THE LAST KILL

Part 3: Shadows of the Past

•••

Silas arrived in the city,—London, cold and grey, and not too quiet, but quiet enough to let him know what peace was fought for, and he'll get his, here in, and from this city. It's nothing like the one he's known. Know. Knew. Whatever. There are actual functioning trains. Trains were not new to him, but this kind were, because what on earth was that speed? Why so fast? These were not the kind of trains he's grown up seeing. Really, spending an entire life in the street is not good for anyone, the world awaits everything you are, and now Silas Volkov had to blend into the modern urban sprawl, recreate himself, mingle and be part of this place.

He's booked himself into Palm Hotel, a luxurious hotel in town, where he'd stay and operate from for the time being, and yes, from his heart, he doesn't want to spend a long time in this city. He began his meticulous preparations, using his old-world skills, somethings are just hard to kill, and having right behind his mind who he was here for, Vance, and she was out there, that was why he came, she was why he came. He came to protect Lena, he came to survive, he came to kill Vance, and then The Architect, when he finally finds him. He just wouldn't give all power to him.

He had some burgers and wine from the airport lounge earlier, got and smoked a few sticks of his favourite pack of cigarettes he got from a bar near the hotel, and had a good night's rest, for the following day was going to be long. He turned the AC on and fell deeply asleep.

•••

The following day, he found Vance. It was exactly 08:00 AM when he walked into NexusCore, just to get himself familiar with the territory.

He got himself the exact same uniform they had on, it was a blue khaki short, that went very well with a black polo that had NexusCore nicely printed in front, and sneakers, he rocked it well, and had his ID Card dangle from the side of his pocket. He looked like them, no-one would know, and he walked with strides bold enough to have the other employees nod in greetings to him.

From the photos of Vance from his research, she looked too cool to hurt anyone, but who had she hurt, and why does The Architect want her dead? Wasn't he supposed to ask The Architect that? Why was he just going to get up and go kill a random person? He thought, as he watched her sign a paper on a desk and walked across the hall to a man who looked like a giraffe. Silas watched, finding her to be more like a chameleon of corporate power and quiet ruthlessness.

He stood by the staircase watching her for a while, she called an employee closer and whispered something into his ear. He nodded and hurried to get it done. She turned around and saw him, but turned around again to a conversation with another employee who had a large screen monitor in front of her, tapping away on her keyboard furiously.

“Level 5?” A man came up to Silas. He was dark, like really dark skinned, and had had his beard shaved totally to skin. Interestingly, here, all the men had had their beard shaved to skin, it was a thing, it made them look artificial, like scientists who had something dirty going on within their walls.

“Uh…uhm…Level 5. Yes.” Silas stammered, reaching for his ID Card.

“Oh cool,” He said, “what are you doing here then?”

Vance was testing a new prototype that her Level 10 had made, and it was strictly a meeting for Level 10.

“Uhm…helping?”

“Helping?”

“I'll be stepping now.” Silas said, walking away before he spills his own bean. The man just watched him walk over to the other end of the room, stopped and kept watching.

There was something about her that was so odd, so weird, so. Familiar. What was it? Definitely not the way she walked, because she had a limp in the right, not that, many persons in the gang back then had a limp, in fact lost a leg, most even two, so this wasn't it, but added with the fact that she looked like someone from the past made it even more wild, and he couldn't reach that memory.

•••

That afternoon, he picked his phone, and reactivated several dormant, subtle contacts from his previous life. He didn't know why he did it, but knew that one way or the other his vile nature had to be back, and back to stay. He couldn't run away from who he truly was for long, it must—of a necessity—find him.

He sauntered to the kitchen in his hotel room, it looked just like his own back home, exactly the same, he walked to where Lena would always stand and cook, he stood there and joked, mimicking Lena’s cooking posture. But life was now more serious than love could offer, the bullets were back, and he could hear gunshots afar off, though not real, but would soon be. Deep down he didn't want this.

Nobody doing this would ever not wish to have a normal life. But he thought he's had a taste of normal life, now back to who he truly was, back to what he truly knew. He truly knew death, guns, and blood, revenge, and corpse of people he loved, people he didn't too.

Silas made tea, and walked to bed with it. He dropped the cup right on the nightstand and opened his laptop, searching every nook and corner of NexusCore. During a deep surveillance operation, Silas glimpsed a familiar face in Vance's security detail – Jax, he was a cold, and really efficient operative who was once a rival killer and thought to be dead too, he was now working for Vance. Now working for Vance?

“Jax.” He said to himself, “I know Jax. I can see why The Architect is simply interested in NexusCore. Men from the past now haunt science and technology.” He sipped on his tea. The underworld is smaller, and more interconnected, than Silas remembered. Who would have thought that Jax would be alive, talk more of working in NexusCore, and working for Vance.