Ethan frowned. “Why are you so nice all the time? It creeps me out.”

“Dude, you have so many issues,” Lennon said with a laugh. “I’m honestly kind of sad that we don’t have time to unpack that.”

Ethan frowned harder.

Maisie pointed straight ahead. “Is that the compound?”

“Yeah.”

It was surrounded by a massive stone wall, like they’d watched those old zombie movies and were preparing for the worst. She could see a few taller buildings inside, but for the most part, whatever was on the other side of the wall was a mystery.

Straight ahead of them, at the end of the road, was the entrance. Ethan took a turn and rolled past it, to a small run-down building about a quarter mile down the street. He parked the van in back, behind a dumpster.

“I’m going to need a minute to figure out how to explain”—Ethan gestured to all the bullet holes as he climbed out of the van—“all of this. Hopefully no one will notice it over here. Or maybe I can just play dumb. I don’t think anyone knows I took it.”

“Is there a reason your hub is outside the compound?” Maisie asked as they walked toward the building. “Don’t you live inside?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly why. Everyone is breathing down my neck in there. Mom used this building for storage, but she said I could have it if I cleaned it out myself.”

He led them to the door, where he typed a code on the panel. The door unlocked.

They walked through a dark, empty front entryway and down a hallway to the room on the left. He flipped on the lights as they stepped inside.

“Uh, wow,” Lennon said.

One side of the space was completely covered in computer equipment. There were four different monitors, three laptops that Maisie could see, and stacks of hard drives and other equipment. Four huge screens were mounted across the wall above it all.

There were stacks of old technology all around the room—she could see two ancient CD players, mountains of old phones, tablets galore, and even some things she didn’t recognize.

Lennon approached a tower of matching plastic cases. “Are these CDs? Are you opening a museum?”

“I saved some stuff from old libraries and bookstores,” he said. Maisie noted that there were no actual books in the room. Maybe he put those somewhere else.

“Why?” Lennon asked.

“I like knowing how stuff works. And how stuff used to work.” He plopped down at his desk chair and his screen sprang to life.

Maisie edged closer to the end of his desk, where an old radio sat. It was scuffed up and the blue back panel didn’t match the rest, which was black. “This is how you talk to Hadley?”

He glanced at it. “Yeah.”

“Did you build this yourself?”

“Yeah. I mean, most of it. I put it together from a few parts.”

“You built the computers, too, huh?” Lennon asked. He was examining a laptop at the other end of the desk.