Текст книги "The Variables"

The whole time they were there, Darla regained some of her dashed hopefulness. Perhaps not everyone’s spirit was broken. Some goodness did survive.

Like they promised, Ray and Jillian agreed to make the trip to Nebraska without payment. Whether propelled by kindness or some other motivation, Darla didn’t know, but they did it without complaint.

They didn’t have to.

Along the way, Darla, Dean, and Ainsley could have acquired a new vehicle and ventured out on their own. But they couldn’t deny that it was comforting to have a chauffeur. Ray and Jillian switched off driving while the trio slept and relaxed in the back. Though their time together was brief, it provided a needed respite.

Darla looked at the Brixton sign and nodded.

Brixton, Nebraska. It didn’t seem like anything was here, but she wanted to reserve her fear until she knew for sure.

“You want us to take you further in?” Jillian asked.

“No, ma’am,” Dean answered. “We got it from here.”

Ray stuck his hand through the window and Darla grabbed on tight, shaking it with a strong grip. “We wish you luck and hope you find your son,” he said. He waited, paused. She had given him bits and pieces of their story, but she hadn’t told them that Ethan’s father was connected to the bioterrorism group or that the guards who stole her child were anything more than the Sweepers they had come to fear. It was a small white lie, but it felt right—the duo didn’t want to drive them into the lion’s den, but they did anyway. They deserved some tidbit to take back to their group.

Darla knew their generosity was a sacrifice she could never repay.

“Thank you,” she answered. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough...”

Ray let go of her hand and batted the comment away. “We’re good here. And you know where we are...if you need a place to go, our doors are open.”

“That means a lot,” Darla said as she sat on the edge of the truck and then hopped down to the dusty ground below. She extended her left hand to Ainsley and helped her down; Dean followed after. “Once I have Teddy, I don’t know where we’ll go. Maybe you’ll see us soon?”

“We’d like that,” Jillian said. “You’re good people.”

Darla looked at the ground and kicked the dust. She looked up and squinted. “Sometimes,” she replied and smiled. “Drive safe?”

Ray nodded and saluted, and without any prolonged heart-warming goodbyes, the truck did a u-turn and disappeared back down the dusty road, kicking up a film of dirt around them, the truck’s tires crunching along until it was out of sight.

From the sign, they walked in silence. Darla had her gun and nothing else. She held it in her wounded hand, keeping her finger poised on the trigger in anticipation of spotting someone worthy of shooting at any second. It was nearly half a mile of walking before they even reached a building.

Darla was the first one to spot the car with Wyoming plates sitting at the start of Main Street. Its passenger side door was wide open, and she jogged over to inspect it. The interior was littered with wrappers and empty water bottles. In the back seat there was a small bag—Darla hoisted it into the passenger side and unzipped it; she tossed out a few pieces of clothing, but there was nothing identifiable in either the car or the bag. Darla crawled back out with her hands on her hips, assessing the town with one long sweep.

Dean paused in front of a bar called Carson’s Place.

“Whatcha got?” he called to Darla.

“Nothing,” Darla shouted back.

“And we’re sure this is the place?” Ainsley asked. A heavy wind rushed down the street, throwing dust into miniature cyclones.

“This is the place,” Darla said with authority. “These were the coordinates. This is the city. Ethan and I talked about it all the time—” she trailed off, remembering that Teddy was not the only thing they had lost that day. Ainsley looked at the ground and dug her toe into the dirt road, and then she looked up into the sky. It was a deliberate sort of quiet that blanketed the street.

“This is hardly the type of place that is housing some sort of vast terrorist cell,” Ainsley muttered. “We’re missing something.” She peered through the darkened windows of the bar, wandered down the street, and kicked small tumbleweeds underfoot as she walked. Stopping, she paused and spun around. “Where’d Dean go?” she asked, scanning each area, rotating her head back and forth and looking perplexed.

Darla stopped and looked around. “Dean!” she called. “Dean!” she called louder when he didn’t reply to their shouts.

Ainsley started walking out of the main area, past the church and the school. The rolling Sand Hills of Nebraska spread out all around them. Behind the church, there was a small knoll, and atop it, she could see Dean’s figure standing, looking out and beyond at something out of sight.

“Up there!” Ainsley called back to Darla and she took off toward Dean, who remained unmoving on the hill. As she approached from behind, she laughed. “You disappear for like one minute and I think we all think you’ve been abducted or shot,” she said.

