The radioactive bottle is surprisingly easy to find. It’s in one of those thick steel briefcases you expect to find nuclear launch codes in, which makes a certain amount of sense. I crack open the case. There are lead panels covering the insides. The ledger entry for it went into more detail than most. It’s just the way it was written, even down to the warning DO NOT EAT.

I close it up before my hair starts falling out. Fucking technomancers, man. Mages are kind of like mad scientists, always pushing what we can do with magic, but those guys are real mad scientists. Half the shit in here was made by a technomancer and it’s probably the half that’ll kill you out of spite. The only good thing about technomancers is they tend to blow themselves up before they cause too much trouble.

I decide to leave the portable nuclear disaster-waiting-to-happen where it is for now. If the other one doesn’t pan out, then I’ll give this one a whirl.

After an hour of looking, moving crates and hauling boxes, I can’t find the other bottle. Even with this ridiculous lack of organization I should be able to find it pretty quickly. Everything’s got tags and numbers and they’re roughly in order, but the damn thing just isn’t here.

I’m about to give up and go with the nuclear option when I have a thought. I’ve moved crates to check the ones behind them, but what about the ones against the wall?

Another twenty minutes and I find it, a safe recessed into the wall behind a stack of metal and wooden boxes. Thing’s a fucking antique, but it has the ledger entry number painted on it in more modern military stencil. Gold filigree around the edges of the door, the words CARY SAFE CO. BUFFALO NY written in gothic script. Thick hinges, lever to open it. But instead of a dial, there’s a metal plate about ten inches square with runes etched along the edges.

At least I don’t need to figure out a combination. It’s pretty obvious what the plate’s for. I put my hand on it and it either unlocks or it kills me. I try the lever first. I’ll feel real stupid if I die and it turns out it was unlocked the whole time. But no, it doesn’t budge.

Well, shit. I press my left hand against the plate. There’s a loud click of bolts disengaging. No fire, no explosion, no turning into a frog. I try the lever again. It turns easily in my hand.