to mix her up in anything if Alterra Corporation and the Military were working together. "You could, but as I said, it is complicated."
"Never hurts to at least talk about it, we got time here."
"Well, alright…" Gray explained the situation with Yurika's engagement, Stephen Seegall, and Edward Teach. How they aren't able to tie them together or figure out what happened to Terra Research and Development. Also, Gray explained what happened to Caleb when he started to dig up information about Edward Teach.
"Hmmm, I understand how you feel, if everything you said is correct then it feels like we're just missing the one piece that links Stephen Seegall and Edward Teach. Do you still have those photos and the video?" Kelly asked.
"Just the copies we made, not the originals from the virtual world." Gray pulled out a tablet and started swiping files up to the virtual whiteboard letting Kelly get a good look at them. He circled a little boy in the picture Caleb recovered from the web archive and circled the little girl he suspected was Yurika.
"The boy is Stephen Seegall and we suspect the girl is Yurika although the caption said her name was Erika."
Kelly furrowed her brows in thought, "When was this taken?"
"We estimated it to be about 15-25 years old, if the girl is Yurika, then it is 23 years old."
"Ok, when was the video taken of that company picnic?"
"2079, so about 42 years ago."
"Ok, so then the video of the ribbon cutting for Alterra Corporation, judging by the age of Edward Teach and Margo, could we agree that the ribbon cutting and picnic were fairly close together. Now do you remember the promotional video for Alterra Online?"
"Not really, I just remember looking at my team in it and feeling good about teasing Jono."
"No surprise there…" Kelly pulled up the promotional video and fast forwarded to the end. A man began talking about his hopes for Alterra Online and in the lower right of the video; a caption appeared that said "Edward Teach, CEO of Alterra Corporation".
"So this is Edward Teach recently, he doesn't look like he should be about 90, but considering that Terra Research and Development created the virtual world, Edward Teach could make himself appear whatever age he wants to be." Gray said thinking about it.
Kelly appeared to be deep in thought too then suddenly an idea came to her, "Gray! If you had everything you've ever wanted, what would be your biggest fear?"
"So if I had a harem, unlimited access to video games, wealth to never have to work again, and enough power to be able to defend it, what would I fear…? I'd still be afraid of losing it all of course!"
"Right! And at that point, the only thing that would make him lose all of it is a natural death!"
"Ok, but that doesn't really tie into anything. At least not yet… why adopt Stephen Seegall and just give him Alterra Corporation, how is he even qualified to run it?"
"That… I don't know… he just doesn't fit anywhere… It's as if he appeared out of nowhere and became the heir to Alterra Corporation. Wait, do you have a picture of him?" Kelly started to get visibly excited, which was giving Gray hope.
Gray tried to surf the virtual world's web to look for a recent picture of Stephen Seegall, but he was only able to find a single pic where Stephen was sitting off to the side and barely visible. The caption said it was Edward Teach, the other senior staff of Alterra Corporation, and his adopted son Stephen Seegall.
"Yeah, don't you remember this Gray? This topic blew up in school because it was suspected that Stephen Seegall was Edward Teach's real son since they look so much alike but the mother wouldn't come forward. We were all trying to figure out why the mother didn't come forward and why would he need to adopt in the first place."
"What does that have to do with anything? I didn't really pay attention to it because it sounded ridiculous and most other guys were the same way."
"Well sorry for being a girl and liking to gossip! It was a big deal for us because he was close to our age and considering who his father was, you'd think the mother would come forward even just to be a gold digger."
Gray didn't really take part in the gossip and off-handedly added, "Heh, what if he doesn't have a mother."
Kelly and Gray both stopped saying anything and they stared at each other, as they both seemed to come to the same conclusion at the same time.
Gray finally spoke up, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I really hope not because the implications would change… everything about our own selves."
"Now I think you're overthinking it, if it is true, then it is something I would want to keep to myself anyways which also explains why Stephen Seegall is even visible publically."
"I'm scared to say it out loud…" Kelly admitted.
"It's like something you hear about in a movie or even a book…" Gray said while laughing slightly.
"I know! Hey, let's write it down and hand it to each other so we both know without a doubt we're thinking the same thing."
Gray nodded and then took out a piece of paper from the desk and wrote something on it as Kelly did the same. He put his pen down, folded it up, and then they traded papers.
Gray opened it up and read it and Kelly read Gray's then they looked at each other and smiled.
"We were thinking the same thing again…" Kelly said softly.
Gray nodded and looked at the paper again:
"Stephen Seegall is a clone of Edward Teach."
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
LordSputnik
LordSputnik The "mystery" of Edward Teach and Stephen Seegall is honestly not as interesting as I thought it would be, speeding up the plot of it because it really feels like a side-quest to me.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone