I took wrenches and screwdrivers from the tool kit. Glanced at the monitor. Four a.m. The man in black was still sleeping, but someone would come to relieve him. Shifts change at seven usually. Three hours.

“You’ll have to get up here with me,” I told Cady. “That hood is heavy. When I get the screws undone, it’s going to fall on me unless you can help hold it up.”

We moved empty animal cages to the counter so that if the hood came down too fast, they would help break its descent.

The screws seemed almost welded in place. We sprayed with WD-40, we hammered on them, used the wrenches. It took a precious hour, but we finally lowered the heavy hood onto the bed of cages.

“Tang Soo,” Cady said softly.

I looked at her, worried, wondering if she was hallucinating, but she gave a tired smile.

“The karate school I went to as a child, that was what we cried when we finished a kata. I need to rest.”

We went back to the common room. Drank more soda, took another round of antibiotics, washed off in the shower, gave each other permission to sleep for fifteen minutes. I laid the map of America Held Hostage on the floor behind the console—the message of hate-filled fear only added to my own wire-taut nerves.

I fell deeply asleep as soon as I lay down. When my phone alarm jerked me back to life, my legs and arms felt too heavy to move. I looked over at Cady, sleeping soundly on the other couch. Let her rest, I told myself. One of us should have enough stamina for whatever heavy lifting lay ahead.

I pushed myself to my feet, ate another chunk of cheese, returned to the lab. Five-thirty. I removed the tape from the camera facing the rat cages. Its sweep didn’t reach the ventilation hood, and it might buy us some extra time: if the watchers could see the room, they wouldn’t worry that the other camera wasn’t recording.

I climbed back onto the empty cages while the rats mewed nearby. I was starting to feel sympathy with them, all of us locked up down here, underfed and definitely unloved. There was a bag of rat pellets on a table behind the cages. If the way up was clear, I’d feed them before waking Cady.

“It’s okay, boys and girls, we’ll figure this out. One step at a time, one step at a time.”

Maybe it’s a sign of delusions setting in when you’re crooning to rats. I hoisted my tired body onto the counter. Stacked cages directly under the ventilation shaft. Looked up and saw starlight through the scratched glass covering. Tried to stand. And found I was in an opening wide enough to take my head but not my shoulders.