Instead of moving down the hall where she’d seen the movement, she took the one the runner should be passing next. She expected to see the shadow pass by before she reached the halfway point, but the outer loop remained vacant. Had the infiltrators doubled back? Or had they heard her coming and were waiting to ambush when she appeared?
Upon reaching the end, she pressed against the wall and listened. No steps. She tensed, drew in two quick breaths, and then peeked around the corner.
Empty.
Dammit. They must have gone back the other way.
She moved into the loop and headed the way the person should have come from. It was the low mumble of a voice that finally caused her to look toward the other side of the corridor.
She blinked, not immediately comprehending what she was seeing. There was an opening for a hallway just ahead along the right wall. But she was in the outer loop, which meant everything on this level should have been to her left.
Then she remembered she wasn’t on just any level; she was on the tenth. Unlike the other ones, where everything was contained within the outer loop, the tenth had an exception, a hallway that led outside the circular level to the room that connected to the auxiliary access tunnel.
They must think they can use the tunnel to escape.
Boy, were they in for a surprise when they reached the top and found the exit welded shut.
As she sneaked over to the hallway, a few more muffled words tumbled her way. She lowered herself to her knees and very slowly eased her head around the corner.
What she saw was not what she expected.
While her two faux security men were there, they weren’t alone. Several others were stepping through the door to the tunnel staging room.
Reni’s body went numb.
Dream Sky was being invaded.
She could pick a few of them off with her rifle, but her hope of completely eliminating the threat was gone. There were too many of them.
She looked down the outer loop. There, back the way she’d come, just before the tunnel curved away, was one of the orange alarm boxes.
She sprang to her feet and ran toward it.
“What’s…going on?”
Medical technician Gale Dodson stared up at the flashing lights, barely hearing the question over the alarm. When the patient touched her gloved hand, she jerked in surprise.
“Is…something…wrong?” the protectee asked, his voice slurred by the drugs that had been pumping through his system since he was brought to Dream Sky.
She put on her best smile. “It’s nothing. I think it’s time to get some more sleep.”
“Slept enough,” he said. “Think I’m…feeling…better.”
“You’re still a very sick man. The more rest you get, the sooner you’ll get better.” As she spoke, she turned his IV on again, and it wasn’t long before his eyelids drooped.
Though the patient was unaware of it, he was getting shortchanged on his awake time. Each of the Dream Sky protectees — all of whom thought they were being treated for Sage Flu — were routinely brought to a state of semiconsciousness for a few hours every other day. This particular patient, number 0763, had been woken only thirty minutes ago.
Once Dodson was sure 0763 was asleep, she hurried out of the ward and joined several of her colleagues gathered at the duty station.
“Is this a drill?” she asked.
“None was scheduled,” a tech named Hodgins said.
Dr. Loria, one of the two physicians on graveyard shift, strode up to the station. “What in God’s name is going on?”
“We’re not sure,” Hodgins said.
“Security hasn’t made an announcement?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, someone call them and find out what’s going on! We don’t need this noise disturbing the patients.”
Dodson was closest to the phone, so she made the call.
“No one’s answering,” she said after several seconds.
“They’re probably a little busy,” Hodgins suggested.
“I don’t care how busy they are,” the doctor said. “Stay on that line until someone answers.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dodson replied.
The ringing went on for over a minute before the tech heard a click and—
“Yes?” The voice was rushed, annoyed.
“This is, um, medical, um, level six,” she said, surprised that someone had answered. “There’s an alarm going off down here but we’ve received no instructions.”
“It’s a malfunction. We’re working on correcting it right now. Just go on as usual.”
“Is there any way to at least turn it down? We’re concerned it will disturb the protectees.”
There was a pause, then, “I said we’re working on it.”
The man hung up.
Everyone was looking at Dodson as she hung up. “Malfunction,” she said. “We’re supposed to ignore it.”
Seething, Dr. Loria said, “Do we at least have earplugs?”
Ash quickly gathered Chloe’s people around and motioned down the middle, dividing the group into two.
“This half will clear this floor,” he shouted above the alarm. “Leave no room unchecked. Anyone you find, take to the elevators on the east side. That’s where Sealy will have set up a holding area. The rest of you will go with Chloe and clear level nine. When a level is done, we’ll leapfrog each other, my group to eight, Chloe’s to seven, and on like that all the way to the top. Any questions?”
No hands went up.
“All right. Chloe’s group, take a right at the end of this hall, and then follow the circular corridor until you reach the elevators.”
As Chloe was about to leave, Ash stopped her. “You’re okay to do this, right?” he asked.
“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You just seem a little off, is all.”
“I wish people would stop saying that. I’m fine. Really,” she said, and then hurried after her team.
Ash knew she was hiding something. He just hoped it wouldn’t interfere with the mission. To his team, he said, “Pick a partner and spread out. Let’s move.”
Harden jammed the receiver down. That was the third call he’d fielded since the red and white alarm lights had begun flashing throughout the control center. Mercifully, the siren was only a background drone here, but every time he took a call, he could hear that wasn’t the case elsewhere.
As soon as the alarm had been triggered, one of the monitors on the wall had started blinking the message:
ALARM ACTIVATED
LEVEL 10
SECTION 7C
The first thing Harden did was to consult the schematic for level ten. He discovered that section 7C was near the hallway to the auxiliary tunnel Chloe’s team was using. So, either the team had been spotted or it had tripped the alarm.
He tried to reach Ash via radio, but since the captain wasn’t close to one of the elevator shafts, the layers of ground between them prevented the signal from getting through. The only reason Harden kept answering the phone was in case it was Ash or someone else from the Resistance.
When the call from level six had come in, he’d been searching the computer for the alarm controls in hopes of turning it off. He retuned to the task now, quickly shuffling through screen after screen. Finally, he found a link to ALARM ACTIVITY. Clicking on this brought him to a new screen that listed recent alarms. The current one was right at the top. When he double-clicked on that, a new screen appeared. The LOCATION box was filled in with 7C, but the others — for CAUSE, FOLLOW-UP, and RESOLUTION — were blank.
At the very bottom was a button labeled DISARM. He clicked it, but instead of the alarm turning off, a large rectangular box appeared, and above it the word: