"Of course, Mr. Charles. I understand your actions." Russell nodded, choosing his words carefully to soothe the man. "No one is blaming you. Tell me about your work. What do you usually do?"
"Work…" Charles repeated the word. His eyes suddenly went hollow, as though he had stepped into a long, dark corridor of memory.
"Mostly shady business," he said. "Cracking safes in rich people's houses or helping open boxes that shouldn't exist. Sometimes I have to repair special tools." He didn't spell it out, but both Russell and Charlotte understood perfectly.
"Bilson rates me highly," Charles went on. "He said my hands are the steadiest in London—a gift from God."
"He's right," Russell agreed. "Your hands really are remarkable. Few people can match your skill."
A faint smile touched Charles's lips.
"You've opened quite a few locks in your time, haven't you?" Russell asked again.
"Of course." Charles nodded. "Almost every kind you can find on the market."
"What about foreign ones?" Russell pressed. "Have you ever opened imported locks?"
"I have," Charles nodded again. "Plenty of nobles and wealthy merchants use foreign security locks, but they're all the same to me."
"That's impressive," Russell said sincerely.
If Russell could have seen Charles's skill panel, he would have been certain the man's craftsmanship was exceptionally high—perhaps even B-rank.
"Then…" Russell paused, his tone turning meaningful. "Out of all those locks, was there any that felt especially difficult to open? For example… a Swiss-made safety lock?"
The moment the question left Russell's mouth, Charles's brow furrowed. The slight relaxation that had appeared earlier vanished instantly.
Charlotte and Dr. Vanessa held their breath, staring at Charles, waiting for his reaction.
Russell fell silent and simply watched him.
The ward was so quiet that every breath and heartbeat seemed audible.
"…Ah." After an unknown stretch of time, Charles finally spoke, his voice dry and low. "There is one."
"It must be quite a troublesome lock," Russell said quietly.
"Yes… it's complicated." Charles lifted his head. A flicker of professional pride appeared in his cloudy eyes. "Double security structure, six-digit password wheels, and every gear meshes with impossible precision. The person who designed it must have been a genius. I've never seen anything that complex."
"So… did you open it?" Charlotte asked before she could stop herself.
Charles turned toward her. After a long silence he answered slowly, "I… I opened it."
"It was difficult," he added, his voice gradually growing excited, "but I opened it. I opened that lock!"
"Congratulations." Russell clapped his hands. "So what was waiting behind it?"
"After all that effort," he continued, "what did you find?"
"Ah…" Charles's pupils trembled. Memories flooded back—fragmented, chaotic. "There were a lot of safes inside."
"Now that I think about it… Bilson told us to open that door and then open one of the safes."
"Which one?" Russell asked.
"I don't know… but I know the password. If I try them one by one, I'll figure it out."
"Password?"
"A cipher," Charles muttered. Light and terror warred in his cloudy eyes, like a candle flickering at the edge of an abyss. "It seems… it was a six-digit password…"
"Do you remember it?" Charlotte asked gently, careful not to break his train of thought.
"I remember… I remember…" Charles nodded. His fingers moved unconsciously on his knee as though calculating in silence, his lips forming numbers. "I think the first digit was 8."
Russell and Charlotte exchanged glances. Charlotte quickly wrote the number in her notebook.
"The first number is 8?"
"No, no… wait. I'm not sure. I only remember the numbers…" Charles's breathing quickened. "There's another one… 9… but I forgot the order…"
He suddenly shook his head in frustration and clutched his hair, as though trapped in a mire of chaotic memories.
"It's all right, Charles. Take your time," Dr. Vanessa said gently. "Think carefully. When Bilson told you the password, what expression did he have? Did his behavior change at all?"
Russell joined in, guiding Charles's attention away from the raw code itself and toward the memory of the moment, trying to avoid the most painful trigger.
The technique seemed to work. Charles's breathing steadied a little. He raised his head and stared blankly at Russell's face, searching for something in those young features.
"I remember… he was smiling," Charles said. "He looked… very happy."
"He looked happy, smiling. And then?"
"Bilson said to me… 'If you just open that door, you'll become a very rich man.'" Charles's voice faltered. "He didn't say what was behind the door, but he promised that if I opened the safe… I'd be set for life."
"And after that?"
Russell kept the conversation moving.
"Then… he gave me the password… His voice…"
Charles stared fixedly at Russell's calm yet slightly uneasy expression.
Suddenly his pupils contracted violently.
A strange, intense déjà vu crashed over him like a cold wave. The face before him and the blurred figure in his memory began to overlap in a way that carried terrible significance.
It wasn't the appearance that mattered. It was the feeling.
That same calm authority. That same complete control. That same mocking, amused glint in the eyes.
The two were identical.
As if… as if…
"…He looks exactly like him!"
…
…
PS: Please support me and read advanced chapters at patreon.com/AbsoluteCode