Three days later, the customs annex still smells of ozone and wet concrete. In the relay room below, red light beats against steel like a pulse with a bad heart.

Dallas Fontaine stands over the torn page from the Liber Signorum Rubrorum. The same lines that once looked like dead symbols now match the relay boxes on the wall.

Steel groans somewhere behind the seam. A Mercer operative screams for help, then goes suddenly silent as the hidden mechanism shudders.

Dallas aligns the page with the glowing relay housings and recites the line. The room answers with a hard click, then a chain of relays drops out one by one.

The inner steel door jerks open just enough to show what waits beyond, then locks flat with a final metallic snap. Whatever Mercer kept behind it is cut off, starved, and very angry.

Dallas crouches at the relay housing and peels back the charred cover plate. The last red lamps stutter over exposed terminals, then fade as he traces each live wire to its dead end.

He finds the live lead tucked behind the junction sketch, loops it clear, and snaps a ceramic isolator into place. The housing gives a dry click, like a jaw locking shut.

Dallas twists a second connector free, then presses the torn page flat against the relay frame. The remaining current bleeds out in a thin, ugly spark, and the warning panel goes dark.

Behind the inner steel door, the operatives hit a dead circuit. The lock stays powered down, the seam no longer flexing under their weight.

A final relay pops, and the room settles into blacker quiet. On the wall, Jackson’s name remains on the list, but the breach stops breathing.