13

LABORATORY

"YOU ARE SURE this is it?" Chandre said, unable to keep the skepticism out of her voice. "It does not look right, to be a complex like you are suggesting..." Her frown deepened. "...The security protocols are almost nonexistent. Apart from that fence..."

Varlan barely looked up.

"You are missing things, sister," he murmured. "There is more here than it appears at first glance..."

Faintly, Chandre could see in his eyes that Varlan was mostly in the Barrier, likely coordinating the final surveillance with the three seers across from them. They all stood on the same side of the low concrete wall bordering the hills around the substation nestled in a green, tree-filled valley. The wall itself likely marked the edges of the government property.

Their real barrier was the high, metal fence located a few hundred yards below. It stood at least twenty feet in height and surrounded the actual lot and grounds of the substation itself. Inside that heavier fence, an additional row of lower fences surrounded the parking lots and buildings, but they didn't have security codes or an electrified field surrounding them. They were topped with razor wire, however, and locked with heavy chains.

"Organics?" she said.

He shook his head, still staring down at the fence. "Look closer."

Despite Varlan's use of the Barrier, Chandre chose to remain outside of it. She spoke aloud to him as a result, if only to minimize the number of Barrier presences projected by their small team in the immediate vicinity. She did not know for sure if someone was watching, but under the circumstances, it seemed wise to take precautions.

Anyway, Chandre wasn't a rank 11 infiltrator.

Chances were, if anyone was listening, it wouldn't be Varlan they overheard.

"I appreciate your silence, sister," Varlan said quietly, answering her thoughts. "...it is most helpful. And the complex is designed to look this way," he added. "We are supposed to think it is nothing but a electrical power substation, not something the military is protecting. We are not supposed to see the secondary structures at all..."

He gave her a thin smile, that whisper of elsewhere still visible in his dark eyes.

"Were you expecting a sign, sister...?" he joked in that flat voice. "One that reads 'Human-killing virus to be found here,' perhaps?"

Chandre's frown deepened, but she didn't answer.

When Varlan handed her one of his organic rifles, she took it, examining the touch controls to make sure she was familiar with all of them.

It bothered her when she realized she wasn't.

Again, before she could ask, Varlan sent her the gun's schematics in a single, packed thought. She accepted the gift with a nod of thanks, but couldn't quite return the Rook's smile.

He'd been friendly to her, more or less, once Eddard got him to agree to bring all of them along on his job. The fact that Chandre wasn't interested in a cut of his contract probably had at least something to do with his cheerfulness, and his overall willingness to include her in his plans. She'd increased his team by two mid-ranked infiltrators, both of whom were cleared and licensed for full firearms use...and completely free of charge.

But there was no possible way to trust his motives. He was too skilled of an infiltrator for her to be able to trust much of anything he said, really.

She studied the scar on his face, recognizing the mark.

He was one of the ones who survived the camps run by the Germans. About halfway through the second world war, after collars had been developed and produced at high enough numbers, the Nazis began rounding up seers, not just killing them wholesale. They began by collecting them for training and use on the battlefield, but their interest soon shifted to include medical experiments, as well. Once they started housing them in Auschwitz and the other large camps, they also began cutting their faces.

As a result, a lot of seers had those diagonal scars.

The marks served as brands, so there would be no mistaking who was seer and who was not. Of course, for the few humans with similar facial scars, this could have had unfortunate results...but for the most part, the system had been effective in identifying the seers out of the humans, and a lot faster than the collars did alone. The Nazis designed a different set of ident tattoos for seers, as well...but the facial scars were immediate, impossible to hide.

Chandre knew Garensche had such a scar. He told her once that an SS dagger bearing the words Blood and Honor had carved it across his face. He got it while standing in a line of other seer prisoners, waiting to be assessed for use in medical tests.

Terian had branded Cass in such a way, too, only as a human.

Chandre had never told Cass about the significance of the mark, but she had heard via intelligence reports that Terian lost many of his family in the camps. She often wondered if the mark had been deliberate...to brand her like cattle, as had been done to so many of the Second Race. She kept these thoughts in the back of her mind, however, as she watched Varlan signal to one of his seers to keep an eye on the road.

