“Because I live in the middle of nowhere, and that isn’t actually an asset for anyone who isn’t a pure Fictional.” Maggie went back to putting dishes away. “Now talk, or I’m going to take back your dinner.”

“Anything but that.” I stabbed my fork into the piecrust. “How much of the footage have you guys watched?”

“Enough,” said Alaric grimly.

I nodded. “Okay, then.” I took a bite of potpie, swallowed, and began talking, starting with the point where Becks and I drove away from the motel. Moythiur time at the CDC had been fairly well-documented by the cameras we carried, but they’d been simple recorders, not full-on field deployments. There were things they missed, like most of Director Swenson’s reactions, and everything in the emergency tunnels.

“Your recording feeds cut off as soon as you went through that second door,” said Alaric. “They picked up again once you were outside.”

“Really?” I glanced to Kelly. “Did you know that was going to happen?”

“No, but it makes sense. Those tunnels are heavily shielded, to prevent contamination if there’s ever need for an actual flush. We’re not even supposed to stay in them during drills, if we can help it.”

“Radiation?” asked Alaric.

Kelly shrugged. “I really don’t know. I’m sorry.”

I took advantage of their brief side-conversation to shovel another few bites of potpie into my mouth, barely chewing. Finally, I said, “Okay, so you didn’t get any of that footage. It wasn’t bright enough in there to get much worthwhile, but unless their shielding fried our electronics—” I glanced at Kelly. She shook her head, indicating that it shouldn’t have done anything of the sort. That made sense, since the CDC probably had recording devices of their own in the tunnels. They’d need to know what went wrong if there was ever an emergency purge. “You should be able to extract the audio track.”

“Don’t forget the pretty amber lights. Those are probably worth a screenshot or two.” We all turned toward the sound of Becks’s voice. She was wearing one of Maggie’s bathrobes, knotted loosely around her waist, and her hair was still half-wet, tousled from the postshower drying. “Is there another potpie, Maggie? I’m hungry enough to eat a dog.”

“Please don’t,” said Maggie. “It’s hard enough to socialize them without making them think that people will decide to randomly eat them. Your potpie is in the oven.”

“You’re an angel.” Becks arrowed for the oven, dismissing the rest of us in favor of food.

I stabbed my fork into my own potpie, spearing a chunk of chicken as I focused my attention back on Kelly. “So, Doc, that was a good job you did, getting us to the tunnels. Pretty quick thinking, too.”