Silver Shadows

Without hesitation, I slipped in after her while the doors were still open, praying the elevator would still function from the last swipe of her ID card. If not, I might be stuck in it for a very long time. Luck was with me, and the button for the operations and purging floor lit up when I pushed it. I moved down a floor, and the doors opened to an empty corridor. I hurried out and tried not to think about how I was going to be able to use the elevator again.

I remembered where the supply closets were, but when I reached them, I discovered something I hadn’t noticed before: They too required a keycard to open them. Sheridan must’ve unlocked them ahead of our visit before, but now I was out of luck. Time was slipping away on my spell, and I was getting nowhere fast. Sadly, I accepted that I’d probably have to return to my room and try again with a better plan tomorrow. At least I still had that second stick of gum.

Laughter jerked my attention from the medical supply closet, and I saw two Alchemists round the corner and come walking down the hall—in my direction. Panicked, I flattened myself against the wall. There were no nearby corners or nooks to duck into. If luck was on my side, the twosome wouldn’t walk past me at all. If they did, I’d have to hope looking down would save me from eye contact and detection. For all I knew, that might not be enough.

The two of them stopped in front of the operations room, and I started to breathe a sigh of relief until an idea came to me and I realized I might be missing a golden opportunity. I sprinted toward the room they walked into and just managed to make it inside before the door—an automatic pocket one—slid closed. I froze and held my breath, terrified someone would notice me, but the two Alchemists I’d followed never even turned around. The only other person in there was a bored-looking guy in headphones, who was eating yogurt near a wall of monitors. The majority of the monitors were dark, and I realized those were the displays from our bedrooms. The other monitors showed classrooms and halls, most of which were empty.

Desks and computers filled the room, and I prowled around, again struck by a sense of déjà vu for the time I’d conducted similar activities in an Alchemist facility. Only then I’d had a much more reliable invisibility spell to fall back on. Still feeling determined, I searched around until I found what I’d hoped for. The guy eating the yogurt had taken off his suit coat and draped it on a chair. Clipped to the coat’s pocket was his ID badge. I had no idea if some badges had more access than others, but at the very least, this would get me back on the elevator before my spell wore off. I pilfered the ID from his coat while his back was to me and slipped it into the waistband of my pants. I’d thought at first when I saw his headphones he was monitoring sound surveillance, but being that close to him, I realized he was actually listening to some kind of metal band. I wondered how that would fly with his superiors.

Regardless, it was good news for me, as was the fact that the two people I’d followed in were huddled over some computers and chatting loudly. I was pretty sure I could slip out, and no one would really notice the door opening. Before I could make my way back, however, I saw something new that made me hesitate and then walk the opposite direction. It was a touchscreen panel in the wall labeled sedation control. Current readouts indicated that the system was on nighttime settings, and every region of the detainee living quarters was listed: bedrooms, halls, cafeteria, and classrooms. All bedrooms were labeled 27 percent, with the rest of the rooms at 0 percent.

The gas levels, I realized. When I’d been in isolation, I’d gotten the impression they were controlling my cell manually, which made sense since they would knock me out instantly if the conversation wasn’t going their way. From this display, however, it was clear the regular detainees were modulated by a central, automatic system that piped in the correct level to keep us heavily asleep each night. Three options at the bottom of the touchscreen suggested there was occasionally a need for manual intervention: OVERRIDE—STOP ALL SYSTEMS, RESET, AND EMERGENCY PROTOCOL—ALL REGIONS 42 PERCENT.

For a moment, it was simply the number that was staggering. If the normal 27 percent sedative concentration sent us into a heavy sleep, what would 42 percent do? I knew almost instantly. That much sedative piped in would knock us out in the blink of an eye. There’d be no drifting off into heavy slumber. We’d keel over where we were standing and practically be in comas—which would be very useful if there was ever any sort of mass escape.

I didn’t know exactly what Adrian and Marcus might be able to pull off when they found me, but I knew this could cause some serious kinks in the plan. Disabling the gas in my own room wasn’t going to be good enough. I need to kill it for the whole floor, and that was no small feat. Turning it off here was pointless when the touch of a finger would bring it right back. Somewhere, there had to be a more mechanical system I could interfere with.

That wasn’t a problem I could focus on tonight, though. With a last lingering look at the panel, I hurried away and slipped out the door, unnoticed as I’d expected. From there, it was a hasty trip to the supply closets. Like all the other doors I’d encountered, I opened them as little as possible, allowing me to slip inside each one and gather what I needed where there was no surveillance. I soon had two bottles of purified water tucked into my waistband and a dozen wrapped and capped syringes hidden variously in my socks and bra. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but I needed everything to remain under my clothing to be covered by the spell. My surprise find of the night was that extra condiments were also kept in the food supply closet: ketchup, mustard, and—salt. I’d planned on smuggling out small amounts throughout the week, but one stolen shaker from the closet solved that problem.