We ventured farther into the building than she’d taken us on our previous tour. This area, I noticed, had fewer safe rooms and more security labels. We reached a large set of double doors with a thick, black-and-yellow-striped line around them. Huge red warning signs, printed in several different languages, plastered the doors. In addition to a key card reader, I noticed there was a palm scan device and a keypad on the wall.

“This is the most secure section of headquarters,” Anne explained. “Only high level administrators and security have access. Oh, and the scientists who monitor the Oracle.”

“Scientists?” I chewed my lip nervously as I watched her key in the codes. The English language sticker on the door warned an improper access sequence would result in a security breach alert, and I didn’t remember where I’d seen the last safe room.

“Yeah. She’s got a whole team of doctors and chemists and pharmacists keeping her medicated and fed well and under control.” The same computerized voice from the elevator informed us that the access sequence was accepted, and Anne pushed open the door with a flourish.

“If she’s drugged up, why is Max so afraid of her?” He’s not the kind of guy to be blindly afraid of anything.

Anne made another “pff” sound of dismissal. “He was on the team that moved her to the new facility back in the eighties. Really, he shouldn’t have been assigned, he was too young. He’s too young now. Anyway, her meds didn’t hold, and she twisted one of the team members’ heads off.”

“Twisted?” My guts mimicked the motion implied by my word. “She’s got that kind of power?”

“Oh, yeah. She’s got mad telekinesis. It would be cool, if she didn’t use it so destructively. But that’s why she’s constantly doped up. Ah, here we are!”

We turned left and went through thoroughly unintimidating swinging doors, into a room with black walls like an exhibit in a museum. A dark window the size of a movie screen dominated one wall, separated from us by a brass railing.

“Stand there,” Anne instructed, moving toward the window, where she turned a dial. The lights dimmed slowly on our side of the glass as the other side illuminated.

“This is like the penguin house at Sea World,” I said, my voice sounding way too loud in the quiet room, and Anne snorted in laughter.

Behind the glass, a void of still redness surrounded a murky, suspended shape. It took me a moment to realize what the redness was.

“Is that blood?”