Chapter 9 - Inside the Inner Office
The hiss of the opening glass door was instantly swallowed by an oppressive, suffocating quiet. Julian stood paralyzed in the doorway of the inner office, his dark coat feeling suddenly too heavy on his shoulders. The air inside smelled faintly of withered lilacs and old paper—the exact scent of Sarah’s favorite perfume. Yet underneath that familiar fragrance lay something metallic and rotten, like crushed leaves left to rot in the dark.
"Stay by the server racks, Lily," Julian instructed without turning around, his voice tight and strained as he stepped across the threshold into the dim room.
The desk in the center of the office was covered in neat stacks of index cards, each one covered in the same meticulous, tiny handwriting that Julian recognized as Sarah’s. In the center of the desk sat an old-fashioned brass desk lamp with a green glass shade, casting a narrow pool of light downward. But the leather chair facing the desk was entirely empty. The silhouette they had seen through the tinted glass had vanished completely, leaving behind only a slight indentation in the leather cushion and a wisp of pale dust settling in the air.
Arthur lingered in the doorway, his hand gripping the frame tightly, his eyes darting anxiously around the dark corners of the room. "I told you, Julian. This place plays tricks on your eyes. The pathogen alters optical nerve perception under high stress. You’re seeing what you want to see."
"I saw someone sitting in that chair, Arthur," Julian said coldly, walking over to the desk and picking up one of the index cards. The handwriting was sharp and desperate. The transmission isn't airborne through the lungs. It’s carried on sound waves. Every time the frequency hits 42 hertz, the neural pathways lock.
Julian stared at the number. 42. It was the same number scratched into the wall upstairs. 42-11-8.
"What is 42 hertz?" Julian demanded, turning around to face Arthur, holding up the index card like evidence in a courtroom. "You’ve been working with her at the facility. What did you and Sarah build down here?"
Arthur’s jaw tightened, his expression hardening into an impenetrable wall of defiance. "We were looking for a way to stop cellular decay, Julian. Sarah wanted to cure genetic disorders before they manifested in children. But the funding came from a defense contractor who wanted something else—a way to control human behavior without an army."
"You weaponized her research," Julian whispered, the horror dawning on him with crushing weight. "You turned my wife into a test subject."
"She volunteered!" Arthur shouted back, his voice echoing sharply in the small office. "When Lily was diagnosed with that terminal blood disorder three years ago, Sarah was the one who said she’d do whatever it took to save her daughter—even if it meant rewriting her own biology!"
Julian froze, the card slipping from his fingers and fluttering down to the floor. He looked back toward the open doorway where Lily stood by the server racks, her blonde hair catching the blue light of the monitors as she stared blankly at a blank wall.
"Lily’s blood work..." Julian breathed, his voice barely a whisper. "The doctors said she was in spontaneous remission six months ago."
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Arthur stepped into the room, his voice dropping to a harsh, urgent whisper. "She isn't in remission, Julian. She was patient zero."
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