Chapter 201: Get Down, Sniper!

"So you see, Victor," Lillian said with a grin, "you were just making moves that had already been predicted."Victor slumped àthe chair, looking completely defeated. Based on the tech he was used to, OmniTech’s might as well be supernatural interference.

Because what the hell kind of like tech allowed you to transform into someone else?

His shoulders suddenly started trembling, and it was not from anger.

A few minutes later, he was.... laughing?

It started as a low chuckle before it became a full blown maniacal laughter.

The collector was right, he was an idiot. He had been too prideful and had completely believed he controlled the game, only to turn out that he wasn’t even an important piece in this game.

Worst part was, he just realized that the collector intended for this to happen, he knew that Victor’s plan would blow up in his face, he just wanted to see how bad it would.

Victor knew that if the collector wanted, he’d have helped or even tried saving him, but no, Victor had served his purpose.

The collector now knew exactly how far OmniTech was willing to go for his COO. He now knew exactly how resourceful OmniTech was.

Victor’s laughter went on for a long while, his voice echoing within the place where he had brought ’Lillian’.

"This isn’t technology," he finally said, his laughter dying down, "this is sorcery."

"Nah," Zero said with a grin on his face, "just better engineering."

Victor paused and raised his head to meet Lillian’s eyes on the other end of the screen before he asked, "what happens to me now?"

Lillian was silent for a while as if deciding his fate, before she said, "that’s not up to me."

A moment after her words, the screen glitched again and switched back to OmniTech’s avatar.

{Now, that was a fun game, wasn’t it?} The avatar asked with a smile on its face.

The previous frown was all a play to let Victor believe he had truly won. OmniTech allowed Victor to fully indulge in his illusion of a victory, before it was all snuffed away.

"You’re enjoying this aren’t you?" Victor asked, his voice low as he asked.

{Oh, fully,} the avatar responded, {though, I am curious.}

There was a brief pause before the avatar added, {Where is your benefactor? Shouldn’t he have saved you by now?}

Victor gritted his teeth but said nothing, causing the avatar to chuckle.

{Don’t tell me,} the avatar said, {have you been abandoned?}

"...."

The silence was answer enough. Victor Langley had been abandoned by whoever was sponsoring him behind the scenes and he was now just a powerless old man.

"What happens to me now?" Victor repeated his question.

{Well, there’re a couple of options,} the avatar said, {I could make sure you’re locked up again, this time, without a chance of ever being released.}

{But I’m sure your benefactor has claws in unimaginable places and you’d be back out the very next day.}

{So I decided to just wipe you off the board,} the avatar’s expression turned completely cold, {permanently.}

Victor didn’t seem surprised by his words or even the least bit shaken. From the moment he realized that his plans had been foiled and he was now in the enemy’s hand, he had been prepared for death.

But the avatar’s words caught his attention as he asked, "again?"

{Hmm?} The avatar tilted its head in question.

"You said you could make sure I’m locked up again," Victor looked at him with a dark expression, "what do you mean by that?"

{Oh, right,} the avatar said, {you’d like to know wouldn’t you?}

"Were you involved in my son’s death?" Victor asked in an even darker tone, for a man captured, his aura couldn’t be denied.

Though, it was useless for all those currently present around him.

{Involved?} it repeated thoughtfully, there was an obvious smile on its face {that’s... one way to put it.}

Victor’s jaw clenched.

{You see, Mr. Langley,} the avatar continued casually, {your son and I go a long way back, even before the current him could remember and let’s just say, there’s bad blood between us.}

{And as for You being locked up,} the avatar continued, {let’s just say that was all your doing, after all, the actions were yours, all I did was shine a little light on it.}

Victor froze at the reveal, yes he had asked the question but even he didn’t expect a young company he had never interacted with to target them.

"You..." his voice cracked, not with grief, but disbelief, "you leaked those files?"

{Of course I did.} The avatar laughed softly. {It was quite fun watching every intelligence branch in the country scramble over themselves trying to figure out where the leak came from.}

Victor had gone pale.

"You destroyed my family."

{No, Victor,} the avatar corrected, {your family destroyed itself. I simply nudged the first domino...well, all the dominoes, but you get the point, your son brought this on himself.}

"Why?" Victor asked .

{Why?} The avatar’s expression changed as he asked, {let’s call it... settling an old debt.}

"But then," Victor started, but paused for a short while, "but then you came after me too."

{Naturally.}

Victor stiffened.

{You covered for him for years, didn’t you?you buried investigations... silenced witnesses... redirected blame,} he avatar leaned forward slightly, its smile widening, {you helped build the monster. Why wouldn’t you share in the fallout?}

Victor’s breath hitched.

OmniTech was right, he had trained Nathaniel into the man he was, thinking they ruled the world, thinking that everyone should bow to their whims and now, the consequences were right before him.

He had been proven time and time again that he was just a frog that had climbed in a slightly higher foothold in a deep well, his money, connections and power had all been useless.

{Now then,} OmniTech’s avatar said, {it’s my turn to get something out of you.}

"If you’re hoping to get the collector’s identity out of me, then forget it," Victor said.

{Well, that’ll be a problem,} the avatar said with a chuckle before adding, {is what you’d be hoping I say, but I have my ways to get it out of you.}

Victor didn’t seem shaken, well not on the surface anyway, after all, what more could be taken from him?

He wasn’t afraid of pain, so torture could get zero Information from him, the worst they could do to him was kill him, something that he had already prepared himself for.

{Zero?} The avatar called out and the hyperactive tennager immediately jumped up.

"Finally," he walked to the side and came back with a weird looking helmet that looked like some kind of lights like some kind of VR toy.

"What is that?" Victor asked as Zero walked towards him with a grin on his face.

{Just something that will get the information I need out of you,} the avatar said as Zero excitedly placed the helmet over his and turned it on.

"Relax," he said with a smile as he stepped back, "this will hurt, a lo —"

Bang!

Before Zero could complete his words, a loud sound interrupted as he instinctively got down.

The others did the same as Silk asked, "what the hell was that?"

{A sniper,} Ethan responded as Athena checked the cameras, {he’s completed what he came here for and he’s heading off the roof.}

"Should we give him a chase?" Tag asked as he looked at the hole in the wall.

{That won’t be necessary,} Ethan responded, {just dispose of the body.}

"Bod—" Tag asked as he turned towards Victor who was on the chair only to realize that a hole had been created on the helmet on his head, blood leaking from within.

His head was tilted forward at an unnatural angle, a thin stream of blood dripping down his temple, running along the curve of the now-useless helmet.

Victor Langley was dead before his body even realized it.

Zero slowly stood up, blinking as the adrenaline faded and the reality of what had happened set in. He stared at the corpse, then at the perfect circular hole bored cleanly through the helmet and skull in one shot.

"Whoever this sniper was, he’s good," Spectra stepped forward, examining the wound, "Single shot with no hesitation. Whoever did this didn’t want him talking at all.

"Or wanted to make sure we didn’t get anything," Bypass added grimly.

Silk scoffed, arms folded, "Great, so we wasted all that time just for someone else to claim the kill."

{That just means Victor knew who the collector was,} Ethan, through his avatar, said, {and he didn’t not want me gaining access to that info.}

Well, that much was obvious, after all, the Collector was sure that Ethan would find a way of bringing him down if he made his identity know and vice versa.

That was what made this game of theirs so fun, they were both controlling their pieces from the shadows, though, the collector was the only who was missing pieces.