Chapter 3: Two Exits

The night wind in Novosibirsk carried a distinct damp chill, the kind unique to the lower reaches of the Volga, funneling through the gap in the hotel lobby’s floor-to-ceiling windows that hadn’t fully latched. The glass vibrated slightly, emitting a low hum, like the suppressed growl of a sleeping beast. Alexei stood behind the front desk, his fingertips tracing the cold edge of the Titanium Cylinder. The metal’s chill seeped through his knuckles, spreading into his palm. Two seconds ago, he had been staring at a face on the surveillance feed that overlapped perfectly with an engineer from forty years ago. Now, reality was intruding on his vision in the most violent way possible.

The lobby lights flickered once, then stabilized, but that uneasy buzz of the current remained. The time in the bottom right corner of the front desk computer jumped. 02:14. Alexei quickly shoved the Titanium Cylinder into his inner suit pocket, the movement so fast Maxim didn’t even catch the full sequence. The Border Checkpoint detective was leaning against the pillar of the reception counter, gripping his service pistol. The muzzle wasn’t pointed at anyone, just hanging loosely at his side, his breathing heavy and rapid.

“They’re here.” Maxim’s voice was rough, like he’d swallowed a mouthful of gravel.

Alexei didn’t turn around, just stared at the movement on the street beyond the glass curtain wall. In the distance, the taillights of Dmitri Belousov’s Volvo finally disappeared around the corner. Behind him, a black sedan was gliding silently toward the intersection. Inside, the occupant was picking up a phone, dialing a number.

“Belousov’s people wouldn’t be this polite.” Alexei’s pace was steady, his gaze sweeping over the few guests fast asleep in the lobby, his voice pressed extremely low. “Sealing the main entrance is their habit. Creating chaos is just to cover up an illegal body search. Look at that man in the black jacket. He specifically pressed the mute button before entering the elevator.”

Maxim squinted, following the direction Alexei pointed. The man certainly moved with extreme lightness; his boot soles made almost no sound on the carpet. But the outline of the tactical vest on his chest looked menacing under the dim lights.

“I’ve notified the janitor by the service exit.” Maxim said quietly. “If nothing happens in ten minutes, she’ll bail out the back and take all the high-value non-essentials with her.”

“Not enough.” Alexei cut him off, his fingers flying across the keyboard to pull up the hotel’s emergency protocol flowchart. “They don’t just want people, they want evidence. The registry for Room 417, plus the backup hard drives at the front. As long as those exist, they can package this operation as ‘assisting an investigation’ and pin the blame on the hotel’s poor management.”

At that moment, the front desk intercom crackled to life. The voice was fragmented, choked by harsh electrical noise.

“Lobby manager, the alarm in Service Corridor Three was triggered manually.” The head janitor’s voice trembled audibly. “We saw someone pour some liquid on the sensor on camera. They claim it was an accident. Do we evacuate?”

Alexei held down the intercom button and took a deep breath. This was a step they’d expected. Belousov’s team was good at exploiting rule loopholes, using a fake fire drill to confuse the issue, luring guests naturally toward the safety exits to flush out any potential witnesses.

“Do not evacuate!” Alexei shouted into the intercom, his voice calm to the point of being cold. “Stay in place. Lock all guest room doors. Unplug the network cables. I repeat, unplug the network cables, stay in place. If anyone knocks, do not open the door unless you hear my safe code.”

Silence on the other end of the intercom for two seconds, followed by the supervisor’s stifled sobbing. “But the people outside are pounding on the front desk glass, sir. They have hammers.”

The glass let out a dull thud. One. Two.

Maxim sprang up, finally raising his pistol, aiming at the revolving door entrance. But Alexei pressed down on the barrel.

“If you shoot now, you become an illegal armed party. They want the files, not a bloodbath.” Alexei spoke quickly, his eyes sharp as knives. “Listen to me. Dmitri Belousov has money and power, but he’s afraid of leaving evidence. He won’t make a move under the open eye of the public. He’s waiting for an opportunity, a chance to blame everything on ‘administrative negligence’.”

“Where are we?” Maxim asked.

“Down there.” Alexei pointed to an unremarkable metal grate in the corner of the floor. “Old hotels have this kind of design. It leads to the disused cold storage in the back kitchen. I had the ventilation ducts inspected last week and confirmed there are no camera blind spots, no infrared sensors either. It’s the only ‘secret door’.”

At that moment, a crisp sound of shattering glass rang out. A chunk of glass the size of a fist flew in, bouncing twice on the floor. The noise outside amplified instantly; someone was screaming, the loud clang of a car hood being pried open, and the rapid click of high heels on pavement.

A figure squeezed through the gap in the revolving door. A woman, wearing a gray business suit, clutching a black laptop to her chest. Her face was pale, her lips slightly purple from the cold. She looked like a startled quail, but her eyes flashed with a resolute light.

Alexei recognized her. Tatiana Ivanov, a new staffer at the Archives. Last month, in pursuit of the whereabouts of that top-secret file, she had disguised herself as a cleaner and appeared near the hotel.

“You can’t bring her.” Maxim’s voice dropped to a whisper, laced with clear warning. “She has a tracker on her. I checked her phone. A location app is running in the background.”

“I know.” Alexei didn’t deny it. He stood up, positioning himself between Maxim and Tatiana.

Tatiana was gasping for air. She slammed the laptop onto the front desk counter. The screen lit up, displaying an encrypted file directory. Her fingertips were ice-cold, barely able to grip the keyboard.

“I intercepted Belousov’s data stream.” Tatiana’s voice was dry, as if her throat were packed with sand. “He plans to destroy the original scanning zone in ten minutes. If you don’t take the core backup now, all physical evidence regarding the Silent Plan will turn into garbage data.”

