Chapter 23 - Vault 884
The clerk led me down three subterranean levels through reinforced blast doors, where the air grew increasingly cold and stale. We reached a circular vault room deep beneath the bedrock of the city, illuminated by pale amber lights. The walls were lined with thousands of identical steel deposit boxes, stretching from floor to ceiling.
The clerk stopped at a solitary, isolated pillar in the center of the room. It bore a single, heavy steel compartment marked with the number *884*.
"The key requires a secondary biological confirmation," the clerk muttered, his voice trembling as he stepped back toward the reinforced threshold. "Your father instructed that should anyone attempt to open this box without the direct genetic lineage of Claire Mercer, the internal incendiary charge will detonate, vaporizing the contents."
My breath caught in my throat. "Claire?"
"Not your blood, Mr. Mercer," the old man whispered, staring at me with hollow eyes. "Her blood. Your wife’s."
A cold panic seized my chest. "Claire is dead! She’s been dead for three years!"
"Then you cannot open the box," the clerk said, turning toward the heavy iron exit door. "And neither can they."
"Wait!"
I lunged forward, my hand digging frantically into my pocket. My fingers closed around the small, weathered object I had carried every single day since Claire died: the silver star pendant I had pulled from her jewelry box, the one she had worn every day of her life, the one Lily had clutched the night her mother died.
I examined the chain. Entangled within the delicate silver links was a single, dried strand of dark auburn hair—Claire’s hair, preserved beneath the clasp.
"Does it take hair follicles?" I demanded, catching the clerk by the lapel.
"The scanner... it samples trace DNA," the clerk stammered, pointing at a small glass aperture set beneath the keyhole. "If the degradation is too severe, the thermite triggers."
It was a suicidal gamble. If I failed, whatever answers Claire died for would turn to ash. But if I walked away, the monsters who hunted my daughter would never stop.
"Cover your eyes," I muttered.
I laid the strand of Claire’s hair onto the glass plate and inserted the brass key into the lock. I turned it with a hard, decisive twist.
A soft hum resonated through the metal. A red laser scanned the glass plate. For three agonizing seconds, the silence inside the subterranean chamber was deafening.
*Click-whirrrrr.*
A green light flashed. The mechanical tumblers rolled back with the thunderous resonance of dropping anvils. The heavy steel door popped open an inch.
I shoved the clerk back and pulled the heavy door open. Inside rested a velvet-lined tray containing only two items: an encrypted military-grade hard drive, and a thick, handwritten journal bound in black leather with my father’s unmistakable fountain-pen script across the front:
*TO DANIEL — IF YOU ARE READING THIS, CLAIRE WAS NOT THE FIRST TO DIE, AND SHE WILL NOT BE THE LAST.*
I grabbed the items, stuffing them into my coat, and turned to leave.
Suddenly, the red emergency sirens across the vault ceiling began to scream. A robotic female voice echoed in German and English:
*Warning. Perimeter breach on Sub-Level 1. Tactical quarantine activated.*
May you like
They had tracked us. The Black Sun was already inside the bank.
***
