CHAPTER 15
Bad spot
Fourth-Floor Corridor — 8:43 PM
"What do you mean she changed the password? Didn't you say you knew it?" Harrison's voice crackled through the comms, instantly trading his smug demeanor for sharp panic
"The last time I came here was with my mom," Krist replied without taking his eyes off the keypad. "Back then the password was my birthday. How was I supposed to know Bellatrix would change it?"
"Look, I know we shouldn't be playing the blame game right now," Harrison sighed, his tone instantly pivoting back into intolerable arrogance. "But you really should have anticipated a basic credential rotation. Making a rookie blunder like this just proves you've still got a long way to go before you reach my level of tactical genius—"
"Shut the fuck up, Harry!"
"Shut the fuck up, Harry!"
Luna and Maya's voices exploded through the frequency in flawless, synchronized irritation.
Krist took a slow, deliberate breath, forcing his rising temper back down. Squinting down the dim, elongated corridor, his heart skipped a beat. A faint, distorted shadow was stretching along the floorboards around the distant corner. Someone was coming.
Without wasting another syllable, Krist dropped his tactical backpack, threw open the heavy zipper, and began rummaging through the compartments
"Krist, forget it," Maya urged. "We don't have the password. Abort the mission and come back with hardware cracker once the halls are clear."
Krist didn't answer.
Instead, he pulled out a high-grade cybernetic bridge deck—wider than an iPad but sleeker than a laptop He paused for a fraction of a second at Maya's warning, then flipped the screen open. His fingers became a blur over the glowing keys, completely ignoring the retreat order.
"Krist! Snap out of it!" Maya pleaded, her whispers growing increasingly frantic. "Get the hell out of there now!"
Glancing back down the hall, Krist saw the shadow looming larger, creeping closer to the junction. He reached into his utility belt, pulling out a heavy-duty tactical screwdriver. Crouching low, he carefully examined its frame before sliding the flat edge beneath a tiny panel.
Click.
The cover popped loose.
. Swiftly flipping the tool to its Phillips-head tip, he loosened two deeply embedded security screws and pulled the lower internal chassis forward.
There it was: a raw, hidden auxiliary data port.
He ripped a high-bandwidth serial patch cable from his kit,
He immediately connected a cable between the keypad and his hacking device.
The screen lit up.
ACCESSING SECURITY SYSTEM...
3%
Krist looked down the corridor again.
The approaching figure was almost at the corner.
18%
His heartbeat accelerated.
The shadow was mere feet from rounding the corner. Krist's eyes darted between the dark hallway and the glowing matrix on his screen. A harsh red loading bar bleeding across the interface:
37% ACCESSING SECURITY SYSTEM...
[|||||||||||||||||| ]
The heavy thud of leather shoes echoed down the hall. Realizing the crack wouldn't finish in time, Krist's expression hardened into cold resolve. He set the device down gently on the floor, slid into the deep shadows against the wall right at the edge of the corridor turn, and coiled his muscles. If the man turned that corner, Krist would have a split second to strike his throat and put him down cold.
"Krist, leave!" Harrison shouted through the earpiece.
"He's right, Krist. If the server is locked down, we'll find another way. Pull back!" Luna interjected.
Krist turned a deaf ear to them, tracking the heavy footsteps. Six feet. Four feet. Two feet.
Just as the man's shoulder was about to clear the junction, a heavy oak door halfway down the opposite hall swung open. A tall, sharply dressed woman stepped into the light. She stood at 5'7", her dark hair pinned back, her sharp gaze cutting through the gloom of the administrative wing.
"Scott?" Bellatrix called out, her voice dripping with immediate suspicion. "What on earth are you doing up here?"
The businessman froze in his tracks, just inches from Krist's hidden position. He slowly slid his dark sunglasses down his nose, offering a smooth, practiced smile. "Ah, Director Bellatrix. Were you expecting me?"
"No. Well, yes, later," Bellatrix corrected, her eyes narrowing as she crossed her arms. "But you were supposed to report directly to my private office on the executive floor. Why are you wandering around the secure storage wing?"
Scott let out a soft, dry chuckle. "Your office is on this level, isn't it? I figured a brief detour wouldn't hurt. Besides, your assistant mentioned you were trapped in a budget briefing, so I decided to take a little stroll and admire the architecture."
Bellatrix stared at him for a long, agonizing moment, clearly not buying the excuse. Finally, she stepped back, gesturing toward the open room behind her. "Let's skip the tour, Scott. In here. Now."
Before stepping inside, Scott paused, his eyes darting directly toward the darkened alcove where the server room lay hidden. Krist pulled his head back into the recess, pressing his back flat against the concrete, his chest heaving silently.
"Is there someone else down there?" Scott asked, his voice suddenly sharp, his eyes squinting into the dark.
"It's just the night guard, Scott. No one else has clearance," Bellatrix dismissed impatiently, holding the door wide.
