“I gave it a thirteen-letter name,” she suggested.

Jonathan let out a short laugh. “The whole building?”

“I guess. The part we were standing on, at least.”

He shook his head. “You can charge up a ring or a necklace, and Dess can do bigger stuff if it’s the right shape, but not a whole building. Maybe this place is made of some kind of crazy new metal. What does your mom do here?”

“Aircraft research.”

“Hmm.” Jonathan nodded. “We should look into it. That was totally cool.” He looked up at the building over their heads. “Wouldn’t mind some brass knuckles made of that stuff. Or maybe it was just the end of the blue time coming on. Lots of steel in conjunction with moonset.”

Jessica shrugged. This was another mystery for Rex, it sounded like.

Then a terrible thought struck her.

“How long do we have?” she asked.

Jonathan glanced at the moon. “Only a minute or so until the blue time runs out. I guess we’ll be walking home tonight.”

“Not unless we get out of here.”

“What?”

“They do classified defense work here, Jonathan,” she said hurriedly. “My mom got background-checked, interviewed by the FBI, and fingerprinted twice. There are security guards all over and a big fence all around.”

“Great,” he said, scanning the horizon. He pointed and grabbed her hand. “Bixby-side fence, now!”

She nodded. “Three, two…”

They jumped, heading back toward the city.

It took several bounds just to carry them to within sight of the fence. It was at least thirty feet high.

“Oh boy,” Jonathan said.

“What? We can clear that easy.”

He swallowed, clenching her hand hard. “I usually don’t jump at all this close to moonset. It’s not fun getting a face full of gravity when you’re up high.”

“Tell me about it,” Jessica said.

“Oh, yeah.”

They neared the fence. Jessica could see the coil of razor wire that capped it now, like a long, vicious Slinky stretched along its top. The light was changing slowly, a bit of color coming back into the world.

“Not long now,” Jonathan said.

Jessica swallowed. If she were caught trespassing in here, they’d blame her mother. The new job would be in the toaster.

“Just one more jump,” she cried. “Go!”

They soared into the air and over the fence, clearing the razor wire by at least twenty feet.

“Oh no,” said Jonathan. “I think that was maybe a little…”

“Too hard?” she asked.

They continued to sail upward.

The moon was slipping behind the hills. In the distance ahead the trees were turning green. Jessica realized that it was like sunset, right on the edge of day and night, when the light moved from east to west across the planet. Moonset and normal time—and gravity—were rushing toward them.

“This is not good,” Jonathan said.

They soared helplessly farther into the sky.