“I had to take a leak,” Dean replied without turning.

“Oh.” Ainsley froze mid-step. She turned. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Dean said. “I’m done. No...come here. You should see this.”

She turned around and could see Darla following her route up the small hill, past an American Sycamore tree with branches full of richly green leaves. Following Dean’s command, Ainsley perched herself beside Dean and looked down into a valley below. She gasped, bringing her hand up over her mouth. Silently, Ainsley turned to him, her eyes wide, and Dean smiled.

Darla approached and slid up next to Ainsley; she put her hand above her eyes to shield the sun and peered outward. She whistled loud and low.

Stretched beneath them were rows upon rows of solar panels, like little metal worshippers all lifting their bodies up to their sun god. And sitting off to the side, angled against the hills so the flat plains were in front of it, was a medium-sized passenger airplane sitting on a short black tar runway. A staircase was pushed up to its side and the cabin door was open. The three of them looked at the plane and the panels and then at each other.

“Well,” Darla said with an authoritative nod. “That settles that. We found the right place.”

It was Ainsley who spotted it first. As they wound their way down to inspect the plane, they found Ainsley peering through a thick pane of glass imbedded in the ground. She tapped on the glass with her foot, and then jumped up and down to test its strength. She turned to the group and called them to her.

Darla laid herself across the skylight and cupped her hands to see, and Ainsley crouched down beside her on her haunches. They half expected someone to peer back up at them, but the space below was unoccupied and still.

“A kitchenette. And some chairs. Books.” Darla sat up. “It’s like a little apartment.”

“They’re underground,” Ainsley said. “Like Hobbits.”

“Don’t Hobbits live in trees?” Dean asked.

Ainsley just stared at him and blinked.

“There must be a door somewhere. Come on,” Darla said and she went off wandering back toward the town, staring at the ground as she went, leaving everyone else in her wake. Ainsley jogged to catch up: pumping her arms and letting her curly hair fly.

“Wait!” shouted Dean. “What about the plane?”

“I don’t care about the plane,” Darla called back without turning. “I want to find the people who are getting on that plane.” She held her gun out from her body and scanned the buildings and kept a watchful eye on every darkened corner and behind every tree.

“What are we looking for?” he called to Darla. She rolled her eyes at him in annoyance.

“Just look for anything,” she shouted back.

“Anything is a tall order!” he called back. But he listened to her and began to wander and inspect the ground beneath them and every tree as though it held the secret entrance to the terrorists’ underground lair.

“Darla?” Dean called after a few minutes.

She turned.

Dean sighed, dropped his arms, and sped up to her. “This doesn’t feel right. And it doesn’t feel safe,” he said in a whisper.

“No, it’s not safe. They’re here. We found them. And we have the element of surprise. This town? It is deserted. The people we want are down below.”

“How do we even know that?” Dean asked. A look of concern crossed over his face and he put his hand out and touched Darla lightly on her forearm. “We have one gun. And we know they are armed...”

She hadn’t wanted him to bring the truth to her hunt. She felt the energy drain out of her like she was a slowly deflating balloon. Darla lifted her head to the sky and tapped her gun against her leg. “We can sit back and we can wait for someone to show themselves...which could be minutes, hours, days. Or we can do something. I just spent time trapped in someone’s basement without the ability to save my boy. That wasn’t me, Dean. That was a shadow of me. I’m here now…I’m where I need to be…I’m where Teddy is. Don’t tell me I can’t do anything about it.”

He pointed back over the hill to where the plane was hidden. “That plane is wide open. We won’t wait days. And—” he hesitated, “it’s not just Teddy we’re looking for. Can’t you see that? Please, Darla, I’m really asking you: can you see?” He stepped into her line of vision and forced her to look at him. Darla’s chin quivered and she blinked.

“I can’t wait,” Darla said. “But you don’t have to come with me.”

“You’re no good to Teddy dead, Darla.”

“I’m no good to him up here, either. My son is down below and that’s where I’m going.”

From behind them, they heard the sound of feet rushing toward them. Ainsley had popped her head into a church on the hill and now she rushed out, and carried herself straight up to Dean and Darla. She paused and took in deep gulps of air.

“Bones,” she said, out of breath. “They’ve been dead a long time...way before the virus. Completely deteriorated.”

