Silent/402
The meeting spot was a rooftop no one cared about.
Half the city glowed, hummed, and glittered below, but up here the concrete was cracked, the vents rattled, and a rusted satellite dish leaned at a tired angle like it had given up trying to catch anything worth hearing.
Kieran arrived first.
He'd come on foot, as usual. No tracking numbers, no plate cameras, no transit logs. Just side streets, service alleys, and the kind of stairwells no one cleaned unless something started to smell.
The wind on the rooftop was sharp enough to bite. It tugged at his jacket, flattened his shirt against his ribs, and turned his breath into brief ghosts in the air. Puddles reflected the city in broken fragments.
He checked the perimeter out of habit. Low wall, water tanks, metal maintenance box, access door. No cameras he could see, but that only meant there were fewer obvious ones. The Order liked to test people on days they didn't warn you about tests.
A door creaked open behind him.
"Still punctual," Elena Morrow said. "Some habits survive the Forges."
He turned.
She stepped out of the stairwell with a folder under one arm and a scarf wrapped twice around her neck. The wind immediately tried to unwrap it. She ignored it with long experience.
"You're cold," he said.
"That's an observation, not a greeting," she replied. "But yes. I'm cold. That's how you know I still have a pulse."
She crossed to the concrete block that passed for seating and sat, placing the folder next to her. Up close, the lines around her eyes looked deeper, but her gaze was still sharp.
"You cleared the medical check," she said. "Dr. Ilyin refrained from writing any poetic commentary. I assume nothing important is falling off."
"Nothing yet," he said.
"Good," she replied. "You're going to need all your parts for this one."
She tapped the folder.
On reflex, his eyes slid to it. Thick paper, no markings on the outside, held closed by a plain black clip.
"Silent/402," she said. "I assume you saw the tag."
"Yes."
"Priority elevated," she added. "Which is polite code for: somebody with authority took a personal interest in this."
"Architect," he said.
"At least one," she said. "Maybe two. And internal security has their fingers in the feed as well. I saw Krell's imprint in the routing."
The wind gusted. A piece of trash scraped along the rooftop, skittered, and caught against the far wall.
"Is this about Dorrance?" he asked.
"It's not only about Dorrance," she said, and that was enough of an answer to confirm it was tied.
She picked up the folder and handed it to him.
"Read," she said. "Then we'll talk."
He opened it.
The first page was a standard briefing sheet: operation code, time window, location, clearance level. Beneath the printed words, someone had added a note in tight handwriting: 'Minimal overt disruption. Absolute containment.'
The target's photo sat in a plastic sleeve on the second page.
Male, early forties, narrow face that had lost weight too fast, eyes too big now for the frame around them. Short hair, growth of beard as if he'd forgotten to shave for a few days. The background showed a blurred cafe interior.
Name: MATEO RUIZ.
Nationality: dual. One from a small European country, another from a South American one. Background: data analysis, financial forensics, contractor for various "consulting" outfits that specialized in moving money where no one could follow it.
"Dorrance's books," Kieran said, reading the lines beneath.
"Among others," Elena said. "He was one of the people who made sure certain numbers never appeared on certain ledgers. Offshore accounts, cut-outs, fake shells. He knows who paid Dorrance and who Dorrance paid."
There was a log of recent movements. Change of city, change of hotel, missed meetings, encrypted messages flagged by agencies that pretended not to store that kind of content.
The last entry was highlighted.
> INCOMING: MEETING ARRANGED – UNDISCLOSED BUYER – LOCATION: [REDACTED, LOCAL]
SUBJECT INDICATES INTENT TO "SELL EVERYTHING I KNOW BEFORE THEY KILL ME."
"Who's the buyer?" Kieran asked.
"Good question," Elena said. "No answer yet. Could be a journalist, could be a rival firm, could be a government. The point is: Ruiz decided he wants off the board."
"He's afraid of us," Kieran said.
"He's afraid of whoever he thinks killed Dorrance," she replied. "He might not know our name, but he understands something sharpened moved through that hotel tonight."
He turned another page.
Surveillance stills: Ruiz entering a cheap hotel. Ruiz at an ATM, looking over his shoulder. Ruiz on a tram, hands clenched on the rail.
Another page held decompress notes from an intercepted call.
> RUIZ: "You don't understand. It's not just them. It's what they built."
OTHER PARTY: [INAUDIBLE]
RUIZ: "Those kids... the Forges... they're not myths. I saw transfer approvals with my own eyes. I signed under them."