"Five minutes," he told her, his voice lower than a whisper. "The human says they usually change shifts on the quarter hour, and that the guards arrive twenty minutes before that..."

Chandre nodded, not speaking.

By the human, she knew he meant Eddard.

Eddard, who had designed this approach, to save them time. Who had provided them with the employee schedules for the site, and a frontal approach strategy that shaved weeks off the plan initially drafted by Varlan and his people.

Varlan, like most infiltrators, was conservative. He'd wanted to infiltrate the structure first...and if possible, find a way in down below, that bypassed primary security systems altogether, particularly anything involving imaging or DNA scans.

Of course, that approach would have taken months of surveillance at the site, and probably required a few death to replace current employees with some of Varlan's people.

Eddard claimed none of that was necessary. Somehow, he convinced Varlan of the same, although Chandre still didn't know how precisely.

Looking over the gun she held and comparing it to the schematics Varlan sent, Chandre couldn't help but remember Dehgoies' scathing remarks about the antiquated equipment in use by the Seven...and even that used by the Adhipan. Varlan's toys seemed to put proof to Revik's words, in that everything she'd seen him use so far had been pretty much state of the art. Although she understood the funding differences between the Rooks and the adherents of Code, she couldn't help conceding Dehgoies' point. Really, how could they expect to win at anything if they weren't even competing at the level of basic equipment? She understood why Revik would have found it necessary to secure other means of funding the Rebellion...other than selling books on the seer religion and relying on donations from philanthropic humans, that is.

It always came back to the same problem...Code.

In their purest form, the Sark Codes eschewed violence of any kind...particularly that against what the Code considered 'less-evolved' beings. The basic tenets of Code instructed that seers could not use their powers in anything but a defensive manner, either in defense of themselves or of the race as a whole.

Those definitions had often been stretched, of course, under seer leaders less peace-loving than Vash. The Rooks themselves believed they were working in defense of the race...even for its very survival. The direct followers of the Dreng were, on the whole, even more dogmatic about that point than most of those who had lived under the Pyramid.

Chandre's own feelings on how she interpreted Code had gone through a number of changes of late, as well. In terms of the Dreng and the Rooks versus the Seven, she felt significantly less strongly about the tactics than she used to. In fact, all she really cared about anymore was what lights each aligned with behind the Barrier.

She wondered how many in Balidor's army might even feel the same way.

Dehgoies' light had always confused her the most. Perhaps because of Allie's influence...or perhaps simply because of something pertaining to his intermediary status. Supposedly there were those among the Seven who'd entertained similarly conflicted feelings about Galaith, even though he'd been the head of the Rooks' network.

In any case, the loss of Dehgoies to the Dreng was a significant one indeed.

Even beyond her own feelings about him, the voice of the Sword was one that many seers listened to...as much if not more than the Bridge herself, even under normal circumstances. It didn't help that Allie had been raised human, and thus was often viewed as brainwashed even by seers loyal to her. That Allie espoused the same basic peaceful doctrine of Vash didn't help, either. The seers had grown tired of hearing those words in the past decade. Nowadays, such sentiments actually angered a lot of seers, particularly after the destruction of Seertown.

The successes Dehgoies claimed by following a more offensive approach worsened the rift, even in his short time of leading the rebels.

Varlan nudged her arm, pulling her mind back to the present.

It was almost time.

He sent her another packed set of schematics, this one of the layout below the substation itself. She'd already received those of course, the night before, along with the rest of them. Eddard had supplied much of that intel, as well. Even so, she nodded to Varlan once he'd sent it, refocusing her attention on the task at hand, which had been his real intent.

They were in California, a few hours inland from San Francisco.

Chandre couldn't remember the last time she'd been in California. It was strange to think that the Bridge had grown up only a few miles from where she now stood.

She looked down the oak and scrub-covered hill to the fenced clearing housing the substation. She looked for the details she had missed, what Varlan had alluded to when he said she was missing things. She had to assume, from his words, that the clues as to the station's real purpose were subtle, but present, even for someone of her own infiltration rank.

It wasn't long before she began to realize what he'd meant.

Most of her attention up until then had centered on the largest of the structures behind the fence, a two-storied complex of green buildings. Electrical towers and transformers with criss-crossing wires filled most of the air behind the tallest of the green-painted office buildings, but they'd already decided the night before, while looking over the schematics, that most of that area probably constituted a real substation, either for the complex below ground, or for cover.

