Out of habit, or established ritual, I searched the shadowy corners one more time. Tested the walls for hollow sounds. Tapped discolored parts of the floor with my boots. Nothing. Just the sound of dripping water from down the hall.

The outer areas were warm, but Unit 7 felt cool. I lingered a moment, wrestling with whether I should walk up the mountain for old times’ sake or head back, defeated, to the King Range.

The mountain, I decided. Once I left, how could I be sure I would ever be able to return?

I came out into the murk of corridor. Then stopped. Something nagged at me. A ringing in my ears. Some detail I’d missed. When I realized what it was, I felt faint, remote from my body.

I looked back into Unit 7.

The ceiling light flickered at me. Taunted me. Told me I was stupid.

The entire complex was dark. No electricity. Not a single exception. Except for this one light.

I just stared at it, dumbfounded. Could it be that simple? Had it been that simple the whole time?

I became frantic, manic. Then frustrated as it took almost half an hour to find a sturdy stepladder amid the wreckage of that warren. Clung awkward to it, finding it difficult to breathe, as I pulled delicately at the light casing.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the usual. The world fucking with me again. In frustration, I gave it a swat. Still nothing, but now I saw a tiny button up against the frame on the right side. Cursed trying to get my sausage finger in position to push it.

But finally I succeeded—and the casing swung open on a hinge, knocking me on the head. I almost fell off the stepladder, cursing, looked up.

Behind the casing: a blue glow cocooning a sophisticated pass code keypad.

Always here. Never on top of the mountain. Always here.

I didn’t want to exhale. Didn’t want to make a single sound, as if it might all disappear in an unwary instant. Crept back up on the stepladder, examined the keypad more closely.

An eight-digit code.

Could the ghosts of a hummingbird, a salamander solve this puzzle? Game-playing Silvina, but most games had a reason. A way to win. An endpoint.

It felt almost as if it was a matter of faith as much as numbers. What if nothing happened? What if I was wrong about what those numbers were and the system locked me out? Panic then, as I couldn’t remember the address of Silvina’s apartment. Before it came back to me.

I entered the numbers, in their random original order, from behind the eyes.

Nothing, for a horrifying moment. That stretched and stretched.

The blue light turned green. A rumble and crack from the left corner of the far wall. The left panel of stone—waterstained, moldy—pulled inward and slid to the side. Revealing a rough-hewn, square tunnel lit by soft blue emergency lights that lined old-fashioned stone stairs.