"Come inside."
Scott lingered for one more agonizing second, casting a lingering glance toward the shadows, before finally nodding and stepping into the office. The heavy door clicked shut behind them.
Krist let out a shaky, burning breath of relief. He slipped out of the alcove, darting back to the server door. He looked down at the hacker deck lying on the floor.
The bar was flashing green: 98%.
---------------------
Zestle Street — Inside the Command Van
"Holy shit, is that Mr. Adams?" Harrison's voice burst through the comms, stunned.
"Yeah, that's Billy's father, alright," Luna confirmed, her eyes glued to the drone feed. Her voice shifted into a dangerously sarcastic, sweet purr. "God, every single time I see that smug, pristine face of his, I get this beautiful, dreamy urge to put my fist right through it."
"Whoa, what is with that terrifying look on your face right now?" Harrison muttered, recoiling slightly from his sister.
---------------------
Back at the door, Krist watched the deck hit 100%.
Kacha.
A deep, mechanical click echoed through the frame, and the perimeter of the reinforced steel door illuminated with a soft, inviting green glow.
"What were you saying about Adams?" Krist asked while restoring every screw and panel exactly as before.
"He and Bellatrix are arguing about something highly sensitive," Harrison reported, watching the drone's audio matrix spike. "The drone feed is picking up fragmented data."
"Who is the guy with him? Scott. Run a deep background check on him immediately," Krist commanded, hoisting his pack onto his shoulders.
"On it," Harrison replied. He glanced at Luna, who immediately stepped over to the secondary terminal on the right, her fingers flying across the keys as she pulled up the city's corporate database to unmask 'Scott.'
Inside the Server Room
Krist pushed the heavy security door open and stepped through. The moment his boots crossed the threshold, a wave of digital static hissed through his earpiece. The audio feed warped, shattered, and died completely.
He took two steps backward, retreating into the hallway. The signal instantly reconnected. "Krist? What happened? We lost your vitals and audio for a second," Harrison barked.
"There's a heavy active signal dampener built into the structural walls of the server room," Krist realized, looking at the blinking status light on his earpiece. "The moment I cross that threshold, we're entirely dark. Don't panic. I can handle this from here."
Without waiting for a reply, Krist stepped back into the room, letting the heavy, insulated security door slide closed behind him. The silence was absolute, broken only by the ambient, massive hum of high-end machinery.
The room was vast, lined with rows of Core Computer & Storage Servers. Massive, high-density computing towers were bolted into industrial racks, their LED lights blinking in rhythmic sequences—file systems, mainframe web architectures, and encrypted application servers running 24/7.
Krist moved quickly down the aisles, checking the primary interface ports on the main server blocks. He pulled out the Stark Key. He looked closely at its physical design—while it resembled a standard flash drive, the interface teeth had been custom-milled into a highly specific, multi-layered geometric pattern. It wouldn't fit into any standard USB or fiber-optic slot in the room.
Think, Krist told himself, his eyes scanning the flashing towers. Mom and Dad would never build a master backdoor that could be exploited by a standard hardware injection. If there's a port for this key, it's going to be completely off the grid.
He marched toward the dead center of the room, where the Master Server stood. It was a monolithic apparatus, anchoring itself into the concrete floor and disappearing directly into the ceiling ventilation grid. Built into the center of the unit was a reinforced glass isolation compartment, just wide enough to accommodate a single operator, housing a cluster of localized monitors, custom trackballs, and physical control switches.
Krist grabbed the handle of the glass pod, but it was deadlocked. He tapped the interface panel, typing in his 4-digit birth date—the original server room code. The first four digits locked in, but the screen remained active, displaying four more empty, blinking cursors.
An 8-digit string.
Krist paused, searching his memories. He took a breath and rapidly punched in four more numbers: his parents' wedding anniversary.
Chime.
The glass door unlatched with a hiss of pressurized air. Krist stepped inside and immediately began inspecting the internal console, pulling open the cable management drawers and searching the hidden lips of the desk frame. Nothing. No matching slot.
In a sudden burst of frantic urgency, he grabbed one of the hardware maintenance racks and pulled. In his haste, he used too much force; the entire metal tray tore free from its tracks, crashing to the floor. Krist cursed, bending down to slide it back in, but froze. With the tray entirely removed, he could see a secondary, deeply recessed hidden rack tucked directly behind the main framework.
He checked it—still no matching port.
Refusing to let panic take over, he went back to the beginning, systematically checking behind every single server blade in the pod, looking for hidden dual-layer racks.
-----------+-
The fourth-Floor Corridor
The office door clicked open. Bellatrix and Scott stepped back out into the dim hallway, their conversation concluding in low, intense tones. Bellatrix turned, naturally guiding him down the corridor toward the server room wing.
High above them, hidden in the shadows of the ventilation pipes, Harrison's micro-drone drifted silently behind them, capturing every movement.
