“Beacon?” Holly said from the doorway, back from her walk with Owen. She wiped her wet hands on her jumpsuit and paced into the room. “Thanks for the help,” she muttered as she passed Emanuel. “Owen’s sleeping peacefully,” she added.

Emanuel frowned sheepishly and moved out of her way.

“Yes, Dr. Brown. There is a signal coming from a set of coordinates on the southern outskirts of Colorado Springs.” Alexia continued.

“Could it be NTC?” Sophie blurted. Her voice was louder than she had wanted it to be. Filled with excitement. Perhaps someone was out there, more people who had made it, like the Marines and Owen. Perhaps they weren’t alone after all.

“Preliminary scans show that this is some sort of emergency beacon,” Alexia replied.

“Another survivor looking for help?” Holly asked.

“More than likely,” Emanuel said. “This really doesn’t add anything useful to what we already know. So there’s a beacon—so what?”

“So it could be someone that knows more about what’s going on than we do,” Overton said.

“Which isn’t saying much,” Holly said. “Considering we don’t know much at all.”

Emanuel shook his head. “We know enough to know it’s a bad idea to go back outside.”

“I’m going to have to agree with him for once,” Timothy quipped, pointing at the biologist.

Sophie held both of her palms in the air. “Hold on, everyone. We’re all jumping to conclusions here. We listened to Sergeant Overton. Now let’s give Alexia a chance, and then I’ll continue with my theory. Deal?”

The team looked back at her, and one by one they nodded their heads.

“Okay then. Alexia, tell us everything you know about this ‘beacon.’ ”

“Certainly, Dr. Winston. At 1900 hours our external sensors began picking up a signal from the following coordinates: latitude 38.643555°, longitude -104.930330°. It’s coming from Turkey Canyon Road, along the West Fork Turkey Creek. Please note that the creek is no longer there.”

Sophie saw Overton take out a pen and mark the location on his hand discreetly. Great, she mused. Now the Marine would have more of a reason to go back outside and look for his team.

“Due to the timing of the activation, I have concluded this was not an automatic signal. Someone turned it on,” Alexia said. “Considering there are no other emergency signals within range of our scanners, it would be safe to deduce that this is a unique event. Someone out there wants to be found.”

“Or it could be a trap. How do we know this signal is coming from a human source?” Emanuel asked with a brow raised.

“The signal is being transmitted over an encrypted NTC channel. I found it while running a scan. It’s likely from a human source, Dr. Rodriguez.”

“So it is NTC?” Sophie asked.