“Hari Tate,” she said, shaking his hand. “Spelled H-a-r-i.” She guessed from his complexion and features he was Native American. “One of your subscribers. I’ve got some questions about the signals.”

“I’m busy right now,” he said. “If you want to wait—”

“Last night they all synchronized, and today the sun rose late. There’s got to be a connection.”

He shrugged. “There’s certainly a correlation but I don’t know if it’s a cause-effect relationship.”

The younger of the two women, a teenager with a weird ratty blanket tied around her neck, said, “Night is falling, the Change has begun.”

Uh-oh…was she one of those Septimus types? She was just a kid.

“What happened to ‘twilight has come…night will follow’?”

“That’s passé. Twilight is done.”

“I don’t think I like the sound of that,” Hari said. “Who are you?”

She introduced herself as Ellie and the older woman as her mother, Barbara.

“And you’re Burbank?” Hari said.

“My Burbank days are over. I’ll answer to Hill.”

Ellie turned to him. “Maybe we should take her with us.”

Hill shook his head. “I don’t know…”

“Hari says she wants to learn about the signals. The Prime generator would be an excellent place to start.”

“If we’re talking about something that generates this Prime Frequency I’ve heard about, I’m in. Lead on.”

Hill hesitated, then said. “Okay, but don’t be surprised if our way is blocked.”

He opened a door and Hari followed the three of them into what looked like a freight elevator. He inserted another key into one of two slots in the control panel and the car started down.

“What’s down here?”

“The Allard has an underground garage but we’re going below that, deep into the schist. You can’t access the bottom stop without a key.”

“What’s the schist?” Barbara said.

“It’s the bedrock of Manhattan Island,” her daughter said. “It runs close to the surface here in Midtown.”

Well, I just learned something, Hari thought. Smart kid.

But something very weird about her—a keep-your-distance brand of weird. The ratty blanket as cape, sure, weird as hell, but something much deeper. And on the subject of the blanket, did it just move, like with a breeze when there wasn’t one?

Hari was going to have to keep an eye on her.

After a long slow descent, the elevator ground to a halt. Unexpectedly, the door behind them opened.

Hari tapped the one that had stayed closed. “Where does this one go?”

“Just a rather large storage area where Mister Allard locked away mementoes of his life.”

“He must have a lot of mementoes.”

A nod. “That he does. I’ve only taken a quick look, but he left all sorts of things in there, including an intact autogyro.”

“An auto-what?”

“Autogyro—a two-seat precursor to the helicopter.”

Figuring that had to be one helluva storage space, Hari followed Hill out the rear door onto a platform and—

“Holy shit!” Hari cried and pressed her back against the wall. “I mean, what the fuck?”