I stood outside Door 17 at 1:08 a.m.
The basement was silent — not the silence of emptiness, but of containment. The air was cool, smelling of dust and something faintly metallic, like old wiring. A single bulb flickered at the end of the hall, casting long shadows.
I had thirty seconds.
I checked the earpiece — fake on, battery full, signal dead. My phone was off. My shoes, soft-soled. I carried only a penlight and the slip of paper with the number: 3.72
I didn't know what it meant.
Only that Nia had written it.
And that Kieran's name was beneath it.
At 1:12, the lights above me dimmed.
Then blinked out.
For exactly nine seconds, the corridor went black.
The system reset.
I turned the handle.
The door wasn't locked.
Inside: a narrow room, walls lined with server racks, blinking green and red. Wires ran along the floor, taped down in neat rows. In the center, a single terminal — screen dark.
I switched on the penlight.
The beam caught something on the desk: a coffee cup, still warm.
Someone had been here.
I sat, pressed the spacebar.
The screen lit up.
LOGIN REQUIRED
I typed:
admin
password
veridian
All denied.
Then I tried:
Luka Abara
Access denied.
But the screen flickered — just once — like it recognized the name.
I tried:
Sage Morrow
Denied.
Then, on impulse:
3.72
The screen froze.
A progress bar appeared:
Decrypting Node 7… 14%
I didn't move.
18%
23%
31%
Then — footsteps.
Outside.
I killed the light. Slid under the desk.
The door opened.
A figure stepped in — tall, shoulders tight, wearing a Veridian blazer.
Kieran Vale.
He didn't turn on the light.
He didn't need to.
He went straight to the terminal, typed something fast.
The screen changed.
A new window opened.
Not the Index.
Not student files.
A video feed.
Black and white. Grainy.
A room I knew.
Mine.
Camera mounted in the smoke detector.
Bed empty.
Desk: laptop open.
Wall: a single word written in pencil on a scrap of paper, taped beside the mirror:
LUA
He stared at it.
Then typed:
Subject: Morrow, S.
Status: Active Resistance
Recommendation: Stage 3 Adjustment
My breath caught.
But he didn't press Enter.
Instead, he deleted the last line.
Typed two new words:
Monitor Only.
Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a small drive, and plugged it into the terminal.
Copied a file.
Took it out.
Left without looking back.
The door clicked shut.
I stayed under the desk.
Long after the footsteps faded.
Then I turned the screen back on.
The decryption had finished.
A folder appeared:
/Alpha_Protocol/Backups/Node_7
I opened it.
List after list.
Index updates.
Behavioral logs.
And one file labeled:
Final_Message_Luka_Abara.mp4
I clicked it.
The screen flickered.
Then a face filled the frame.
Luka.
Pale. Tired. Sitting in a room that looked like a small office. A Veridian ID clipped to his shirt.
He looked into the camera.
And spoke.
"If you're seeing this… you're not supposed to be."