Chapter 6 - Into the Dark Attic
The air in the attic was thick with the scent of ancient dust, cedar shavings, and decades of forgotten family history.
Mark pushed open the creaking trapdoor, hoisting himself up into the dim, claustrophobic space with the iron poker gripped tightly in his hand.
Behind him, Victor followed with surprising agility for a man of his refined appearance, stepping carefully onto the wooden joists.
Elena remained downstairs with Lily, guarding the bedroom floor against any unexpected arrivals from Victor’s men waiting below.
"Watch your step," Mark muttered over his shoulder, sweeping the beam of a heavy-duty flashlight across the cluttered rafters.
Cardboard boxes, broken rocking chairs, and yellowed photo albums were stacked haphazardly against the sloping walls of the roof.
Snake-like bundles of electrical wiring clung to the wooden beams, twisting and turning in a chaotic web of modern and antiquated technology.
Mark traced the thick black cable connected to the safe downstairs, following its path as it snaked across the ceiling joists toward the far corner.
"Over here," Mark whispered, picking his way carefully across the unstable flooring until he reached a heavily insulated wooden partition.
Pinned against the back wall of the attic was a heavy steel junction box, humming softly with a low, ominous vibration.
A small indicator light on the front panel blinked a frantic, frantic amber, matching the digital countdown echoing faintly from the floors below.
Victor stepped up beside him, peering down at the junction box with a look of intense professional curiosity.
"Remarkable," Victor murmured, shaking his head slightly. "Daniel always was an electrical genius before he lost his mind to paranoia."
Mark raised the iron poker, eyeing the heavy locking latch on the steel junction box with calculated intent.
"Stand back," Mark warned, raising the heavy tool high above his shoulder.
"Wait," Victor cautioned, reaching out to stay Mark’s arm. "If you smash the housing indiscriminately, you might trigger a hardwired system wipe."
Mark pulled his arm away, his temper flaring hot against the older man’s cautious interference.
"We have less than eight minutes before that safe melts itself into a useless lump of metal, Victor!" Mark snapped. "I don't have time to play surgeon with a pair of wire cutters!"
Without waiting for approval, Mark brought the iron poker down with all his strength against the center of the steel junction box.
Clang! The deafening metallic strike echoed through the rafters, sending a shockwave of vibrations up through the wooden framing.
The outer casing of the junction box buckled inward, popping the latch and exposing a tangled nest of fiber-optic cables and circuit boards.
Mark dropped to his knees, frantically sweeping away shards of warped plastic and torn insulation to get a clear look at the internal wiring.
Deep inside the box, a secondary timer glowed in stark green numbers: 00:07:42.
"It didn't trigger the wipe," Victor noted, sounding genuinely surprised as he leaned in closer to inspect the exposed circuitry.
"Because Daniel anticipated a brute-force entry here," Mark said, his fingers tracing a thick bundle of red and blue wires. "He built a secondary bypass circuit. He wanted someone to find this."
Victor frowned, his sharp eyes narrowing as he studied a small, modified flash drive plugged directly into the motherboard of the junction box.
"That's not just a junction box," Victor realized, his voice dropping an octave. "It's an active transmission relay. The data isn't just purging; it's being mirrored."
Mark looked up quickly, the beam of his flashlight illuminating the tense lines on Victor’s face.
"Mirrored to where?" Mark demanded.
Before Victor could answer, the amber blinking light on the panel suddenly shifted to a solid, angry crimson.
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A sharp, mechanical click echoed from deep inside the wall behind them, followed by the terrifying sound of a secondary internal mechanism engaging.
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