SIXTY-TWO

 

 

KEPTRA SPRINTED FOR the stairs in the parking garage. It made no difference if she used the elevator—if the power went out here, she was screwed no matter what—but she hated being caught in small spaces. The garage was open to parts of the dome, one of the design features she hated about the entire Top of the Dome structure, something she had complained about for years.

It would be so easy to access the exterior of the structure from here. There were a dozen other places just as easy to access.

Maybe that bastard had been wrong. Maybe it wasn’t just the facilitator working on something destructive inside Tycho Crater. Maybe an entire team of people worked—

Something shot past her vision, whistling as it went by. Then the entire structure rocked, and she nearly lost her footing.

She grabbed onto the wall and steadied herself, sending a message to Strom: What was that?

The dome is sectioning, he sent back. The mayor’s orders.

What did the mayor know that she didn’t know? How come that order hadn’t come to her as well?

She was about to ask when a loud boom echoed through the parking garage, followed by another, and then another. Fire at one end, suppression systems working to put it out. Then another boom and another, and suddenly she was sliding, falling downward, grabbing onto whatever she could.

A final boom resounded and she had nothing to hang onto. The world was burning, collapsing, cratering around her. Cars were sliding toward her, sliding downward, and she couldn’t reach them either.

She wrapped herself into a little ball, and felt herself bounce.