The largest of the green buildings had a high wall in front made of glass, a security terminal for entry and what looked like bullet-proof, organic doors. The front windows were bordered by landscaped trees and even some parking spaces for higher-paid workers. Only three cars stood there now...a black SUV, a European sports car, and what looked like an antique American car that had been refurbished to run electric. Not the sort of cars one would normally expect to see in front of a substation complex for run of the mill engineers and low-level techs. Maybe the occasional project manager or higher up making the rounds would drive a car like that, but it struck Chandre as sort of unlikely.

Of course, there was the detail of the cars in general. Eddard walked them through that part the night before, when he'd shared the surveillance photos his team at Mi5 had collected. The main, covered lot filled most of the area behind the acre or so of dirt housing rows of transformer towers. Eddard's Mi5 team already knew from x-ray images that over half the parking slots were taken during weekdays, despite the fact that most substations were almost fully automated.

On weekends, like now, the parking lot still contained over a dozen cars. Yet none of the people driving those cars walked in or out of the organic doors to the main building.

Varlan's team had been in place since dawn, and they'd only seen one person, period, and that had been the gardener watering the landscaped trees and bushes rimming the main office complex.

High, razor-wire barriers stood around the entire structure, including the two-story building, the parking lots and a low equipment shed on a lower service road. A checkpoint let cars in and out...automatically, it appeared...but still, Chandre had to admit it was strange. Not exactly high-grade security, but more than was usual for a structure of this kind.

Further, where did the people go? Were those cars in the lot simply company cars? Or did some of the techs actually sleep somewhere in the complex?

Chandre had already picked up the hum of current from the fence, as well.

"Look closer, sister. That's not just an electrified fence," Varlan murmured beside her, sliding the gun up to his shoulder on its jointed harness. He gave her a level look. "How many electrical substations do you know of that have OBE fields protecting them?"

Chandre didn't answer, but she extended her light briefly to confirm his words.

Once she had, she clicked out, frowning.

He was right. She'd missed that, too.

OBE, or organic binary electrical fields, were generally only found around military bases...and often not even around those. They had been designed and implemented by Black Arrow Industries, the same group that collected most of the big ticket defense contracts involving sophisticated seer tech. They designed and manufactured most of the organic tech contracted for by the government...and not only the government of the United States.

"You still think it's underground?" she said, just as soft.

He gestured a 'yes' in seer. In the same instant, she felt him ping the seers on the other side to let them know to be ready.

He'd felt something. Likely in the security station.

Chandre glanced down the line of the cement wall, wondering again what possessed her to come along on this little jaunt, even though she hadn't been able to clear it with Balidor. She managed to catch Maygar's gaze from where he stood beside two of Varlan's people. Eddard was with that group, too, standing on Maygar's other side and showing the other female infiltrator something he had on a portable monitor. It had been agreed to split into two teams, with Varlan on one and Eddard on the other, since they were the only two who seemed to have detailed information about the existence and layout of the facility.

Even though he was human, Eddard provided not only the basic plan, but also the majority of the input into organizing this little outing. He convinced Varlan, with not a small amount of money, that it would be better if they all did it together, and not only because they all shared essentially the same goals.

He also convinced them to do it sooner rather than later. According to intelligence he had from his superiors in England, the disease would be deployed again soon...although whether as another demonstration or for real this time, no one knew.

Eddard was convinced that he could help them on the inside, as well. His only price had been to collect at least a sample of the antiviral for the disease, as well as a sample of the disease itself. He said the antidote would be replicated back in England once he returned, mostly as insurance, in the event that another supply of the virus existed elsewhere.

Why he'd been so insistent that Chan and Maygar come, she could only guess. She'd tried to read him to determine if he was working for the Seven, too, but there were blocks on his light that felt like military. Even Varlan admitted to her that Eddard was well shielded...which likely meant he hadn't been able to fully penetrate those shields, either.

In any case, Varlan seemed content to be paid.

The whole arrangement made Chan nervous...and not only because a frontal assault on the compound was a lot riskier for all of them.

