Pressed B3

On an unusually cold morning in mid-June, Meghan Tarmey stopped at the vending machine outside Building C of the municipal records office. She only worked there two days a week — digitizing ancient building permits — and rarely interacted with anyone beyond the occasional nod. It suited her. Life had quiet edges that way.

She pressed B3 for a granola bar and heard the usual whir of coils spinning, but nothing dropped.

"Come on," she muttered, thumping the glass.

Instead of the granola bar, something else rattled down into the bin. Something metal.

She reached in and pulled out a key.

It wasn’t a regular house key. This one was old — brass, heavy, with a circular bow and an ornate bit. It looked like it belonged in a museum or maybe a haunted mansion. Tied to it with twine was a note, folded twice, paper yellowed and brittle.

The note read- “If you found this, it’s already begun.”

Meghan stood there, the key in one hand, the note in the other, heart ticking faster. She glanced around. No one. The building's wide concrete walls offered no clues, no watching eyes.

She stuffed the note in her coat pocket and the key into her purse.

That should’ve been the end of it. She should’ve tossed the thing, reported it to security, forgotten it.

But she didn’t.

Three nights later, she was still thinking about it. She’d even Googled the note's phrase and gotten nothing but clickbait and dead Reddit threads. She placed the key on her kitchen table and stared at it over a bowl of cereal. Something about it felt... personal. Like a dare whispered directly to her.

Meghan wasn’t adventurous. She followed routines. Her idea of risk was using expired coupons. But something about the key — the note — itched at her. She decided to retrace where it might have come from.

She went back to Building C the next morning and studied the vending machine. She crouched, scanned the coin return, the seams, even behind it, drawing odd looks from the janitor.

Nothing.

But when she looked closer at the keypad, she noticed something off. The B3 key was cleaner than the others. Recently replaced? No smudges, no wear.

Meghan walked around to the back of the building where the loading dock was. She’d never been back there before. Tucked behind some old recycling bins was a metal service door. To her surprise, it had a keyhole that looked exactly right for her strange key.

She looked around — no one — and slid the key in.

Click.

The door opened.

Inside, it smelled like damp paper and rust. A short hallway led to a large room filled with file cabinets, most labeled with codes that meant nothing to her- “UX-18,” “MRK-B7,” “Sentry Archives.” No lights worked, but enough filtered through the grimy windows to navigate.

She explored cautiously, checking drawers. They were full of folders, many handwritten, some sealed in wax paper. She opened one labeled “McMurtrey, S. — Transition Record.”

It wasn’t a personnel file.

It was a description. Of a man disappearing during a power outage in 1979. Witness accounts. A log of “signal anomalies.” Sketches of machines she didn’t recognize. At the bottom- “Status- Phase-Shifted, suspected permanent.”

She opened another. And another.

Each file described an incident.

People disappearing. Strange lights. Electrical failures. Sudden time lapses. All connected by the location- this town.

Some entries dated back to the 1930s. All were marked with strange classification codes and tagged “Division Aegis.”

She was inside something no one was meant to see.

Over the next week, Meghan visited the room three more times. Each visit deepened her unease. Patterns emerged — every 17 years, a Confluence. The next was now.

One entry from 2008 described a young woman who went missing in the municipal archives. Her name- R. Hamlin.

Meghan froze. That was her aunt Rachel. Disappeared when Meghan was ten. Everyone said she ran away.

But this file said otherwise. It noted Rachel had accessed sealed Division Aegis files. Had stolen one marked “Vector Maps.” Days later, she vanished during a system-wide blackout.

Meghan re-read the last line of the report- “Last known access- B3 Trigger Point.”

Meghan started digging deeper. The town library’s microfilm room still held old newspapers. She found a pattern of unexplained events timed like clockwork- 1957, 1974, 1991, 2008.

And now.

That night, her apartment lights flickered for the third time in a week. The air grew heavy. Outside, she heard something like a low hum in the sky.

It wasn’t thunder.

The next morning, she found her doorknob ice-cold and the air smelled faintly of ozone.

The Confluence was starting.

She returned to the secret room one last time, carrying a flashlight and a thermos of coffee. This time, something was waiting on the center table. A black envelope, sealed with red wax.

It had her name on it.

Inside- another note.

“Welcome to the Fold. You’ll need to choose. Archive — protect what’s hidden. Engage — step into the storm.”

No instructions. No signature.

Just a second key.

Smaller, sleeker, silver this time.

She remembered one cabinet — locked, unlike the others. At the far end, against the wall.

She tried the key.

Click.

Inside- a device. Like a cross between a radio and a compass. It had one button and a small screen. The label read- “Phase Mapper – V4” and below that, “Rachel H.”

Meghan sat on the floor.

Her aunt hadn’t disappeared. She’d gone in. Willingly.

This device, whatever it was, was built by her. Or for her.

And now it was being handed down.

She knew what Engage meant.

She looked around the dusty room full of forgotten truth and turned the device on.

The screen flickered to life. A soft chime. Then it spoke, in a voice that wasn’t synthetic.

“Meghan. If you’re hearing this, I didn’t get out. But maybe you can. Or… maybe you’ll do what I couldn’t. Either way, the map’s yours now.”

She held the device tighter.

A shimmer pulsed across the wall, as if the air itself had loosened — not quite light, not quite shadow. A doorway, blinking like an afterimage.

She stood, one foot already moving.

Outside, the vending machine hummed.

Someone pressed B3.

Another key rattled down.