Posted at 7:47 am on Jun 26, 2015 by:
Derrick Scrivens
Final Nail
"It's you, isn't it? It has to be you!" This was the greeting Faust gave to Scrivens the day after Adler's body was discovered.
"What do you mean?" Scrivens was certain Faust meant the murders. He just wanted to see how much Faust knew, or thought he knew.
Lowering his voice to barely above a whisper, Faust continued with, "You're why Walsh, Lombardi, and now Adler are dead. I don't know who else it could be."
"What makes you so sure it was me?" Scrivens continued on to his office, Faust desperately following him. "I'll admit, I didn't care much for them, but you're accusing me of something pretty serious."
"Because they were the main ones to speak out against the Cybernetic Prototypes project." Faust followed Scrivens right into his office, shutting the door so he could speak a little louder. "Look, I don't care about you killing them! But you have to stop! You want back the funding for your project? You've got it! Just tell me what it takes to stop this, because I know I must be somewhere on your list too!"
Sitting down in his chair, Scrivens leaned back and looked up at Faust. For a moment, he didn't say anything, just stared, studied. "I want my funding back. And if I need more funding, I want it, no questions asked."
"Okay, that seems fair. I can arrange that." Faust looked relieved.
"I also want your office. It's a little bigger, isn't it?" Now he was just pushing Faust's buttons.
"My office?" Faust stammered.
"I have other ways to get that office if you don't want to give it to me." Scrivens leaned forward, elbows on his desk, waiting for Faust's decision.
"Okay, no need for that. You get my office." Faust started to open the office door to leave, turning back to look as Scrivens when the door was half open. "This gets me off the hook, right?"
Scrivens simply nodded and Faust darted out the door, not bothering to close it behind him.
Faust was very much still on the hook. A quick phone call to Shizuka could change that. Scrivens didn't want to make that phone call though. He wanted Faust taken care of permanently.
By the weekend, Faust's wife would report her husband missing. It would be another month before his body was found washed up on a beach. Eventually, it would officially be declared a boating accident, despite the insistence from his wife that he didn't own a boat nor did he like being on them.