She also still had her doubts about who hired Varlan in the first place...much less what their true motives were in wanting to destroy a disease that only seemed to kill humans. Eddard called Varlan's client 'Shadow,' but that name could mean anything, since it was obviously fake.

Moreover, Varlan was a Rook. Chandre could feel it in his light as tangibly as she could feel it on any of her brothers or sisters who had worked under Galaith. The Dreng seethed through his light...so did traces of the Pyramid. In fact, it felt like such a part of him she had trouble distinguishing Varlan's own aleimi as a separate vibration. Varlan may not have followed Terian after Galaith's demise, but he had not lost any of his allegiance to the cause...nor to the Dreng.

The idea of conducting a joint op with one like him made her nervous.

The realization that she could disappear out here and no one would know where she had gone, or who she had gone with, made her nervous as well.

Varlan gave her a sideways smile, but Chandre brushed it off, unapologetic.

"Do not pretend such sentiments surprise you," was all she said.

"I do not," he said, his voice low. "But I do wonder at the loyalty you feel towards the Sword, in spite of this aversion..."

"I don't know what you mean," she said stiffly.

"Of course you do." Varlan smiled. "He is, after all, my master, too."

Chandre didn't answer. She knew Varlan didn't work for the rebels, not directly anyway. So he must be religious then. That, and he clearly viewed the Sword as the new Head of the Rooks network down on Earth.

"Who else did you imagine held that spot?" Varlan asked, his amusement plain once more.

"Salinse," Chandre said at once.

Varlan gave her a dismissive look, but didn't comment.

"So you really think Eddard's plan will work?" Chandre said. "With only six of us...and a human...you think we have enough to succeed with a frontal assault?"

"He claims he can shoot straight," Varlan mused, smiling at her again.

"You know what I mean, Varlan."

"I do," he conceded. "We planned this op initially with only four infiltrators, sister Chandre...and no human Mi5 agent. It was not a frontal assault, true, but I could find no fault with the plan the worm laid out...and it shaves months off my operating time." He glanced up from where he'd been surveying the charged fence, smiling at her faintly once more. "...Besides, blind or no, a worm who can shoot is still an asset. You have worked with humans yourself over the years, have you not, sister...?"

Chandre heard the faint dig behind his words. Her face hardened, but she acknowledged his comment with a gesture, holding the harnessed rifle close to her body.

Varlan hunkered down, once more in a waiting posture.

Chandre knew he was monitoring time from the Barrier.

Since she had gone over the plans with all of them the night before, she knew also that they were now waiting for the shift change for the outside security guards to occur. She still couldn't see the guard of course; supposedly the booth lived just inside that green-glassed structure that stood between them and the substation transformers. The building, despite its relatively tall windows, was as bland and featureless as a military barracks building, and looked like it hadn't been painted in at least a decade. It also, despite the expensive organic doors and the cars parked in front, seemed to be entirely uninhabited...and more than a little shabby. Browning trees dotted the entrances, all the way down to a long and even more featureless shed in the lower driveway, where trash barrels stood in rows next to a yellow dumpster and a hill of rusted scrap metal.

In all the time they'd waited, not a single person had walked between those buildings or out into the substation itself.

Chandre was watching the main doors to the green building, checking her own watch periodically, when a dark blue pick up truck grew visible in the distance, bumping down the long service road to the fenced main gate. The road was paved...barely...but the truck's massive tires still kicked up a thin cloud of dust when the truck swerved, making the final turn before the substation's main driveway. Slowing as it reached the perimeter gate, the truck came to a full stop beside a stand-alone terminal located directly outside the line of the OBE.

"Do you have him?" she asked Varlan.

He didn't answer her at first.

Looking away from Varlan, Chandre watched the man in the truck. He only sat there for a minute, engine idling. Just when she was beginning to think the pause was too obvious, that they'd know something was wrong on the surveillance feeds, she saw the truck driver lean over to roll down his window. The truck was old enough that he had to crank the window down by hand...but like the antique parked in front of the glass doors, it also looked refurbished. She wondered about the obsession with antique cars, and then it clicked.

Non-organic components. The military often used older models in their civilian-based fleets, to keep them from being hijacked. The station probably logged every kilometer they traveled.

"Do you have him, Varlan?" she asked again, feeling her pulse rise a little.

