Moments before, the door to Records had been just that. A door. A lump of wood in an opening with a sign.

Now, it was much more. The conversation with Bradley's father had changed, no, charged the atmosphere. There had already been tension, but now a thick layer of foreboding made the air heavy and thick. The door was now a barrier that, with a few simple presses on the keypad, could transform into a portal. Stepping through it could reveal Bradley's and her father's entire operation. Moreso, it could uncover Ryan's identity. He could regain his memories and his life.

"4735," Pedra said.

"Huh?"

"The code. It's 4735."

"Oh, OK. Go on then."

"No, Ryan. This one is going to be all you. From here on in, you're on your own."

"What does that mean, you're abandoning me?"

"Far from it. I'll be out here buying you time. But, in there, you need to see it yourself. I'll just... taint it."

Ryan took a deep breath. He nodded.

"Thank you."

"Whatever. Just... do what's right."

"Of course."

"No, I mean it. Don't just act out of anger or frustration or something like that. There's a right and a wrong here, and they'll seem blurred right now. Once you know, do the right thing."

"OK, sure. I will."

"And take this."

She pressed the gun into his hands, closing his fingers over it. He tried to pull them away, but she wouldn't allow him. She was stronger than she looked.

"I don't want it."

"I don't give a shit about that. You'll need it, whether you like it or not."

"Fine."

Pedra released her hands and Ryan kept hold of the weapon.

"Go," she said.

Ryan turned to face the door, hesitated briefly, then tapped the code into the keypad. There was a quiet buzz, followed by the click of the lock disengaging. He pushed the door open. Beyond, the room was as black as his cell.

"Go," Pedra repeated.

A shot was fired, followed instantly by a second, and she spun around. At first, Ryan thought she was turning to face the shooter, and he was astonished by her swift reactions. But then, blood hit his face and entered his open mouth. He could taste the coppery tang and, rather than be disgusted, it and her collapse showed she'd been hit. He rushed to her.

"Pedra!"

"GO!" she yelled, jumping back up to her feet and pushing him away.

Blood was seeping from a wound on her arm, but she ignored it. Instead, she crouched, facing the three oncoming guards. Ryan saw them too and brought the gun he'd just been prepared to give up.

"Fucking GO!"

His hesitation was brief. He wasn't going to fire anyway, and Pedra was already in the air, flying towards them. She hit the first and used his body as leverage to bring her around so she could kick another in the side of his head. Landing squarely on both feet, she hit out three times at a speed that made it difficult to follow.

Her hand shot forward, with two fingers outstretched. They jabbed into the eye of the third guard, whose momentum carried him forwards until they were deep in the socket as far as they could go. Pulling her arm back, she straightened the remaining fingers and swung the edge of her hand into the neck of guard number two. The first was pushing himself up from where he'd fallen. Pedra's foot stamped down on the back of his neck. His chin slammed into the floor and his head snapped back.

"Fucking go!" she shouted at Ryan, who felt unable to move.

Pedra turned away and ran back the way they'd come. Ryan saw more blood was soaking the lower back of her jacket and he took a step towards her.

But she was gone, rounding the far corner before any words he might have said could be spoken.

Shit.

OK. OK! This is it.

After checking that the guards were not likely to pursue him, he pushed the door open. Automatic lights flared, illuminating the room beyond. He stepped in and closed the door, thankful for the sound of it relocking. Slowly, he turned. This was it. Answers. They lived in here, and he would uncover them.

Where to start?

The ceiling was lower than he expected in such a huge space. With only a slight jump, he'd have been able to touch it. It was covered in criss-crossing glowing metal strips, whose light was enough to make the area plainly visible, without the usual glare of overheads. It was a comfortable radiance, one he didn't associate with a simple records room. Usually, he would expect them to have the basic intensity of strips or those fuzzy covers over recessed bulbs that made it look as if they were trying to squint at you.

His recollections of the nuances of daily life were not lost to Ryan, but he chose to ignore them. There was no point in getting excited over fragments. They were too few for him to piece them together and make anything resembling his past. He would allow them to build on their own, without forcing. Hopefully, they'd gather enough momentum to prompt an epiphanous revelation.

And he would be back.

Until then, he'd push forward. There was no other choice.

The contents of the room were myriad, but still managed a sense of order. Filing cabinets stood next to piles of boxes and shelving units filled in the spaces between. What should have given the impression of a professional child's bedroom resembled more the mind of a not-quite-sane scientist. Judging by the contents of each, this could have been a dumping ground if everything wasn't meticulously labelled.

In the boxes closest to Ryan, he could see cassette tapes stacked against notebooks atop reams of what looked like heart tracings. There were other medically themed pages that contained paragraphs of technical wordage he was unable to decipher, apart from simpler terms such as bodily parts. At a guess, he was looking at detailed tests on brains and hearts and others. No names identified which person's bodies they might be. There were only reference numbers in hexadecimal a system he was sure he'd been familiar with once upon a long time ago. No longer, and certainly not now, however.

He moved on.

The filing cabinets were locked, with thumb print sensors where a key might go. Out of curiosity, he tried his. He wasn't surprised, but was disappointed, when it didn't work.

As fascinating as the reports were, his inability to understand them made continued reading pointless. There were no tape players to listen to the cassettes, either, and his frustration grew the further he ventured. There could be so much information he just couldn't access, though it was literally within reach.

There had to be something.

Row followed row. His muted footsteps on the cushioned floor reminded him he was, thankfully, alone amongst the paraphernalia, and he wondered why this fact didn't feel creepy. His adrenaline levels had settled almost immediately upon entering the archive, and his solitude was welcomed. If he was strolling along the breakwaters of a beach, with only the song of the surf and the call of distant gulls to be heard, he didn't think he could be more at ease.

Wasn't that wrong? Why didn't he feel threatened? Why was there no longer a sense of urgency? He should have been diving through the records. They should have been dragged out and strewn across the floor. Cabinets should have been turned over in multiple efforts to smash them open. Instead, he was carefully removing items and putting them back as closely as he could to how they originally were. He wasn't trying to hide his search. They knew exactly where he was, so would presume he would be ransacking the place. But no. The consistency with which everything was placed made him feel he didn't want to disrupt it.

It was time to change tack. He had been looking for specific details, such as names or discernible information. Something that might point to whatever it was they were doing. It wasn't working, so, instead, he decided to look for patterns. Commonalities. Regardless of what they might be, if two or more things were related, puzzle pieces could begin slotting together.

He contemplated starting again from the entrance. Revisiting the items he'd already viewed could cause him to notice something he had yet to see. He wasn't sure it would matter either way, so carried on. If it was going to take another pass, he'd do so. It was highly unlikely he'd still be alone by that point anyway. Or, potentially, alive.

After half a dozen rows, there was a break. A gap of less than a missing row, but still enough to be noticeable. Ryan paused. Given how regularly it had all been to then, this was out of character. He could see nothing to indicate why the difference was there and, indeed, there might have been none. It could very well be an unconscious decision, where the builders were less finicky than they should have been. But, no. That explanation didn't fit. There were no mistakes. No accidents. Why leave a space when space was there to be filled? If there were more, it was wasting valuable real estate.

He read the first few reports. The words blurred together in meaningless worms of technical gibberish, and he put them aside. He'd replace them once he was done, he thought. Being so pedantic was taking too long.

Right.

Instead of actually reading the pages, he laid them out on the floor next to each other. He scanned them for repetitions or flows from the text or images. Nope. OK. Next, he shuffled them and spread them out again.

Fucking nope.

Why would any one link to another, eh? If they were for different people, they'd have differing results. He was wasting time trying to understand anything. How could he when he was a mystery to himself?

Breathing evenly to dull the rising annoyance he was feeling, he decided to just walk to a random part of the room, grab the nearest item – file or tape or anything – and address it. If nothing transpired, he'd do the same again. Eventually, something must be exposed.

Fine. He could do that. He stood.

And saw, on the top of the nearest filing cabinet, a cassette player.

Its lid was up and a tape had been inserted.

Fuck it, he thought. He'd accept the invitation.