They all paused and took a collective breath and let that information sink in.

“I’m thinking there has to be a hidden staircase in a building. Easier to hide. Come on, let’s check each place together, no more splitting up.” Darla readied her gun and marched forward. “One end to the other. Come on, troops.”

The first building was a library. Its door was wide open and it drifted back and forth in the wind. They walked inside and froze, each of them noticing in turn that the entire back wall was gone and exposed. In its place were the thick metal doors to an elevator. Dean looked at Darla and Darla couldn’t help but smile as she stalked forward.

“Lucky us,” she said.

“It’s about time,” Ainsley added.

Darla looked at the elevator doors and pondered their next move. She put her ear to the door and listened, puzzled, and then without hesitation she pushed the button to the side. There were no telling clanks and rumblings of a machine coming to life, and Darla pushed the button again. Then she put her ear to the doors again and listened intently.

“I think I hear it coming. But it’s far away...must be a long way down,” she said. She took a step back and motioned for Dean to join her, and assumed a leveled stance, her gun raised.

Ainsley hid out of sight behind a row of non-fiction books, filed with care under a laminated sign boasting their Dewey Decimal System call numbers. Removing some books so she could see, she rested her head against the bookshelf and watched. She held her breath.

After a torturous five minutes, the doors to the elevator opened to an empty box, with metal railings. Not the enclosed walls of a traditional elevator, but more like one about to lead them down to the depths of coal mine. A gray light beamed down into the box from the side railing. It blinked twice, but sustained its glow.

“No way,” Dean said shaking his head. “That thing looks like it’s about to take me into the pit of hell.”

Darla scanned the box and swung her gun from one corner to the other. “Come on,” she nodded toward the elevator. “Let’s see where this takes us.” She looked at the button on the side: there was only one choice. Taking a deep breath, ignoring the pit in her stomach, Darla’s finger was lingering above the round circle. “Come on,” she called back toward her friends, but they were motionless, hesitant. The air around her smelled like dirt and rust.

“You could be walking into an ambush down there,” Dean said. “Darla...don’t...”

Ainsley whimpered. “I don’t know...it’s so dark. I’m done with the dark. No more dark.”

With a deep breath, Darla took the barrel of her gun and pushed it into the button. Dean and Ainsley watched her with their eyes wide, and their mouths formed into circles of worry and fear. The elevator doors began to close, eclipsing the library and the world above, and steeping Darla into darkness.

From outside she heard Dean swear and he pushed the button in a vain attempt to stop her. Then she jumped back as Dean’s outstretched hand pushed its way into the closing elevator doors. He wrestled them open, but the elevator did not stop its slow descent. Darla looked up, through the topless metal box, as she traveled downward, Dean’s face growing smaller. And without warning, he swung his body down into the blackness of the hole and dropped. He crashed into Darla and hit her to the floor; he landed on his ankle and crumpled into a heap. Dean yelped in pain.

“You could’ve killed us both,” Darla said to him, angry. The light in the corner the elevator illuminated Dean’s face, and she saw that he was in pain. He winced as he tried to push himself to the side while cradling his foot in his hands. “Are you okay?” she asked.

He nodded.

From above them they could hear Ainsley’s panicked voice calling to them, but her small shrieks became smaller and traveled further away. The light from above disappeared entirely, and it was getting colder.

“Will she be okay there by herself?” Dean asked.

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you dropped fifteen feet into a moving elevator,” Darla replied. “Can you stand?” she asked him.

“Yup,” he replied and he allowed himself to be helped up. He leaned against Darla’s shoulder.

“You didn’t have to come with me,” Darla said, the elevator bounced further down, and made no movement to stop anytime soon.

“I’m a coward,” he replied.

Darla looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “A shocking admission,” she replied with a grin.

“But,” he continued, eyeing her, “I wasn’t going to let you do this by yourself.”

Her smile faded and she turned to face Dean. “Thank you,” she said.

“Thank you.”

She was dismissive. “I’m scared,” she added after a beat.

“I’d be worried if you weren’t.”

The lift slowed, the gears screeched, and then the whole thing came to a stop. Nothing happened. They stared forward at a shiny wall. Darla took a step forward and pushed on the wall and it shifted under her touch and slid forward. Light flooded their metal container, and Darla pushed the door open more, and then finally all the way.

Extending beyond them was a long hallway. It was well lit, but empty. They moved out of the elevator with caution and began to traverse the stretch of space before them.

“Where are we?” Dean asked in a whisper.

Darla shook her head and placed a finger to her lips.

They continued to walk, cognizant of their footsteps against the tiled floor, their eyes trained forward on the exit in front of them. This hall was empty, but there was no indication of what they would find behind the next closed door. They turned the knob when they reached the end and to their surprise saw the metal doors of a second elevator. They pushed the button and held their breath.

The doors opened and they stepped inside. Dozens of shiny buttons lined the panel but a hand scanner beeped angrily when they attempted to press one, spitting back an error message: Unrecognized user.

They stood there confused and shaken. This was the only way out of their current floor—which contained the elevator to the surface—and without a code, or a registered hand swipe, their journey would be over before it had begun. Before they had time to assess the best way to navigate their roadblock, they heard a small peal, and the doors closed automatically. They started to move down.

Darla swore and pushed her body against the side, obscuring her body from view. Dean followed suit on the other side, tucking himself into the corner.

Down they traveled. And when it stopped, and the doors opened, they held their breath and waited.

A large man in a uniform walked steadily on to the elevator with them. He spotted Darla first and went for his gun, but Dean punched him in the jaw with a well-placed blow and the man reeled backward and stumbled to the floor. Dazed, he took a swipe at Darla, but she held the gun to the center of his forehead and leaned down so he could feel her breath against his face.

The doors closed. Dean reached in and unhooked the gun and the holster, and left the man without a weapon. The man’s hand went to his other pocket, but Darla stepped on his arm. She shoved her foot into the ground and dug her heel into his flesh. He cried out.

“See what he was going for,” Darla ordered and Dean reached down and pulled out a walkie-talkie. She tilted her head, “Oh, I see. Calling for back-up?”

The man scoffed. “You won’t get ten feet off of this elevator,” he spat. Then he scanned the faces of Dean and Darla closely. “Who are you?” he asked, his eyes locking into Darla’s. “You’re not Copia residents. Where the hell did you come from?”

“Copia?” Darla scoffed. “That’s what this place is called?”

The man eyed the gun and tired to jerk his hand upward, but Darla’s foot was firm and she pushed harder, until he fell backward to the ground. “You don’t know what you walked into,” he said weakly. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let me go, and then you’ll quietly disappear back up toward the surface. That’s my present for you today…and you have no idea what it’s worth.”

“Oh? You’ll just let us walk out of here? Like it’s no big deal?” Darla dropped down over him and pushed her gun harder into his forehead. “A ploy made by a man who has clearly lost the upper hand,” she added. “I’m looking for some people and maybe you can help me find them.”

“You won’t succeed,” the man said again. “It doesn’t matter if I take you where you want to go or not...you have thirty minutes to get out of here or you’re going to die. And you can take me with you. But this won’t end well. I’m more confident in your failure than anything else right now.”

“Why don’t you humor me,” Darla continued. “Maybe we can start with a name you might know. I’m looking for Ethan King.”

The man laughed and shook his head. “If it’s Ethan you’re after then you’re going to have to shoot me.”

“Why?” Darla asked.

“Ethan’s long gone, lady.”

“He’s gone from Copia?” Dean asked this time, leaning forward. He still held the man’s gun in front of him and the walkie-talkie to his side.

The guy smiled. “Yeah. No Copia for him.”

“Then what about the boy they brought here? The child? Do you know anything about him?” Darla gave his forehead a small tap with her gun. And the man stared at it like it was a fly buzzing around his head.

“You’re after the boy?” He shook his head. “You’re too late, guys. Their ship has sailed. And you should get out of here while you still can.”

“No,” Dean replied and he stepped over and crouched down. “There’s one more. What about Gr—”

The walkie-talkie crackled in Dean’s hand and he looked down at it. A voice called through the box.

“Attention Guard Command Three. Please finish up your sweep and return to the Center for operation King’s Box. I repeat finish up your sweep and report to the lab to be equipped for operation King’s Box.”

“Guard Command Three,” Darla repeated. “That you?”

The man nodded curtly. “Private Ryley at your service, apparently.”

“King’s Box?” Dean held the walkie out. “What’s that?”

