Inner Vault, Sublevel – 1:07 p.m.
The steel door groaned as Langdon pushed it open.
Inside, Katherine Solomon sat chained to a steel chair—pale, bruised, but alert.
Her eyes widened in disbelief.
"Robert?" Her voice cracked. "You found me." Langdon rushed forward. "Are you hurt?" She shook her head weakly. "No… but they've started the alignment sequence.
They're going to use the machine." Lenka swept in behind Langdon, cutting the restraints with a compact blade.
Katherine clutched Langdon's hand.
"They think they can force coherence," she said urgently. "But the human mind can't be bullied into unity. It requires choice. Reverence. Consent." Langdon's thoughts raced. "Is there any way to stop it?" Katherine nodded toward the walls. "There's a secondary processor. Hidden. My failsafe. It's coded to respond only to a specific phrase—one my brother and I created." Langdon blinked. "Lucius. He mentioned a phrase… 'Where the living die to remember.'" Katherine exhaled sharply. "Yes. That's it. But it's not the whole phrase. The second part—'where memory becomes mind'—completes the command." A sudden vibration trembled through the floor.
"They've activated the core uplink," Lenka said. "The convergence has begun." Langdon helped Katherine to her feet.
"Then we still have time," he said.
But as they turned toward the door, it slammed shut. The voice of Dean Asher crackled through a hidden speaker.
"You're too close to the truth, Professor," he said. "I can't let her sabotage humanity's only chance at salvation." Katherine looked to Langdon. "There's another way out. An emergency passage beneath the chair." As Lenka searched for the hidden lever, Langdon's eyes caught a Latin inscription carved along the baseboard:
"Non timebo veritatem."
I shall not fear the truth.
The walls rumbled again.
They had minutes before the machine's energy reached its peak.