47

NOAH

I didn’t check to see if Min and Tack followed.

I knew they would, and needed space to breathe. My emotions were a mess as I plunged into the woods, grappling with a simple truth: Ethan and Sarah had made a lot of sense.

What else was the beta testing for, if not to prepare us? Maybe we really were supposed to lead. Dr. Fanelli had directly said so in his note! He had no reason to lie that I could think of. Sarah and Ethan had been working with better information from the beginning.

But Min didn’t see it that way. And I understood her point, too. Ethan had been willing to murder Tack with his bare hands to take control. The memory repulsed me. How could we work with him after that, even if we were supposed to?

My elation had vanished the moment Ethan and Sarah appeared, replaced by doubt and uncertainty. I’d been prepared for something special, but was I up to the challenge? Min seemed more clear-headed about everything. Shouldn’t I just follow her lead?

Always a follower, huh, Noah? Sarah was right.

Her casual insult was a hot coal searing through my chest. Mainly because it was true.

I was weak. I did act like a child. I tried and tried and tried, but always came up short.

Who could respect that?

I kept ahead of them until we reached the abandoned guardhouse. Min and Tack broke off a whispered conversation. Discussing me? Probably. I could barely meet her eye.

“Ready?” I asked.

Min nodded without saying more. We followed the road to the low building we’d spotted on our first trip. I wondered again at the poor security. I guess the first line of defense had always been secrecy.

The forest’s silence was unearthly. No scampering creatures. No birds. It felt like every crunch of leaves was a blown whistle, but nobody appeared. The woods felt as abandoned as the rest of the valley. Maybe the sixty-four of us truly were all that was left.

“Should we try the door?” Tack whispered.

Min was peering beyond the building, to where the road curved out of sight. “I want to know what those lights were the other night.”

Tack nodded. “Let’s circle. We can peek around the bend, then sneak inside.”

“Perfect. Lead the way.”

Blood pounded through my eardrums as we scurried across the access road. When no alarm was raised, we swung wide, behind the building, to where we could see deeper into the valley. What we encountered took my breath away.

An area the size of a football field had been cleared, with lights erected along its perimeter. Dozens of Humvees, jeeps, and trucks were parked at one end—the same gray vehicles with black sunbursts that had been popping up all week. Tack whistled. “I guess we found the convoys.”

“But where are the soldiers?” Min said.

Temporary structures filled the rest of the field. Rows of tents. A field kitchen. Supply dumps. Even a hastily rigged ropes course. The arrangement was efficient and tidy—every inch laid out with discipline and a sense of order. But there wasn’t anyone there.

I sighed. “Well, that answers one question.”

Min looked at me curiously. “What’s that?”

“Whether our neighbors were forcibly evacuated here. Doesn’t look like it. Seems like even the military blew town.”

Tack shot Noah a skeptical look. “How’d they leave the valley without a bridge?”

“No idea. How’d they fix a mountain that broke in half?”

Min swiveled to face the building. “Maybe they’re all inside.”

I nodded. Couldn’t decide whether I wanted it to be true or not. We approached from the rear, eyes on the single door. I worried it was locked.

Tack stopped suddenly, glancing at Min. “How come Sarah and Ethan haven’t been back here yet? You realize Sarah’s reset point was inside the security fence, right?”

Min paused. “You’re right. Plus, they had groups canvass the whole valley that first day, but no one came in here. Why didn’t they check on the troops?”

“No one’s accusing Ethan of being a genius,” Tack snarked.

“But Sarah isn’t stupid.” Min’s face was troubled. “I’m not sure who’s really in charge between them.”

“Ethan said they ransacked the psychiatrists’ offices,” I offered. “Between that and running their little empire, maybe they just haven’t had time.”

Min’s frown deepened. “Or maybe they came here days ago. We could be behind.”

Tack shrugged. “It’s pointless worrying about it now. Let’s go and see.”

We abandoned stealth and walked straight for the door. After the barest of pauses, Min reached out and tried the knob. It turned easily, the door opening with an outrush of hermetically sealed air.

Inside was short white-walled corridor. There was a door to our left, but it was locked. I peered through its window at a large assembly room with an exit on the opposite side. With a shock, I recognized the space. I’d been taken through it when I was six.

I stepped aside so Min could see. One glance, and her eyes darted to meet mine. She nodded grimly. She remembered, too. I yanked on the handle in frustration, but the door wouldn’t budge.

“There’s something up ahead,” Tack said, pointing down the corridor. It led to a burnished slab of metal connected to a keypad. This portal looked like it could withstand a tank blast, but when Min tried the handle, it swung open without resistance, revealing a staircase that descended a dozen switchbacks.

“I don’t like this,” I muttered. “It’s almost like they’re inviting us in this way.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Tack hopped down a few steps, the clang of his shoes echoing into the depths. “You guys are their star pupils, right? Here come the betas!”

I looked at Min, who shrugged. “What choice do we have?” she said.

We began to descend, listening for any sign the building was occupied. At the bottom we reached a pair of sliding metal doors. Beside them appeared to be a retinal scanner and handprint touch pad, but the doors swished open at our approach.

Min looked almost offended. “Why install this stuff if you’re not going to use it?”

I shook my head, baffled. We stepped into an elevator with only one button. “I think . . . this one,” Tack said, pressing the glowing circle. Surprisingly, the car jerked sideways. I had the unpleasant sensation of passing through thick walls—like rolling into the belly of a hollowed-out mountain—and then the lateral movement stopped. Seconds later we plunged at breakneck speed before gliding to a stop.

