Langdon, inside Brigita Gessner’s sealed lab, freezes in shock when he looks into the fogged preservation pod and believes he sees Katherine Solomon inside. He pounds the glass and searches for a seam or release, desperate to open it as an alarm blares and a pale, rigid hand rests against the inside.

Footsteps rush up behind him and a tall blond woman in a thick Russian accent threatens him with a stainless-steel fire extinguisher, demanding to know how he entered. Langdon identifies himself and says Dr. Gessner gave him the elevator passcode; the woman lowers the extinguisher and introduces herself as Sasha Vesna, Gessner’s lab assistant.

Langdon insists Katherine needs help, but Sasha panics at the machine’s status and says opening it immediately is too dangerous; the process must be reversed first. Sasha works frantically at a laptop, shuts down the alarm and fans, and the connected tubes begin to gurgle as a crimson liquid flows back toward the pod.

When Langdon recoils at what looks like blood, Sasha explains the device is Gessner’s prototype EPR machine—Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation—meant to swap blood for supercooled saline to induce suspended animation and prevent brain damage during oxygen deprivation. As Langdon processes what that implies, a muted pop sounds inside the pod and blood spatters the glass, suggesting something has gone catastrophically wrong.

Sasha abandons the laptop, breaks an emergency seal, and hits a red button. The lid releases and hinges open, and as the fog clears Langdon leans in, certain the person is dead—only to realize with a jolt that the corpse is not Katherine Solomon. The body in the pod is Brigita Gessner.