“You can’t!” the terrified soldier told her. “The self-destruct was activated! The facility is on full lockdown! No one can get in or out.”

“We can,” Sarai said.

Sam turned. She hadn’t heard the girl walk up. Sarai was standing in front of the elevators, staring at them. There was a far-away look in her eyes.

“We’ve learned a lot, lately.”

The elevator doors began to open.

Jyotika slumped in Kade and Varun’s arms.

Kade stared at the still-sealed elevator doors.

Another system, Su-Yong had said… up top. How were they going to get to that?

Then suddenly he was falling, he was sliding, as the water was pulling at him, was sucking him away. Towards the elevator shaft. As the doors were opening, with the elevator three feet above the level of the floor.

Kade lost his feet, slid, pulled by the current, Jyotika suddenly gone from his grasp. Water slammed into his face. He saw someone in front of him sucked through the gap, heard a man scream, wondered how far down the shaft went.

Then he heard the scream keep going and going. He scrambled to grab hold of anything. His own legs crossed the threshold as the doors kept opening wider.

Oh fuck, Kade thought.

Then something grabbed him, stopped him from going down.

He looked up to find Sam, looking down at him from inside the elevator, her other hand gripping something inside.

“Kade,” she nodded. Then she hauled him bodily up into the elevator itself, waiting for them, just high enough to let the water run out below it.

“Sam!” he said. “What?”

“Kade!” Sarai threw herself around him, wrapped him in a tight, giant hug. Her mind opened to him. And he saw… so much.

He looked up at Sam again. Then he reached out, drew her into the hug. She went stiff at first. Then her arms went around him, and she squeezed back.

“You were right,” he told her, his voice low. “They lied to me.”

“Later,” Sam said. “Things to do.” She gave him a squeeze, then let go.

Kade nodded, looked around.

Varun was already in the elevator, along with a few other staff.

“Jyotika?” Kade asked.

Varun pointed, “Over there.”

Kade looked over to see General Singh, his feet planted firmly against the water, Jyotika in his arms.

“I guess he took what you said about him not getting out if Jyotika didn’t seriously,” Varun said.

Feng hauled himself up into the elevator, reached down, started pulling more people in. They came up sopping wet, wide-eyed, terrified, screaming names of others, looking around.

They were going to be very very full.

Images flashed through Kade’s mind. Schematics. And strange fractal realities. Branching probability chains.

Plans.

Su-Yong’s plans. Her war plans. The plans she’d implanted in the monster she’d set loose.

Not good.