Kira turned back to the directory, searching for anything that might relate to the Trust’s plan: expiration. Failsafe. Virus, virology, pathology, epidemiology—she searched for every synonym she knew. She searched for “laboratory,” for “research,” for “genetics,” she even searched for RM. . . . Wait. She stared at the directory. There was no RM, but there was an RD. Is that a reference to the virus? Maybe an earlier version of it? But there is no way something so secret would be here on a directory so general it doesn’t even have the lead scientists’ names. She remembered her confusion with the term IT, and how it had turned out to be an acronym: information technology. RD must be the same thing, maybe . . . reference database? Research database?

Research and development.

If the Trust were anywhere, they were there. But where is Floor C? The floors here are all numbered. She looked for a map, scrounging through every desk she could find, but on her third pass through the main hallway she stopped at the top of the stairs, staring not at them but at the doors beside them. Three sets of double doors, all in a row.

Elevators.

The Preserve had an ongoing, self-sustaining power grid. The elevators in the other buildings still worked. If they still worked here, finding Floor C would be as easy as looking at the buttons. Getting there would be as easy as pressing one. She stepped forward, her finger hovering over the call button. She pushed it.

Deep in the bowels of the building a motor hummed to life, and Kira felt the floor vibrate as the gears and pulleys turned. Clanks and groans echoed through the elevator shaft, and Kira stepped back as the door before her wrenched halfway open with a loud screech. The elevator beyond was only partly lined up with the door, leaving a wide gap at the bottom that plunged deep into darkness. Having power to run them doesn’t mean anyone’s been maintaining them for the last twelve years, Kira thought. It’s amazing the elevators still work at all. The doors tried to close, but had damaged themselves so much in opening that they couldn’t shut again. Kira hesitated in the doorway, trying to decide if she trusted the stability enough to climb in and look at the buttons. She peered into the pit below, seeing dark red lights at the bottom of a shaft that looked to go down at least seven stories. That’s five levels below ground, she thought. There must be one for maintenance, maybe two. And three full subterranean stories.

A, B, and C.