The heavy, metallic clang of the vault door slamming shut was not just a sound; it was a final, definitive statement. It was the sound of a trap closing, of a game reaching its brutal conclusion. For a long moment, the only thing that moved in the vast, silent archive was the dust dancing in the single beam of an emergency light.
Mayra and Sara were frozen. Around them, thousands of years of human history lay silent on metal shelves, silent witnesses to their fate. The air, which had smelled of sacred history, now felt like the stale air of a tomb.
"The trap is set," Doctor Klaus Richter's words still echoed in the silence. His professional, academic mask had completely fallen away. His eyes no longer held the curiosity of a scholar, but the cold, merciless glint of a loyal soldier of the Syndicate.
"You… you are one of them," Mayra whispered, her voice a mixture of astonishment and disgust. "All these years… your reputation… your books… it was all a lie."
Richter smiled, and this smile was even more dangerous than Eleanor's, because it was mixed with the pride of an intellectual. "Not a lie, Doctor Nassar. A different perspective. You want to preserve history, to bury it in the dust of museums. We… we want to use history. To make it a tool to shape the future."
Sara's fear was turning to anger. "By controlling the entire world on your terms?"
"Order is always better than chaos, Doctor Haddad," Richter replied smoothly. "And now, thanks to you, that order is one step closer."
He turned and walked towards a specific shelf. He pulled out a box and placed it on a table. "You were looking for these, were you not? Koldewey's tablets."
Meanwhile, in their apartment, Jerome was fighting a different kind of battle. The moment the vault door had slammed, his connection to their earpieces had gone dead. The thick, concrete walls and the metal door of the archive were blocking all signals.
"Mayra! Sara! Can you hear me?" he almost shouted into his microphone.
There was no answer. Only static.
For a moment, his blood ran cold. They are trapped. Alone. And I am out here, helpless.
But then, the technician inside him took over his fear. Okay, Jerome, he told himself. No time to panic. They are doing their job. Now you do yours.
His eyes returned to his screen. The brief communication between Eleanor and Richter had given him the window he needed. He had managed to create a small crack in the servers of the Syndicate's communication app. Now, he had to turn that crack into a door.
His fingers began to fly across the keyboard. Thousands of lines of code scrolled down his screen. He was like a digital thief, navigating past the lasers of firewalls and the alarms of encryption.
Back in the museum archive, Mayra and Sara were facing their greatest enemy—a mind that was just like theirs, but whose soul was dark.
"So what now, Klaus?" Mayra asked, using his first name to show him that she no longer saw him as a scholar. "You will keep us locked in here until we break?"
"Oh, no," Richter said. "We do not have that much time. And Eleanor's patience is very limited. No, we will take a more direct approach."
He gestured to the two guards who had been standing silently behind him. They moved forward.
"I am asking you one last time, Mayra," Richter said. "Where is Captain Conroy's diary? Where are the seals that activate it?"
Mayra let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Do you really think we would be foolish enough to bring them here with us?"
"Perhaps not," Richter admitted. "But you will tell me where they are. Right now."
One of the guards grabbed Sara's arm and twisted it behind her back. Sara cried out in pain.
"Let her go!" Mayra shouted, taking a step forward.
"Tell me the location, Mayra," Richter said calmly, as if he were scolding an uncooperative student.
A storm was raging in Mayra's mind. She could never tell them. But she could not watch Sara being hurt either. Think, Mayra, think! What would Attar do? He would change the game.
In the apartment, Jerome had hit a wall. The Syndicate's system had a final, incredibly complex layer of encryption, codenamed 'Cerberus.' It was designed to detect any intrusion attempt and self-destruct, while also frying the intruder's system.
Come on… there has to be a way, he whispered, sweat beading on his forehead.
His eyes scanned the lines of code running on the screen. And then he saw something. A pattern. Some lines of the Cerberus code seemed familiar. Where had he seen them before?
And then he remembered. The snake seal. The cuneiform numbers on its edge… when he had converted them into digital form, their binary code was strangely similar to the code of Cerberus.
It… it cannot be, he muttered in disbelief. Is it possible?
His mind worked at lightning speed. Was the Syndicate's modern technology based on an ancient Sumerian code? Had Attar given them not just a historical clue, but a digital key as well?
It was a huge gamble. If he was wrong, his laptop and all their data would be turned to ash in a second. But if he was right…
He copied the binary code from the seal and used it as a password for Cerberus.
He hit 'Enter.'
For a moment, everything froze.
And then… a message glowed on the screen: ACCESS GRANTED.
He was in. He was in the heart of the Syndicate's communication hub. He could read their every message, see their every file.
In the archive, the guard was about to twist Sara's arm even harder when Richter's watch beeped. He looked at it. The color drained from his face. It was an emergency message from Eleanor.
"System breach! We are on lockdown! Abort the mission! Get out!"
Richter looked at his watch in disbelief, and then at Mayra and Sara. How could this be possible?
"What is the matter, Klaus?" Mayra asked, a faint smile on her face. "It seems there is a glitch in your 'order'."
Richter realized he had been trapped. It was not his trap; it was theirs.
"This is not over," he gritted his teeth. He gestured to his men. "Let's go!"
They ran towards the door, leaving Mayra and Sara locked in that tomb.
A moment later, the vault door opened again with a loud clang. Jerome had opened it from the outside.
"I thought you ladies could use some fresh air," he said with a grin.
They were free. But this was a different kind of victory. They had not just survived; they had struck back. They had wounded the Syndicate in its heart.
But when Jerome showed them the file he had downloaded from their system, the joy of their victory turned into a deep dread.
The file was named: "Project Prometheus: Analysis of German Research."
And inside it, next to the blueprints of that mysterious machine, was another document. An old, yellowed document, handwritten in German by a scientist in nineteen oh two.
Its title was: "The Danger of Knowledge: A Warning."
The scientist had written: "…we have not just discovered the blueprint for a machine. We have discovered a curse. The tablets say that this machine does not just control energy… it can also affect the very fabric of time. We conducted a small test. The results… were catastrophic. This knowledge is not meant for humanity. It must be buried forever. God help us all."
Now they knew what they were searching for. It was not just a treasure or a weapon.
It was the ability to control time. A power equal to that of a god.
And they also knew that if the Syndicate ever got its hands on it, it would be the end of the world.