Chapter 8 #3
Ben moved to the window and stared out at the forest beyond the cleared perimeter. Somewhere out there, Sidney and Rebecca Morse must be planning a rescue. He needed to help them, needed to give them the intelligence that would make such a rescue possible.
He turned back to the room and examined it with fresh eyes. No obvious surveillance cameras, but they had to be monitoring him somehow. The desk was bolted to the floor, and the bathroom had no windows. Even the bed frame was secured. Everything was designed to prevent escape or self-harm.
But they’d left him the desk.
Ben sat down and began pulling open its drawers. All of them were empty except for a single pad of paper and a pen in the top drawer on the right — probably left there deliberately so he could write down questions or concerns he wanted to discuss during tomorrow’s follow-up meeting.
He picked up the pen and tested its weight. Basic ballpoint, nothing useful as a weapon or tool. But the paper might work for something else.
He’d been documenting supernatural phenomena for more than seven years, and archaeological data even before that. He knew how to observe and record, how to communicate findings to the people who needed them. The format would be different, but the principle was the same.
Keeping all that in mind, he began to sketch the facility’s layout from memory, marking distances, noting security stations, mapping the route to the underground laboratory.
If Sidney and Rebecca actually managed to infiltrate the place, they’d need this information.
After he finished the basic sketch, he added notes on the guards’ positions, the shift rotations he’d observed, and the elevator access codes Hargrove had used.
Then he wrote down another piece of critical intelligence.
Artificial portal stability: 6 hours maximum. Cascade failure risk if extraction continues. Dr. Hargrove has doubts — potential ally.
He was halfway through adding technical specifications when the door lock disengaged again.
Ben palmed the paper and slid it under his thigh as he turned toward the door. Too soon for dinner, and they’d already performed a medical check while he was unconscious. Which meant —
Eric Hargrove entered alone, no guards visible in the corridor behind him. The scientist looked even more uncomfortable than he had in the lab, gaze once again directed toward the floor as he closed the door behind him.
“I have maybe three minutes before someone notices I came here,” he said.
He spoke quickly, as if he knew he had to cram as much information as possible into those three precious minutes.
“So you need to listen carefully. The artificial portal isn’t siphoning energy only from Silver Hollow.
It’s draining the entire natural portal network to stabilize itself.
Every supernatural site on Earth is being affected. ”
Ben got up slowly. The other man seemed agitated, guilty, and determined all at the same time. This didn’t feel like a trap, not when Hargrove was risking so much simply by being here.
“You’re helping us,” Ben said. It wasn’t a question.
“I’m trying to fix my mistake.” Hargrove pulled something from his lab coat pocket — a security badge.
He set it on the desk. “This will get you through any electronic lock in the facility except the main entrance. There’s a service exit on the second sublevel in the northeast corridor.
It’s monitored but not guarded. If you can disable the cameras — ”
“Sidney can,” Ben said. “If she gets inside.”
“She will. Rebecca Morse contacted me an hour ago.” Something came and went in the scientist’s expression as he spoke Rebecca’s name, but it was gone before Ben could begin to analyze what it might have been.
“They’re planning an infiltration for two o’clock this morning.
There’ll be a system malfunction at exactly that time.
” Now Hargrove actually met Ben’s gaze. “I’ll create the malfunction.
It’ll cause eight minutes of security blackout.
That’s all I can give you without revealing my involvement. ”
All very handy — maybe too much so. What if this plan was nothing more than a way to get Ben to reveal his true feelings about the work they were doing here?
He figured he might as well be direct. “Why are you doing this?”
Hargrove’s mouth went tight. “Because Rosenthal won’t listen.
I’ve been telling her for weeks that the extraction rate isn’t sustainable, that we’re causing catastrophic damage to the global portal network.
She won’t stop until she has her weapon, no matter how many supernatural sites collapse.
” He drew in a shaky breath before he added, “I got into this field to understand these phenomena, Mr. Sanders. Not to destroy them.”
God, Ben hoped that was true.
He picked up the security badge and felt its weight. As far as he could tell, it was real, not a fake. Hargrove was risking a hell of a lot by giving it to him.
“The notes I was writing,” Ben said. “If Rosenthal’s guards find them — ”
“They won’t. I’ll arrange for waste removal tonight. Anything in your trash will be incinerated.” Hargrove glanced at the door. “I have to go. Two o’clock, northeast service exit, second sublevel. Sidney will need to jam the emergency alert system first, or the entire facility goes into lockdown.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“Good. And Mr. Sanders?” The scientist paused at the door. “I’m sorry about all this. I should have stood up to Rosenthal months ago.”
Not an easy thing to do, especially if your livelihood depended on staying in her good graces. “You’re standing up now. That’s what matters.”
Hargrove nodded once, then slipped back into the corridor. The door locked behind him with its soft electronic beep.
Ben stood alone in his cell, holding the security badge for a moment before he slipped it into his jeans pocket. There was no way to communicate with Sidney or Rebecca before two in the morning, and he didn’t have any real resources except his brain and whatever information he could provide.
But he had intelligence and a potential ally. And he had approximately ten hours to prepare for a rescue attempt that might save him, Sidney, and the phoenix — or might get all of them killed.
He sat back down at the desk and memorized every detail of what Hargrove had told him. The service exit location, the eight-minute window, the need to disable the emergency alerts. It was all critical intelligence that Sidney would need.
Then he tore the notes he’d been writing into small pieces and dropped them in the waste bin. If Hargrove was as good as his word, they’d be destroyed before anyone could read them. If not — well, at least he’d tried.
Ben moved to the window again. Not much had changed — it was far too early for the sun to have begun to set — but staring at the forest steadied him somewhat. Out there somewhere, Sidney was recovering and preparing to do something dangerous and probably suicidal to get him out.
Which meant he needed to be ready. He needed to have every piece of information memorized, every escape route planned, every contingency accounted for.
He’d made a career out of documenting the impossible, finding patterns where others saw only chaos. Now he’d apply those same skills to breaking out of a classified government facility and destroying an artificial portal that threatened the entire supernatural ecosystem.
Just another day in the field.
Ben almost smiled at the thought. Then he settled in to wait for darkness…and the rescue attempt that would determine whether any of them survived the next twenty-four hours.