Wait…what?

“Stockpiling food? Where?”

“Beyond the Leng passage. There’s no place safer.”

“Why wasn’t I told of this?”

Patel gave his arm a condescending pat. “You’re an actuator, Ernst. Not your concern. These matters are best left to the Council.”

Officially Patel was right, but Ernst’s father had always said an actuator’s job was to make things happen for the Order, and this had happened without him.

“I’m hardly rank and file.”

“Of course not. But trust me, you wouldn’t want to be saddled with the logistics of the problem. I’m constantly arguing and cajoling on the phone. Sometimes I want to hurl it across my office or bounce it off a wall. The truckers up in Albany are chronically behind in moving the shipments to safety, and that’s all Brother Riker’s fault. His lame excuse is that they can’t risk running more than ten trucks to the passage at once for fear of attracting too much attention. And just recently he thinks someone has been following the convoy.”

“Still, I wish I’d known.”

“And now you do.” Another condescending pat. “But don’t allow this to distract you. If the supplies aren’t secured in time, the rank-and-file members will suffer, not us. Just take care of the Slootjes threat. Inform the Council as soon as it’s done.”

Ernst didn’t feel up to eliminating Slootjes. The loremaster wouldn’t be the first member of the Order he’d terminated. But in those cases he’d felt justified because he’d been eliminating a threat, either to himself or the Order. And, coincidentally, in all previous incidences he’d actively disliked, even loathed the target. He rather liked Saar, despite his tendency toward drama queen.

Ernst would take another shot at dissuading him. If that didn’t work, he’d bring in Belgiovene.

FRANKIE

P. Frank Winslow stood in the cab of his building’s elevator, trying one key after another in the slot next to the bottom button on the control panel. He’d taken the keyring from the lobby office with no guarantee that it held the one he was looking for.

He was desperate for a way back to his reality. He’d considered going floor to floor and room to room in search of another gap in a floor or ceiling, but put it off. He could always do that. What he couldn’t get out of his head was the last button in this elevator. Why was it locked?

Finally one slipped in and turned.

“Yes!” he cried as the cab started down. But down to where?

Well, he’d find out soon enough. For all he knew, it opened into hell itself.

He adjusted the weight of the 172-page manuscript tucked under his arm. Okay, so it wasn’t the Great American Novel, but it sure as all hell was the Great American Novella.

He couldn’t be sure—not without a word processor to do the counting—but he guesstimated the novella’s length at forty-two or forty-three thousand words. He never dreamed he was capable of that kind of output. It seemed almost inhuman. But the words kept flowing faster and faster and his typing kept accelerating to keep up. The pain in his fingers had reached an excruciating level and then they’d gone numb. He looked at his fingertips. They weren’t bleeding but they’d been bruised a deep purple.