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The new guy propped his ladder up against the side of Ketterley's house and came back to help Mal get the trolley in through the front gate. Then he went up to the front door and let himself inside. Mal grabbed a toolbox and a big reel of electrical cable from the trolley. He stood at the foot of the ladder and waited.

‘Why's he just standing there?' asked Luke.

‘Probably has to wait for the other guy to turn off the old security before they can start putting the new stuff in,' said Jordan.

She was right. A minute later, the new guy came back outside and gave a thumbs-up to Mal, who hoisted the reel of cable over his shoulder and started climbing up onto the roof. New Guy grabbed some stuff from the trolley and headed back inside.

I saw Jordan following Mal with her eyes, tongue poking at the corner of her lip like it always does when she's concentrating. Mal opened his toolbox, squatted down on the roof, showing just a little bit more of himself than we all needed to see, and got to work.

‘Let's go,' said Jordan, stepping away from her tree.

‘Wait,' I said, ‘what about the guy inside?'

‘Just don't let him see you,' said Jordan.

‘Oh, right,' I said, following her out onto the street, ‘hang on a sec while I switch on my invisibility.'

We crossed the bike track and bolted up Ketterley's front path.

Mal on the roof. This was not a good thing.

Not that he was
dangerous.
He just hated me. He and I had kind of gotten off on the wrong foot after I accidentally rode his bike into the fountain the week after we all got here. I knew he'd love an excuse to report me to security and this would be the perfect –

A shout from above us.

My eyes shot to the roof, expecting to see Mal staring back down at me. But he must've just smashed his thumb with a hammer or something, because he was still facing the other way, grumbling to himself.

I breathed.

Graceful as a cat, Jordan leapt silently onto the veranda and paused at the front door.

Luke was like a cat too. Like a blind cat with one leg. He thumped up the steps behind me, almost tripping. Jordan whipped around and shushed us both.

Inside, the house was just like mine. Just like every other house in Phoenix. I was pretty much used to all the houses being identical but for some reason it felt creepy and weird all over again.

We crept up the hallway, keeping an ear out for the other techie.

Jordan froze just short of the lounge room doorway. She peered into the room, then jerked her head straight back out again.

In there?
I mouthed, pointing through the door.

Jordan nodded. She bolted across the doorway and kept going down the hall.

I followed behind her, catching a fleeting glimpse of the techie screwing something into the ceiling as I flew past.

Jordan stopped again. She was staring at the door that would've led to a bedroom in her house, or to the spare room in mine.

But in Ketterley's house, the door was cold, gleaming steel.

I heard a creaking sound behind me and jerked my head to look down the hallway. Through the open front door, I could see Mal's ladder leaning against the front of the house.

The ladder was moving. A giant work boot dropped onto the top rung. Mal was coming back down.

Jordan saw it too. Her hand shot down to grab the doc's key card from her pocket.

More creaks. The other foot came down. Any second now, he'd be low enough to see us.

Jordan pulled out the doc's key card, and it dawned on me that we didn't actually know if this would work. After seeing More let himself into Pryor's office, we'd just assumed that all the key cards worked in all the doors.

Now wasn't a good time to be proved wrong.

‘Oi, Lucas!' Mal yelled, still coming down. ‘C'mere a sec!'

‘Yeah, coming,' the other techie yelled back.

Jordan waved the card in front of the sensor on the doorframe. Nothing.

‘Do it again!' Luke hissed.

Mal was two rungs away from us. One rung.

I could hear the other guy striding towards the hall.

Jordan tried again.

With a familiar clunk, the door swung open.

We ran inside. Luke heaved the door closed behind us, with a crash of metal that I seriously hoped sounded quieter from the outside than it did on the inside. He put his ear up against the door.

‘I think we're okay,' he whispered after a minute.

I scanned the rest of the room. There was an L-shaped leather lounge at one end, and a giant pile of paperwork at the other that probably had Ketterley's desk buried somewhere underneath it. Between them was a huge empty space, like Ketterley was making room to bring in a pool table or something.

All along the back wall, where the windows would be in a normal Phoenix house, there were bookcases stacked with ring binders and document boxes.

‘This floor is the same as in the room in the medical centre,' said Jordan.

I looked down at the rough grey tiles.

‘Same as Pryor's office too,' I said.

‘What?' said Jordan. ‘No it isn't.'

‘Yeah, it is,' I said. ‘You probably didn't notice them because of that massive rug.'

‘Should we maybe stop arguing about floor coverings and get on with this?' asked Luke, who was already searching the bookcases.

‘Right, sorry,' said Jordan. She went to help him, while I crossed to Ketterley's desk to try and dig up his laptop.

I found it sitting under a pile of maintenance papers. Password-protected. But I was ready for that.

At least, I hoped I was.

I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a shiny silver memory stick with J.B. scratched into the side. I'd loaded it up this morning with a couple of not-strictly-legal programs I built to help me get around the security on Ketterley's computer.

I plugged in the memory stick and the software got to work.

‘Find anything good?' I asked, walking over to the others.

‘Just a bunch of forms and stuff,' Luke whispered, closing the folder he was flicking through and sticking it back on the shelf. ‘You?'

‘We'll see in a minute,' I said.

I glanced at the door, then down at my watch.

4.43 p.m.

Seven minutes left to find some useful information and get out of here.

Assuming Reeve's information had even been reliable in the first place.

I went back around to his laptop. The desktop glowed up at me, a photo of Ketterley and some woman, hidden behind a mess of icons.

I was in.

I clicked through to Ketterley's documents folder and scanned the list for something useful. But unfortunately, there was no folder called TOP-SECRET METAL DOOR INFO.

Ketterley's computer was about as tidy as his desk. Didn't like my chances of finding anything in this mess. I'd just have to drag as much stuff onto the memory stick as I could and sift through it all when I got home.