Kieran's fingers tightened on the paper.
Forges.
The word crawled under his skin like an insect that knew where all the old scars were.
"They know," he said slowly.
"He suspects," Elena said. "He saw partial documents. Payment chains. Transit authorizations. Enough to build a story around, not enough to prove it by himself. But if he lives long enough to hand that story to the right pair of hands, it becomes a problem."
He looked up. "For the Order."
"For everyone who uses us," she said. "Governments like Cross's depend on plausible deniability. If Ruiz stitches together enough of the picture, he removes the 'plausible' part."
The wind snatched at the edge of one of the pages. He pressed it down with his thumb.
"What's the objective?" he asked, though he already knew.
"Terminate Mateo Ruiz before the meet," she said. "Recover any data he's collected since Dorrance's death. Destroy local copies. Wipe his hardware. If the buyer is present, evaluate whether containment is possible. If not, remove them as well."
"Witness removal," he said. "Plus asset clean-up."
"You've done it before," she said.
"Yes," he said. But never with the word Forge attached.
He flipped to the final page.
Method Recommendation:
> Cranial termination (ballistic or blade). Immediate recovery of drives and devices. Scene to be staged as organized crime retaliation or suicide based on environment.
Another note, in a different hand, smaller, sharper:
> No deviation from recommended methods without prior authorization. Field improvisation flagged for review.
He recognized the shape of that directive. It didn't come from Elena. It came from higher, somewhere with fewer fingerprints and more screens.
"They're choking your options," she said, reading his expression. "Explicitly this time."
"They're testing," he said.
"Of course they are," she replied. "You changed a kill tonight. You adapted. They want to see if it's a pattern or a blip."
He closed the folder, keeping a finger inside to mark the page about the Forges.
"Where?" he asked.
She pulled another sheet from the pocket of her coat and unfolded it. A street map, old enough to be printed, not projected. A circle marked in red around a district near the river.
He knew the area.
Old buildings, narrow streets, a mix of cheap apartments and small businesses that survived mostly because bigger ones hadn't bothered to crush them yet.
His eyes landed on a familiar corner.
Lena's bar would be three blocks from the center of the circle.
"Local contact says Ruiz booked a room in a walk-up hotel there," Elena said. "Nothing classy. Paid cash. He's trying to disappear in a place the rich only pass through in their cars, not on feet."
"Time of meet?" he asked.
"Unknown. Sometime in the next twenty-four hours, we think. He sent a message to his buyer: 'Tomorrow night. When it's loud enough.'"
She shrugged.
"So you'll be in place before then," she said. "You and Rhee."
"Jonas," he said.
"Yes," she replied. "He's your overwatch again. He likes you. Thinks you're efficient. Let's not disillusion him too much."
The corner of his mouth moved briefly. "I'll try."
She sobered.
"There's more," she said. "Internal security flagged this operation for live observation. That means Krell's people will have access to your telemetry during the job. Heart rate, comms, helmet cam if you wear one, line-of-sight audio if you don't."
"I don't wear helmet cams," he said.
"Then they'll watch the environment through Rhee's scope," she said. "Point is: you're not invisible on this one. Any deviation will be seen in real time, not just reconstructed in a report."
"Is there a reason you're telling me this?" he asked. "Beyond courtesy."
"Yes," she said. "So you understand that if you decide to… improvise again, you won't just be explaining it to me afterwards. You'll be performing it for an audience."
"Does that change your expectations?" he asked.
The wind picked up, pulling loose hair from her bun. She smoothed it back with a gloved hand.
"My expectations?" she said. "My expectations are simple. You go in. You remove Ruiz. You remove his data. You bring back whatever they forgot to track. You don't die. You don't get arrested. You don't make me identify your body in a morgue that doesn't know your name."
"That's four expectations," he said.
"I'm greedy," she said.
He looked down at the folder again.
"Ruiz knows about the Forges," he said quietly. "Even if he doesn't know everything, he knows enough to speak the word."
"Yes," she said.
"If he talks to the wrong person, they'll trace patterns," he said. "Birth records that end without death certificates. Transfers of minors through fake charities. Payments under shell organizations. They'll see the children. They'll see us."
"That's the fear," she said.
He let that sit for a moment, heavier than the folder in his hands.
"There are other ways to handle this," he said. "Extraction. Acquisition. We could bring him in. Keep him quiet and alive. Use him."
