More weary brick buildings greeted them as they drove toward the Comm Center, the Army’s former satellite communications hub. Sol peered out the window excitedly. She had never been on a military base before. She marveled at how vulnerable it looked. She’d expected turrets and glass shards and land mines, but this place looked like a college campus.

“Left,” Kai quickly said.

“This fucking server better be here, Apollo,” Sol growled as they approached the Comm Center.

° ° °

Apollo paid Sol no mind. In five minutes, he’d successfully jammed the base’s ragtag video surveillance network, but he wanted to keep an eye on traffic. He knew that even if they weren’t caught in the act, which was actually starting to seem possible, they also didn’t need to be caught after the act. A cramped MINI Cooper wasn’t exactly an ideal getaway car.

Sol stopped the car in front of a sleek modern building. The engine grumbled off. Apollo hopped out, his open laptop swinging unsteadily in his hands as he raced toward the entrance. Even though he knew he’d be able to hack the satellite as planned, he had to hack it while it was passing over Austell, Georgia, giving him a twenty-minute window. The problem was that he had no idea where the control server for the satellite was located within the building. WikiLeaks was always very forthcoming when it came to secret government programs and secret roads and secret plots, but secret building interiors were still beyond its means. Apollo exhaled heavily as he approached the door, passing a flagpole. The run had been farther than he thought. He wasn’t sure if it was defensive design or the military just being extra. He decided to look it up later.

The door was unlocked. Apollo stepped into a bare lobby, furnished with a plain marble desk, folded plastic chairs, and a portrait of former president Barack Obama. “Damn, this place is old,” Apollo muttered. The only indicator that this building had previously been occupied by the military was its presence on the base. It easily could have been a generic office building. Apollo feared the worst. The military had cleaned this place out, he knew it. He anxiously ran toward the elevators, pressing the call button and searching for a directory. He sweated profusely; the AC was very off. The building had ten floors, but the directory was blank, erased. Lone letters lingered like unfinished alphabet soup, but they were too scattered to be decoded. Apollo mashed the call button.

The elevator arrived, and he stepped in, eyeing the access panel then checking the time. He had fifteen minutes to find the server, hijack the satellite, and tag Six Flags as planned. It wasn’t enough. He stopped to focus. Webpages, codes, and images of Zed flashed in his head. His heart was beating so fast he could feel his pulse in his right eye. After three silent minutes, he pressed the button for the second floor, reasoning that the floor with the servers would be excessively air-conditioned. The second-floor doors opened. Apollo felt no change in temperature, so he pressed the button for the third floor. Again, no change. He had seven floors and twelve minutes left. He began to feel his pulse in both eyes.