Chapter 7 - The Keeper of the Archives
The elderly man stared at Leo over the rim of thick, wire-rimmed glasses, his faded blue eyes sharp and assessing despite the deep wrinkles etched across his face. He didn't scream, nor did he reach for a phone; he simply closed the manila folder in front of him and rested his calloused hands on the scarred wooden desk.
"You're tracking mud across a floor I spent two hours waxing, young man," the old man said, his voice raspy and dry like old paper. "And you look like you've just run a marathon away from something that wants to skin you alive."
Leo backed away from the heavy wooden door, his ears straining for any sound of Sterling picking the deadbolt or breaking through the frame. "I need to get to the east wing elevator," Leo panted, clutching the silver case defensively. "A man back there... he's trying to kill me."
"Mr. Sterling doesn't usually bother with personal executions unless the paperwork is exceptionally messy," the old man remarked calmly, leaning back in his creaking metal chair. "He runs the compliance and containment division for Vanguard Bio. If he's hunting you down here, it means you're holding something that could send half the hospital board to a federal penitentiary."
Leo’s eyes widened. "You know who Sterling is?"
"I've been down in these archives for forty years, son," the old man said, standing up with a slight groan from his aching joints. "I've seen chief physicians come and go, experimental trials quietly swept under the rug, and children like your sister brought in with 'unexplained complications' that doctors were forbidden from investigating."
A sudden, violent shudder shook the heavy wooden door behind Leo as Sterling began slamming his shoulder against the panels, trying to shatter the latch.
"He's going to get through," Leo whispered, sheer panic gripping his chest as he looked around the massive, windowless archive room. "There has to be another way out of here."
"There is," the old man said, walking slowly toward the back of the room behind a towering wall of filing cabinets. He pulled a brass key from a chain around his neck and unlocked a small, unmarked access panel set low into the concrete foundation. "This dumbwaiter shaft used to transport biological samples between the labs and the incinerator before they automated the disposal systems. It's tight, vertical, and entirely off the digital grid."
Leo rushed over to the open panel, peering down into a dark, vertical shaft with a creaky cable system. "Where does it lead?"
"Straight up to the pediatric ward supply closet, right down the hall from Room 402," the old man replied, holding open the metal gate. "Go. Before Sterling kicks that door in and turns us both into classified footnotes."
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Leo didn't hesitate. He thrust the silver case into the small cargo compartment, squeezed his body inside after it, and pulled the rusted metal gate shut. As the compartment began its jerky, agonizingly slow ascent into the dark above, a deafening crash echoed below him as the wooden door finally splintered off its hinges, and Sterling stepped into the archive room.
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