Now that Clay was no longer playing tourist and was officially sneaking around, Leira and Brett were eager to help with “tactical ops,” as they called it.
First goal: the guard tower. If Cass was still imprisoned there, he would free her. If she’d already escaped, Leira and Brett said they would help him “pick up the scent of her trail.” Clay was skeptical—if Cass was hiding from the Midnight Sun, how was he supposed to find her?—but he didn’t say so aloud.
Clay told his friends that the tower was out past the lab building, at least a half mile deeper into the crater.
“Why don’t you just steal one of the Land Rovers,” Leira suggested. “I can talk you through hot-wiring it.…”
“Terrible idea!” said Brett. “There’s a big difference between him being caught snooping around on foot and him being caught stealing a car.”
“I thought he was supposed to be a rebel,” Leira protested.
“A rebel, yeah. Not a thief!”
“Anyway, there’s no point,” said Clay. “I don’t know how to drive.”
“You don’t?” Leira sounded shocked.
“I’m not even fourteen for another week!”
“So? I learned when I was nine.”
Brett snorted. “Yeah, and look where that got you.”
As Brett and Leira squabbled in his ear, Clay began jogging down the road to the laboratory—or at least what he thought was the road to the laboratory. Luckily, the moon was bright, and he had little trouble seeing, even if he wasn’t exactly certain where he was going.
After about five minutes, he reached the bridge that he remembered crossing; now he was definitely going the right way. As he mentally congratulated himself, he heard a strange whirring noise.
“What was that?” asked Leira.
“I don’t know—shh!” Clay whispered.
Then he spotted a figure buzzing toward him from around the bend. It was one of the park security guards on some sort of motorized three-wheeled standing scooter.
With no time to second-guess himself, Clay dove into a nearby shrub, scratching himself badly. He hoped the scratch wouldn’t raise questions later.
The guard wheeled down the road slowly, giving everything around Clay a long, hard look. He must have heard something when Clay launched himself into the landscaping. Admittedly, it hadn’t been the smoothest hideaway strategy.
But after looking closely at the shrubs, the guard sniffed and leaned forward, spinning on.
Clay waited until all he could hear was the buzzing of insects before stepping back onto the road.
“Well? What was it?” asked Leira.
Whispering, Clay told his friends what had happened.
“Nice work,” said Leira approvingly. “It isn’t a proper operation until you’ve hidden in the bushes and gotten scratched ’til you bleed.”
“Sure, but you’d better hope the Midnight Sun didn’t plant any poison ivy,” said Brett.
Not bothering to respond, Clay headed across the bridge.
Eventually, he reached the guard tower. At the top, sitting on its tall, rickety scaffolding, was a square structure that looked like a little house, with windows on all sides. Light flickered in the windows, as if there were a television playing behind them. Below, attached to the scaffolding, was the kind of huge round spotlight you might expect to see in a prison yard; it was dark now, but when it was lit, it must have been bright enough to be seen for miles.