9:45 A.M.
UNITED STATES FEDERAL RESERVE
1135 SIXTH AVENUE
NEW YORK CITY
Rokan was in the governors’ room, staring at the four identical lecterns in a row. Each one stood waist high. On top of thin stainless steel poles sat four digital screens.
Rokan started at the first lectern. He opened a ziplock bag. He removed the wet, slimy eyeball. It was coated in blood and several stringy veins dangled down from it. He placed it on the screen with the front of the eye staring down into the screen. Next, he took out the thumb from the bag and put the print against the screen.
Suddenly, the iodine sheet field displayed a name in black letters across the electric energy field.
S E C U R E 9 5: 094612 F E N N E R D
Rokan worked quickly. He repeated what he’d done and soon had the eyes and fingers on each screen, cataloguing his progress by virtue of the appearance of the names of the governors.
S E C U R E 4 4: 094636 W I N I K O F F K
S E C U R E 1 9: 094702 L A W R E N C E P
There were now three bands of writing across the sheet field. He placed the fourth set of objects on the last screen. After he adjusted the eyeball several times, the sheet field lit up with a fourth name:
S E C U R E 6 2: 094752 J A K L I T S C H A
A computerized male voice spoke from somewhere:
“Access one minute.”
Then the field of energy abruptly disappeared. He had one minute to get inside.
Rokan put each eyeball and finger back into a separate bag, starting with the last one. He would need them to get out.
“Forty-five seconds,” came a spine-chilling voice.
He bagged up the first three sets of eyeballs and thumbs.
“Thirty seconds.”
He had plenty of time, though he fumbled a bit. As he stepped to the last screen, he felt his foot on top of something and felt an unnatural burst, as if he’d stepped on a balloon and it popped. His eyes shot to the last screen and saw only a thumb. Rokan didn’t need to look down to know what had happened. The eye had somehow rolled off the screen. Rokan had just stepped on it. Lifting his shoe, he saw only a pile of messy veins, blood, and white sludge. He’d just inadvertently ruined one of the eyeballs he needed to ultimately get out of the room.
“Fifteen seconds.”
Rokan stared at the destroyed mash of eyeball, not bothering to try to pick it up. As much as he had already accepted the fact he would die today, the realization was sudden and brutal. Once inside, he could never leave.
If there was another way in, he would be found, alive or dead. From here on in, it was a suicide mission. He had so wanted to grow old and someday do nothing but read and garden.…
“Ten seconds, nine, eight…”
Rokan stepped past the lecterns and ran as the seconds counted down.
“Five, four, three…”
Rokan walked past the lecterns and down the thin corridor. He entered the room he’d only imagined as, behind him, he heard the voltage of the wall reignite and slash back across the entrance to the room.