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One ring, then, “Commander Vintner. Good to hear from you. Please hold.”

The woman who answered immediately clicked off. The dead air lasted only seconds before there was another click.

“Vintner?” Another woman’s voice, older, sterner.

“No,” Chloe said. “This is Reni Barton.”

“Who? Where’s Vintner?”

“I’m with Dream Sky security, ma’am. Commander Vintner’s in the base assessing the damage. I volunteered to call in for him. He said to ask for Director Johnson. Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me. What the hell’s going on there?”

“We’ve been clearing the base, ma’am.”

“And? For the love of God, tell me you succeeded.”

“Yes, ma’am. Dream Sky is back under Project Eden control.”

When the director spoke again, much of the tension that had been in her voice was gone. “And why couldn’t Vintner tell me this?”

“The intruders damaged the base’s communications system so he got some people working on fixing it, then he said he had to talk to the medical director to make sure the, um, protectees weren’t disturbed. But he knew you’d be anxious for news and that’s why he sent me topside.”

“Do we know who these people were?”

“They appear to be scavengers. Most were killed in the fighting, but there are a few who were only injured. I believe the commander is planning on questioning them as soon as they come to. Hold on, ma’am.” Chloe pulled the phone away, noisily covering it with her hand. In a loud voice she said, “Okay…uh-huh…yes, I’ll be right there.” She put the phone back to her ear. “I apologize, ma’am. They need me back inside.”

“I want Vintner to call me as soon as he can.”

“I’ll let him know, Director.”

Chloe disconnected the call and turned off the phone.

“Good job,” Ash said.

NB016

C
ELESTE SLUMPED IN
her chair.

Thank God!

The call from Barton had provided the first good news since all this crap had begun. If Dream Sky was safe, then the Project was safe.

Without even realizing it, she closed her eyes and began to drift off to sleep. She was able to catch herself before she went too deep, however, and pushed out of her chair, blinking. Apparently those pills weren’t working as well as she’d thought.

She didn’t want to sleep yet. Not until she talked to Vintner. Only then would she allow herself to lie down.

She grabbed the bottle of pills off the desk, poured one out, hesitated, and then dumped out a second.

BROOKLYN

T
HE CLOUDS GREW
darker with every block they passed, making it look like snow was going to come a few hours early.

“That’s got to be it,” Wicks said, pointing at a high rise several blocks away.

The building rose twenty-two stories into the sky, and sported floor-to-ceiling windows framed in metal painted to look like it had a green patina finish. It was an exact fit of the description Kusum had gotten out of Mahajan, which gave Ash hope that the other information the kidnapped director had provided was good, too.

“Bobby, get everything from now on,” Ash said.

Bobby nodded. “Already rolling.” He had been given the task of recording the mission and had one GoPro camera mounted to the bicycle helmet he was wearing, with another attached to the front of his jacket.

They zigzagged down several streets until they reached a row of three-story brownstones one block away from the high rise.

“Fourteen twenty-one,” Chloe said, looking at a brownstone just ahead. “That’s it.”

The structure was the middle building in a series of seven.

Every Project Eden base had at least one secret entrance for use in emergencies. The one that ended inside the basement of 1421 was another little tidbit Mahajan had divulged. With this information, Caleb—back at Ward Mountain—was using their access to the Project Eden computer system to find a way of disabling the brownstone’s monitoring system so those in NB016 would be unaware of the Resistance team’s presence.

Before approaching the building, Ash got Caleb on the line. “What’s the word on the alarm system?”

“Pain in the ass,” Caleb said. “Well, I guess that’s more of a phrase.”

“Did you get it down?”

“Not exactly. I need more time. Give me thirty minutes.”

“We’re
here
.”

“At the brownstone?”

“Yeah.”

“Crap.”

“Caleb, we need this disabled now. We can’t just wait around here.”

“Okay, so, yes, I
can
disable it…”

“Great.”