"Those ways are not on the table," she said. "There's a line, Kieran. On one side of it are solutions that keep us useful. On the other is anything that looks like we're building our own intelligence network outside the contracts."
"You trust him more dead than alive," he said.
"I don't trust him at all," she said. "The question is who gets to use his fear. Right now, they want him silenced, not repurposed."
"'They' being the architects," he said.
"And the clients whose secrets he's carrying," she said. "More than one."
He stared at the map again. The red circle bled slightly where the ink had soaked into the paper.
"What if the buyer is law enforcement?" he asked.
"Then they die too," she said. No hesitation. "This isn't about guilt or innocence. It's about exposure. If someone is willing to buy Ruiz's story, they are a risk. Risks are removed."
"What if the buyer is private?" he asked. "Journalist. Activist. Citizen's group."
"Same answer," she said. "The Order is not in the business of letting anyone hold a knife to its throat."
"And if the buyer doesn't show?" he asked.
"Then this is simpler," she said. "You kill Ruiz, you destroy his data, you walk away before the neighbors notice anything more than shouting on the next block."
He looked up, meeting her eyes.
"And if there are children in the building," he said, "do I still avoid bullets?"
Her gaze sharpened.
"That question has two answers," she said. "The one I'm supposed to give you, and the one I'm going to give you."
"Start with the one you're supposed to give," he said.
"I'm supposed to say: your priority is the objective and your own survival," she replied. "If children are present, you adjust your angles and your timing, but you do not compromise the mission for them. You are a blade, not a social worker."
"And the other answer?" he asked.
She looked at him a long time, the wind tugging, the city humming low beneath them.
"The other answer is this," she said. "Every choice you make moves you closer to one of two futures. In one, you are an efficient instrument that never hesitates, and you die one night with nothing in your head but the last set of orders you were given. In the other, you keep a piece of yourself that isn't theirs. That piece will hurt. It will complicate things. It may get you killed sooner. But it's the only part of you that will have been truly alive."
"That's not operational guidance," he said.
"No," she said. "It's older than operations."
He thought of the girl in the bed, her sock half off, her breathing soft and oblivious. He thought of narrow corridors in the Forge, boys shivering in thin blankets, names fading like bruises.
"What future do you expect of me?" he asked.
"I expect you to walk the line as long as you can," she said. "Because while you're on it, you're the most dangerous thing we have. To them. To us. To yourself."
"Dangerous things are usually broken," he said.
"Eventually," she said. "The question is who gets cut before that happens."
She stood, joints protesting with a small crack he pretended not to hear.
"You meet Rhee at 1900," she said. "Safehouse off Holcomb Street. He'll have the gear. You'll have local eyes; he'll have the distance. Internal will be in his ear as well as mine. No independent channels, no off-grid comms."
He closed the folder and handed it back. She tucked it under her arm again.
"You shouldn't be in that district too early," she said. "Lena will notice."
He stilled before he could stop himself.
"You know her," he said.
"I know you watch your exits," she said. "And I know you've filed no complaints about noise from the bar below your building, despite her clientele sometimes making enough of it. That tells me you don't mind her there."
"She's a civilian," he said. "Unconnected."
"Everyone's unconnected until they aren't," she said. "Be careful letting your eyes linger."
"I haven't—"
"You have," she said. "You're human. Or what passes for it here. Just remember: districts you live in should never become districts you bleed in. Lines blur too easily."
"I'll keep it separate," he said.
"I hope you do," she replied. "For her sake as much as yours."
She walked back toward the stairwell door.
At the threshold, she paused.
"Kieran," she said.
He turned slightly.
"They're watching you now," she said. "Not just your kill count. Your choices. Make them deliberately. Don't let them back you into reflex."
"Is that an order?" he asked.
"No," she said. "That's the part of me that still remembers what a person is, talking to the part of you that hasn't forgotten yet."
The door closed behind her with a hollow thud.
He stayed on the rooftop for another minute, the map burned into his mind. Ruiz's narrow face. The word Forges on the page. The red circle three blocks from a bar with peeling blue paint and a woman who didn't sell information, no matter who asked.
The city spread out beneath him, full of people who had no idea how close they lived to invisible blades.
He pulled his jacket tighter against the wind and headed for the stairs.
Somewhere between here and Holcomb Street, Mateo Ruiz was waiting to decide how badly he wanted to live.
Somewhere above them, Sebastian Krell was waiting to see what kind of man Kieran Holt really was.
And somewhere between the two, the line Elena had described stretched thinner with every step he took.