Chapter XV
Brother's Curiosity
Ten minutes had passed since Dmitri and Charlie had exited the cave, when Jack finally came out from behind the armoury door. 'It had been a close call', he thought to himself as he began exploring his new surroundings. He had only just managed to close the door to the armoury when his dad had brought the thief and the new girl down here. He had thought for a moment that the thief had seen him, but pushed the thought out of his head, however another idea had come into his head.
After leaving the cave's entrance in the manor, he hurried down a corridor and ran into Dave who was making his way outside.
"Hey there little bro." Jack said, Dave looked up and walked overlooking cautious. With good reason, the last time he had followed one of his brother’s hare brained scheme, it had ended up with one of the cars lodged into the perimeter wall. That incident had taken some explaining to both Vernon, and later their father. And Jack was a terrible liar by nature. Needless to say, Vernon had lost his shit when he came storming out of the manor after the sound of falling rubble and Dave and Jack arguing over whose fault it had been.
"What?” Dave said, trying to act cool and uninterested, although he couldn’t keep the eagerness out of his voice.
"Ah, it's probably nothing." Jack said walking away. "You wouldn't be interested in it." He finished as he smiled to himself out of the eyesight of Dave.
"So, would." Dave said letting his interest properly show now.
"All right then, follow me." Jack said and walked off back down the corridor, followed at a respectable distance by Dave. 'Hook, line, sinker.' Jack thought to himself as he walked towards the cave entrance, wondering how many times that Dave would fall for the same trick.
"We shouldn't be down here Jacky." Dave said looking around the cave, Jack turned around to face his younger brother with an exasperated look on his face.
"I thought you liked this exploring business." Jack said turning back to look around at the vast expanse. "But if your too scared to look around then go back upstairs." He finished, smirking all the while, however the taunt was enough. Jack knew that his younger brother would now want to stay down here for no other reason than to prove that he could, which would certainly come in use later on, Jack thought.
"What is all this stuff?" Dave said walking over towards a large cabinet where one of Dmitri's bots was being stored before it was scheduled to head over to maintenance later that day. Dave put his hand on the cabinet looking inside. "Cool.” he said before turning back to Jack.
"I don't know." Jack said still smirking as he walked over to join Dave by the cabinet. "I wonder?" Jack said to himself as he started messing around on a couple of the buttons.
"What are you doing?" Dave said looking at his older brother in horror, it was bad enough that they were down here when they weren’t supposed to be. But now someone would almost certainly know that they had been down here if Jack continued to mess around with the equipment.
"Oh, come on, it's harmless." Jack said as he continued to press a bunch of the buttons. However, the boy’s attention was distracted by the sound from a few feet away. As they turn around, Jack sees a pair of red eyes coming out of the darkness. As a fully intact BOT comes towards them.
"Jack." Dave whimpered from behind his older brother.
"Shut up." Jack said in an undertone as a red light comes from out of the BOT’s eyes, scanning up and down the pair of them, after a few seconds of silence the BOT stops scanning.
"Unknown, enemy detected." The BOT said advancing on the two boys, taking out a rifle and taking aim, when a voice comes out of the darkness behind Jack and Dave.
"Stand down, M6-12!" Dmitri shouted, and to the brother's astonishment the BOT lowers its weapon and leaves the area returning to wherever it had been before going to investigate the racket the brothers had been making. "Been exploring have we?" Dmitri said as he walked over to the cabinet that housed the damaged BOT and began to reset the settings that Jack had been messing around with not a minute before. "How long have you known about this place?" Dmitri asked.
"Only today?" Dave said quickly, he was telling the truth, but even he knew that the quickness of his answer was suspicious in of itself. Although Dmitri seemed satisfied with the answer alone and nodded at Dave.
"And you?" Dmitri asked looking at Jack this time, whilst also knowing that the elder of the brothers would be a harder task to get the truth from.
"Few days." Jack said looking at the ground, it wasn’t exactly a lie, as he had known for that long at least, though he had been down here before, but that was of no concern to this stranger.
"I guess it was you then that was hiding earlier this morning then." Dmitri said, a faint smirk crossing his face.
"How'd you know?" Jack asked looking up at Dmitri in shock, he had thought he hadn't been noticed.
"When you've lived out in the rough as long as I have, you learn to spot potential dangers or opportunities at every possible moment kid. Plus, you just confirmed it right now." Dmitri said.
"You were only fishing?" Jack said, angry that he had been so easily fooled by such a basic ploy.
"Yeah. But I do know you well enough to guess that you don't want your old man knowing you were sniffing around down here either." Dmitri said, addressing both of them now. Dave shook his head almost franticly, but Jack didn't. If truth were told, he didn't give a damn whether his farther knew or not.
Dmitri noticing how Jack hadn't responded continued. "You don't like him do you kid." Dmitri said so simply that it took Jack of guard for a moment. "Look kid. I'm not a therapist, but even I can see you've got some serious problems with your dad, and I know that if you don't sort it out soon then it'll be too late." Dmitri finished. Jack again didn't respond, Dmitri didn't say anything further on the subject however, whether or not it was the fact that he had hit power lines or simply decided to drop the subject for another reason, Jack neither knew nor cared, he did hold a grudge against his dad, but nobody least of all this stranger would get him to talk about it.
"You should both get going." Dmitri said looking at the two of them.
"Are you going to tell Da about us being down here?" Dave asked looking up at Dmitri hopefully and Dmitri paused for a moment, thinking over his answer before responding.