Darla interjected before he could answer, “I want to see where Teddy stayed. I want to see...I need to see that he’s not here. Swipe your hand and take me there. Now.”

“Look—”

“Do it,” Darla snapped. She released her foot from his arm and dragged him over to the corner; she placed the gun against the back of his head and then nudged him with her knee. “Do it,” she said again, quieter and more intense.

Without another word, the man swiped his hand and entered a floor number when prompted.

“How do I know you’re not just taking us to a floor to be ambushed?” she asked. “Get in position, Dean. Raise the weapon.” Dean stood front and center, shoving the walkie-talkie into his pants and aiming the guard’s gun out from his body, holding it with both hands.

The guy shook his head. “You don’t,” he answered. “But you’re the one who didn’t walk away when I gave you the chance. So whatever happens now is all on you.”

He took them to a floor that opened up to several hallways. Each hallway was marked as a Pod by labels above the doors. With a gun pushed into his back, Ryley opened up one of the pod doors and led them down to the King apartment. The door was wide open; the remnants of that life remained scattered along the floor: clothes that had been left behind, an abandoned shirt draped over a sofa, scattered pieces of a puzzle. Darla poked at the shirt and noticed it was streaked with dark brown bloodstains. She dropped it back where she found it.

Next, she walked into one of the bedrooms. The beds had been stripped and the room was bare. She stood for several minutes looking around, and then she turned back to the man.

“Where did they go?” she asked, her voice shaking. “Where did all these people go?”

“Away,” he said. The man looked at the guns raised on him. He kept his hands behind his back.

“Where?” she asked.

“Bitch, can’t you say please?”

She stormed over and without hesitation hit him across the head with her gun. He flinched and then straightened up. A trickle of blood formed at his brow line and he let it drip without wiping it away.

“Please,” Darla spat.

Ryley snorted and rolled his eyes. “To the Islands,” he replied slowly. “I can tell you everything...I can tell you everything I know...but you still won’t find them. Security was relaxed today because we are getting ready to leave this place.” He glanced at the clock still ticking on the small apartment’s microwave oven. “Twenty minutes.”

“What happens in twenty minutes?” Dean asked.

Ryley made a clicking sound. “The end,” he said.

“Where are the Islands?” Darla asked, redirecting the conversation back to Teddy.

“No,” Ryley said simply. She raised her gun again, but he just shook his head. “Kill me. I’m not telling you that.”

“But that’s where my child is? On the Islands?”

“Your child?” Ryley raised his eyebrows and closed his eyes. “Well, doesn’t that just add a new dimension,” he mumbled under his breath.

“What does that mean?” Darla asked. She took a step closer. “What do you know about my boy—”

The walkie-talkie crackled again. A female voice came on this time, “We are missing Private Ryley. Private Ryley, we are ten minutes away from needing you at the starting point for our operation. Please report to the lab.” Then walkie-talkie clicked off. Then it clicked on. “This is Blair,” the voice added.

“Jeez,” the man said, rolling his eyes. He looked up, “You heard her. If I don’t show, they’re going to come looking for me.”

“This place is huge,” Dean said. “Why will they look for you here?”

Private Ryley lunged for Dean’s gun, but Dean stepped back in time and Ryley stumbled forward, landing on the carpet. Darla landed a soft kick to his side; he began to cough. He swore at them and kicked his legs.

“You’ll die here,” he said between gasps. “There’s no way out.”

“Where is everyone else?” Dean asked.

“Up,” was all he replied.

“Is there an elevator override?”

He nodded. “I have keys,” he said. Darla kicked him in the ribs again. She felt inside his jacket pocket and tossed out a key ring with six shiny silver keys.

“Tell me what’s happening. What do you mean we’re going to die here? What’s happening?” Darla yelled and she held the gun to him.

“You’re the type of filth we were sworn to keep out,” Ryley said monotonously. “You don’t deserve to live. And if you somehow make it out of here alive, then you won’t make it anywhere near that boy. Or the Kings. Do you hear me?”

“Private Ryley,” the woman’s voice said again on the walkie. “We don’t want to continue without you, but—”

There was a loud beeping, like a fire drill. It filled the apartment. The lights flickered. The woman’s voice on the other end of the walkie-talkie ceased to broadcast. She had been cut-off midsentence. Darla and Dean looked up, startled by the loud noise.

