The vault door at the rear of Factory Gamma was built from an eighteen-inch slab of cold-rolled austenitic stainless steel, heavy with heavy dark metal deadbolts and an analog rotary time-lock. Stenciled across the brushed steel face in faded crimson lacquer were the words:
VAULT ZERO: FOUNDING SPECIMENS // RESTRICTED ACCESS BY ORDER OF FATHER GENESIS.
Toby Mallow stood by the locking gearwork, wiping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. He held a high-heat star-fire cutting torch in one hand and a heavy brass mallet in the other. “The electronic keypad is dead, Arthur. But the air-powered locking pins are held by high-pressure oil pressure. If we relieve the high-pressure pool, the balance weights will drop the deadbolts.”
Arthur approached the vault’s upkeep panel, unfastening the brass access plate with his razor-sharp multi-tool. Inside lay three high-pressure copper high-pressure lines pulsing with chilled stone oil.
“Echo,” Arthur called softly.
The axolotl pressed his nose against his flask’s output valve, releasing a tiny, precise jet of ice-cold salt water that froze the copper lines solid in less than three seconds. The brittle metal shattered with a clean CLINK under a light tap from Toby’s mallet.
THUD-CLACK-WHIRRRRR.
The massive balance weights inside the door frame engaged. The eighteen-inch steel slab swung outward on oiled hinges, venting a dense, billowing cloud of sub-zero cold air vapor that rolled across the floor like dry ice at a royal ball.