I hit
select all
and started copying.

‘All right,' I said, going back to join the others, ‘couple of minutes and we should be …'

I trailed off. For a second, I thought I'd heard a muffled voice coming from somewhere inside the office. ‘Did you hear that?' I whispered.

‘Hear what?' asked Luke.

‘Shh!' I said, walking out into the middle of the room, straining to hear.

There it was again. A voice, or maybe two voices, and footsteps.

I bent down. It almost sounded like they were coming from –

There was a hiss of compressed air and the floor under my feet started moving. I stumbled back, almost tripping.

What?

A square section of tiles, maybe a metre across, was slowly sinking into the ground.

‘Out!' I whispered. ‘Get out!'

But instead of running for the door, Luke panicked and dived behind the lounge.

‘Luke!' I hissed. ‘We need to get –'

Too late. Jordan had just crouched down beside him. And whatever was happening with the floor, it was happening
now
.

I ducked down next to Jordan and twisted around to look under the lounge. The square of tiles had dropped about five centimetres into the floor and was sliding aside to reveal a kind of chute.

‘… should be completed by Tuesday,' said a no-longer-muffled voice from inside the chute.

It was Ketterley. I heard the sound of footsteps on metal and a second later, he walked up into the office.

‘Good,' said another, deeper voice.

More footsteps, and this time they were accompanied by the
clank – clank – clank
of a crutch beating down on the metal steps. Officer Calvin hobbled up behind Ketterley.

And, suddenly, I realised I'd probably just got us all killed.

Ketterley's laptop.

It was still sitting open on his desk.

And my memory stick was still inside.

Chapter 19

S
ATURDAY
, M
AY
30
75
DAYS

Officer Calvin stepped out of the tunnel.

I wedged myself down further into the gap between the lounge and the wall. Nowhere near enough room for all three of us here. I was pressed right up against Jordan, which usually I'd be all for, but right now all my focus was on making sure my breathing didn't sound like Darth Vader.

With another burst of compressed air, the missing tiles slid back into place, hiding the hole in the floor.

‘And you're certain this is going to work,' Calvin pressed Ketterley. ‘You're certain this new facility of Weir's is going to be strong enough to contain him.'

‘Nothing certain about it,' said Ketterley. ‘It
should
hold him, based what the doc's been able to figure out so far, but we won't know until we get him in there and turn it on.'

Ketterley's feet stepped closer. I flattened myself down against the floor. There was a squeak of leather as Ketterley sat down on the lounge. Inches away from us. I could've reached up and smacked him in the back of the head.

‘Anyway,' he continued, ‘it's now or never, isn't it? Rob says he'll be dead within the week if he doesn't stop pumping so many sedatives into him.'

‘Let him die,' Calvin grumbled, swaying on his crutch a bit. ‘We should've killed him as soon as he arrived.'

Through the gap under the lounge, I saw him step out with his good leg, pacing across the room.

Headed straight for Ketterley's desk.

‘Good luck convincing Noah,' said Ketterley, shifting on the lounge. ‘He's a candidate, however he got here. And the doc's right – if his abilities
are
a side-effect of the fallout, then we need to know about it before we wind up with a whole town full of Crazy Bills to deal with.'

Crazy Bill.

That was Dad's secret project. They had him working on a way to keep Bill contained.

‘Please don't tell me you believe that,' said Calvin. His feet stopped at the desk.

I craned my neck but I couldn't see what he was doing.

‘You got a better explanation?' asked Ketterley.

Calvin didn't answer.

‘Look Bruce, I know you want him gone. And fair enough after what he did to you. But you gotta be patient. Just let the doc run his tests and then you can do whatever you want with him.' There was another squeak as Ketterley leant forward and stood up again. ‘You find the report?'

‘Yeah,' Calvin grunted, shuffling some papers. ‘Thanks.'

He swivelled on his crutch, turning back towards the square of tiles in the middle of the room.

Then he stopped. I'm pretty sure my heart did too.

He swivelled back. Looking at something on the desk. Looking at the laptop.

I heard a
click
as he leant over and pushed down the monitor.

‘You shouldn't leave this open,' said Calvin gruffly. ‘Not with the techs coming in.'

‘Sorry?' said Ketterley. He paused, looking back at the desk.

I stared at his feet.
No. Please, no.

‘Oh,' he said, sounding confused. ‘Huh. Right you are.'

Calvin let go of the desk and started limping back across the room. They were leaving.

I felt a two-second break in the panic as Calvin's smashed foot dragged across the floor in front of me. But then he reached the section of tiles they'd come up through.

And then he kept going.

Limping across to the other side of the room.

They weren't leaving through the hole in the ground. They were leaving through the door.

And they were going to walk right past our hiding place.

I gave Jordan a nudge. She got Luke moving, edging his way around the L-bend in the lounge, out of their line of sight. Way too slow.

There was no way all three of us were going to get around in time.

Ketterley cut across in front of Calvin to open the door. He was right next to us now. All he'd have to do was look down …

I glanced back at the others.

Luke had disappeared around the corner, moving quietly for once in his life. Jordan was following.

Ketterley pulled the door open.

Calvin came hobbling past, painfully slowly, like he knew we were here and was just dragging this out on purpose, crutch thudding against the tiles with every step.

Thump.

The open door was giving us some cover now, but there was still nothing to stop Calvin turning his head slightly to the right and finding me cowering on the floor.

Thump.

Jordan's feet slipped around behind the other side of the couch.

Just me left now. Time to move.

Thump.

But suddenly it was like my body had other plans. Like part of me knew that trying to move any further was only going to attract attention.

I froze. Just sat there, not taking my eyes off Calvin and Ketterley.

Thump.

Calvin was halfway through the door.