“But I can’t disable it for very long.”

“What do you consider very long?”

“The most I’ve gotten so far is ninety seconds. You’d have to get into the house, open the passageway door, get everyone into it, and close the door before time’s up.”

“If that’s what we’ve got, then we’ll have to make that work.”

“Hold on. The thing is, I can’t promise you ninety seconds. The most I’ll guarantee is a minute, but even that makes me nervous.”

“Then we’ll do it in a minute.”

“Can’t you just give me a little more time?”

“Now, Caleb.”

“Fine,” Caleb said. “I need a couple minutes to set things up. I can have that, right?”

“Stop talking to me and get working.”

Ash gathered the group. “We need to do this fast. I’ll take point. Omar, you bring up the rear.”

“Yes, sir,” Omar said.

Ash scanned the street until he spotted what he wanted.

“Nova, give me a hand.” Ash jogged to the metal trashcan on the opposite sidewalk. He dumped the contents, and then he and Nova each grabbed an end and carried it back.

Caleb called two minutes later. “I guess we can give it a shot. You guys ready?”

“As we’ll ever be.”

“Okay. How do you want to do this? Ready-set-go? One-two-three?”

“I don’t care.”

“All right. Then I guess we’ll, um, go on three. Okay?”

“Fine.”

“One-two-
three
. Alarm off.”

With a nod from Ash, Nova and Sealy sent the garbage can crashing through the window next to the door. Ash followed right behind it, silently counting off seconds as he knocked bits of glass out of the way.

His feet hit the hardwood floor inside at the five-second mark.

He was in an unfurnished living room. To his right was an entryway and then the dining room. Somewhere on this floor would be the access to the basement. Near the kitchen, probably. And the kitchen would most likely be connected to the dining room.

As the others entered the house, he sprinted to the right. The kitchen was where he expected it to be but there was no door to the basement.

Ten seconds.

“Spread out! We need to find the way down!”

Footsteps pounded through the first floor as everyone searched, but seconds continued to pile on with no shouts of discovery.

Twenty.

Time was running out.

“I think I found it!” Bobby shouted from near the front of the house.

Ash ran through the central hallway and found Bobby kneeling inside the walk-in closet near the front door.

Thirty.

“I don’t see a door,” Ash said.

“I think this back wall moves,” Bobby said. “I can feel a draft at the seam but I can’t find the latch.”

“Let me check,” Ash said as he pushed past Bobby.

He ran his hand over the wall, feeling for a hidden button or lever.

Where are you, dammit?

He grabbed the coatrack rod and twisted it. He felt a solid click but nothing happened.

Forty.

He thought for a moment and then looked back. “Everyone in, quick!”

There was more than enough room inside for all of them, giving Ash confidence his hunch was right.

Chloe entered last.

“Close the door,” he told her.

Fifty.

As she shut it, the closet plunged into darkness. Ash turned the rod again. This time, when it clicked into place, the back wall slid to the side, revealing a stairway.

“Down, down, down,” he yelled as he sprinted toward the basement.

The door to the auxiliary tunnel stood at the other end of the empty room. As Ash ran up to it, he knew their promised minute had passed and hoped Caleb had been able to extend the time.

He punched the code Mahajan had provided into the pad next to the door. There was a slight pause when he finished before the lock disengaged and the door swung open.

He let the others in first, then entered, and pulled the door shut.

He called Caleb. “Well?”

“Kicked us out at eighty-two.”

That was dangerously close to the time Ash had counted. “Was it enough?”

“With six seconds to spare.”

NB016

W
AS IT POSSIBLE?
Celeste wondered.
Were things finally calming down?

She was reluctant to let herself believe that, but several bases were reporting they were no longer under attack. Granted, some facilities had not checked in yet, but she was unwilling to add them to the lost list at this point.

And, of course, the best news was that Dream Sky appeared to be intact and in the Project’s hands again.

