A[U]CTOR

The fading wall

Everyday she looked at the painting in the wall, placed half way between the kitchen and the living room.
That day, when she was still next to the oven, she heard something hit the floor.
She found the painting broken on the floor and on the wall... the wall had faded away.

_

The surface looked faint, when she stretched her hand to the touch the surface. It faded away.

It was a hologram.

She passed through the other side and found a small opening, and a locked door. When she turned back, she saw a key taped to the corner behind the painting leaning on the wall. She took the key and put it inside the keyhole.

It fits.

She pushed the door as it creaked open. Only four steps could be seen, before it was shrouded in darkness. She turned on the flashlight of her smartphone as he went down the stairs. Unbeknowst to her, the door sealed itself shut.

Veronica made it to the basement and saw that the place hasn't been cleaned in years. Spiderwebs were in the corner of the ceiling, the rusty pipeline, a generator, deactivated equipment and a flatscreen TV.

It seems that this old technology was used before the installation of holographic projectors.

She inspected the equipment, and some of it got damaged over time without repair. With a flick of the switch the lights got turned on.

The equipment whirred back on, tiny green lights glowing as she aproached the flat screen TV. With a push of a button, the screen turned on with the typical windows logo.

The security system started to scan and reload. She turned off the flashlight from her smartphone, and checked the menu on the screen. Scrolling on the list of programs and clicked the icon that piqued her interest.

It loaded, activating the security system.

She sat on the table looking at the number of cameras that recorded the around the house and the block.

It must've belonged to the previous owner.

She clicked on the dates, one of them being on her birthday. April 23, 2029.

The cameras played, on one of the blocks that the camera was placed, two individuals ran away from a drone that was scanning the neighboorhood. Another camera the same room that she was in right now, there was a silhouette typing. When the silhouette, the previous owner clicked a key to deactivate the drone. At another camera that recorded the living room, a woman with long wavy brown hair turned off the hologram, by pressing a button that was hidden behind the painting. The previous owner took off his mask, showing his face: tussled chesnut hair with a couple of gray roots and sideburns, square jaw and hazel eyes. The woman sneaked up behind him putting the gun against his nape. The man raised his hands and turned.

From what the camera could record is that the woman had the same slim figure as her mother.

"Strange." She clicked on the settings of the cameras to zoom in. "Mom?"

That can't be right.

She looked at the time that it was recorded. 04/23/29  08:42 AM. Her mom wasn't in labor during that hour.

It didn't make sense.

She pressed forward, the two men that were outside busted into the house rushing in to the house, entering the basement. As the two men entered into the caught up to the others, one of them pulled out a gun from it's holster, pointing at her mom.

She forward it a little further, the previous owner knocked the gun out of her hands, falling to the floor. The woman plucked a small device that was inside her glove that was wired to something within her long coat.

The men were paralyzed, why were they so afraid of her? The woman unzip her coat, with explosives strapped to her torso.

A suicide bomber.

》

The camera forwarded four times the speed, the previous owner tapped the keys to open another hidden that lead to the backyard. The woman laughed like a lunatic, you don't need audio to see a woman as she sprinted after them.

She wanted to know what happened, but the security system failed to record it.

Shit! What happened to those men?