“Why should I believe you?” Maxim stepped forward, his gun tracing an invisible circle in the air. “You represent the system, and we’re fighting the black hand behind the entire system.”

“Because I’m afraid of dying.” Tatiana looked up, meeting Maxim’s gaze. There was no fear in those eyes, only a clarity bordering on despair. “But I’m more afraid of history being rewritten. Inside that drive isn’t just proof of innocence; it’s the life records of three hundred workers. If those names disappear from the database, they truly become just a pile of meaningless numbers.”

Alexei looked at the computer screen, the cursor blinking. Every passing second felt like burning a piece of the truth away.

“Maxim, listen to her.” Alexei suddenly spoke, his voice calm but carrying an undeniable force. “Her phone’s location is fake. It’s a deliberate decoy to lure Belousov’s men to chase her, widening the gap between us and them. This is a move only an insider can pull off.”

Maxim froze. He looked at Tatiana, then at Alexei. In that instant, a certain trust was established between them.

“Where’s the passage?” Maxim asked.

Alexei crouched down and pried up the metal grate. Below was a narrow, damp concrete duct that smelled of mold. From deep inside the pipe, the rhythmic *clack-clack* of a ventilation fan echoed, like the heartbeat of a giant.

“Follow me. Watch your step, don’t step on the broken glass.” Alexei dropped down, grabbing the lower handhold, his movements surprisingly熟练.

Tatiana hesitated for a second, then grabbed her laptop and gritted her teeth as she jumped down. Maxim was last. He turned to look one final time at the broken lobby. The man with the hammer had already breached the entrance, swinging his arms as he searched for a target.

“Move!” Maxim roared, then flipped himself into the duct.

The pipe was narrow enough that only one person could squeeze through sideways at a time. Damp air wrapped around the trio. Above them were layers of cables, pulsing through the building’s torso like veins. Alexei led the way, the beam of his flashlight cutting a stark white line through the darkness.

“There’s dripping water at the third bend ahead.” Alexei’s voice echoed back through the pipe. “It’s a cooling water leak. Be careful, it’s slippery.”

“You planned this out already?” Tatiana asked from behind, her voice distorted by tension.

“It’s a hotel manager’s job to master every inch of space.” Alexei replied, his steps unbroken. “Including the forgotten corners.”

About halfway up, heavy footsteps thudded on the metal above, accompanied by a loud clang against the pipe. Someone was above, looking for them.

Maxim stopped. He pulled a high-intensity flashlight from his pocket, unscrewed the tail cap, and shook the batteries out.

“Stay silent,” he commanded in a low voice.

Tatiana held her breath, clutching the laptop tight. Alexei leaned against the pipe wall, his fingers lightly tapping the metal surface, creating a rhythmic, soft tapping. It was a habit from his days in the hotel engineering department, used to test the resonance frequency of the ducts.

The person above slipped, swearing loudly.

“They went the wrong way.” Alexei said. “I left misdirection above. They think we went to the staff restroom. It’s cluttered with junk, hard to hide anyone there.”

“You’ve been stalling for time.” Maxim let out a sigh of relief and resumed crawling.

“Time is on our side.” Alexei said. “The more anxious Belousov gets, the more his moves distort. He might forget to check the backup power, even forget to destroy all the backups. That’s his weakness. Greed blinds him.”

The end of the pipe led to a thick iron door connecting to the abandoned cold storage. The door was ajar, letting in a sliver of red streetlight from outside.

Alexei crawled out first. He brushed the dust off his clothes and stood up. Frost had condensed into a thin layer on the floor of the storage room, reflecting a pale light. He pointed to an old freight elevator in the corner, once used for transporting fresh frozen meat, now disused but with its mechanical structure still intact.

“The freight elevator’s cable is new.” Alexei checked the connection point of the cable. “I had it replaced two weeks ago. It can hold three adults, but it’ll be slow.”

“Why not just go via the ground floor?” Tatiana asked.

“The ground floor is the hunting ground.” Alexei pressed the freight elevator button. A shrill bell rang out, echoing through the empty basement. “This is a tomb. Living people are safest where the dead dwell.”

The freight elevator doors opened, revealing pitch blackness inside. Alexei stepped in first, gesturing for the others to follow. When the last person stepped inside, Alexei closed the control lever. The elevator began to rise slowly.

Outside the window, the night sky of Novosibirsk remained pitch black. In the distance, the wail of sirens was faint, weak, as if muffled by a thick wool blanket.

In the freight elevator, the three huddled together. Tatiana opened her laptop, the blue light of the screen illuminating her pale face.

“The files have synced to the local hard drive.” She said quickly. “Once I reach the independent server at the Archives, I can establish a new archive node. Belousov’s men won’t be able to delete it unless they blow up the entire building.”

“Are you sure?” Maxim asked.

“No,” Tatiana answered honestly. “But I have backups. Mirror sites in three different locations. Even if they find me, they won’t find all the copies.”

Alexei leaned against the freight elevator wall and closed his eyes. The Titanium Cylinder was still pressed against his chest, its cold touch reassuring him. This escape had cost almost nothing, aside from the hotel’s security reputation and a precious bit of time.

The freight elevator reached the ground floor. The doors opened slowly. Outside was the hotel’s backyard, the ground covered in snow. A snowmobile sat parked in the shadows, its engine already pre-warmed, white steam puffing from the exhaust pipe.

“Olga, we have ten minutes.” He spoke into the vehicle’s Bluetooth communicator, his voice calm. “Prepare the receiving port. This time, we aren’t letting anyone take the truth away.”