CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

THE VOICE RECEDED. Seconds later the three twitchers joined me in what looked like a decommissioned tube, except the walls of the tunnel were entirely too old to have been a part of the current mag-lev system or even the first generation one built during the fifties. Whoever had built Oleg’s lab had built the tunnel. My best guess put its age at around a hundred and fifty years—a remarkable accomplishment considering the technology of the period.

As a unit the twitchers nodded, indicating I should keep moving. For a few minutes we wound our way through the tunnels, the chill air causing me to wonder where I’d find my next set of clothing. Our progress seemed intentionally disorientating, a result of the tunnel’s design. By the time we stopped at a dead-end junction, I estimated we hadn’t gone farther than half a mile as the crow flies.

The quiet of the tunnels, combined with the new ease I felt with my background mind, had given me respite to think. My burning skin had felt real, yet I remained whole, minus my clothing and patches of body hair that wouldn’t be missed. Marisol had warned me only half of what I encountered would be physical.

The twitchers behind me were real enough. But the voice only existed in my head. Maybe they were using fragments of my memory and my own insecurities against me. In the video, Adel could have been dead already, like Haru. Evie hadn’t even been in the shot.

One of the twitchers shoved past me while the other two shielded me from the first. The floor trembled, small bits of rock and cement falling from the ceiling above. Moments later the grating of a heavy rock drug across another preceded a gust of wind. The lead twitcher stepped back, forcing the rest of us to retreat several steps. Without sound he placed a solid rock core, several feet thick, gently on the tunnel floor.

Through the gaping hole, a blue-white light flooded the space around me. The two labs had been connected.