Chapter 9 - The Vault of Secrets
"Doc? You in there?"
The heavy metal door rattled again, louder this time. A fist hammered against the reinforced panel with enough force to make the medical supplies on the wall-mounted shelves clatter.
Sophie took a deep, steadying breath. Panic was a luxury she couldn't afford. She closed the error window on the terminal, leaving the override script running in the background, grabbed a roll of sterile gauze and a bottle of antiseptic from the supply cabinet, and walked over to the door.
She unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open just enough to reveal her white-jacketed shoulder and professional demeanor.
Standing in the hallway was a massive man with a flattened nose and a security uniform that strained across his thick chest. He was holding his left hand, wincing as blood dripped from a crushed knuckle onto the floor.
"What happened?" Sophie asked in a calm, clipped, authoritative voice that brooked no argument.
"Dropped a iron crate spacer," the guard grunted, glaring down at her. "Where's Doc Miller? You ain't the regular nurse."
"Dr. Miller transferred to the New Jersey branch this morning. I'm Dr. Vance, the new senior health inspector," Sophie lied smoothly, stepping back and gesturing into the brightly lit triage room. "Get inside and sit on the cot before you bleed all over the hallway floor."
The guard muttered a curse, lumbering into the room and plopping down heavily on the metal examination table.
Sophie moved with swift, practiced efficiency. She grabbed a pair of surgical scissors, cut away the torn fabric around his crushed knuckle, and immediately began irrigating the wound with saline.
"Ah! Christ, that stings!" the guard hissed, pulling his hand back. 𝑓𝔯𝓓𝚎𝐞𝓫𝚘𝔴𝓷ℯ𝓴.𝓬𝓸𝔪
"Hold still unless you want an infection that requires amputation," Sophie snapped, her tone so sharply professional that the guard instinctively froze, blinking at her in surprise.
While she irrigated the wound with one hand, her eyes flicked surreptitiously toward the computer monitor across the room.
The green progress bar on the screen ticked upward: 95%... 98%... 100%.
OVERRIDE SUCCESSFUL. SECURE VAULT DOORS UNLOCKED.
A soft, low-frequency hum vibrated through the concrete floor beneath their feet—the sound of the massive hydraulic locking pins disengaging in the secure vault forty feet below.
The guard frowned, lifting his head. "What was that rumble?"
"Generators kicking onto auxiliary power," Sophie said instantly, slapping a thick layer of antibiotic ointment over his crushed knuckle and wrapping it tightly with sterile gauze in record time. "Standard evening diagnostic check. You're fine. Keep it dry for forty-eight hours and take two ibuprofen if the throbbing starts."
She tore the medical tape with a sharp rip and slapped the roll down on the tray. "Next."
The guard stared at his bandaged hand, then up at Sophie with a mixture of resentment and grudging respect. "Damn, you work fast."
"Time is money in corporate health, mister. Now get out of my clinic, I have paperwork to finish."
Without waiting for another word, Sophie practically ushered the bewildered guard out the door, pulled it shut, and threw the heavy deadbolt.
She turned back to the computer terminal. She grabbed her USB drive, pocketed it, and hit the encrypted comms button clipped inside her collar.
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"This is Dr. Chen," she whispered into the small microphone. "The vault is open. You're clear to move in."
"Acknowledged," Alessandro’s voice crackled back through her earpiece, calm and ice-cold. "We're on the lower level. Stay in the triage room. Do not move."
