The loading dock behind the IT complex was clear and showed signs of semirecent upkeep. That was promising. I pulled up and killed the engine, waiting for Maggie to dismount before deploying the kickstand and sliding to the relatively unbroken pavement. My thighs ached from too many hours on the road, but my head was clearer than it had been in weeks. Knowing that I’m actually doing something has that effect on me.

The van pulled up a few yards away. The side door was open before the wheels had fully stopped turning, and Alaric jumped down, fumbling his field pack on as he trotted toward us. I pulled off my helmet and smirked at him. “Did you have a nice drive?”

“I hate you,” he said flatly.

“That’s nice,” said Maggie. Alaric shot her a look, and she smiled, removing her helmet. Her pupils were slightly enlarged—not in the exaggerated manner that would indicate a live infection, but in a softer, more relaxed manner that I recognized from dealing with high-strung reporters at press conferences. Her herbal tea definitely contained a few extra ingredients.

I considered pulling her aside for a talk about taking psychoactive substances before going into the field and decided to let it pass. It wasn’t like she was a combatant. She and Kelly were so much dead weight if we got attacked. She might as well be pre-anesthetized dead weight, in case things went poorly. As it was, she was only legal to be with us because the town zoning regulations made this place technically safe. Very technically.

Becks was the next out of the van, her own field pack already in place. Her scowl looked like it had been permanently affixed to her face. “You owe me,” she said, coming to a stop next to Alaric.

“Me or Maggie?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. The only way to keep her quiet was to keep the radio turned to the medical news channel. If I’d been forced to spend another minute listening to the exciting new developments in the world of pharmaceuticals, I would have taken her head and—”

Kelly’s hesitant emergence saved us from the details of what Becks would have done to her. She gave the parking lot a horrified look before hurrying toward us, demanding, “What are we doing here?”

“This is the address your file said we should be at, Doc.”

“There must be some mistake.”

“Nope. Underground lab, underground facilities.” I tucked my helmet under my arm, looking at the low-slung buildings spread out around us. “Can anybody see the numbers on these things? We’re looking for eleven.”

“You can’t mean we’re actually going to go inside,” said Kelly.

“No, Doc, we just drove a couple hundred miles to pose on the sidewalk.” Becks shook her head before turning to stalk off toward the buildings, scanning for more signs of habitation.

Kelly sighed. “This day just gets better and better.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure that soon, we’ll be looking back on this moment as one of the good times.” I followed Maggie, Alaric close behind me. Kelly stayed where she was for a few moments, staring after us. I could see her out of the corner of my eye. It was all I could do to not start laughing—which would have been entirely inappropriate, true, but it would have felt so damn good.

Be careful, George cautioned. Push her too far and she’ll freak out. We need her to stay calm, stay cooperative, and keep talking.

“I thought she’d already told us everything,” I muttered, as Kelly started running to catch up. Alaric cast a glance in my direction, but didn’t say anything.

You’re not that dumb.

There was nothing I could say to that. I kept walking, assessing the buildings surrounding us as I moved. I wasn’t exactly expecting a big sign that said ILLEGAL VIROLOGY LAB HERE, but it would have been nice. The buildings in the IT complex seemed to be essentially identical, all square, boxy, and in reasonably good repair, as long as you weren’t judging by the paint jobs. The building closest to us even had its original set of cell tower repeaters bolted to the roof, their narrow antennae making a familiar lightning-jag outline against the afternoon sky.

I stopped in my tracks. Looking bemused, Alaric did the same. “What year did we go to block-by-block private cell towers? Anybody know?”

“Uh… two thousand twenty,” said Alaric, after a long pause to do the math inside his head. “I remember when they put ours in.”

“Uh-huh. This is a pre-Rising complex. So who installed that?” I jerked a thumb toward the antennae.

Alaric’s eyes went wide. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. Over here, guys.” I waved for the others to join us and started up the cracked pathway leading to the building door. Locked. No real surprise, that; if I were running an illegal biotech lab, I wouldn’t exactly want scavengers or thrill-seekers dropping in on me unannounced. I rapped my knuckles against the metal of the door itself, hearing the echoes they sent ringing dully into the space beyond.

No one answered. That really wasn’t a surprise, either. “Maybe we should shoot the lock out,” suggested Becks.

I gave her a dubious look. “Did you just suggest discharging a firearm into a door that may be attached to a lab? Like, ‘explosive chemicals and weird machinery and God knows what else’ lab?”

Becks shrugged. “At least we’d be dhe s something.”

“We are doing something. We’re getting inside.” I knocked again. After a several-second pause, I cleared my throat, and shouted, “This is Shaun Mason, from After the End Times. We’re here to speak to Dr. Abbey. Is she available? It’s about the reservoir conditions.”