Absolute and utter Henry Stickmin Randomness

Family issues - Chapter 9

I wrote this chapter but then removed this part because it seemed a bit out of place... I still wrote it though, so here it is.

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It was about two hours later that Ellie escorted Dr. Vinschpinsiltien back to the teleporter to see her off. For the most part they had talked alone about the situation, but Ellie also called the Head of Medical and Right Hand Man to the lounge, for differing reasons. The doctor wouldn't be staying but she wasn't as opposed to ever speaking to the clan again as she apparently had been after she had revived Right Hand Man. That was something at least.

Ellie now had a lot of information that she needed to share with her friend and chief, but so far she hadn't heard anything from Henry aside a confirmation that everything was fine when she called to tell him that Dr. Vinschpinsiltien was leaving.

There was a lot to discuss with Terrence Suave and Howie Howitzer, Ellie wouldn't be surprised if Henry and Reginald would be busy with that for the rest of the day. For now, she had to take care of other things.

First she needed to talk to someone.

Henry wasn't at his desk but Mr. Jobb redirected her to the archives.

It was a quiet place. As far as Ellie knew it was mostly only visited by the toppats from accounting and comms.

"Are you trying to pick that lock?"

Henry almost jumped out of his skin when Ellie came up behind him. He was trying to pick a lock. He was doing a pretty bad job at it though. "Uh... No?" A bad job at lying too.

Ellie looked at the filing cabinet he was trying to break into. It wasn't labeled at all.

"What are you trying to find in there?"

"I- Fine...", Henry shoved his lockpick in his pocket "I tried to get to the files about the old chiefs. I tried hacking into them before but it didn't work"

"Lock picking doesn't seem to work out that well for you either" Ellie chuckled before holding out her hand "Let me show you how a pro does it" When Henry just stared her confused she pointed towards the ceiling "You think you're the only one who's curious about this? I could easily get a key, but this will be faster"

It indeed didn't take Ellie a long time to pick the lock and pull the drawers open. Pairs of blue and green eyes scanned the names on the folders. They went back all the way to the first ever chief of the clan. That wasn't the man Ellie and Henry were interested in. While Ellie pulled out the folder that was marked 'Terrence Suave', Henry grabbed another one. "Randy Radman?" "One time when Carol was screaming at me she mentioned how he was rumored to be part of the CCC", the older man explained "And after Howie found Suave with them..."

"Well, as far as I know he's surely not pulling any strings in the background now"

"Yeah... Maybe that's the reason"

Ellie shrugged and sat down on the floor to read while Henry stayed standing.

With how the documents were arranged it seemed like someone did some more digging around in Randys' past after he died. Someone also made a very detailed incident report on his death.

Sir Wilford IV. had been very adamant about finding out who murdered his second in command. There even was a list of suspects, outdated since more than a dozen years, but some of the names were very familiar. Whoever wrote this list, Henry guessed it had been Sir Wilford himself, also noted down his reasoning and in a few cases a 'dealt with', 'caught' and 'cleared'.

The list was fairly long, nothing really surprising considering Randy Radmans' reputation at the time, but 'Terrence Suave' was almost right at the top of the list. As the last person who had seen him alive. The person right after was Carol with a 'personal vendetta'.

None of this was what he was looking for. It was slightly concerning, but not the reason why he was digging through this file. It seemed like Sir Wilford had been the last person to work on it. There were quite a few loose notes between the pages that seemed rather... personal. Words from a man that was out to avenge his friend. A man stuck in the stage of anger.

The very last page finally gave him a very clear answer.

It was a short letter. Dated the 12th of December 2009.

A request to confirm the death of 'E-Agent Randall O'Reilly' and an offer to buy a black diamond from the clan. In handwriting that was different from what Henry assumed to be Sir Wilfords' a single word was written on the page before it seemed to be unceremoniously stuffed into the folder.

'Fools'

"Miss Ellie?" "Yeah?" "When did Terrence Suave become chief?"

Ellie had to flip a few pages back to find the exact date "There was an incident on October 14th 2009 where Sir Wilford and his second in command died. He and Reginald took over after that"

"Just like that? No one else stepped up?"

Ellie cocked her head "Where are you going with this?"

"... Same direction I went with Henry...", he closed the folder and looked down at her "How?"