Chapter 7 - The Mind in the Sub-Zero Dark
Absolute darkness pressed against Dustin’s eyes like a physical weight.
The cold hit him in waves. Within sixty seconds, the thin cotton of his maroon shirt offered no protection against the arctic chill radiating from the stainless-steel walls. His skin felt as though thousands of tiny glass needles were pressing into his arms and face. His fingers began to lose feeling, becoming stiff and unyielding.
"Marcus... Mr. Sterling... can you hear me?" Dustin whispered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably.
Static sizzled in his ear canal, followed by Sterling’s voice, heavily distorted by the thick, insulated walls of the freezer vault.
"Dustin... signal... degrading... thick steel... insulation," Sterling’s voice fragmented. "...holding position... team is... cutting through... main loading bay... hold on..."
The signal died completely into a flat, low hiss.
He was entirely alone.
Dustin fell to his knees on the frosted floor, wrapping his arms tightly around his chest, trying to preserve his core body heat. Panic—violent, irrational, animal panic—threatened to overwhelm his brain. His mind screamed at him to throw his body against the reinforced glass door, to scream for help until his vocal cords tore, to beat his hands against the lock.
No, Dustin told himself, forcing his eyes shut in the pitch blackness. Panic burns oxygen. Panic accelerates hypothermia. Think.
He forced his mind to disengage from the cold, retreating into the cold, analytical framework that had kept him alive his whole life.
He reconstructed the layout of the room in his mind based on the brief glimpse he had taken under the red emergency lights before Gordon flipped the switch.
Dimensions: twenty feet wide, forty feet long.
Floor: smooth concrete coated in a thin layer of hoarfrost.
Left wall: three rows of industrial racking holding sealed wooden crates.
Right wall: two massive compressor units mounted six feet off the ground, circulating sub-zero air into the room through intake vents.
Ceiling: standard eight-foot clearance with exposed electrical conduit running toward the central junction box above the door.
Dustin reached down to his waist. His hands were so numb he could barely feel his own belt buckle.
He felt the heavy utility belt he wore as a janitor—a belt he hadn't removed when he put on his polo shirt. Hanging from the plastic loop was his standard-issue brass master key set, a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol disinfectant spray, and a heavy industrial steel scraper used for removing stubborn gum from floors.
Isopropyl alcohol.
Eighty percent concentration. Highly flammable.
Dustin’s mind clicked into high gear.
He crawled forward on his hands and knees through the dark, feeling his way across the frosted floor until his fingertips touched the rough, unpainted wood of a storage crate on the left rack.
He pulled the heavy steel scraper from his belt with stiff, clumsy fingers. He began to scrape the dry pine wood of the crate violently, shredding the outer layers into a pile of fine, dry wood shavings on the floor beneath him.
He scraped until his arms burned with exhaustion, ignoring the freezing agony in his fingertips.
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When he had built a small mound of dry wood fibers, he unscrewed the cap of his disinfectant spray bottle and poured the clear alcohol over the pile, soaking the wood completely.
Now, he needed a spark.
