Benny touched my shoulder. I leaned towards him so that he could whisper, close to my ear: “Is that them?”

I didn’t dare to speak. I nodded.

The collar of Tamara’s jacket stood up taller than I was used to seeing Indigo wear, so that the glow from his collar-light was directed like a lighthouse. Right now that light was directed away from us.

I could stand up. That’s all it would take; I could stand up and they’d notice me. Maybe I’d have to shout their names. But they’d see me, they’d notice me, they’d come over. I could speak to them, so that the last words we ever said to each other weren’t full of fear and pain. Maybe wipe away the dreams the AI had given me of them lying dead.

But I was dead, sooner or later, from that Dreamer. And I could see perfectly well from here that they were alive and safe. Indigo was moving cautiously, but he was upright and walking—Ministers were all but unkillable.

And if I caught their attention, spoke to them, then I would lose the little advantage that I had. Because now, no matter what, I had to reach the Philosopher Stone first—or Benny would die.

I tapped Benny’s shoulder, rose to a low crouch, and started to pick my way across the room to where I knew there was a door.

“What was that?” I heard Tamara say sharply, but by the time her flashlight gleamed our way, we were out the door and out of sight. I heard her footsteps start in our direction, Indigo’s a beat behind. If only I could seal the door behind us, lock it, we might gain a little time to escape—

Something hurt in my hand, sharp and painful, like something crawling out from inside my skin.

Behind me, without my touching it, the door we’d left through came out of the wall and sealed itself shut.

There was no time to gape, not if we wanted to escape. We had ended up in another suite of rooms—offices, or lecture halls. Not the lab. “Come on, quick,” I urged Benny, and we ran through the maze of small rooms, weaving through rotten debris and climbing through holes in the scarred walls. We kept close to the curve of the wall surrounding Lab 17.

At last I judged we were far enough from Tamara and Indigo that they wouldn’t immediately catch up. Benny slowed next to me, and we stood there for a minute, panting, before he flicked his light on. The wall surrounding Lab 17 was still solid to our left, bisecting rooms and sealing up doorways with mosaicked debris.

“How’d they find us?” Benny demanded.

“They know where the data is,” I said. “They’re going the same way we are.”

“Or they’re looking for you.”

As far as they were concerned, I was dead. “Maybe. It doesn’t matter. We have to get through this wall.”

“We can’t do it with them breathing down the back of our necks. You said the Minister was hurt. How badly? Can we kill it?”