Tut... tut...
Deep lines ford between Atlas’ and Dean’s brows. The latter walked closer while Atlas stood frozen.
When Dean stopped, he turned to Atlas. "Tell I didn’t just imagine that."
"..." Atlas remained quiet, moving the keycard along the tiled wall slightly.
Beep!
Both almost flinched when part of the wall parted like a door. Atlas took a step back, eyeing the slight opening before the two of them looked at each other with wide eyes.
No words were said as Dean watched Atlas pull the door open.
As soon as the door parted to a certain degree, lights from beyond the secret door lit up. It was a hallway, big enough for two people to walk side by side. And from there, there were even more lockers—like those in a safety deposit box.
"What the hell?" Dean muttered, intuitively taking a step to follow Atlas.
Both of them were stunned, already accepting that there was no way out of here. But now, there was a way. If this were the world just testing the two of them, well, they were truly tested tonight.
Atlas didn’t walk inside imdiately but rather stopped right by the open door.
Earlier, they broke so tiles by smashing the tools. However, all they saw was cent and no hole they could crawl into. But now that the door had opened and he could examine it, the reason for that was that the door’s surface was also cented.
"This is the exit," Atlas muttered, studying how the door remained undiscovered. "He doesn’t need to go outside to leave this place. Once he cos in, he’s coming out sowhere else."
Dean rocked his head, almost forgetting the fact that there were people trying to break through the entrance as they spoke.
"No wonder the walls are even tiled like bathrooms. I thought it’s to keep this place more chilly than it already is," he comnted in awe. "It’s actually to hide that this door exists. That damn Jonathan... I don’t know if he is dumb or brilliant to a fault."
They didn’t want to admit it, but Jonathan—that man surely was sothing.
The sound from the entrance rang in their ears again. Both n turned their heads to the door, their calm returning to their tensed muscles.
Now that they had an exit, they weren’t in a hurry.
"Hey," Dean called, eyes on the entrance. "Were all these pieces of information important to you?"
Atlas didn’t answer as he just moved his gaze to Dean.
"If so..." Dean slowly faced Atlas, his eyes sharp. "Does that an it’s also important to my uncle?"
Atlas gauged Dean’s expression first before he answered. "You can say everything in here carries more importance for him than it does for . After all, even if I figure out what all these are, I will still eventually go to him."
"Then..." Dean pulled out a lighter from his pocket, showing it to him. He smiled happily, as if he hadn’t lost it just monts ago. "What about burning everything in here? We’ve got photos of everything, even the dirt on the wall."
His smile stretched until his eyes were squinting. "I don’t like my uncle, but I hate it when soone is better than him. No one can be better than him."
"..." Atlas blinked, then his eyes fell on the lighter. "Why do you carry around a lighter? I don’t think you smoke."
"I don’t," Dean smirked. "But word of advice, you should start carrying one around, especially in the office. It’s a great conversation breaker, especially since William Pierson likes to smoke on the rooftop."
Atlas rocked his head while Dean casually walked away from the door. But before he could get farther, he stopped and pointed at Atlas.
"Better make sure to hold that card and never lose it," he warned.
"I’ll lose you, but not this one," Atlas kept the card in his suit pocket.
And just like that, the two of them started tearing down all the notes on the wall like madn. They didn’t care if they tore them as they pulled, gathering them all in the middle. They crumpled so of them, while others just tore in the process.
Once they managed to wipe the wall clean of all the information, Dean started rummaging through the laboratory counter. The small notebook, however, was sothing he kept while he took the rest of the papers to the pile.
After minutes of doing this, while the sound from the vault grew louder, Dean crouched down. Lighting the end of Naylani’s photo, he watched the fla crawl and grow. He then dropped it onto the mountain of papers and notes, watching the flas spread quickly.
Dean stood and took a few steps back, eyeing the flas that were quickly turning everything to ash.
"If we stay here, we’ll suffocate from the smoke," Atlas remarked, standing near the open secret door. "Let’s go."
Dean didn’t answer imdiately, staring at the flas before he turned his back on them. "I want to make sure they won’t catch even a single letter. It’s a sha I can’t watch all that happen."
"Even if they manage to save a few notes, they already know soone was here."
"How are you sure of that?"
"Use your head and logic," Atlas answered before he started walking inside. "What’s important is that they won’t get to see the entirety of it."
Dean frowned bitterly, following the man behind.
And as they walked in, the door behind them creaked.
SLAM!
The two of them stopped and instinctively looked behind them. There wasn’t even a gap underneath or on the sides of the door, as if it were just a dead end.
"Whoever built this... I’m going to hire him for my dream house," Dean blurted out.
Atlas nodded. " too. I now want a bunker to stay away from everything."
"Anyway, since we’re here, we should check these things," Dean pointed at the drawers on their side. "There might be more."
---
Many minutes later...
Countless n crowded the underground stairs and the space, while one of them was lting a part of the vault door. It took them so ti, as the vault, even though it looked thin, was still thick tal. But when they finally managed to create a hole, one of the n kicked the area open.
tal clanged as it fell inside.
One of the n crouched down, lowering his head, checking what was inside.
All he saw was a mountain of ash in place, with smoke fogging inside. He moved his head closer, checking from left to right.
No one was inside.
"..." He slowly rose to his feet, turning to face his n. "Whoever was inside here got away. Find them. I’m sure they’re still in the area."
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