Varlan gestured an affirmative. His eyes clicked back into focus, even as the gates opened in front of the truck's grill.

Neither of them moved or spoke as the driver threw the vehicle into gear, and drove through the OBE. Chandre found herself watching Varlan's face. By the time the driver was steering the truck down to the lower lot, where the long storage shed lived, the tautness in the older infiltrator's eyes had relaxed. Glancing up, he nodded to her, and she felt herself relax a little, too...but not much.

The truck parked next to a number of other less-expensive vehicles, just to the left of the long shed. The security guard got out a few seconds later, holding his uniform jacket over one arm and what looked like a lunchbox in his other hand. Even from where they crouched, Chandre could see his gun belt and shoulder harness. He began walking leisurely back towards the shed's main entrance, sipping from a paper coffee cup.

"Well armed for a rent a cop," she commented.

Varlan didn't answer, but continued to focus on the guard.

In order to get through the OBE and the secure Barrier construct, they needed someone on the inside. Rather than doing the usual and getting their own person hired with clearance, Eddard proposed they wait until the shift change and establish a tap with the new security guard on duty. It was risky, of course...something they couldn't have even attempted without Varlan with them. A lower-ranked infiltrator couldn't have pulled it off without being seen by whoever held the lab's construct.

But the main risk for that part had been overcome already. Varlan had gotten to the guard and established the link before they entered the construct. Given the short window they had, that initial tap had been the difference between success and failure. Anomalies in a seer's or a human's light wouldn't be noticed as easily if they entered the construct that way. Once inside, however, any changes in an individual's aleimi...especially a human, especially a human working in a high-grade security capacity...would show up like a flare in an otherwise predictably gray backdrop.

"You're sure you have him?" she repeated, rearranging her hands on the gun.

"Yes."

"They didn't notice you in the entrance scan?"

"No."

"You are sure, Varlan?"

Giving her an amused look, he clicked softly. Then he glanced down the wall, making a series of hand gestures to the other seers. He looked up at Chandre again once he had, his eyes serious. "Down," he said, pointing to the lower level of the fence, the part by the long shed and surrounded by trees. "I read him while I arranged the tap. He can open the OBE for up to fifteen second intervals. Any of the guards can...to run perimeter checks...but only within certain intervals. We have five minutes before the next. There's an access tunnel there..."

He pointed to a gate she could just see in the trees below the long shed.

Following the direction of his fingers, Chandre nodded.

When he began making his way soundlessly past the gap in the wall and through the trees, she followed, moving as quietly as she could. Behind her, she saw the other seers following. As they did, something else occurred to her.

They would all be entering at a single point now. Riskier if they got caught, but it would make it easier to communicate without using the Barrier. Once they were inside the construct, there would all have to maintain Barrier silence. Even as she thought it, she saw Varlan hand-signal to one of his people, a female seer with another of those Nazi scars across her face.

Chandre caught the gist of his signal and stared at him in surprise.

"We need one on the outside," he said softly. "We can spare her now. Maygar will take her place, bringing up the rear."

Hesitating, Chandre nodded, watching as the female disappeared into the trees.

Seconds later, they reached the edge of the OBE by the outer fence.

Chandre's eyes scanned upwards, taking in the dense metal mesh fence, and the top covered in glass shards and razor wire. If anything went wrong, they weren't getting back out that way, even without the OBE in place to fry them when they tried to get through.

Rather than speak, Varlan used sign language.

Two teams, he signaled to the remaining six of them. Three and three. Don't risk the fifteen second gap...go straight through. We reconvene after the second fence...

Chandre saw nods and gestures of acknowledgement.

You're with me, he signaled to Chandre.

Swallowing, she was about to answer, when he grabbed her arm.

"Now," he murmured, pushing her forward towards the fence.

Chandre felt herself tense, instinctively reacting to the current she could feel from the OBE...but she didn't fight him. The current dropped dramatically as she reached the edge of the trees, and disappeared just before she and Varlan and a third seer broke cover. She crossed the remaining yards and felt something in her chest relax.

She'd seen what OBE fields could do to a person...

Before she could complete the thought, they were through.