"No, kid I won't." Dmitri said simply. Dave smiled and left, followed closely by Jack, who even as he walked out of the cave, could feel Dmitri eyes burrowing into the back of his head.
Once back upstairs and well out of earshot of Dmitri and hopefully their father, Dave rounds on Jack.
"What's your problem?" Dave asked looking at his older brother. "He saved our lives down there, you didn't have to treat Dmitri like that." Dave finished looking angrily up at Jack.
"What?" Jack retorted, wondering where this version of his younger brother had been when they had been caught by Dmitri. "It's none of his business about what my problem is with Da." Jack continued before deciding to go back onto the offensive. "And what were you doing down there anyway. If you hadn't run your mouth trying to impress a complete stranger..." Jack began when a voice came up from behind them. And Jack quickly stopped in order to avoid anymore trouble and hoped to the gods that Vernon hadn’t overheard to much of the argument.
"What are you two shouting about now?" Vernon said, he didn't sound angry like he usually sounded whenever the pair argued, which was more and more often these day. Just more tired and exasperated, like he was on the verge of giving up on the two brothers.
This was nothing new to the old butler, as Jack and Dave had been well known to antagonise each other for as long as they had been brothers. With the younger Dave trying to outdo anything his older brother did, no matter the consequences to his own safety. This attitude had culminated with Vernon making more trips to Metropololis General Hospital with an injured Dave than any of his other brothers combined. He had hoped the boys would have learnt their lesson after the first trip, but no. Jack would do something stupid, and then watch with a not so hidden glee, as Dave would do something even more dumb for the simple reason of trying to beat his older brother, which never ended well.
"Nothing." Dave said quickly, although rather too quickly to be convincing on the matter. Vernon looked at him intently, something that Jack had noticed the old butler doing more often than not nowadays. Whether it was because of the increased number of house guests they had now or because the butler actually suspected them of wrongdoing he didn't know. But either way he would have to be more careful when it came to his own exploration of the manor.
"Very well then. Off you go, but stay away from this part of the house, you hear me boys, it isn't safe." Vernon said looking back as he walked away, suspecting that the two eldest would most likely ignore the order. But surprised and a little worried when he saw both brothers doing as instructed, almost certainly meaning that they were planning something else.
After he had seen off Jack and Dave from the cave entrance, Vernon found himself walking through the corridors of the manor, wondering where the younger of the two brothers were. He guessed that Martin would be either out in the grounds, or locked in his room, either way, he would be with Echo, the husky having become a constant companion to the youngest Wolfrick after the incident in the lad’s room. Which left Nick, who the old butler had absolutely no idea where to find him.
It took a while, but eventually Vernon found the library door left ajar, and guessing that Nick had entered the small library that the manor had. Whilst nothing compared to the one at The Imperial Academy, it was still reasonably impressive, and had always held a fascination with the six-year-old for as long as the old butler could remember. As Vernon walked through the selves, he eventually found who he was looking.
Nick Wolfrick, the third son of Alan Wolfrick, sat by one of the tables, face deep in an old book. As he wiped his dirty blonde hair out of his eyes, he looked up to see Vernon staring at him. Of all of the Wolfrick brothers, Nick looked like a cross between Alan and Laura, with the others favouring one or the other.
“So. Back again Nicholas?” Vernon said, it had not been the first time he had caught the six-year-old inside the library, nor did he doubt that it would be the last. Nick only nodded in response, and returned to the book with earnest. At which Vernon walked up behind him in order to find out what was holding the kid’s attention.
It was an old book, one of the oldest they had judging by the decomposition of the cover. But that wasn’t all, as Nick put it down Vernon was able to make out the title. ‘The Elemental Gems. - Fact or Fiction.’
“Why this book Master Nicholas?” Vernon asked, it was quite frankly bad enough that he had to stop Jack and Dave from sneaking around behind their backs. He hadn’t counted on the fact that he would have to stop Nick from finding out more than he should. All he needed was for Martin to also be on the hunt and it would make life damn near impossible for him.
“I overheard Jacky and Dave talking about them. I just wanna to know what they were.” Nick replied looking innocently up at Vernon.
‘So Jackson and David weren’t just exploring.’ Vernon thought to himself as he cursed himself for thinking that the two older brothers hadn’t overheard them discussing business down in the cave. He wondered to himself how much else they had overheard, and made a mental note to find all of the secret passages to the cave, and block them with rubble. However, he had a bigger concern on his hands as he turned to Nick. “Listen to me Nicholas, I don’t often say this with you. But you need to drop this particular subject.” Vernon said, and he looked down at the six-year-old with keen interest. Whilst Jack and Dave might have overheard what had been said, Nick was the one who would, and clearly had taken the initiative to find out more about the damned objects. Something that was borderline suicidal at this time. Especially with what they suspected Lord Boris was doing in his fortress. “Do I have your word on that Nick?” Vernon asked, he needed to make sure he that at least, as unlike his older brothers, Nick was the one that would likely hold to it.
“I guess.” Nick replied, rather noncommittally, but that clearly wasn’t good enough, as Vernon continued to press his case.
“Your word Nick.” Vernon said, in a much harsher tone of voice than he intended, but anything to get the point across.
“Alright.” Nick said as he got up and left the seat, before quickly exiting the library. Leaving Vernon to place the book back on the shelf.
The old butler paused at this action however, wondering if the book should remain here, it could be of vital use for them. But all the same, if Nick was any proof, Vernon knew that it could also cause great harm to the manor’s residences if picked up by an innocent party.
