Lex's jaw locked as he considered the possibilities of what that meant. "It means that they knew about it and got the hell out of dodge," he accused, though considering the circumstantial evidence it wasn't one of exaggerated proportions. There had been so many Realians on the base that there was no way in hell that there was no evidence of any bodies. If no one had died, he'd have heard from his colleagues, or from his father. But if they weren't dead, where were they?<br/><br/>The brothers perked up at Blue's voice, and Marcus swiveled around in his chair to face her. He pushed himself from the chair in one fluid motion and crossed the few feet from the desk to the wall, where Blue picked at something in the corner. “What's up?” he asked, moving around her and leaning in a bit so he could see. The further back she peeled the paper, the more markings in the wall that he could see. “What the hell?”<br/><br/>“What? What's up?” Lex asked quickly. If Blue was talking to Marcus, it was probably important.<br/><br/>Marcus moved to the other side of the wall, reaching into his pocket as he walked to retrieve a small pocket knife. “I don't know yet. Give me a sec,” he replied, voice trailing off to murmur incoherently to himself as he carefully ran the tip of knife knife down the wall a small length. The wallpaper sliced easily, and Marcus tucked a nail beneath it to peel it back, moving to meet Blue somewhere in the middle as more and more tallies were exposed to them, carved into the wall and covered up to be forgotten. Thousands of marks marred the wall, and Marcus was no graphologist but some of them looked recent. “What the fuck…” He dropped his handfuls of wallpaper and stared at it.<br/><br/>“<span style="font-style: italic">What?</span>” Lex insisted.<br/><br/>“We just peeled the wallpaper back and…,” he scoffed, unable to really quantify to Lex the magnitude of what he was seeing. “Just.. Thousands of tally marks, marked off with tally signs. Like they were keeping track of something. What the fuck were they counting?” Marcus imagined a poor soul that the Sovereignty’s top dogs kept locked in the pinnacle of this tower, doomed to an eternity of keeping track of the days and listening to inhuman screeching.<br/><br/>Lex's brow knitted in confusion. “What about the notebook? Has anyone checked it yet?<br/><br/>Retreating back to the desk more quickly than he'd left it, Marcus resumed his place in the comfortable office chair. At least, on the off chance that his daydreaming was accurate, the poor soul had a comfortable office setup. His fingers curled around the plain, black notebook and flipped from the back toward the front, stopping on the most recent marked page. He read quietly to himself before he recited the only two words on the page. “Made contact.”