Chapter 75 - The Dying Architect’s Confession
The world slowed to a crawl. The smell of burning hydraulic fluid, the deafening echo of gunfire, the flashing amber klaxons.
Richard kicked Arthur viciously in the ribs with his steel-toed combat boot, sending the old man skidding across the oil-slicked deck with a sickening crunch of bone. Richard brought his weapon around, aiming directly at Arthur's head.
I fired three times.
The rounds slammed into Richard’s tactical vest. The kinetic energy knocked him backward into the lift corridor, knocking the shotgun from his grip. He hit the wall, clutching his bruised chest, his face twisting into an expression of shock and utter disbelief.
"Julian..." Richard gasped, coughing blood.
Two of Richard's surviving mercenaries rushed the corridor, dragging my wounded father back into the smoke toward the safety of their secondary squad.
"Fallback! Fallback to Deck Four!" Richard’s voice echoed weakly down the hall as the security doors slammed shut between us, sealing them out.
I didn't chase him. I dropped to my knees beside Arthur.
The old man was lying on his back, his chest caved inward, dark arterial blood bubbling up through his lips with every shallow breath. The physical strain of the tackle had ruptured his pulmonary artery.
"Grandpa," I whispered, pressing my hands against his chest, trying to stop the bleeding, trying to hold together a man who was already slipping into the dark. "Hold on. The medics are on the platform. We can get you down to the bay."
Arthur reached up with a blood-covered hand, his fingers trembling, and gripped my jaw. His skin was ice.
"No... no time, Julian," he whispered, each word a monumental struggle against death. "Listen... listen to me."
Victoria knelt beside us, her face unreadable, but her hand trembled as she checked his radial pulse. "Arthur... the system needs your confirmation code."
Arthur ignored her. He looked only at me.
"I lied to you, Julian," Arthur wheezed, a teardrop cutting a clean line through the soot on his cheek. "Your father... Richard... he isn't your biological father."
My breath caught in my throat. The room seemed to tilt beneath me. "What are you talking about?"
"Twenty-four years ago... the Syndicate tried to eliminate our lineage," Arthur rasped, his voice fading to a dry rasp. "Richard was sterile... an infection of greed. Eleanor wanted power, not a child. I... I extracted the genetic core of the Vance bloodline... the original architects. Julian... you were engineered. You are my true son. My final creation."
I stared at him, paralyzed by the weight of the revelation. The man I called my grandfather was my father. The man who tried to kill me was my half-brother. My entire life—the house, the lessons, the isolation—was an incubator.
"Why?" I choked out, a raw scream tearing through my throat. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because... a weapon... cannot know it is a weapon until it is drawn," Arthur whispered. He reached into his shredded collar, pulling free a thin silver chain bearing a heavy, hexagonal micro-drive—the master core. He pressed it into my bloodstained palm, forcing my fingers closed around it.
"Don't... don't let Victoria take it," Arthur breathed, his eyes rolling back as his final breath left his body in a long, rattling sigh. "She... she wants to rule... not restore..."
His hand went limp. His head rolled to the side.
The cardiac telemetry on Victoria's wrist beeped a flat, continuous tone.
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Arthur Vance, the Architect of Black Ridge, was dead.
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