Page 102 of Immersed
“Faine mentions keeping records of his ‘special projects’ in cabinet thirteen,”Levi murmured, consulting the journal.
“Thirteen?”Asher’s eyebrow arched.“Bit on the nose, isn’t it?”
“Says the guy with heterochromia in a haunted hospital,”Levi replied without thinking.
Asher’s laugh was startlingly genuine. “Touché.”
Levi tried to ignore how natural it felt, the moment of shared humor amid the horror. How easily they fell into a rhythm of working together, moving through the darkened halls with synchronized caution.
They located cabinet thirteen in the corner, its metal face distinguished by a small, etched symbol—a triangle within a circle.
“It’s locked,”Levi sighed, rattling the handle.
“Move,”Asher instructed, producing a small leather case from his pocket. He unrolled it to reveal a set of lock picks. “Standard tumbler lock. Won’t take a minute.”
“Where did you—?”Levi began, then shook his head.“Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
The lock clicked open with surprising ease, and Asher pulled out a stack of manila folders labeled with patient numbers rather than names.
“What are we looking for?”he asked, thumbing through the first few files.
“Anything about the basement,”Levi replied, taking half the stack.
They worked in silence for several minutes, the quiet broken only by the rustle of paper and occasional distant sounds from elsewhere in the building. Levi tried to focus on the files, but his mind kept drifting back to the storage room. To Asher’s mouth on him…
Focus,he chided himself.This is literally life or death.
“Found something,”Asher announced, holding up a yellowed diagram.“Looks like a floor plan for a sublevel not on the blueprints.”
Levi moved closer, peering over Asher’s shoulder. The diagram showed an elaborate laboratory beneath the main building, accessible only through a private elevator in Faine’s office.
“Look at this,”Levi said, pointing to a notation on the margin.“Security Protocol A-7: Full biometric authentication required.”
“Biometric?” Asher frowned. “Like fingerprints?”
“More than that, I think.”Levi shuffled through more papers, finding a technical document labeled ‘Access Protocols.’“Listen to this: ‘Access to sanctum requires three-point biological verification of Administrative Identity. Samples must be retrieved to trigger unlocking sequence.’”
“So Faine built a security system keyed to his own biology,”Asher summarized.“That’s... excessive.”
“And this,”Levi added, indicating another page,“is a maintenance log for something called the ‘Specimen Storage.’ Dated fifteen years after the sanitarium closed.”
“He kept working after the building closed?”
“Not just continuing,”Levi said, holding up another document.“Expanding. Look at these power requirements. Whatever he built down there needed massive amounts of electricity.”
Their radios crackled suddenly, Jasper’s voice cutting through the silence:“Guys, you need to check this out. I’m picking up some seriously weird readings from the central courtyard.”
“Define ‘weird,’”Levi responded, pressing the talk button.
“Like, off-the-charts EMF spikes. And the temperature’s dropping crazy fast. Something’s happening out there.”
Levi hesitated. The courtyardwasn’ton their immediate agenda, but Jasper’s instincts proved useful in previous loops. The NPCsweren’tjust cannon fodder.
“Should we head back to base?”he asked.
“Negative,”Jasper replied.“But bring a UV light if you’ve got one. There’s something on the monitoring equipment... some kind of pattern showing up on the thermal imaging.”
Levi glanced at Asher, who shrugged.“We’re not finding much else here anyway,”he admitted.“We should check out the Specimen Storage room at some point, though. Might be relevant to these biometric protocols.”
