The door of the archive room bent.
The metal squeaked.
Daniel turned around.
"What's on the outside?"
Stoyan opened one of the drawers.
Take out a small metal object. It looked like an old key, but it didn't have teeth. Instead, there was a glass eye in the handle.
“Guardians,” he said. “People who have been here too long.” The system has taken their memories, then their bodies have left to perform a single task: not to allow anyone to come out with the truth.
Are they alive?
I don’t know if that matters.
Daniel felt his stomach shrink.
"How do we get out?"
There is an emergency exit. But first we have to open the central camera.
"Why?"
Because that’s where the last anchor is.
"To whom?"
Stoyan looked at him.
To your father.
Daniel gritted his teeth.
He's dead, isn't he?
His grandfather hesitated.
"I don't know.
That was the worst.
Not “yes.”
No “no.”
“I don’t know.”
Stoyan walked towards the back wall, where there was a door with the inscription:
“CENTRAL TANK — ACCESS ONLY TO THE GUARDIAN.”
He placed the metal key in a small opening.
The door opened.
Cold air came from inside.
Daniel followed him.
The camera was huge.
Greater than anything he'd ever seen underground. In the center there was a circular pool of black water. Dozens of glass pipes came out of it, leading to the walls, shelves and tunnels.
Above the water hung something like a metal frame.
And in it, a glass capsule.
There was a man in the capsule.
Daniel couldn't breathe.
He was older.
Much older.
His hair was gray. His face was weak. But the scar on the chin, the small curve of the nose, the shape of the eyebrows...
"Dad," he whispered.
The man in the capsule didn't move.
There was a label on the glass.
“BORIS STOYANOV – THE MEMORY IS RETURNED.”
Daniel threw himself forward.
Open it!
Stoyan got him.
"You can't.
THIS IS MY FATHER!
If you open the capsule like this, the system will collapse.
Then let it collapse!
He will bury everyone here.
"There's no one here!"
From the dark tunnels behind them, there was a bang.
Then a moan.
Then voices.
Dozens.
Men.
Women.
Children.
