The cleaning team arrived at eleven o’clock—a stream of yellow-shirted custodians swiping their way through the partners’ entrance. Amy opened her car door and tightened the straps on her backpack. It was heavy but only because it was full of flashlights, batteries, a screwdriver, a knife, five hundred yards of fishing line, a hundred-foot roll of glow-in-the-dark tape, motion sickness patches, and three of Planet Baby’s own Magic Tools. She wasn’t getting lost in the tunnels this time. She would use the tape and fishing line to mark her path, and when she found the others she would lead them back out again.

The last of the custodians was a short stocky guy with a goatee and neck tattoos. As he passed his card over the reader and entered the building, Amy sprinted toward the entrance, flying over the asphalt, trying to catch the door before it closed. She wasn’t going to make it. She’d parked too far away. She reached for the knob, but her fingertips barely grazed it and the door slammed shut. She kicked the base of it, hard.

“Let me get that,” a voice said.

She turned and saw Basil walking up. He’d gained a couple of pounds, but his face had healed nicely. There was the small worm of a scar bulging from his chin, a slight twist of a scar in his left eyebrow. He wore a repetitive stress injury brace on his right forearm. He had his Planet Baby ID card out.

“I thought I saw your name on the schedule,” he said. “What’s in the backpack?”

There was no way in hell she was telling this backstabber anything. But she couldn’t resist a dig.

“Too bad your big career with Orsk Corporate didn’t work out,” she said. “It must have taken some serious surgery to extract you from all the way up Tom Larsen’s ass.”

“I never e-mailed him,” Basil said. “I couldn’t do it. I wound up working in a McDonald’s for most of last year.”

“Well, goodie for you,” Amy said. “You grew some morals.”

“I’ve been here three months,” Basil said. “Deputy operations manager. What’s in the backpack?”

“I have to go,” Amy said, turning away. “If you see me on the floor, don’t talk to me. We have nothing to do with each other, you understand?”

“I bet it’s the same stuff I’ve got in mine,” Basil said. “Flashlights, batteries, pocket hand warmers, I even brought some pepper spray, although I’m not sure if that’ll work on those things. I was just on my way to pick it up.”

Amy’s fury drained away, replaced by confusion.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.