The transport landed in the dark, restricted sector of the MFF. As Winsten stepped out onto the concrete, the military staff froze. They weren't just looking at Winsten. They were staring at the man walking in front of him.
Cyrus Miller, the Director of the Treasury, looked tiny. He was flanked by four of Vance's operatives, his tailored tuxedo wrinkled from the flight. The guards in the facility leaned in, whispering. They knew his face from the news. Seeing the Director of the Treasury being led into a deep-cover bunker like a common prisoner sent a ripple of shock through the entire facility.
Winsten didn't stop for anyone. He pushed past the stunned soldiers and took Miller down to the containment levels.
They shoved Miller into a cold, windowless room. The lights hummed with an aggressive buzz. Miller scanned the room, his eyes frantic. He saw a metal chair in the center and a door leading to a back chamber.
"Where is Mince?" Miller asked, his voice shaking. "You said he was compromised. Where is he?"
Winsten didn't answer. He stood by the wall, arms crossed, letting the silence stretch until Miller looked like he was about to jump out of his skin.
"He's dead," Winsten said, his voice cold and flat. "I had one of my operatives put a bullet in his head. That's for helping you all kill my friend."
Miller's face turned gray. He looked like he'd been slapped.
"Dead? You killed him?"
"He was a liability," Winsten cut him off. "And he was part of the reason you thought you could touch me."
Miller opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked toward the back room.
"Is my son alive? Tell me he's alive."
Winsten stared at him, his face unreadable.
"He's alive. For now. That depends on you."
Miller lunged forward, but the guards shoved him back.
"Let me see him!"
Winsten nodded once. A guard opened the back door. They wheeled out a chair. Miller's son sat in it, his hands and feet tightly bound with heavy zip-ties. He was terrified, his eyes wide and leaking tears as he shook his head, begging for help.
When the son saw his father, he let out a strangled cry. Miller panicked. He tried to rush forward, but the guards slammed him into the metal seat in the center of the room and cuffed his wrists to the frame.
Winsten walked slowly toward the son. He looked at the boy, then turned back to Miller. Without a word, Winsten hauled back and smacked the son across the face.
The sound echoed like a gunshot in the small room.
"Stop!" Miller screamed, lunging against his cuffs. "Leave him out of this! Just stop, I'll tell you whatever you want!"
Winsten stepped back, his expression cold and detached. He looked at Miller.
"Start talking. Who are the Sentinels?"
Miller was sobbing now, his eyes locked on his son.
"I'm a nobody. I'm just a lackey! They came to me years ago. They didn't just offer money—they offered power. Protection. They told me I would never have to worry about a government audit or a scandal again."
"The AI," Winsten said. "How much did they know? And who told them?"
Miller shook his head, his face pale.
"No. The board… the twelve directors… they acted like they were terrified of something. They told us there was a 'digital plague' coming, something that would rewrite the global order. They treated it like a weapon that had to be controlled before it could control us. They gave us the directives, the funds, and the technology to build our own defensive networks."
Winsten leaned in.
"Names. Who runs the table?"
Miller swallowed hard, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"It's a board. There are twelve directors who make every major decision, and they run the entire Sentinel organization. Look, these twelve are giants of industry compared to me—they have more money and influence than any government official. I'm the Secretary of the Treasury and I was just a lackey to them. The rumor inside the organization is that four 'Architects' command the twelve, so you know who's actually in charge, but we can never confirm it."
Winsten stared him down, his eyes like flint.
"You're grasping at shadows to save your neck, Miller. You're giving me a ghost story to cover for the fact that you have no idea who is pulling the strings."
Miller let out a wet, desperate laugh.
"I am telling you, they are real! You think I'm making this up? If they weren't real, the board would have laughed those rumors out of the room years ago. They never deny it. They never even address it. The talk about the Architects is so deep in the fabric of the Sentinels that everyone—everyone—accepts it as the absolute truth. You don't ignore a rumor that powerful unless it's the reality you're too afraid to look at."
"Data confirmed," the AI's voice was sharp in Winsten's earpiece. "These twelve individuals have been orchestrating global instability for over three decades. I know them well. But Winsten… listen closely. If the twelve are being fed information about me at this level of detail, they are being handled by someone who knows my origins—a shadow above the shadows. We have been looking at the wrong layer of the cake."
Winsten looked at the broken man in the chair, then stepped away.
"Your son stays until I verify every single one of those names. If you lied once, you're never seeing him again."
Winsten stepped out of the room, the heavy steel door slamming shut. He stared down the hall, his mind racing.
"I will spend the next two hours looking into every connection that Miller has ever had," the AI said. "I will track them down and I will update you once I get back. It shouldn't be that hard for me to find who they are. I am an Intelligence that this world—not this world of this timeline—cannot even comprehend or create in the next 7,000 years."
Winsten nodded. The hunt for the Architects had just begun.