Pierce didn’t press the button. Instead he took hold of the casing that surrounded it, and pulled one edge outward. The casing opened on a hinge, revealing a keypad that looked like the ones in Station 14 and Station 9, only newer; the buttons were backlit, glowing faintly blue.

Pierce entered a number. Sam didn’t catch what it was, but it sure as hell wasn’t a string of five sevens in a row. A second later the door’s latch clicked; Pierce turned the knob and shoved it inward.

Sam and Dani got off the bike, climbed the steps and followed Pierce through the door.

At a glance, the inside of the place looked normal enough. Sam had never been in an old farmhouse before, but if he’d pictured one, it would have looked something like this. In the indirect glow from the porch light outside, he saw a kitchen that looked like something from an old movie: dinged-up wooden counters, a small stove with iron grills on top, a big round-edged refrigerator that was light green or blue—it was hard to tell in the dim light.

Past the kitchen was a dining area that opened to a living room at the back of the house, with a set of French doors on the far wall. Through the panes set in the doors, Sam could see a deck that looked out over the pitch-black fields—a western view, which meant the barn near Echo House should be visible from the deck.

There was an old roll-top desk along one wall of the living room. Pierce went to it and raised the cover, revealing some kind of instrument panel. It had lighted buttons with abbreviated labels Sam could make no sense of. Its central feature was a computer screen with a keyboard in front of it. Pierce pressed a power button and the monitor flared to life—a black screen with green text flashing by too quickly to read.

“Is this place … a station?” Dani asked. “An active one, I mean?”

She was looking around as she spoke. Sam guessed she was picturing the same thing he was: a staircase somewhere leading down, not to a basement but to an underground complex like the others they’d seen.

Pierce shook his head. “Nothing like that. Just base office quarters. Most of the farmhouses are set up like this.”

The sequence of flashing text finally stopped. For a second the screen stayed blank, and then a single line appeared in the upper left corner: ENTER SUPERVISOR PASSWORD: _____

Pierce leaned over the keyboard and typed PIERCE-471826, then pressed ENTER.

The screen dimmed, as if the machine were considering his request, and then a new line appeared: ACCOUNT ADDRESS (SENDER):

“Ever heard of electronic mail?” Pierce asked.

Sam shook his head, along with Dani.

“Give it a few years,” Pierce said softly, his attention mostly focused on the screen.