“There’s nowhere to go,” Sam says. The soldier continues forward, cradling a wrapped bundle in his arms, and when he’s close enough I feel Sam crouch. A second later, the Mog’s feet are swept out from under him, completely catching the soldier off guard. He falls over the side of the bridge and catches himself with one hand as the bundle he was carrying drops away. The Mog cries out in pain as my invisible foot crushes his fingers, and he lets go and drops through the air, splattering far below with a sickly thud.

Sam races us forward before any further calamities arise. Every single Mog in the area has stopped in midstride, staring at one another with confused expressions. I wonder if they believe what just happened was an accident, or if they’re now on alert.

Sam squeezes my hand in relief when we’ve made it across, and he lurches ahead, having gained a world of confidence from killing the soldier.

The next corridor is wide and busy, and it doesn’t take long for Sam and me to realize we’re heading in the wrong direction; the rooms we pass are exclusively private, and the entire wing seems to be where the Mogs live: caves with beds, a large open cafeteria with hundreds of tables, a shooting range. We rush down a nearby corridor, but the result is the same. And then we try a third.

We follow the winding tunnel deeper into the mountain. Several tributaries lead away from the main drag, and Sam and I randomly turn down them based on nothing more than gut feeling. Aside from the main hall we entered, the rest of the mountain is nothing more than an interconnected network of damp stone corridors, off of which various rooms house research centers with examination tables, computers and shiny, sharp instruments. We pass several scientific laboratories that we both wish we had the time to investigate further as we rush by. We’ve probably run a mile, maybe two, and with each new corridor that turns up nothing, stress floods my veins.

“We can’t have more than fifteen minutes left, John.”

“I’m aware of that,” I whisper, desperate and irritated and quickly losing hope.

When we take the next turn and rush up a steady incline, we pass the thing I’d feared most: a room full of prison cells. Sam stops in midstride and keeps a firm grip on my hand, causing me to stop as well. Twenty to thirty Mogadorians guard more than forty cells, all lined up in a row, with heavy steel doors. In front of each door, there’s a bubbling blue force field pulsing with electricity.

“Look at all those cells,” Sam says. I know he’s thinking of his dad.

“Wait a second,” I say, the solution flashing into my head from out of nowhere. It’s so obvious.

“What?” Sam asks.