We all nod and mutter “yeah.” Zoe’s eyes are wide, her hands tightly gripping the straps on her backpack, while Trent rocks back and forth on his heels with a grin. Adam pulls out the jammer and flips it on, the light changing to green. I check both my watches, counting the seconds as they tick by.

At precisely 3:35 a.m. the door to the stairs opens and Lynne peeks her head out. Emotion crosses her face when she sees us, but I can’t tell if it’s relief or worry. “You’re here.” She steps back so we can enter the stairwell. “There are two guards in the lobby, but otherwise the building seems empty. Good luck.”

“Thanks again for your help,” Adam says.

Trent hands her a walkie-talkie headset like we’re all wearing. “If you see or hear anything, let us know with this.”

Lynne disappears up the stairs to head back to her office as part of our plan. I count two minutes on my watch, then nod at the others. We crowd together and start up the stairs, the jammer in Adam’s hands keeping us off the cameras.

Once on the sixth floor, I lead the way through the hallway, tracing the steps from my memory. We pass the door to the lab and creep past empty cubicles, listening for sounds of anyone else on the floor until we reach Future-Adam’s office. Adam lets us in with a scan of his hand, and we quietly shut the door behind us. I let out a long breath. So far, so good—but now the real work begins.

“Which panel was it?” Chris asks as he drags a chair over.

“This one,” I say, pointing to the spot in the ceiling that Future-Adam poked at.

Chris steps onto the chair and nudges the panel loose. He peeks his head inside and then turns back to us. “Looks good. Zoe, you ready?”

She’s biting her nails again, staring up at the dark space over Chris’s head. “I guess.”

“You can do this,” I say.

Adam pats Zoe on the arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right here if anything happens.”

“Okay.” She looks up at the ceiling and then takes a deep breath. “Ready.”

She climbs onto the chair with Chris, and he lifts her into the crawl space in the ceiling. Her neon-green kneepads flash as she pulls her legs inside, and then she vanishes in the darkness. There’s a long bout of coughing, but then I see a bright beam from her flashlight. Her blue-haired head pokes out again. “Ugh, it’s really nasty up here.”

“You won’t be up there long,” Chris says, hopping off the chair.

“You know where to go?” I ask Zoe.

She waves the map she and I made in her sketchbook. “Got it. I’ll let you know when I’m over the lab.”