St. George half-expected the room to be filled with bubbling chemicals and a Tesla coil. It was mostly computers, including a huge screen he knew Stealth would never admit to wanting. A few brains floated in small tanks near diagrams and cross sections of their structure.
Five exes were fastened down on tilted gurneys, each pushed up against the back wall. The row of almost-vertical figures reminded him of a carnival ride, one of the ones that spun people around. Four of them had nylon straps across their foreheads and were gagged with what looked like pieces of a broom stick. The fifth’s head was free and it swiveled back and forth, snapping its teeth at the air.
Sorensen sat in the middle of the lab on a tall stool. He looked over his shoulder at the hero. “It’s open,” he said. “I haven’t locked it in months.”
“Where’s Zzzap?”
“Somewhere safe.”
St. George soared across the room and lifted the doctor by his collar. “No games,” he said. Hot smoke streamed out of his nostrils and mouth. “You’re going to take me to him now and you’re going to release him.”
“He’s much safer where he is,” said Sorensen. “They can’t get to him in there.”
“I said no games.”
“You can put me down,” said the doctor. “I won’t run. If it’s what you want, I’ll take you to your friend. But he is safer where he is.”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
The doctor tried to shrug, but hanging in St. George’s hand he just swung in his coat. “I’ll need to get the blue flash drive from my desk.”
“What for?”
“It’s a code key. Mr. Burke’s held behind an interwoven trio of Faraday cages. It’s what’s keeps him there. The key shuts them off.”
“That’s it?”
“There’s a matching key one of the soldiers on duty will have. In theory we need both. I’m sure you could destroy all three cages if you needed to, though.”
St. George set the older man down on the ground. The doctor’s shoes clacked on the linoleum, a softer noise than the clicking teeth. “You’re awfully helpful all of a sudden.”
Sorensen shrugged again and adjusted his glasses. Then he tried to flatten the hundreds of wrinkles in his clothes. “It doesn’t matter anymore. None of it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s all over now. With Colonel Shelly dead there’s going to be confusion. They’ve got no reason to keep pretending. Especially with you here.”
“Wait,” said the hero. “Back up. How did Shelly die? What happened?”
“Too much pressure on his mind,” said Sorensen. “That’s one of the bad things out here. These are good people. Good, brave people. There’s just too much on their minds.”
“Pressure on their minds? Wait a minute. Is this... Does this have something to do with the Nest?”
The doctor shook his head. “No, of course not,” he said with a sigh. “The Nest doesn’t even work.”
St. George looked at the older man and followed his eyes to the oversized diagram on the big screen. He recognized it from Stealth’s sketch the day before. The neural stimulator.
“That was the deal, you see,” Sorensen said. “I made a deal with the dead. I wouldn’t say anything if any of you came here. If they found you and you came here, I couldn’t say anything. Especially to her.”
St. George tilted his head. “Her who?”
“Her. Doctor Morris. That was the deal. The dead would follow commands, they’d act just like the Nest was working. But I couldn’t warn the one who’d killed him.”
“What are you talking ab—oh, shit.”
Across the room, the fifth ex had stopped clicking its teeth together. It stared at St. George. It grinned.
*
Danielle was stuck across the road from her workshop, hiding by the Tomb. Just as she’d reached the building a jeep had pulled up. Now two soldiers were searching inside her shop. Two more waited outside and did a weak job of looking around. They were some of the new recruit soldiers. One of them was seventeen, tops. The other looked closer to fifty.
After what felt like ages the searchers trotted out and shook their heads. They gave a last glance around the corners of the building and the sergeant typed something into the keypad. All four of them piled back into the jeep and roared off to another part of the base.
In the same situation, she figured Stealth would wait at least three minutes before stepping into the open. Danielle waited twice that. And then two more minutes just to be safe, even though she desperately wanted to get inside.
There was no sign of other soldiers. She couldn’t even hear another jeep.
She scampered across the street, bent low even though she was in plain sight and she knew it couldn’t hide her. Her cap slipped and she yanked it off, letting her hair spill down. Once she was by her workshop she tried to squeeze into one of the shrinking shadows as the morning sun got higher in the sky.