THE LAST KILL

Part 7: The Architect

•••

Later that day, he was at his post at NexusCore, his office was quiet and mildly dark, and yes, warm even, and he loved it in there, it was cold outside, and even just the hallway was really cold, but the former security consultant had made the room warm enough for a life, she paid the price though, he'd neatly done away with her, and the bodies of the guards last week, and how down the defense of NexusCore was, boy, they didn't even realize they had lost men, he planned to keep the stealth going until he faced Eleanor Vance.

His door was transparent, and as he looked up from his keyboard, it was Jax, he was just standing there, a good guess would be that he was about to knock, he could be right, but the way the people here at NexusCore were, you wouldn't tell quite rightly that you weren't being spied on. But it was Jax! He quickly got up from his chair and rushed to open up for him, whatever brought him here must be good for them both, maybe he's changed his mind, maybe he was ready to talk now.

“Jax, you came.” Silas said, walking back to his seat.

Jax didn't say a word, he just stood there looking around the room for a while. Then he said, “Neon loved it here.”

“Her name was Neon?” Silas asked.

“Yes. I'm not Jax around here, man,” Jax said, “they call me Northbound.”

“What does that even mean, Northbound?”

“I know right?”

“How does it feel taking on something you are not? You are not Northbound, Jax, you are Jax, Jax, you are nothing close to that name, Jax, you are not from around here.”

“I'm from here now, Silas Volkov,” Jax said, “and you need to know something.”

“What, what really brought you here?”

"The Architect," Jax began, slowly, letting out every one word he had stored up in his head, “is not an individual as you think, but a sprawling, ancient, and highly secretive cabal of global power brokers.”

“What!? break that down man, don't you know that that's a lot to take in?”

“Yeah, listen, the earlier you know this, the better for whatever quest you are on,” Jax said, “and I'm not against you, in fact, I could help you, but these guys have manipulated the underworld and legitimate economies for centuries.”

Silas listened, but the room was getting hot with this level of information he wasn't ready for.

“They are now clearing the board of old, unpredictable elements.”

“Elements?,” Silas questioned, “Like?”

Jax held on a bit from talking and walked gently to a couch in the office, nobody really sat there, even when Neon had her space.

“Like Vance's family legacy and you.”

“It's not a surprise that I'm on the map as well.” Silas said, shaking his head and shifting away from the monitor to watch Jax fully.

“Silas, they are doing this to usher in a new, more centrally controlled world order. And…and they see your legendary status as a threat to their anonymity.”

“Honestly, I've just been the guy to stay in my lane.”

“Nobody has a lane here, man.” Jax pointed out.

Silas kept shut, and thought for a while, “So, it's a kill or be killed thing, then?”

“They are going for Lena as we speak,” Jax announced, “that's why I came.”

The threat to Lena became clear in his head, like it was just dawning on him that Jax had mentioned Lena in the heat. Silas's phone vibrates with a message from an unknown number.

“Who is it?” Jax asked, rushing from the couch to the desk where Silas was to see the phone, but Silas blocked the screen off from him. Of course it was The Architect sending Silas a chilling, untraceable message, it was a picture of Lena's local library with a red circle drawn around it.

“What…what does this mean?”

“What?” Jax asked, trying to look again.

“It's from The Architect.” Silas told him, and showed him the message.

“Woah! Told you.”

Silas, now fueled by a cold fury, decided he will not be a pawn, he couldn't be all this, come all this way and consciously let himself become a pawn. He started to initiate a dangerous, high-risk plan, and Jax watched.

He called Lena. It's been three months since he left Moscow and hadn't heard from her, he didn't want to put her in the spotlight of this war, so he just stayed away from her, hopefully he'd get back to her soon. But how soon? It was getting darker and darker, and the plans were getting scarier and scarier, the war was getting more real, and bloody. Then she answered the phone.

“Love?”

“Hey Len,” Silas said, softly, “uhm…are you good?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, “you?”

“Uhm..yeah, I'm okay.”

“Tell her.” Jax added.

“Babe? Can you…can you do me a favour?”

“What?”

She dropped the cup of tea she was with and listened as he told her to go to her mum's for a while, that it wasn't going to be funny if she stayed home tonight. She understood, and quickly began to pack her things, she'd stay at her mum's for a week before returning home, he also mentioned that he'd be back in a month's time. Lena did exactly as she was told.

“I came with Detective Miller to help you.” Jax said.

“I'm in Miller's bad books.” Silas replied, "how can Miller help me?"

Detective Miller walked in, smiling at both of them.

Silas looked at him, expecting a weird comment, as to why he had a gun and shot it the other day in the hallway.

"You are walking out." Miller said, as Silas reached for the door, "you nearly got me killed you know?"

Silas didn't reply to that.

Before he walked out, he left an anonymous, encrypted tip for Detective Miller, and left the office, the message said about a major corporate conspiracy involving Vance, that would set the stage for an official intervention. This now might result in Vance's death, but it's more of a gamble to dismantle The Architect's immediate cell.