What are you doing here, Doc? What are you looking for?

Jack returned his attention to the worker types who were disentangling the unconscious brawlers and stretching them out on their backs. Where did Monnet find his “participants”? Better question: where had he found these strange-looking security guys?

As Jack pressed the back of his hand against his nose to stifle another sneeze, he noticed one of the security men look up and freeze. He grunted and pointed up, directly at Jack. The others followed his point.

They can’t possibly see me all the way up here in the dark, Jack thought. Can they?

One of the three let out a cry that sounded an awful lot like the bay of a hound on the scent, and the three charged out of the testing area.

Shit, I guess they can.

Jack wasn’t going to wait around to see where they were going or how they expected to get up here. Suddenly he was late for the door.

Did a one-eighty swivel on his belly and started crawling back the way he’d come. Moved as quickly as he could, scraping along through the guano, no longer worried about noise.

“Who’s there?” called a voice, the same one that had given the “participants” their instructions, only now he sounded worried. Had to be Monnet. “Who’s up there? Come down at once!”

Jack kept crawling. Movement below caught his eye. Three shadowy forms were racing across the floor, separating, each to a different wall where they leaped and began to climb.

Christ, they’re climbing the walls!

No… not the walls themselves but the pipes and girders attached to them. These Beagle Boys were as strong and agile as they were strange-looking. And nowhere near as dumb as they looked. By splitting up they were reducing Jack’s escape options to one: up.

Fortunately, that was where he wanted to go. But he’d never beat them at this pace. With a slow sick twist of his stomach, Jack realized that if he was going to escape he had to stand up and walk the beam—run, maybe. And he couldn’t wait until he’d steeled up his nerve—had to get up and go now.

Wishing he’d taken gymnastics or at least balance-beam lessons somewhere along the course of his childhood, he pushed himself up to a crouch, one foot in front of the other, then rose to standing. Teetered for a heart-stopping instant as the beam seemed to tilt under him, then steadied himself. Arms out like a tightrope walker, he began shuffling toward the end of the beam.

Eyes on the beam, not on the floor… eyes on the beam, not on the floor… he made it a litany as he slid his feet along, coughing in the cloud of guano he was kicking up. He arrived at one of the vertical beams. He’d had a bad time getting around it on the way in when he hadn’t been in a hurry; couldn’t let it slow him up now. Trusting in his reflexes and the muscular toning from his regular workouts, Jack clenched his teeth and swung himself around the beam and kept moving. Had a hairy moment when he picked up too much momentum and felt himself falling forward but somehow managed to maintain his balance.