In the van, Harrison's eyes went wide as he watched the camera track. "Shit! Bellatrix is walking the other guy straight toward the server room!"
"This is bad," Luna muttered, leaning over his shoulder. "Krist is entirely dark inside that dead zone. How do we warn him?"
"Can you override the signal dampener, Harry? Hack the localized transmitter! Do something!" Maya's voice pierced the comms, dripping with rising panic as she watched the tracking updates from the rooftop.
"I'm trying! I'm throwing everything I have at the building's internal routing table, but a hardware dampener requires physical modulation!" Harrison shouted back, his fingers slamming violently against his keyboard, frustration boiling over.
"Damm it, how did everything go sideways so fast?" Maya groaned. On the rooftop plaza, she adjusted her binoculars, tracking Bellatrix's progress through the fourth-floor windows. She looked down at the dark alleyway, her jaw setting into a hard line. She threw her binoculars into her tactical pack, zipped it tight, and turned toward the rooftop exit door.
"Maya, what are you doing?" Luna demanded over the channel.
"Someone has to cause a distraction," Maya said, her breathing accelerating as she reached the stairwell. "I'm going in."
"Don't do anything reckless, Maya! You don't have backup!" Luna yelled.
Inside the Server Room
Krist had just checked the final hardware tray. Still nothing
Exhausted and running on pure adrenaline, he stepped back out of the glass pod, slamming his boot against the reinforced floor tiles in pure, unadulterated frustration.
Thump.
The sound that echoed back wasn't the dead thud of solid concrete. It was hollow.
Krist froze. He slowly lowered his heart rate, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. He knelt down, running his tactical gloves along the edges of the floor tiles until his fingers caught a concealed seam. He yanked it upward. A hidden floor hatch swung open, revealing a small compartment containing manual maintenance tools and a single, isolated interface port.
The shape of the port perfectly matched the Stark Key.
A massive smile broke across his face—but it instantly vanished, replaced by deep skepticism. No. This is too easy. My parents would never leave the keys to an easy way into the institution system in a standard sub-floor ditch where any technician could stumble upon it.
He stood up, looking around the cramped, restricted space of the glass compartment. He looked up at the ceiling tiles directly above the main console. Stretching his arms, he pressed his palms flat against the smooth, unmarked metallic surface of the upper casing.
The moment his fingers applied pressure to a specific central alignment plate, the metal panel receded. A dull, soft green light washed over his face, and a flawless, synthesized mechanical voice resonated within the glass walls:
"Identity Verification Required. Lineage: Stark. Scan in progress..."
.
The ceiling panels mechanically shifted and ground together, deploying a dual biometric palm-scanning plate and a high-resolution retinal array.
Krist quickly raised his hands, pressing both palms flat against the glowing glass plates. A sweep of green lasers shot down from the ceiling casing, scanning his face, iris patterns, and skeletal structure.
The central monitor flared to life, shifting through rapid lines of cryptographic code:
[ ANALYSIS COMPLETE ]
> CORE BIOMETRIC SIGNATURE: MATCHED
> GENETIC MARKERS: VERIFIED / BLOOD OF THE STARK
> STATUS: ACCESS GRANTED.
The interface shifted, displaying a final confirmation block:
=========================================
WARNING: SYSTEM RESTRICTED TO STARK LINEAGE
CONDITION MET: KRIST STARK
INITIALIZING PROPRIETARY ARCHIVE...
STATUS: CONNECTED.
=========================================
"Yes!" Krist pumped his fist into the air, a triumphant grin breaking through his mask.
Inside the Command Van
Instantly, the dark laptop sitting directly next to Harrison whirred to life. The black screens erupted into brilliant, multi-angled live feeds, suddenly displaying crystal-clear footage of the remaining three secure floors of the Stark Institution that had previously been locked behind the main firewall.
Harrison gasped, his eyes darting across the newly flooded data streams. Then, his eyes locked onto the central corridor feed. His face drained of color.
The connection to Krist's earpiece suddenly snapped back online as the master server overrode the local dampener.
"Krist!" Harrison screamed into his mic, his voice cracking with pure, unadulterated urgency. "The Director is at the door! She's opening the server room right now!"
At that exact microsecond—
Inside the school corridor, Bellatrix stopped in front of the server room entrance. She cast an unimpressed, icy glare at the deeply unconscious night guard slouched against the wall, assuming he had simply shirked his duties. Without a second thought, her manicured fingers flew across the modified keypad, punching in her new master code.
At that exact microsecond—
Down on Zestle Street, Maya slammed through the perimeter gates, her boots pounding against the pavement as she sprinted toward the academy's lower entrance structure with everything her lungs could give her.
Inside the dark server room, Krist was frantically grabbing his gear when the localized warning from Harrison hit his ears. Before he could even turn around, a sharp, authoritative beep echoed through the vault.
The heavy, reinforced steel security door unlocked and began to slowly slide open.