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THE RUNNERS WAITED outside the Citadel, wet and miserable, until Garr was satisfied the last of the Council members had arrived. They crept within a few meters of the door, hiding in the decorative shrubs. Garr reached up with one hand to enter the access codes.
Without warning, the door burst open.
The Runners crouched low to the ground, hearts pounding, as the imperious figure of a middle-aged woman stalked out of the building. There were a few tense moments until she exited the parking lot, and Garr tried the codes a second time.
Aubrey breathed a relieved sigh as the door hissed open. One by one, the team scuttled into the Citadel. We made it over the first hurdle. The codes worked. We’re inside.
The interior of the Citadel was shrouded in darkness, broken here and there by miniature rectangles of light. The tiny beads of luminescence outlined the doorways, blinking in random sequence—white, red, blue, green.
Aubrey recognized the pattern, and a shiver ran up her spine. Just like an active Implant.
The dark floor was polished to an obsidian sheen which reflected the door lights, diffusing their colors to a fuzzy glow. Phosphorescent trails crisscrossed the floor, outlining various pathways leading away from the entrance.
It reminded Aubrey of an enormous spider’s web, which did nothing to steady her nerves.
They waited just inside the door until their eyes adjusted. Aubrey stiffened as a puff of humid air caressed her face. Garr looked over his shoulder, his face dimly lit by the ghostly lines in the floor. He signaled to Don—go left—and led his unit in the opposite direction.
Aubrey rose to a half-crouch, following Don along one of the spidery threads of light. Connor slipped past her, scampering on silent feet to catch up to Don. He tapped the big man on the shoulder, indicating a door nearest the outer wall.
Don cracked the door open, and after a quick moment’s reconnaissance, darted up the stairs on the other side of the portal. Connor followed, then Aubrey, with Megan bringing up the rear, easing the door shut behind her.
Connor moved with confidence as he led them through a convoluted maze of hallways, pausing at last in front of a sealed door. He consulted his list of codes, and his fingers danced over the keypad surrounding the door handle.
His efforts were rewarded by a soft click, and the door swung open under his touch.
Don and Aubrey crowded in behind him, to confront a bewildering array of viewscreens. Tiny beads of light crawled across the majority, moving in intricate patterns from screen to screen. Connor glanced at them with the first genuine smile Aubrey had ever seen on his face.
“All the data from the Initiative is processed here,” he whispered, indicating the winking lights. “Any Citizen with a node can be traced within seconds. The Division uses a lot of monitoring stations, but this is the nerve center. Everything flows through here.”
Don seated himself before the largest console. “So, all we have to do is short-circuit this monstrosity, and none of the nodes can be tracked. Does that give us free access, anywhere in the Enclave?”
Connor shook his head, his earlier enthusiasm fading. “The nodes are keyed to individual Citizens, but most vehicles have been outfitted with location devices as well. The Division will still be able to track vehicles in the Enclave—they just won’t be able to tell who’s inside. But anonymous passengers in a registered vehicle would be a dead give-away. The Peace Wardens would spot it in a second.”
“Then this had better work,” Aubrey said, relieved her voice sounded calm in her ears. “We’re going to need a quick escape route from the Enclave.”
Don pulled out a packet of tools and ducked beneath the console to pry it open. After a moment, the panel popped loose, and the big man crawled in.
“It’s a good thing there’s so many the power outages. Nobody should get suspicious when we pull the plug,” he said, his voice muffled inside the console. “That should buy us enough time to escape.”
Connor knelt and squeezed in beside Don. It took less than a minute for them to find the correct circuit board. Aubrey smiled to herself when she heard their triumphant—if muted—celebration.
She crouched, but the cramped space blocked her view. Connor unfolded a schematic, referring to it as he guided Don’s strategic vandalism. At his direction, Don clipped a few wires at seemingly random locations, muddling their trail of sabotage. There was a flicker of light inside the console, and Aubrey heard their satisfied exclamations.
She climbed to her feet, anxiously scanning the multiple screens on the console. Nothing changed. She opened her mouth, about to sound the warning, when the monitoring screens froze. The myriad specks of light pulsed in unison—once, twice, three times—before fading to black.
Don backed awkwardly out of the console, rising to his knees. “Mission accomplished. We’re invisible for now—but that won’t last.” Connor flashed him a thumbs-up, and they re-installed the console’s panel.
A quartet of active viewscreens drew Aubrey’s attention to a secondary console. The four screens—arranged two-by-two in a square formation—appeared to be dedicated to exterior surveillance of the Citadel’s grounds. Aubrey watched as the images switched to a second set of viewpoints, then a third and a fourth.
“Rotating vantage points, covering the perimeter,” Aubrey muttered under her breath, grateful for Jane’s training. Her eyes widened as she realized what she was looking at.
“Getting out of here just got a little more complicated.” She managed to keep her voice down. “You’d better take a look at this, Don.”
Don scrambled to join her, seating himself before the console. Connor hovered over his shoulder, his face oddly lit by the glowing screens.
Aubrey pointed without speaking. In each camera view, a line of uniformed Peace Wardens stood at rigid attention, weapons held ready.
They kept a watchful vigil, standing in perfect formation, encircling the Citadel. None were stationed more than five meters from the outer walls.
The darkness and pouring rain did little to conceal the red glow emanating from beneath each visor.
“Trackers.” Don shook his head in disbelief. “They let us waltz right in, and then closed the gap behind us. It’s a classic strategy. We’re surrounded.”
He glanced at Aubrey, then over his shoulder at Connor. “They knew we were coming.”
Aubrey felt a constricting band tighten around her chest, and she found it difficult to breathe. She knew the symptoms.
Panic attack. Breathe, Aubs. This is no time to become the weak link.
She jumped despite herself at Connor’s startled outburst behind her. “Where’s Megan?”
The young Hoarder threw the door open and ran into the hall. Aubrey and Don followed, spreading out, searching for any sign of the missing Tracker.
Their efforts were short-lived and futile.
Megan was gone.