Perhaps they had weathered the storm.

Her hand began to shake. She moved it onto her lap and held it down with the other. Her system was just a bit out of whack, that’s all. She’d be fine once things were fully back to normal and she could get some rest.

Which, she told herself, would be anytime now.

__________

T
HE TUNNEL LED
to a subbasement below the high rise housing NB016.

It was a ten-foot-square concrete box with only two ways in or out—the tunnel they had just used and the elevator on the opposite wall. Before entering, Ash and those who had an electronic disrupter turned it on, disabling any cameras.

The Project, Mahajan had said, controlled the top seven floors of the twenty-two-story building. The most important floor was at the very top. It was not only the nerve center of the base but also of the Project itself, and was where Ash and his team would find Director Johnson. By design, though, the elevator in front of them would take them only up to sixteen, the Project’s lowest level.

There was no button to call the elevator, just a thumbprint scanner. Caleb had been unable to insert Ash’s print into the Project’s system, but he was able to change Wicks’s ID from
DECEASED
to
ACTIVE
.

A white strip of light passed down the screen as soon as Wicks put his thumb on the pad. Barely a second passed before they heard the soft hum of a motor, and then the sound of the elevator nearing.

__________

S
ECURITY CONTROL WAS
located on floor eighteen. Like its counterparts at most Project bases, the dominant feature was a wall of monitors.

Glendon and Evra, both level-three security officers, sat in the chairs, watching the screens. The two main monitors rotated through feeds from cameras located throughout the interior of the base. Other, less important feeds filled smaller monitors off to either side.

The only thing unusual they’d seen that morning was the heightened activity up on twenty-two. They were curious as to what was up, but knew they’d likely never be told and would have to rely on rumors.

Evra noted a change in one of the monitors he was responsible for, and frowned. The image had turned into static. “Camera down,” he said.

Glendon glanced over. “Which one?”

“Subbasement elevator.”

Evra turned to his computer and used it to remotely reboot the camera, but the static remained. He checked the elevator’s electrical system, thinking there might be a short. Instead, he found the elevator in use.

“Did someone get clearance to go down there?” he asked.

Glendon shook his head. “Nothing came through me.”

“Well, either it’s moving on its own or someone’s in it.”

Glendon wheeled his chair over so he could see Evra’s monitor. The display showed the car nearing the top of its run.

Evra brought up the feed from the sixteenth-floor camera trained on the elevator door. But as the door began to open, the feed suddenly filled with the same static as the camera inside the elevator.

Evra leaned forward. “What the hell?”

“Play it back,” Glendon said. “Slow.”

Evra reversed the footage to just before it cut out, and then played it at quarter speed. As the doors split, a black circle about the size of a half dollar flipped through the opening. The moment it cleared the door, the feed stopped.

Glendon reached across the counter but before he could slam his palm down on the alarm, more cameras on sixteen began winking out.

__________

T
HE RESISTANCE TEAM
was already out of the elevator and moving down the hall when the alarm began to wail.

It was expected, so no one even flinched when the noise started.

Caleb had reported that the facility’s plans showed five ways up from sixteen—a set of elevators on the opposite side of the floor, and stairwells in each of the four corners.

The alarm eliminated the already unlikely option of using the elevators. The team hurried toward the nearest stairwell. The alarm also brought people out of rooms and into the hall. When several of them noticed Ash’s team heading their way, their initial confusion turned to panic. Most ran in the other direction, while others pressed against the walls as if doing so would make them disappear.

Ash and the others granted their wish and rushed by them with barely a glance. Upon reaching the stairway door, Ash threw it open and stood to the side while Omar and Chloe made a visual check.

“Clear,” Chloe said.

“Clear,” Omar agreed.

__________

B
WAAMP. BWAAMP. BWAAMP.

Celeste sprang from her chair. “Why is that going off? Who set that off?”

“I’m not sure,” Dalton said, troubled. “Checking.”