Within a few seconds, she stood on the other side of both fences as well. She crouched in the trees with Varlan and the other seer, looking back at the remaining three, which included Maygar, Eddard, and a hulking giant of a seer that Chandre had heard called Rex. He, too, had the Nazi scar on his face. It hadn't really occurred to Chandre until then, but all of them did, with the exception of the tall, thin seer who'd come through the OBE with her and Varlan. He appeared to be a few centuries younger than the others and had unusual coloring for a seer, in that he looked like a human of African descent, both from the color of his skin and from the texture of his hair. Chandre knew that seers like him went for a cool couple of million Euros on the black market. They were virtually impossible to visually detect as seers, so high ranked ones could cost as much as twenty-million once they were trained. It was the rarest ethnic coloring seers could be born with...even rarer than the blond hair and blue-eyed variety, which only showed up in something like one in a million as well.

Chandre watched the human security guard, who stood behind them, as if looking casually out into the trees while he enjoyed his morning coffee. His blank-eyed stare remained peaceful as he worked the controls of a standing terminal just outside the second fence. He acted like none of them were even there, like he was just testing to make sure the mechanism was working.

All six of them waited for the next interval, five minutes after the first. Then, abruptly, Varlan gestured urgently to the other three still outside the fence.

Now! he gestured. Fifteen seconds! Move it!

They didn't wait. Within five of those seconds, the three of them bolted out of cover and across the line of the switched off OBE. They joined them after the second fence, and then the six of them were moving, staying low behind the cover of trees overlooking the long shed.

Varlan turned to Chandre once more, using hand signals.

The entrance is through the shed...

Surprised, Chandre only nodded. So the green building was cover, too.

The security guard, still moving casually and whistling now, walked back to the long, featureless shed in front of them. Instead of going through the main entrance however, he walked past it to the other side. Hanging a left, he followed a cement path that ran between the shed and a high, cylinder-block wall. The seers followed cautiously, but at the edge of the path, once they were shielded by the wall, Varlan raised a hand, indicating for all of them to stop.

The guard walked directly to a featureless segment of the shed's wall. Chandre watched as he laid his hand on the bare-looking metal. There must have been a disguised organic panel there, because seconds later, the guard entered another elaborate code into a terminal that revealed itself from behind a panel that slid open in the dirty gray surface.

A few more seconds after that, a larger door smoothly retreated sideways into the wall.

There was another pause while the guard went inside.

He's disengaging the image recorders... Varlan signaled. Be ready to move. We can't keep them off for more than ten seconds without it being noticed in the control room...

A few seconds later, the infiltrator motioned sharply for them to head for the door.

Following Varlan's hand gestures, they darted from cover to the opening in the shed wall. Chandre, since she was just behind Varlan, was one of the first to make it through the new door. Inside was a surprisingly small, squarish room with high walls.

Every segment of those walls reflected a pale, organic green. Chandre barely glanced at the mirror-like tiles, though, focusing more on remaining silent while the other seers joined them one by one inside the shed walls. She watched the security guard re-engage the outside imaging the instant Maygar entered behind Eddard. It wasn't until they were all there and the outer door was closing that Chandre looked around at where she stood, and realized she knew exactly what the small room was for. Once it hit her, her brow cleared.

Whatever else might happen to her here, they were definitely in the right place.

She was standing in a decontamination chamber.

IT TOOK ABOUT twenty minutes for Varlan, Rex, Chandre, Maygar, Eddard, the human security guard and the dark-skinned seer to make it through all of the decontamination protocols.

Chandre emerged on the other side feeling a bit light-headed from the two chemical baths she'd been forced to endure, as well as the high oxygen content of the air on the other side of the chamber walls. Now she found herself staring at a long, low-ceilinged space. It took her another few seconds to realize that it was larger than the shed had been. The decontamination chamber had also been an elevator...while it sprayed them off, it also brought them underground.

Now, from what Eddard told them the night before, it was really a race with time. Someone would notice that the camera had been turned off outside the lab at the next feed scan...which should be in about one hour, if Eddard's intel was sound. But long before that happened, someone would likely notice that six unauthorized persons had just gone through decontamination protocols. No matter what else happened, they couldn't go back out the front door...but supposedly, Eddard's plan had that end covered, too.

