Story code: ST-001929
Part 2: The Deadbolt
I stared at the mountain of black plastic and tangled cables, my mind completely short-circuiting. The sheer volume of raw data in that crate represented hundreds of hours of real-time footage. There were standard SD cards, archaic mini-DV tapes, and rugged external SSDs, all jumbled together without a single label or organizational system. Just transferring the 4K video files onto the main editing server would take until dawn, let alone scrubbing through the material, syncing the audio, cutting a coherent narrative, and applying the heavy color-grading Reverend Vance demanded for his on-camera appearances. It was a physically impossible task for one person to accomplish in a single night.
I tried to force the panic out of my throat, keeping my voice as level as possible. I pointed at the primary rendering station and explained the fundamental bottleneck of data transfer speeds. I told him that even if I worked without stopping to drink water or use the restroom, the machine itself could not physically process this much uncompressed media by tomorrow morning. I begged him to at least let me sort the media tonight and begin the assembly edit tomorrow afternoon, after my morning classes.
Reverend Vance brushed a speck of imaginary dust off the lapel of his suit jacket. He did not look at the equipment, nor did he look at the crate. He looked down his nose at me, his expression settling into a mask of pious sorrow. He sighed, a heavy, theatrical sound designed to make me feel small. He reminded me that the annual donor breakfast was at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, and this compilation was the centerpiece of his fundraising presentation. He then casually mentioned that the university bursar’s office was expecting his wire transfer for my spring semester tuition by noon on Monday. If the documentary was not playing on the projector when the donors sat down to eat their catered meals, the wire transfer would simply not happen. He would not fund the education of a son who refused to support the very ministry that put food in his mouth.
He patted my shoulder-a heavy, suffocating weight-and turned around. He walked out of the editing bay, his leather shoes clicking sharply against the hardwood of the hallway. The heavy oak door swung shut. A second later, a sound echoed through the acoustic foam that made my blood run entirely cold. It was the sharp, wet, metallic *thunk* of the exterior electronic deadbolt engaging. He had installed the keypad lock last year, ostensibly to keep the cleaning staff away from the expensive broadcasting equipment, but I knew instantly what he was doing. He was locking me in.
I lunged for the door handle and twisted it. It didn’t budge. I slammed my fist against the solid oak, but the soundproofed walls swallowed the noise instantly. I spun around, my heart hammering violently against my ribs. I checked the digital clock in the corner of my monitor. Eight-twenty. The location I needed to reach would lock its doors precisely at nine o’clock. If I wasn’t there, the arrangement I had spent six months meticulously planning and saving for would evaporate. The person waiting for me did not offer second chances, and the thick envelope in my backpack was non-refundable.
My breathing turned shallow and rapid. The windowless room suddenly felt ten degrees hotter, the exhaust fans of the heavy desktop computers blowing warm, stale air against my legs. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, my thumbs trembling as I tried to pull up my messages. The screen showed zero bars. The studio was essentially a Faraday cage, buried in the center of the basement and lined with dense acoustic paneling. There was no cellular signal down here.
I dropped the phone and lunged for the studio landline bolted to the edge of the desk. I snatched the receiver off the cradle, fully intending to call the front desk of my destination to beg for a fifteen-minute grace period. A flat, rapid beeping tone greeted my ear. I punched the button for an outside line, but the automated voice of the church’s PBX system cheerfully informed me that external calls were restricted after business hours. He had locked me in and cut me off.
I looked back at my canvas backpack sitting on the floor. The envelope inside it felt like a radioactive core, radiating a desperate, undeniable heat. I couldn’t just sit here and ingest video files while my one chance at true independence slipped away. I needed to bypass the door lock. I knew the electronic strike plate operated on a low-voltage circuit wired through the doorframe. If I could pry the interior housing off the wall, I could short the wires and force the magnet to disengage.
I dropped to my knees and dragged my backpack into my lap, frantically unzipping the main compartment. I bypassed my textbooks and reached into the bottom pouch for my small electronic toolkit. To get to the screwdrivers, I had to pull out the thick, unmarked manila envelope. It was heavy, packed tightly with everything I needed for tonight, the paper worn soft from how many times I had nervously handled it over the past week.
I set the envelope on the floor beside my knee and dug my fingers into the toolkit, extracting a flathead screwdriver. I was just turning back toward the door frame when the keypad on the other side of the oak door beeped three times in rapid succession.
The magnetic lock clicked open.
The heavy door swung inward. Reverend Vance stepped back into the room, holding a printed sheet of paper-the master shot list he had forgotten to give me. I froze on my knees, the screwdriver clutched in my fist. But my father wasn’t looking at my face, and he wasn’t looking at the tool.
His dark eyes were locked entirely on the floor, staring directly at the thick, worn manila envelope resting inches from my knee. The silence in the soundproof room stretched into a horrifying eternity.
“Pick that up,” Reverend Vance said, his voice dropping its polished pastoral warmth, replaced entirely by the cold, calculating tone of a man who had just caught a thief. “Pick it up, Caleb, and open it right now.”