“When I squeeze your hand, take three steps forward, then stop. That part’s important, unless you want to walk into a wall.”

I nodded, then realized she couldn’t hear my brain rattle. “Okay.”

“Aren’t you going to ask where we’re going?”

“No. I trust you.” I had no other choice, because I was helpless in that moment, in spite of years spent fighting, training for the inevitable. I was more vulnerable to her touch than I’d ever been to a gun, or a knife, or a fist.

“Don’t,” she whispered, and the words sounded like they hurt. “Don’t trust anyone, Ian. Least of all, me.”

Before I could respond, she squeezed my hand and tugged me forward, farther into the dark restroom. As my foot hit the ground on my third step, the air around us changed. It felt colder and dryer, and more sterile. And everything was dark. Truly dark. There were no shadows, because there was no light to cast them. There was no infrared grid, nor any glow from any kind of power indicator or exit sign. This was real darkness. My kind of dark.

“Darkroom?” I whispered, and the echo of my own voice told me the room was small, the walls not far beyond our shoulders, with us standing side by side.

“Yeah. Hang on, it’s about to get bright.” Her fingers left mine, and my hand felt cold and empty in her absence. Kori took a small step forward, then something clicked and light blazed to life all around us, violent and jarring, like we’d stepped into the middle of a roaring bonfire. There was no actual pain, but after such peaceful darkness, my eyes ached beneath the glare, and the sudden sense of exposure—of vulnerability—was more than enough to set me on edge.

Static hummed in front of me and I squinted into the light to make out a small monitor next to a door with no knob or handle. A moment later, the static on the monitor gave way to a man’s face, scowling at us. “State your name and business,” he ordered, eyes narrowed in irritation, as if he resented having actual work to do at work.

“It’s me, Harkins. Open the door.”

“Kori?” The man’s eyes widened as he studied her face. “Tower said you wouldn’t be making any more deliveries, so just turn off the light and slink back into the shadows before we both get in trouble.”

“I’m not delivering. I’m tour guiding. This is Ian Holt.” She stepped back so Harkins could get a better look at me, and I nodded in greeting. “Jake told me to show him around, so open the fuckin’ door so I can do my job.”

“Tower sent you? Then you won’t mind if I verify that.” He picked up a telephone receiver and held it in front of the camera.

Kori shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest. “He should be sitting down to lunch right about now, so you can probably catch him at the house. With his family.”

Harkins scowled again and lowered the phone. “If there’s trouble to be had from this, I’m aiming it all your way.”

“What else is new?” she mumbled, as he made a show of pressing a button somewhere on the desk in front of him. The door to the darkroom popped open into the hall with the soft whoosh of a seal being broken.

“Stop by the front desk for visitor’s tags,” Harkins ordered, and then the screen went blank again.

“Was that an air lock?” I asked, as she stepped into the hall.

“Yup. So they can gas you without killing anybody else.” She leaned back into the darkroom and pointed up, where two vents were nestled flush with the ceiling, side by side.

“You’re serious?” I said, trying not to imagine why Tower might want to gas someone in his darkroom.

“Serious as gasping your last breath in a pool of your own vomit.”

I frowned and followed her into the hall. “You know, you really have a way with words.”

“I have a way with guns, too,” she said, pushing the door closed behind us. “Let’s hope I don’t need one, because I am drastically under-armed today.”

“Are you expecting another ambush in one of Tower’s own buildings?”

She hesitated, then met my gaze briefly. “I don’t have permission for us to be here, technically.”

“Then why are we here?”

Another shrug as she led the way down the hall. “You wanted to see something true.”

“Should I have specified that I want to survive seeing it?” She wasn’t the only one drastically under-armed. For authenticity in the role of a systems analyst, I’d foregone even my bare essentials for the second day in a row.

Kori twisted to grin at me over her shoulder. “If you wanted boring, you picked the wrong tour guide.”

“I didn’t—” I stopped before I could admit I hadn’t picked her. “I didn’t say I wanted boring. Just nonlethal.” For me, for her, and for whomever I’d have to kill to get my hands on a decent weapon if it came to that.

“Don’t worry. You’re too valuable to shoot.” With that she headed down the long white hallway, and I had no choice but to follow, wondering what Tower was protecting with restricted-access darkrooms and gas vents.

We turned a corner to the left and Kori stopped at a rounded reception desk, where a woman with two green chain links on her exposed left arm handed us a sign-in sheet and slid two visitor’s passes into plastic cases attached to lanyards.

UnSkilled service, I thought, staring at her arm.

Kori handed me a badge and I slid the lanyard over my head, then held the badge up so I could read it.