THE EXIT AT THE END OF THE HALL
“GO!” I SHOUTED. “Just go!”
We bolted through the archway, out of the room and into a wide, modern corridor. Workers were hurrying curiously toward the control room. Some of them were checking their phones.
We ducked into a restroom and hid in two adjoining stalls. A guy raced out from the stall next to ours, muttering under his breath. We waited until the footfalls died down, then sneaked out.
“Second left!” Cass said, eyes on the phone. “Looks like there’s an exit at the end of the hallway there.”
“I’ll scope it out first!” I sprinted ahead to the second corner. Before making the turn I stopped, back against the wall, and peered around.
Cass was right. The corridor just around the corner from us ended in a doorway, about fifty feet away. But standing in front of it were Brothers Dimitrios and Yiorgos. They were yelling in Egyptian at two hapless-looking guards.
I sprang back. “We’re busted.”
“What are they saying?” Cass whispered.
“How should I know?” I replied.
It wasn’t until then that I realized my head was buzzing. And not just because of the chase.
It was the Song of the Heptakiklos. Near us. Very near.
“Do you—?” Cass said.
I nodded. Cass peeked at our phone. Then he looked across the hall at a door on the wall across from us. A door like a bank vault, thick and ornately carved.
“Jack?” he whispered. “How much room do you have in that sack?”
He held out the phone to show me our GPS location. The room opposite us, behind the vault door, showed as a rectangle.
In that rectangle were two glowing white circles. “This person who owns the phone,” I said, “is definitely trying to tell us something.”
We walked closer. “Where’s the handle?” Cass hissed. “Vault doors are supposed to have big old-timey handles, like in the movies.”
“Ssh,” I said.
Dimitrios was still talking. I focused on a smooth black panel, where a doorknob might once have been. It glowed black and red. “It’s a reader,” I said.
“Fingerprint, like at the KI?” Cass said, his face tense. “Or maybe a retinal scan.”
“RS” was the name of the app—it meant Retinal Scan.
“Cass, you are a genius!” I said.
I snatched the phone from him, and he flinched. Both of our hands were way too sweaty. The phone slipped out, clattering to the floor.
Dimitrios’s voice stopped. We froze.
I scooped up the phone, fumbling with the controls. I pressed the control button to get the app grid. I swiped too hard, scrolling past three screens.
“Who’s there?”
Dimitrios.
I scrolled back until I found the one I was looking for. RS.
I pressed. The eye filled the screen. I could see myself reflected in it. My chest contracted.
There was something about this eye, something that seemed familiar.
Do it. Now!
“Jack, they’re coming!” Cass shouted.
I turned the phone and held the eye up to the black sensor.
Beep.