Finally, Calista's gaze landed on Lorenzo, turning cold. "And him. Mike, keep an eye on him. We may need him for the access controls and systems down there."
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow. "Finally remembered I'm useful?"
"Cut the crap." Mike shoved him roughly. "Walk in front."
Everything was ready.
The team staying behind quickly used the terrain and vehicles to build defensive positions.
The exploration team carried headlamps, high-powered flashlights, weapons, a small amount of explosives, medical kits, and the data storage devices Dr. Jenner had specially prepared as they arrived at the building disguised as a warehouse.
Bossie and Mike forced the heavy metal door open, producing a harsh creak.
The space inside was huge but empty. Only the dark elevator shaft in the center gaped open like the mouth of some enormous beast.
Beside it, the fire door was tightly shut, marked with the words: "Emergency Passage. No Entry Without Authorization."
"This is it." Leah stepped forward and tried pushing the fire door. It did not move at all.
"Locked tight, or jammed from the inside."
"I've got it." Turner stepped forward and pulled a breaching tool from his backpack, a pair of hydraulic cutters.
"Old lock like this? Piece of cake." He worked the tool skillfully, and with the sharp screech of twisting metal, the lock was forced apart.
Mike and Bossie stepped up and pushed the heavy fire door inward together.
A foul, cold draft rushed out from the deep, dark stairwell behind the door, making them shiver despite themselves.
Their flashlight beams swept downward, revealing a metal staircase spiraling into the darkness, so deep it seemed to lead straight to hell.
"Keep formation. Watch your feet and your surroundings." Calista took a deep breath and stepped onto the stairs first.
Leah followed closely behind. Then came Mike and Bossie, responsible for "escorting" Lorenzo, while Carver and Turner brought up the rear.
Danny, Michonne, Daryl, and Shane stayed in the middle of the group, able to support both the front and rear at any time while watching one another's backs.
The fire door slammed shut behind them, as if cutting off every connection to the world above.
Their only light came from the swaying beams of their headlamps and flashlights.
"Tap... tap... tap..."
Their footsteps echoed through the enclosed stairwell, unnaturally clear.
The cold in the air grew heavier, and the temperature seemed to drop noticeably.
Now and then, they passed emergency lights embedded in the wall, long since dead.
It felt as if they were walking into the belly of some massive metal creature that had died long ago.
Down. Still farther down.
The spiral staircase seemed endless, and the silence pressed against everyone's ears.
"How damn deep does this go?" Turner muttered from the back. "Feels like we're about to hit the center of the Earth."
"Talk less. Save your strength," Calista said without turning around. Her hand never left the dagger at her waist, and her gray-blue eyes gleamed in the dark like those of a wary cat.
Bossie and Daryl served as scouts, one ahead and one behind, moving lightly and quietly.
After descending the height of more than ten floors, the staircase finally ended.
At the front, Calista raised her flashlight, and the beam illuminated the bottom of the stairs.
Ahead was a small square platform, and beyond it stood a heavy alloy airlock door with a distinctly high-tech look. Its surface was smooth as a mirror, with no visible physical lock.
On the wall beside it, a terminal screen still glowed with a faint red light, displaying several characters: [Biometric/Access Card Authentication]
"This is the place."
Danny immediately stepped forward and tried to connect his military laptop to the terminal.
A few minutes later, sweat had formed on his forehead. He shook his head. "No good, Calista. The system is physically isolated. No external interface. The firewall is hard-coded. If we brute-force it, countermeasures will trigger immediately... and we don't know what those are."
Everyone's hearts sank.
Hope was right in front of them, yet blocked by a single wall.
Calista's gaze sharpened slightly as she looked at Lorenzo. "Lorenzo, it's your turn to shine."
Mike pushed Lorenzo up to the door.
Lorenzo flexed his wrists, numb from the cuffs, then leaned closer to examine the terminal before studying the structure of the door itself.
"Hmm... old-fashioned but reliable hydraulic airlock. The independent power system must be drained. The terminal uses dual authentication, RF card and password. Alpha-level security. A little troublesome."
He muttered to himself, then looked up at Calista with a sly glint in his eyes. "I'm going to need my hands."
Calista exchanged a look with Leah.
Leah gave a slight nod.
Calista signaled to Mike. "Free his hands. Give him the tools."
Mike reluctantly unlocked Lorenzo's right hand and tossed him a compact tool kit.
Lorenzo flexed his wrist. He did not even look at the tool kit, instead speaking directly to Danny. "Give me your laptop. And pry open the maintenance access panel on the side of the terminal."
Danny looked at Calista. Only after she nodded did he do as instructed.
Under the panel were several rows of standard data ports, though the models were old.
Lorenzo took the laptop, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "With old military systems like this, physical isolation is both their strength and their weakness. They rely on preset logic and limited internal protocols. Usually, they leave a backdoor in the maintenance interface for diagnostics and emergency manual override."
He connected the data cable, and lines of code began racing across the screen.
"The key is finding that undocumented handshake protocol, bypassing the authentication layer, and sending a forged command directly to the access controller: 'System self-check passed. Request to release security lock.' We need to make the system believe we're part of it."
His fingers moved so quickly they almost blurred, his eyes locked on the screen as he kept talking. "See, there's a vulnerability here. Very old, but for firmware that hasn't been updated in decades, it's the perfect keyhole..."
Everyone watched him with bated breath. Most of them could not understand the technical details, but they could feel the tension.
Mike's gun was almost pressed against Lorenzo's lower back, while Leah and Carver stood to either side, ready to stop him from trying anything.
Suddenly, the red light on the terminal flashed rapidly several times, and a piercing alarm shrieked out.
"What are you doing?" Shane asked warily, his grip tightening around the axe.
"Relax, Officer." Lorenzo did not look up, fully focused on what his hands were doing. "Forcing our way in is impossible, unless you want the self-defense system to turn us into Swiss cheese, or trigger poison gas. I'm trying to bypass authentication, and it's fighting the intrusion. Give me thirty seconds..."
His fingers hammered the keyboard even faster. "Come on, baby."
The red light on the terminal flashed faster and faster, and the alarm grew sharper.
"All right, ladies and gentlemen. Start praying."
The tension reached its peak. Daryl had already raised his crossbow toward the door, and Michonne's katana had slid half an inch from its sheath.
"Now!" Lorenzo slammed the Enter key.
In an instant, the piercing alarm cut off.
The red light on the screen went dark, replaced by a soft, reassuring green.
[System self-check complete. Security lock disengaged.]
...
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