“Then what team is closest to Dream Sky?”
“The only team within a thousand miles that isn’t otherwise engaged or, um, unaccounted for is Commander Vintner’s squad, ma’am.”
Vintner’s strike team was the one assigned to protect Celeste there at NB016.
She thought for a moment. There had been no problems here and no signs of impending attacks. And because of NB016’s unique high-rise location, none were likely. If anything came up, the standard assigned security force could handle the situation until Vintner returned.
“Send them,” she said.
“But—”
“I said send them.”
13
Reni peered out the open elevator onto level one.
A handful of people stood in the waiting area, looking anxious. She knew several of them from her rounds — medical personnel mostly and a few administrators.
One of the men recognized her as she stepped out. “Do you know what’s going on?”
Instead of answering him, she raised her voice and said, “Everyone, please return to your rooms and stay there until you get the all-clear.”
“But the alarm’s off now,” another person said. “Doesn’t that mean—”
“It means nothing,” Reni told her. “Now, please, for your own safety, back inside your rooms.”
“Safety from what?”
Reni didn’t want to cause a panic but she needed to get them moving. “Outsiders have entered the base,” she said. “We’re dealing with the problem but we need the hallways clear. Go now. Please.”
Most didn’t need to be told twice, and those who looked like they did were dragged away by their friends.
She sprinted to the elevator that went up to Transition and entered the waiting car. The ride up took fourteen seconds. As the doors opened, she eased out, her rifle moving in sync with her eyes as she scanned the space. She saw no one but felt an unexpected chill in the air.
Curious, she moved over to the surface-access ladder and looked up the shaft. The hatch was open, allowing the cold from the surface to drift down. Leaving it like that was completely against regulations. The only time it was to be opened was when people were passing through. No exceptions.
Gripping her rifle tight, she turned toward the control center door.
Harden desperately needed to get ahold of Ash.
As much as he wanted to believe he’d fooled this Director Johnson, he was sure he hadn’t. Additional trouble was likely to arrive soon.
He flipped through the security cameras trying to locate the captain. From the corner of his eye, he caught movement on one of the smaller monitors. Looking over, he saw an armed woman sneaking up on a door. It took him a second to realize the door in question was the one directly behind him.
The missing security guard.
Crap.
He grabbed his pistol and turned toward the door just as the woman started to pull it open.
“Drop it!” he yelled, as her rifle nosed into the room.
She fired.
Harden dove to the side and double-tapped his trigger, aiming in the general direction of the door.
Slipping along the desk, he worked his way to the side until he could see the rest of the room. Once he was sure she hadn’t sneaked in, he looked back at the monitors.
Reni had never before heard the voice that yelled at her to drop her weapon. Realizing the control center was also in the hands of the infiltrators, she let off a shot and then hurried back to the transition room.
They’re all over the damn place!
She could stay and fight it out, but whoever was in the control center had probably already called for backup. Her job now was to warn the Project that Dream Sky had been taken.
The chill cut through her thin T-shirt as she climbed the ladder to the hut. When she reached town, she could break into a store or home and find something warm to wear. Until then, she’d have to deal with it.
Out of habit, she almost closed the hatch behind her, but decided to leave it open so even more cold would enter the base.
From the outside, the door of the hut could only be opened by someone in the control center. From inside, however, all it took was a thumb scan on the tiny screen designed to look like part of the doorjamb.
She opened the door and, teeth chattering, headed to town without looking back.
The first room on level eight that Ash and his search partner Sandra entered was a large one, twice as long as it was wide. It had to be, to accommodate the twenty occupied hospital beds that filled it.
“Good lord,” Sandra said, shocked.
Though Ash had been prepared to find something like this, seeing all those people — those “protectees”—was unnerving.
“Stay by the door,” he said. “I’ll check.”
He hurried through the room, looking under the beds to make sure no one was hiding. The only people present were the patients.
The majority of the protectees in the room were men, but it was one of the six women whom Ash recognized. She was some kind of environmental specialist, if he remembered correctly. He’d seen her on several talk shows and on the news testifying before Congress. He couldn’t remember her name — Laura or Lorraine, something like that. If he hadn’t believed Wicks’s story before, there could be no denying it now.
“What’s going on here?” Sandra asked when Ash returned. “Are they sick?”
“No,” he told her.
“Then who are they?”
“The people we’re here to help.”
She looked at him, not fully understanding.
“I’ll tell everyone later. Right now we have more work to do.”
As they exited the room, the alarm started again. No lights, though, just the siren. It only lasted five seconds before cutting out. Thirty seconds later, the quick burst was repeated.
Ash and Sandra moved to the next door and entered. The room was identical to the one they’d just left. The only exception was that standing next to one of the patients was a woman in blue scrubs, checking one of the monitors.
She didn’t look up until Ash and Sandra were only a few beds away. Her expression was at first surprised and then confused.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “If you’re not medical staff, you shouldn’t be in here.”
“Step away from the bed,” Ash said.
“Excuse me?”
He raised his pistol. “Away from the bed. Now.”
“What’s going on? Who are you?”
“I’m not going to ask you again.”
They heard another five seconds of alarm.
The woman looked at the ceiling as if she could see the sound, and then at Ash, her eyes widening. Stepping away from the bed, she raised her arms. “Please, I won’t make any trouble.”
“Good,” Ash said.
Sandra grabbed the woman’s hands and zip-tied them together.
“What are you doing?” the woman asked.
“Making sure you stick to your word,” Sandra said.
“My colleague will escort you someplace where you can wait with your friends,” Ash said. “Before you go, though, I have a question. Is there a phone in the room?”
“Phone?” she asked, as if she didn’t understand the word.
“Internal. You know, room to room.”
“Um, over there. On the wall near the door.”
“And how would I go about calling security?”
Using the extension number the woman had given him, Ash called the control room. Harden answered before the first ring finished.