Chapter 3 - The Unlocked Door
The heavy front door clicked as Clara’s trembling fingers finally managed to throw the deadbolt, but the door refused to swing open. It remained firmly sealed, as if welded into the frame from the outside, despite the lack of any physical lock other than the one she had just disengaged. Mark sprinted across the living room, abandoning the remote on the sofa, and threw his full weight against the wood. The door didn’t budge an inch.
"It's magnetic," Mark grunted, pressing his palms flat against the cool surface. "The whole frame has been magnetized."
"How?" Clara cried, pressing her back against the wall with her knees pulled up slightly, staring wildly around the bright, modern living room as if the walls themselves were closing in. "We live in a normal suburb, Mark! This isn't one of your underground facilities!"
"Nothing about the last ten years has been normal, Clara, and you know it," Mark shot back, turning to face her with a fierce, suppressed anger that had been simmering since the day they signed the non-disclosure agreements. "You told me you destroyed all the prototypes. You swore to me that everything from the Chicago project was burned to ash."
"I did burn it!" Clara shouted back, tears finally spilling over her lashes, tracking hot and fast down her cheeks. "I watched the servers melt! I watched the entire third floor collapse into the basement!"
"Then explain why our son is reciting project access codes," Mark pointed sharply toward Leo, who was now sitting quietly on the rug, tracing invisible geometric shapes in the air with his index finger.
The television hummed louder, the sound shifting from static to a low, rhythmic beep that matched the cadence of a human heartbeat. The countdown timer on the screen hit five minutes flat. Suddenly, the image on the screen flickered. The static cleared away entirely, replaced by a live, high-definition camera feed of their own front porch.
On the screen, a man stood directly outside their front door. He was wearing a gray trench coat, his face obscured by the wide brim of a dark hat, holding a small metallic device that was emitting a bright blue pulse every time the front door’s magnetic lock hummed.
Clara stared at the screen, her breath hitching in her throat. She gripped the edge of the kitchen counter so hard her knuckles turned completely white.
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"It's him," Clara whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the television. "It's Dr. Hayes. I thought he died in the explosion."
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