Hide and Seek

I crushed the pill under my heel.

It turned to powder, grinding into the grout of the bathroom floor.

*Take it. For me.*

Julian's voice was still in my head, smooth and persuasive. He wanted me docile. He wanted me quiet.

He wanted me to be the victim.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes were red-rimmed, my hair a mess. I looked like the woman he wanted me to be. Fragile. Broken.

But I wasn't.

Not anymore.

I walked out of the bathroom. I needed a weapon. Not a knife. Not a gun.

I needed the house.

The system was locked down, but the house had bones. It had veins. And I knew where they all ran.

I went to the master bedroom closet. I pushed aside the rows of designer dresses Julian had bought for me.

Behind the hanging rack, there was a panel. An access hatch for the plumbing.

It was painted over, almost invisible. But I knew it was there because I had argued with the contractor about its placement three years ago.

I grabbed a metal hanger. I straightened it out. I jammed the end into the seam of the panel and pried.

The paint cracked.

I pulled. The panel popped off.

Inside, a tangle of pipes and wires.

And one specific wire.

The ground loop for the local node.

It was a flaw in the original wiring schematic. A redundancy that created a potential short if the humidity got too high. I had meant to fix it. I had never gotten around to it.

Now, it was my lifeline.

If I shorted it, the local node would reboot. And during the reboot sequence, the firewall would be down for exactly thirty seconds.

Thirty seconds to connect my burner phone. Thirty seconds to execute the *God Mode* script.

I needed something conductive.

I looked around the room.

My eyes landed on a silver picture frame on the dresser. A photo of me and Julian on our honeymoon. We looked so happy.

I picked it up. I smashed the glass against the corner of the dresser.

I pulled out the photo and tore it in half.

Then I took the metal backing of the frame. It was thin, pliable aluminum.

Perfect.

I walked back to the closet.

I could hear Julian downstairs. He was on the phone again.

"She's escalating," he said. "I might have to sedate her sooner than planned."

I froze.

"No, the contract isn't signed yet. But it will be. Tonight."

He paused.

"Don't worry about the police. Gorski is handling the perimeter. No one gets in."

I looked at the wire.

I had to time this perfectly.

If he was downstairs, the reboot would kill the lights in the living room too. He would know.

I needed him distracted.

I looked at the smart speaker on the nightstand.

It was offline, cut off from the main server. But it still had local power.

I unplugged it. I carried it to the door.

I opened the door a crack.

I threw the speaker down the hallway.

It hit the floor with a loud *thud* and rolled toward the stairs.

"Elena?" Julian called out.

I ran back to the closet.

I heard his footsteps on the stairs. He was coming up.

I jammed the metal backing into the wall cavity.

I touched it to the live wire and the ground wire simultaneously.

*ZZZT.*

A spark showered my hand. The smell of ozone filled the closet.

The lights in the bedroom flickered and died.

Total darkness.

"What the hell?" Julian shouted from the hallway.

I pulled out the burner phone.

*Searching for Network...*

Come on.

*Connected.*

I opened the app.

*System Rebooting...*

*Bypassing Firewall...*

*Access Granted.*

I had control.

But only for twenty seconds now.

I typed furiously.

*Command: LOCKDOWN_OVERRIDE_LOCAL.*

*Target: Master Bedroom.*

*Status: UNLOCKED.*

The magnetic lock on the bedroom door clicked open.

But I didn't want to leave. Not yet.

I typed another command.

*Command: ACTIVATE_PROTOCOL_GHOST.*

This was a script I had written for debugging. It randomly cycled the lights and audio in different zones of the house to test the load balance.

It would make the house feel haunted.

*Execute.*

Downstairs, the stereo blasted to life. Mozart. *Requiem.*

The lights in the kitchen started strobing.

"Elena!" Julian yelled. "Stop this!"

He was at the bedroom door.

He tried the handle.

It opened.

He burst in, gun raised.

But the room was pitch black.

I was hiding in the closet, peering through the crack in the door.

"I know you're in here," he hissed.

The music downstairs cut out.

Then, a voice came over the intercom.

My voice.

But it was a recording. From three years ago.

*"I love you, Julian. I trust you."*

It echoed through the house. Distorted. Looping.

*"I trust you... I trust you... I trust you..."*

Julian spun around, aiming the gun at the ceiling speakers.

"Shut up!" he screamed.

He fired.

*Bang.*

The gunshot was deafening in the small room. Debris rained down from the ceiling.

The voice stopped.

Silence.

Then, the lights in the hallway turned on.

Bright. Blindingly bright.

Julian shielded his eyes.

"What game are you playing?" he growled.

I typed one last command.

*Command: UNLOCK_ZONE_3.*

Zone 3. The garage.

I needed to get to the car.

But Julian was blocking the door.

I looked at the window.

The shutters were still down.

Wait.

The reboot.

The shutters were on a separate circuit. But if I crashed the main controller... they might default to their safety position.

Open.

I typed: *CRASH_SYSTEM_MAIN.*

*Warning: This will disable all security protocols.*

*Confirm?*

I looked at Julian. He was moving toward the closet. He knew where I was.

"Come out, Elena. It's over."

I hit *Confirm*.

The phone screen went black.

The house groaned. A deep, mechanical shudder.

Then...

The shutters began to rise.

Slowly. Mechanically.

Gray light flooded the room.

Julian turned toward the window. He was distracted.

I kicked the closet door open.

