“Well, I think I was looking at the right section of the floor you were on. But I was also thinking of Malcolm, so maybe you can think of a person and the cube gates will work the same way. Which is, hopefully, good news.” I was also hoping that, if this was the case, our enemies didn’t know about it, because if they did, I had no idea how I’d ever keep Jamie safe.
Shoved that worry away for the moment while we brought Amy and Buchanan up to date on what had transpired. “So, what have you guys been up to?” I asked when we were done.
He opened his mouth, but Naomi and Abigail appeared out of nowhere. They’d only used hyperspeed, though, not a power cube, so Buchanan and Amy didn’t freak out.
“It’s the same all over,” Naomi said. “Hey Kitty, Adriana.”
“See? They’re calm about our appearance.”
“Yeah, nothing you do surprises me or Sis. But you all need to look at this, because it’s . . . weird,” Abigail said, as she grabbed Adriana. Naomi took Amy. They all zipped off. Decided I was obviously expected to keep up my end of the hyperspeed thing, took a hold of Buchanan, and we ran off after them.
This floor wasn’t a maze—it was one big rectangle, at least the corridor was, and it went around the entire floor. The Gower girls zipped us around it all, presumably to ensure we’d seen all they had.
Other than the elevator banks, the outer side of the corridor was just wall, without artwork, done up in the usual industrially approved color of Boring Taupe. The elevator area was nothing like the one on the lowest level—these elevators just let you out, with no fanfare.
The inner side of the corridor had wall to about waist height, and the rest was smoked glass, or it was doors opening into the rooms. Smoked glass or not, these rooms were all lit by what I recognized as A-C style nightlights, and that meant we could see into them.
The rooms were normal sized, but the walls opposite the ones we were looking through were also mostly glass. They looked out onto a larger set of rooms. There were six of these larger rooms in the middle. Their walls divided them up so that, if you were in these interior rooms, you could see out toward the corridor but not to either side or behind. But it was what was in the rooms that was, as Abigail had said, weird.
Every room on this floor was completely empty.
No chairs, no desks, no cubicles, no electronics, no phones, no products, nothing on the walls, and no people. It was like looking at an abandoned warehouse. An abandoned, well-lit warehouse.
While the corridor and the rooms right off of it were lit only by low floor nightlight-style lighting, the six big interior rooms were lit like they were about to host the World Racquetball Championships. Come to think of it, they looked more like racquetball courts than anything else. However, there were no lines painted anywhere, so it seemed unlikely that Gaultier Enterprises had decided that what they really wanted for the top of their Secret Levels of Evil was a snazzy racquetball setup that didn’t allow anyone watching to sit.
“Have you gone into any of these rooms?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Naomi admitted. “We just got up here, really.”
“Why? What was on the second floor?”
“The medical stuff,” Amy said.
“Or, as we put it, where the contraband is being created and stored,” Buchanan added.
I resisted the impulse to say that I was glad Buchanan hadn’t left Naomi down there, but logic would have indicated that Lorraine, Claudia, and Serene do that level anyway. Plus I was sure Mom had briefed him on her concerns regarding Naomi.
“The floor’s set up just like this one,” Naomi said. “Only every room is filled with laboratory equipment. And the middle rooms are filled with what we’re pretty sure are drugs.” She shook her head. “Your mother was right, Kitty. It’s more drugs than I think any of us could have conceived of.”
“What are the girls doing there?”
“They’re getting in and grabbing a sample from each interior room,” Buchanan replied. “And gathering what they can out of the anterior rooms as well.”
“Are there people in there?”
“Yes,” Amy said. “A skeleton crew. They looked like doctors or scientists, maybe lab techs. But they seem to all be humans because they didn’t see anyone moving at hyperspeed.”
Decided not to express worry. The girls were all on Alpha Team—they could handle whatever it was they needed to do, and they were dealing with what we’d expected to find, so, really, not a problem. Chose to focus on the current weird which might indicate a problem. “Then why is this level completely empty?”
“No idea,” Buchanan said. “Unless the latest Gaultier drugs involve invisibility, there’s no one and nothing to actually investigate.”
“I wouldn’t put anything past them. I note there are no bathrooms on this floor. Same on the other one?”
“Yes,” Amy confirmed. “We checked.”
“Was the elevator area the same as this floor? Boring and nondescript?”
“Yes,” Abigail said. “We checked that, too. Why?”
“Because I’m trying to figure out why this building is set up this way. The elevator area makes a ton of sense if you’re bringing people down to be all awed and impressed. But since the power cube gate is in the bathroom, that means it’s likely that everyone’s entering on the lowest level.”
“They wouldn’t need to,” Naomi said. “The power cube goes where you want to go, right? So, if there’s one in the normal Gaultier Research building, and I know you think there is, then it doesn’t have to connect to the one in the bathroom you just found.”
“Mimi, let me mention that I can state without reservation that Chuckie loves you for your mind as well as your looks and personality. Excellent point. So, you bring your tour group in here, or on the other floor, and then you take the elevator down for the Big Reveal.”
“I’m worried about what that could be,” Naomi said. “Because, honestly, after what we saw on the middle level, I can’t imagine what they’d be showing off as more impressive.”
“Sadly, I’m sure we’re going to find out. But we’re still back to the question of why this level is completely empty. Unless . . .” Studied the glass in front of us a little more. I could see our reflections. But I realized what was wrong—I could only see our reflections in the near glass. There was no corresponding reflection in the glass on the other side of the room.
“Stay here.” Trotted around and confirmed it was the same all the way—I couldn’t see a reflection of me anywhere other than right in front of me. And, when I was perpendicular to where I knew everyone else was, couldn’t see them or the elevators.
Rejoined the team. “What a sneaky bunch we’re dealing with. We need to get into these rooms, but carefully. There’s honestly no telling what’s inside. The glass is actually painted in some way or has some kind of movie being played against it, something—so what we’re seeing is what they want us to see. Nothing.”
“Be ready to run,” Buchanan said, as he put his hand toward the handle. Abigail and Naomi took Amy and Adriana’s hands. I took his free hand in mine.
Buchanan took the handle in his hand and turned it.
CHAPTER 83
“LOCKED.” Buchanan let go of my hand, pulled out his lock picking set, knelt down, and got to work.
“Well, that was anticlimactic.”
“Still be ready to run,” he said. “We could have alerted someone that we’re here.” Kept my hand hovering over his shoulder. The lock clicked and Buchanan stood up quickly, took my hand, and blocked me and the others as he slowly opened the door.
He stopped, then opened the door a little wider. “Everyone speak very softly or not at all,” he said over his shoulder. “And move quietly.” Then he stepped inside and the rest of us followed.