Once they entered the secure portion of the lab, their presence would be picked up by construct security. They could try to delay it, using Varlan's tap to the security guard wherever possible, but regardless, they had to be in and out before anyone could show up to stop them on the ground. But that should give them the time they needed to get through the secure doors below ground, which was where the virus was located. The security protocols would focus on locking them inside, which should also delay any team making it downstairs to intercept them.

Even as Chandre was thinking all of this, Varlan was gesturing in a swift arc, signaling them to move for the next set of doors. She found she was jittering somewhat on her heels as they waited for the guard to open the next set of secure doors for yet another elevator.

This floor's mostly storage, Varlan told them with his hands. According to the worm, labs are below. Along with residences for several of the scientists. DNA and retinal scans to get through the last set of doors. We'll have to blow those in any case...but we need to get there before the construct seers know we're here...

The security guard was disengaging the camera for the elevator. Chandre watched him, her mind whirling around the next set of steps they would be taking to destroy the lab...

When out of nowhere...she felt it.

Before she could make sense of the feeling, Varlan turned to the others.

Construct alarm, he gestured sharply.

"What?" Maygar murmured aloud. He signed, ...How is that possible?

Varlan gestured for all of them to remain silent.

Focus, Varlan signed then. Nothing's changed. They'll try to pinpoint our location first. We have four minutes before the elevators lock down. Mark time, he added, looking at Chandre, who immediately looked at her watch. And keep Barrier silence until I say so... Turning, he gave Eddard a hard look. ...You'd better be right about this, human...

Eddard looked paler than usual, but he nodded, his eyes decisive.

"Four minutes," he confirmed, his voice lower than a whisper.

Chandre jumped a little. Not many humans understood seer sign language.

She truly hoped he was as confident as he sounded.

The human security guard had the cameras turned off by the time the elevator doors opened. They all got inside the car and the doors closed. By then, Chandre's eyes were locked on her watch face. She noticed Varlan and two of the others looking at time pieces as well.

Three minutes, she signaled.

The elevator kept descending.

Two minutes, she signaled a minute later.

Weapons ready, Varlan gestured. He pulled his rifle down on its harness, so the muzzle faced the elevator doors. Four of them, waiting for us. I've got a tap on their leader. Be ready to fire when the doors open...I'll do what I can to delay them...

He looked at Chandre. I need you to monitor the construct, but wait until we're out of the elevator...if they pinpoint us now they could just shut us down. Once we're out, coordinate the shield with Rex and Stanley... He pointed at the two seers he meant, then his eyes shifted to meet Maygar's. ...I want you looking for additional security while we locate the merchandise...and the way out. Bring Eddard with you, and make sure you find it before we finish setting the charges...

But Eddard shook his head, adamant. I need to go with you, he signed. I need to get samples of the disease...and its antidote. We'll need that...all of us. Your client, too...

Varlan frowned.

He thought about the human's words, but for scarcely a heartbeat.

Fine. He looked at Maygar. You have any trouble finding our exit, I want to know within three minutes. Three...do you hear me? Any more than that and I'll kill you myself...

Maygar scowled, but nodded once, seer-fashion.

Varlan's eyes shifted to the African-looking seer, who Chandre now realized must be Stanley. Take over the tap on this worm... he signed, indicating the human security guard.

...And all of you, pull down your guns! Now!

The rest of them yanked rifles down on their harnesses, aiming for the elevator doors. It hit Chandre in the same set of breaths that this wasn't going to be bloodless. They were already off the parameters for the job. They should have gotten control of the lower security gates before the broader construct had been alerted. Now they would have to shoot their way through, and hope like hell that Eddard's exit wasn't on the main security grid.

Or worse, rigged with another OBE field.

Chandre hadn't been in a hot op since the bombing of Seertown. Now she found her hands shaking, even as she aimed the rifle at the elevator doors. She blinked sweat out of her eyes despite the air conditioning in the elevator, squinting past the yellow security light as it continued to rotate overhead, disorienting her eyes. She considered aiming with her aleimi instead, then remembered Varlan's instructions to stay out of the Barrier and felt her shaking worsen as it occurred to her she could have gotten all of them killed with that slip.

What the hell was the matter with her? Her infiltrator training seemed to have gone out the window. It hit her suddenly that she was having what amounted to a PTSD reaction. It couldn't be from Seertown...she'd mostly been helping rescue survivors with the Adhipan. She hadn't been involved with any of the on the ground action during the bombing in Delhi, either...in fact, she'd been two hotels over, looking for Revik and Allie, when the main explosion took place.

