Folder 409: Part 3: The Vault Door

Part 3: The Vault Door

Elias pulled his shirt over his nose, but he knew chemical purges didn't give you enough time to improvise. He had ninety seconds before the gas saturated the air.

He ignored the door leading to the corridor, Marcus would have jammed it from the main frame. Instead, he smashed the glass of the desk display case, grabbed the silver fountain pen inside, and jammed it directly into the burner phone’s charging port.

The battery shorted instantly. A sudden electrical spike traveled down the hardline connection feeding the desk, forcing the room’s automated safety override to trigger.

The air vent slammed shut with a deafening metallic clatter. The overhead lights killed out, plunging the room into total darkness.

In the pitch black, a faint green LED illuminated on the wall behind the bookshelf. A secret hydraulic door hissed open, revealing a concrete staircase leading downwards straight into the facility's sub-levels.

From the bottom of the dark stairwell, a light clicked on. And then came a sound that made Elias’s heart rate spike far beyond 84bpm.

The sound of his own voice, speaking over a loudspeaker from the room below:

"If you're hearing this recording, Elias... you've already lost."

END