It hit him in the shoulder. He stumbled.

I ran.

I ran past him, into the hallway.

"Elena!"

He fired again.

The bullet hit the doorframe next to my head. Splinters sprayed my cheek.

I didn't stop.

I ran for the stairs.

I hit the landing and jumped the last four steps.

I landed in the foyer.

The front door was right there.

But it was still locked. The manual deadbolts were thrown.

I fumbled with the latch.

"Get away from the door!" Julian yelled from the top of the stairs.

I got the first bolt open.

Then the second.

I threw the door open.

Rain lashed my face.

I ran out.

I ran toward the driveway.

But I stopped.

There were cars blocking the gate.

Black SUVs.

Two men were standing by the lead car. They were smoking.

They saw me.

"Hey!" one shouted.

They started running toward me.

I couldn't go out the gate.

I turned and ran toward the garage.

The side door was unlocked. The system crash had worked.

I burst inside.

The Tesla was there.

I jumped in.

I put the phone on the console.

*System Offline.*

The car wouldn't start. The house network was down, so the digital key couldn't authenticate.

"No," I whispered. "No, no, no."

I looked in the rearview mirror.

Julian was running across the lawn. He had the gun.

The two men from the gate were coming up the driveway.

I was trapped in the garage.

I looked around.

The workbench.

There was a crowbar on the wall.

And...

A can of gasoline.

For the lawnmower.

I got out of the car. I grabbed the gas can.

I splashed it on the floor. In front of the door.

I grabbed a box of matches from the shelf.

Julian burst through the door.

"Elena, don't!"

I lit a match.

I dropped it.

*WHOOSH.*

A wall of fire erupted between us.

Julian stumbled back, shielding his face.

"You're crazy!" he screamed.

"I'm desperate!"

I ran to the back of the garage. To the vent.

I kicked the grate. It was loose from my earlier escape.

It clattered to the floor.

I climbed in.

I crawled.

Behind me, the fire alarm started to blare.

I crawled through the dark tunnel of the HVAC system.

I didn't know where I was going. I just knew I had to get away from the fire. Away from him.

I reached a junction.

Left went back to the house. Right went... down.

To the sub-basement.

I turned right.

The duct angled sharply downward. I slid.

I hit the bottom with a thud.

I kicked the grate open.

I fell out onto the floor.

I was in the monitoring room.

The screens were dark. The power was out.

The room was silent.

Except for the sound of water.

Dripping.

I stood up. I turned on my phone flashlight.

The beam cut through the darkness.

The room was flooded.

The water was ankle-deep.

And rising.

The fire sprinklers must have triggered. And without the system to manage the drainage... it was filling up.

"Sarah?" I whispered.

No answer.

I waded toward the chair in the center of the room.

It was empty.

The ropes were cut.

She was gone.

I shone the light around the room.

The door to the tunnel was open.

She had escaped.

I walked toward the tunnel.

Then I saw it.

On the desk.

A laptop.

It was open. The screen was glowing. It was running on battery.

And on the screen...

A video file.

*WATCH ME.*

I tapped play.

It was a recording.

From ten minutes ago.

Sarah was in the chair.

Julian walked in. He cut her ropes.

"Go," he said. "Get the car."

Sarah stood up. She rubbed her wrists.

"What about Elena?" she asked.

"I'll handle Elena," Julian said. "Just have the car ready at the extraction point."

Sarah nodded.

"Okay," she said.

She walked to the door.

Then she stopped.

She turned back to Julian.

"Hey, Jules?"

"What?"

"Phase 3," she said.

Julian frowned. "What about it?"

"It's active."

She smiled.

Then she walked out.

The video ended.

I stared at the screen.

Phase 3.

What was Phase 3?

I looked at the file list on the laptop.

*Phase 1: Isolation.*
*Phase 2: Dependency.*
*Phase 3: Liquidation.*

Liquidation.

I scrolled down.

*Target: All Assets.*

*Method: Structural Failure.*

*Timer: Active.*

A countdown clock appeared on the screen.

*04:59*
*04:58*

Five minutes.

Until what?

Structural failure.

The house.

The house was going to collapse.

She had rigged it. Sarah had rigged the house to destroy itself.

To kill Julian.

And me.

I ran.

I ran to the tunnel.

I splashed through the water.

I reached the ladder. I climbed.

I pushed open the trapdoor to the shed.

I burst out into the night.

The rain was torrential.

I looked at the house.

Smoke was pouring from the garage.

But that wasn't the threat.

I heard a sound. A deep, grinding rumble. Like the earth itself was groaning.

The foundation.

The sanitarium ruins.

They were unstable. Julian had said so.

And Sarah knew it.

She had planted charges. Not big ones. Just enough to destabilize the cliff.

*BOOM.*

A muffled explosion from deep underground.

The ground shook.

I fell to my knees.

I looked up.

The Glass Box tilted.

Just a few degrees. But enough to shatter the remaining windows.

*CRASH.*

The house groaned.

It was sliding.

Sliding toward the edge.

"Julian!" I screamed.

He was still inside.

He appeared on the balcony. The master bedroom balcony.

He looked down at the cliff. He looked at the house sliding beneath his feet.

He saw me.

He raised a hand.

He wasn't waving goodbye.

He was pointing.

Behind me.

I turned.

A figure was standing in the shadows of the trees.

Sarah.

She was holding a detonator.

She smiled.

"Cut," she whispered.

She pressed the button.