It hit her then. She hadn't seen any real action since that fiasco on the cruise ship with Allie.

That fiasco that killed nine seers directly under her command.

Just then, the elevator car landed with a jerk and a shudder on the bottom floor. After what seemed like an interminable pause, the doors slowly slid slowly apart.

As soon as they had, the sound of alarms filled the small space of the elevator. Chandre winced against the noise, looking for it with her eyes...when a voice shouted out, forcing her gaze down again.

Five guards stood there, armed with organic weapons.

"Don't move!" the man in front yelled. He held up a hand. "Hold your fire!" he said to the guards standing behind him. "We need them alive..."

The guards behind him looked startled by this, but they hesitated, fingers poised over triggers as they followed orders.

The pause wasn't long, but it was enough.

Varlan immediately opened fire.

Chandre followed suit before her brain caught up with her hands, and she heard the echoing bang as Stanley and Rex and Maygar did the same. Even Eddard was firing when Varlan finally held up a hand, signaling for them to stop.

At another gesture from him, they all exited the elevator, even as the alarm began to beep on Chandre's wrist. Their four minutes were up.

Maygar leapt out through the closing elevator doors, barely squeezing through before he landed on the other side, looking winded.

The five guards who'd been waiting for them, including their leader, who Varlan had pushed into delaying their fire...were dead.

"Charges," Varlan hissed at once, walking for the security checkpoint. Chandre stared at the thick organic walls of the station. On the other side, she could see men and women in lab coats, shouting to one another. Obviously they'd seen the shooting, either on the interior security feeds or through the transparent panes or both. In any case, there was no mistaking the panic on their faces as they backed away from the reinforced organic doors.

"Wait!" Eddard said, as Varlan began to lay charges over the doors' locks. "They might not have shut it down yet! Use the guards!"

Chandre found herself moving almost before her conscious mind had understood his words. She picked up the leader of the guards by the arms, and started to drag him towards the security console, when someone else picked up his other arm to help her. Chandre looked over and found the seer, Rex, gripping most of the human's weight.

They dragged the guard to the console and stuck his finger on the blood prick for the DNA scanner, then held his eyes over the retinal scanner for the console.

"Is it working?" Varlan shouted from the door.

They'd all given up on being silent, maybe because of the alarms.

Chandre adjusted the man's face over the retinal scanner, and then she saw the light pass over his open eye.

"I need an answer, people," Varlan said. "We're out of time..."

He trailed when the scanner turned green, right before all four sets of locks slid out from between the organic door and the thick frame.

The seer Stanley laughed aloud, clapping Eddard on the back.

Varlan didn't wait. Wedging his body against the door, he ushered the others of them through quickly. Chandre and Rex dropped the human unceremoniously, and ran for the opening. Chandre reached it last, and Varlan nearly shoved her through before following behind her.

They didn't have time to wait and see the door close behind them.

Chandre found herself in another long, narrow and low-ceilinged room filled mainly with narrow lab tables that stretched the length of the two longest walls. Staring around at the machines and the equipment, she found herself studying the white, terrified-looking faces that lined the shadowed wall near the back, as far away from the main door as they could get. Looking to the sides she saw more of those thick, organic doors, these ones leading to pressurized vaults of some kind...or perhaps freezer units. She didn't want to know if they kept test specimens in there as well.

"Disperse!" Varlan said. "You know your jobs....Chandre, Stanley, Rex...with me."

Chandre exchanged a fleeting look with Maygar, who smiled at her grimly, winking at her in a way she found oddly cheering. Somehow, having him in this with her made her feel better, if only for a few seconds. He was a little shit in some ways, sure...but she realized suddenly that he was right, too. He was her friend, in spite of everything. Even if she never could quite forgive him for what he'd done to Allie, he was still her friend.

She was still thinking this when he turned on his heel, jogging for the corner of the room that was supposed to house the entryway to the air duct system that would allow them passage into the coolant exchange...and finally the gray water runoff tunnels that should afford them a way out of the complex altogether via the main sewer.

She didn't know at the time, that it was the last time they would see each other...for a very long time, at least.