The doors opened. We stepped out, and my breath caught.

“Wow,” Min gasped.

Tack leaned over a guardrail, gaping straight down. “Holy crap.”

We were standing on a steel catwalk bolted to a wall of solid rock. Before us, an enormous hole stretched thirty yards across and dropped hundreds of feet. The catwalk circled to a miner’s cage on the opposite side of the chamber. I could see a track descending into the depths. Yellow lights blazed every ten yards, both along the catwalk and down the track. Otherwise, we’d have been in total darkness.

I looked up. A roof of solid concrete enclosed the massive space.

Tack spun to face Min, eyes bright with excitement. “Do you know what this is?”

“The world’s most secure parking garage?”

Tack laughed, clearly excited by our find. “This is an old missile silo! For one of those ICBMs we talked about. They’ve converted it into . . . into . . . something. Sealed it from above, too.”

I peered into the inky depths, swallowed. “Why would they do that?”

“No idea. But whatever they’re hiding, you can bet it’s at the bottom.”

Min pointed to the cage on the other side of the shaft. “Then that’s where we go.”

As we circled the empty silo, I tried not to look down again. I couldn’t imagine this place existing just a few miles from my house. It must’ve taken years to repurpose. How had they done it under everyone’s noses?

They must have a secret way into the valley.

I filed that away to think about later.

Min stepped into the cage. Tack and I followed with wildly divergent levels of enthusiasm. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the bottom. I was very sure I didn’t want to ride a flimsy metal box down the cavern wall.

“Most of this facility is underground,” Tack was saying, closing the gate behind us. We immediately began to descend, thankfully at a slow pace. “Why would they do that?”

“Maybe they really, really wanted to keep people out,” Min suggested.

“Or in,” I muttered.

As we rattled downward, another catwalk came into view. It circled the silo like the one above it, but this level had chambers cut into the rock wall at regular intervals. Boxes of various shapes and sizes were stacked within each alcove.

A light began blinking on the cage’s control panel. But when Min hesitated, we continued past the catwalk, plummeting deeper into the pit. Tack stood on his tiptoes, squinting into the closest alcove. “The boxes are labeled. I think one said ‘sewing machine,’ if you can believe it.”

Another catwalk appeared. This time when the button flashed, Min pressed it. We slowed, then stopped. Min opened the gate and we stepped out, walking to the nearest chamber. The cases within were small and dusty, stacked in straight lines. “Seeds,” she said, surprised. “Wheat. Corn. Potato. Soybean.”

I wandered deeper into the room. “These big ones are labeled ‘Farm Equipment.’”

Min’s head swung left and right. “What is this place?”

Tack hustled to the next alcove, where larger crates were stored. “Tractors! Two of them, boxed up like Christmas presents! And a buttload of diesel fuel.”

As we did a slow circuit, I became more and more bewildered. Each alcove contained a mountain of supplies. Camping equipment. Hard drives. A set of generators. Water filtration systems. Iodine pills. Copper wire. By the time we reached the cage again, Min was chewing on her bottom lip, eyes worried.

“This is a doomsday prepper’s dream,” Tack said. “Survival goods for an entire village. Hell, a city! Everything you could possibly need seems to be in here, boxed up and ready to go. But why would the government build a hidey-hole like this?”

“For the Anvil?” I suggested. “In case it was actually going to hit Earth?”

Min looked thoughtful. “That makes sense. But then, why abandon it? Plenty else has gone wrong since the asteroid miss was announced. More, honestly. You’d think places like this would be locked down right now. Hell, even filled.”

She was right. The place was a gold mine. “I’ll bet everything I own that Ethan and Sarah haven’t seen this yet. No way they’d leave it unguarded.”

“The bottom,” Tack insisted, pointing into the abyss. “We have to hit rock bottom.”

Poor choice of words, but he was right. We couldn’t stop now.

We descended a dozen more levels without stopping, content to read whatever labels we could glimpse as the cage rolled past. Instruction manuals. Firewood. Matches. Pots and pans. One large alcove was filled with shiny ATVs. Another housed a fleet of motorcycles. A whole world of supplies, crated and stored, slowly gathering dust.

The temperature dropped as we moved farther underground. Something struck me as odd.

“All this stuff is boxed,” I said. “Nothing seems prepared.”

“What do you mean?” Min asked.

“There aren’t any sleeping quarters. Or kitchens. No meeting rooms, or places for people to congregate. I haven’t seen any perishable goods, either. No livestock, or living plants. Nothing is fresh or assembled. How would anyone survive in here?”

“You’re right.” Min began scanning the silo with new eyes. “It doesn’t seem built for habitation. Just storage.”

“The bottom,” Tack repeated. “And here it comes.”

The silo floor was an unbroken sheet of solid concrete. The cage descended past it, however, into a narrow chute that burrowed another twenty yards before screeching to a halt in some kind of basement. The gate clattered open. A narrow corridor led to a glass door. Beyond was a room filled with blinking red lights.

We stood silently for several heartbeats before Min pushed.

Unlocked. Indeed, the door didn’t even appear to have a lock.

Inside was a control room to make NASA jealous. Workstations on descending levels faced three giant panels that filled the front wall. The outer two appeared to be computer screens. The middle section was actually a window into a much larger chamber beyond this one, where a breathtaking machine sat alone on a pedestal. It looked like an elaborate computer.

Both spaces were empty of people.

“Oh, man! Check it out!” Tack was gawking at the back wall. I spun. Bookshelves full of plastic binders lined the rear of the control room. Each spine displayed a black sunburst followed by a two-word label.

PROJECT NEMESIS.