Then a rectangle opened in the wall of the world, and light spilled in. Real light, not bright, but vital and alive. Mandy hoisted me a little higher, and we walked together into the moon-washed strip of pasture outside the concealed back entrance to the facility where I’d been held. I blinked repeatedly, trying to get my eyes to adjust.

Gradually, a landscape appeared. We were standing in a divot carved out of a larger hillside, ringed on all sides by dense trees. The ground was covered in patchy grass, the sort of thing you’d see after a bunch of cows had been through. I spotted the first cow patty a moment later.

“Private grazing land,” said Lucas, confirming my suspicions. “There’s not a lot of it out here, but there are farmers almost anywhere you go. No good mining rights, so they sublet a large percentage of their underground to the government.”

And no one would look for a secret NASA facility under a bunch of hungry cows. “Smart,” I said, and closed my eyes again, breathing in the scent of a green, living world. Even the distant smell of cow seemed pleasant after the sterile confines of the NASA holding cell.

“We need to keep moving,” said Mandy. “They’re unprepared, not stupid. Someone’s going to check the fire exits, if they haven’t started already.”

“This way,” said Lucas.

We walked across the cow pasture as fast as my condition allowed. I opened my eyes occasionally, watching the world flicker by, and I let myself be led. No matter how Lucas felt about me now, I trusted him. I trusted Mandy. And if they were leading me to my death, at least I would die outside, in the company of moonlight and trees.

The ground changed underfoot. I stumbled, looking down, and realized we had crossed onto a gravel road. Deep ruts ran down either side of it, marking the places where trucks had passed. I groaned. Mandy flashed me a quick, encouraging smile.

“Almost there, pumpkin,” she said. “Hold on, and soon we’ll have the best medical care we can give you.”

“How?” asked Lucas. “We don’t have a botanist on staff.”

Mandy glared. We kept walking.

The road was harder to walk on than the fields. The gravel turned under my feet, and the smoothness of most of the surface made the dips a more unpleasant surprise. Still, we stuck to it, following it around a shallow bend into the shadow of the nearby trees. There, parked off to one side with the doors standing open, was a black van with tinted windows. And standing by the bumper was—

“Graham!” I tried to pull away from Mandy, intending to run to him.

Grip firm but calm, she tugged me back. “No,” she said. “If you trip and scrape all the skin off your face, we’re going to need to buy a lot of foundation. No one has the budget for that. I’ll get you there.”