Chapter 6 - Beneath the Floorboards
Finding a way in without setting off an alarm seemed impossible until I inspected the foundation near the water intake pipe that connected the reservoir to the structure.
Decades of moisture had rotted the mortar around an old iron ventilation grate near the mud line. Using the crowbar, I wedged the steel tip between the crumbling stones and put my entire body weight into it.
With a dull, grinding crack, two stones broke free, loosening the frame of the grate. I wrenched the iron bars aside, revealing a narrow crawlspace thick with cobwebs, damp earth, and the stench of stagnant water and ozone.
I squeezed my body through the narrow opening, scraping my elbows against the rough stone, and dropped onto the concrete floor of the pump-house interior.
Inside, the air was surprisingly dry and hummed with the steady vibration of heavy machinery.
The ground floor was empty save for rusting water pipes and retired generator parts. But in the far corner, hidden beneath an old canvas tarp, was a reinforced steel bulkhead door equipped with a modern digital keypad and a biometric scanner.
Harold had built a subterranean vault directly beneath the rotting shell of the pump-house.
My heart sank. A biometric lock. I didn't have Harold’s fingerprint, and a security code could be anything.
I knelt beside the keypad, my flashlight illuminating the worn rubber buttons. Harold had always suffered from subtle obsessive-compulsive traits; Mike used to joke that Harold never changed his passwords because he couldn't stand breaking routine. In their early startup days, their master security override had always been a sequence derived from the molecular weight of their very first synthesized compound: 1-0-4-7-9.
I held my breath, pressed the keys: **1 - 0 - 4 - 7 - 9 - #**.
The keypad beeped twice. A red light flashed. *Incorrect.*
A digital countdown timer started: *Two attempts remaining before lockdown.*
Panic surged through me. Harold wouldn't use the old code. What else was Harold obsessed with?
Then I remembered the day Mike died. The date Harold claimed his victory. The day he stole everything.
October 14th.
I typed: **1 - 0 - 1 - 4 - 8 - 8**—the date and the year Mike founded the company.
May you like
A mechanical chime echoed through the silence. A green LED illuminated. With a heavy pneumatic hiss, the hydraulic seals on the steel door released, and the vault cracked open an inch.
***