“All Copia residents please report to The Center for briefing. All Copia residents please report to The Center for a housing briefing.”

“It’s time,” Ryley said. “You’re dead now.” He scrambled up on his feet and attacked Darla, pushed her straight over on to the floor, his hands wrapped around her middle. Darla kept her gun out of reach and attempted to kick him, but her feet missed. Dean looked at them and called out to Darla, but there was no easy shot, they were just a blur of bodies on the ground. He set the walkie-talkie down on the couch and then rushed over to where Darla was losing the fight. With his left hand he tried to yank the man off of Darla, but Ryley was too strong. He had pinned down her arm and he was grasping for the gun. Darla gritted her teeth, veins pulsed in her head, and she screamed.

Noticing her bandages, Ryley took her injured hand and crushed it into the floor, banging her wrist and her hand with methodical maliciousness. She shrieked. Then he stopped slamming her hand and he dug his fingers into her wound and blood seeped through the gauze and down her arm. Darla writhed in pain; her hair fell loose from its ponytail and covered her face, long strands caught in her mouth. Darla’s grip loosened on the gun and she lost control and dropped it to the floor where Ryley was quick to snatch it up. He brought the gun up to her temple without hesitation.

“Sorry,” he said, but his tone was fully victorious.

A blast echoed.

Ryley’s body jerked and went limp and fell down onto Darla. She screamed and pushed him off of her, and his body rolled to the carpet. Blood poured out of the wound in the back of his head, creating a pool underneath him. Darla looked down and realized her clothes were covered in speckles of blood. Her hands were covered in blood. She let out a shaky cry and scrambled backward.

Above them, the siren still beeped and beeped and beeped.

Dean stood frozen. His hand still holding the gun where Ryley’s head used to be.

“Oh, Jesus,” Darla said. “Oh...oh...oh...”

“There was no other way,” Dean whispered. He spun to Darla. “There was no other way.” His eyes were wide and wild.

She nodded. “Yeah. No other way. He was going...to kill me...”

“I killed him,” he said.

“Yeah.” She looked away and wiped her hands on her pants. Ryley’s blood smeared across her palms. “Dean, there was no other way. One more second and I would be dead. You did what you had to do...”

“I killed him,” Dean said again and he dropped the gun to the floor and sunk to the carpet, looking at the man’s lifeless body, the blood still spreading outward across the industrial carpet.

“Let’s go,” Darla said and she took back her gun from Ryley’s hand. It was then she noticed she was shaking. She tried to calm herself, but she couldn’t. “Let’s just get out of here.”

“Back up to the surface?” Dean asked.

Darla nodded. “Something bad is going to happen here. Let’s just go. We know the way. Grab his keys and let’s go.”

Reaching down, Dean grabbed the keys. He took the radio, and they started back out down the hall—the incessant beep as the background music to their escape. When they reached the hallway, they opened the door and stumbled forward to the elevators. They pushed the button and waited. It arrived without fanfare.

“Hurry, hurry,” Dean said.

The elevator stopped. The doors opened. It took Dean a second to realize that they had not traveled to the floor they had wanted; they had stopped early. Dean pushed the button again and jiggled Ryley’s override keys, but the elevator didn’t budge. He swore and kicked the side, but still it didn’t move.

“Come on,” Darla said and she tugged Dean’s arm and pulled him off the elevator. They rushed out on to the new floor. It looked exactly like the floor they had just come from, like a carnival fun maze. Grabbing a knob, they ran into a new hallway, and it was also identical to the one below. She stepped backward and spun.

There was a second elevator. She pushed the button, but nothing happened.

“Do they know we’re here? Did they stop the elevators?” Dean asked.

“Let’s hide until we know,” Darla commanded and she raced back down the hallway. Slowing down their pace until they realized that the hallway was a dead-end. Darla turned to walk back toward the elevator.

“What the hell is this place?” Dean called, out of breath.

Darla slid to the floor and tucked her knees up tight.

The radio crackled and Dean jumped.

A man’s voice came on this time. “Blair, do you copy?”

“I’m here,” the woman said.

“We have activity in a Clearance Level 1 area.”

The girl they called Blair got back on the radio. “Could it be Private Ryley?”

“Could be. I just wanted you to know. Elevator analysis says someone went to Floor B. We set the elevator shut-down sequence after that, so I have no idea where the person could be now.”