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“We’ll never reach the storage room,” Rayen told Tony and Gabby. “We’ve got to get out of here another way.”
She thought Hannah was gone, but the girl turned around and ran back a few steps to shout at them over the intercom voice. “Take the stairs at the end to the next floor. Go to the door that says 111-B. The whole floor is for supplies and storage. Security will be looking for you on the street level above that floor.”
Tony shouted, “Got it, now go.”
Hannah ran to the elevator, and they took off in the opposite direction.
They made it up the stairs and raced down a hall that was silent other than the muffled sound of sirens from above, plus Tony’s name being shouted below us.
At 111-B, Tony opened the door.
Rayen was glad it hadn’t been locked. Glad she didn’t have to depend on her power this time. With all the adrenaline shooting through her right now, she might blow up the whole room. Once the three of them were inside, Tony closed the door and locked it by pushing a button on the knob.
The room was deep and had rows of wide shelves built of steel to support the big cans and boxes of food stacked on them. She looked at the top of the closest shelf, which stopped two feet down from the twelve-foot ceiling.
Gabby was red-faced and panting from the run.
Rayen pulled the backpack off Gabby’s shoulders and slipped her arms through the straps. “This thing feels heavy enough to be a dead body.”
“It has everything we need. At least I hope it does,” Gabby said as her body rose a foot off the floor and stayed there. It was a sign of how much he’d been through in a few days that Tony didn’t spare Gabby’s levitation a second glance.
He was too busy looking around. “We need a place to set up the laptop.”
Rayen pointed above her head at the top of the shelves. They were four feet deep. “We can go up there.”
Tony gazed up at where she indicated. “Looks strong enough and wide enough for us to fit, but we’ll have to lay down.”
When Gabby stretched her neck to see what they were talking about, the movement caused her to float a little higher. “That’s a great place to hide the laptop, but unless you two can levitate, I’m the only one who might reach it if I keep floating up.”
Rayen started searching around her. “Let’s find something we can stack up for climbing.” She ran through the room, hunting between shelves, and found exactly what they needed. A folding ladder. Lifting it, she hurried back to them.
“Attagirl, Xena.” Tony took the ladder and set it up next to the shelves. “I’ll hold this while you two climb up there.”
She told Gabby, “Just grab my shirt.”
When Rayen had a grip, she climbed until she could move close enough for Gabby to crawl onto the surface. Then she had to stand on the very top of the ladder to hoist herself up to their hiding spot.
Tony took down two one-gallon cans of tomato sauce from the middle shelf and placed them next to the foot of the ladder as if someone had been interrupted while retrieving supplies.
Smart guy. Rayen had the feeling this wasn’t the first time Tony had been forced to evade someone.
He pushed himself up onto the top of the shelf and stretched out along one side of her. Gabby hovered on her other side. They were positioned the same way they’d always been when traveling through the portal.
That didn’t stop Rayen from having a moment of anxiety that it might not work this time. Gabby pulled out their portal laptop and that lightened the backpack Rayen carried only a little. Tony took it from her and opened the lid against the wall they faced.
Rayen glanced over her shoulder to check the door, but she couldn’t see it from this location. Someone would have to climb all the way up there to find the laptop.
Tony powered it up.
Three circles of gold, silver, and bronze formed on the screen, moving in and out of each other. It was time to go.
Tony slapped his hand down. “Oh, man.”
“What?” Gabby and I shouted together.
“We don’t have the extra laptop to take with us and give the TecKnati in trade for Callan.” Tony sounded sick.
Gabby said, “We have that computer.”
“Where’d you get it?” Tony asked.
“Hey,” Rayen said. “We have a computer. We have parts. We have to go. Now.”
Tony eyed them with suspicion. “How did you two know which parts to get?”
Gabby wiggled her fingers. “Rayen and I used touch.”
“For the love of St. Christopher. We are so screwed.”
“Listen, Jersey Jerk,” Gabby growled.
The door jangled like someone was trying to open it.
They froze. Rayen pushed her palm at the monitor and her hand passed right through. Gabby grabbed that arm and Tony latched onto her other one.
The doorknob rattled again, a key scraped in a lock, then the door squealed open as her arm was sucked into the screen and her body stretched thin as a rubber band.
