“B7 is clear.”
Jason opened badge logs.
Two active sign-ins.
Then a third maintenance credential registered through local work assignment, not the demonstration manifest.
Jason looked at Connor.
“There are three people on B7.”
Connor’s face changed.
“That’s impossible.”
Jason turned the screen.
“Three.”
Charlotte looked at him.
“Why aren’t they on the demo roster?”
Connor said:
“They should have cleared.”
Jason opened radio.
“B7 maintenance, respond.”
Static.
Then:
“Operations, we’re locked between sections seven and nine.”
Charlotte’s face went still.
“How many?”
“Three.”
Connor stepped toward the console.
“Hold position.”
The maintenance lead answered:
“We don’t have another position.”
“Door seven is sealed.”
“Door nine is sealed.”
“We’re seeing pressure alert locally.”
Jason pulled up Mercy Line status.
SUPPRESSED BY CONDITIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE LAYER.
His stomach dropped.
He looked at Connor.
“You buried it.”
Connor’s eyes hardened.
“Not now.”
Charlotte heard.
“What?”
Connor said:
“We need to stabilize the demonstration environment.”
Jason stared.
“People are trapped.”
“At 10:10, in front of federal observers, you want to throw the whole system into uncontrolled release?”
Jason stood completely.
“I want them out.”
Connor leaned close.
“Sit down.”
Jason remembered the stairwell.
You think that changes what the doors do?
He stayed standing.
Charlotte looked between them.
“Open B7 egress.”
Connor said:
“We need to verify the pressure signal.”
Charlotte’s voice sharpened.
“Open it.”
Jason attempted local administrative release.
Denied.
Lockdown integrity condition.
He tried again.
Denied.
Connor moved to the master console.
“It needs containment cancellation.”
He entered command.
The system paused.
Then returned:
CANCELLATION REQUIRES ACTIVE SECURITY AUTHORITY CONFIRMATION.
Connor confirmed.
Partial release began.
Then B7 environmental fault increased.
The grid immediately resecured.
Door indicators turned red again.
Jason looked toward Charlotte.
“This is exactly what Logan described.”
She did not answer.
For the first time that day, she remembered the final sentence at the gate.
A door locked at the wrong moment can kill someone.
The B7 maintenance lead came over radio.
“We can hear something venting.”
Jason zoomed the sensor map.
Pressure rising.
Not catastrophic yet.
But wrong.
Connor said:
“We have time.”
Jason looked at him.
“How much?”
Connor did not answer.
At 11:21, the demonstration was formally terminated.
Observers remained in the control room.
No one knew whether to leave.
Security staff began checking other occupied zones.
Aegis, still operating under layered lockdown logic, resisted broad release because the system could no longer distinguish cleanly between simulated security states and real environmental risk.
That was the failure Logan had predicted.
Not one broken door.
Conflicting objectives.
The system had been taught to protect too many things before people.
At 11:39, Jason pulled the legacy architecture map.
Mercy Line sat deep beneath Connor’s revisions.
Not deleted.
Dormant.
A condition chain was forming.
Occupied zone.
No verified egress.
Environmental risk.
Human priority requirement.
Jason watched.
One final threshold remained.
Connor noticed.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Close that window.”
“No.”
Connor stared.
Jason said: