Against The Clock -

The digital timer on the vault door didn’t tick; it hummed, a low-frequency vibration that felt like a second heartbeat against Elias’s ribs.

He didn't clip the next wire. Instead, he jammed his screwdriver into the cooling fan of the processor. The fan groaned, stalled, and the entire board short-circuited. For a terrifying second, the timer froze at , then the heavy bolts inside the door slid back with a sound like a falling mountain. Against the Clock

His fingers, slick with sweat, hovered over the copper wires of the bypass kit. Outside the heavy steel doors, the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of the security team’s boots was getting louder. They were two floors down, but in a building this silent, they sounded like giants. The digital timer on the vault door didn’t