The lazy genius has 5 mates

chapter 48

The golden light across the Vault had barely faded when Roxanne pulled the black metal book onto the central workbench.

Cain and Loman exchanged identical looks — a mixture of fear, awe, and "our sister is about to do something stupidly brilliant again."

She stood over the book, eyes sharp, expression set.

"I'm opening it."

Loman squeaked.
"Rox, the last time you touched it the house almost opened a portal to Narnia—"

"It wasn't a portal."
She placed her palm firmly onto the crest.
"It was a lock."

CLICK.

The book unfolded like mechanical petals.

Inside lay dozens of wafer-thin metal sheets — not paper — each etched with microscopic patterns of code, diagrams, and runes.

Cain whistled low.
"That's not human language."

Roxanne murmured, "It's Founder schematic language. The precursor to the modern cipher tech."

"Translation?" Loman asked.

Roxanne cracked her knuckles.

"It's my bedtime story."

She slid the sheets into her scanning tray — equipment most geniuses didn't even know existed, because she built it for fun in her second year of college.

Lines of gold and white illuminated across the holo-display as the scans began.

Cain leaned forward.
"What is all of this? It looks like... layers."

Roxanne smirked faintly.
"It is. Grandpa didn't record one message — he hid a whole system inside the vault wall. A secondary root key."

"So," Loman said slowly, "A root key for your root key? Like... parent lock?"

Roxanne nodded.

"And he made sure I couldn't find it until I was older. Until—"

She paused.

Cain finished quietly,
"—until someone tried to use you."

She didn't respond, but the silence was enough.

Her fingers flew across the display as she reverse-engineered the engraved patterns.

Cain watched her work with a slow exhale.

"You're hyperfocusing."

"I'm stabilizing," she corrected sharply.

"Same thing," Loman muttered lovingly.

Roxanne ignored them — her brain was already firing.

"...This isn't just instructions for the Root Key. It's a map. A map of my vault. But not how I built it — how Grandpa rewired the parts I didn't notice."

Cain's brows shot up.
"He rewrote your own construction under your nose?"

"Grandpa Black is the only person I know capable of that," she whispered.
"And the only person I wouldn't have noticed doing it."

Her chest tightened.

She wasn't angry.

She was...

Seen.

A soft beep echoed through the chamber — the signature sound of the upper door recognizing familiar biometrics.

Her mates.