Transmission

He picked up one of the plants, considering its ceramic pot. He moved to the door of the room furthest from the elevator, picking a direction. Then he set the plant’s container rolling, as hard as he could, hurrying back to Luna just in time for a crash to sound in the distance.

The alien-controlled scientists turned toward the sound, then hurried forward in that awful, synchronized silence that they had.

“Now,” Kevin said, and he and Luna scurried toward the elevators. There was a lock set by them at about chest level.

“Quick,” Luna said, “use the key.”

Kevin pushed it into a lock by the elevators, and a green light shone. The elevator doors rolled open with agonizing slowness. How long would it be before the aliens spotted what had made the sound and worked out that they had been tricked? How long before they came back for the two of them?

An inhuman sound not far away suggested that it wouldn’t be long.

“Inside,” Luna said, and they both stumbled back into the elevator car.

There was another keyhole inside the elevator, along with a button at the bottom of the controls labeled simply “Bunker.” There were other buttons too, for the various levels of the facility, for its lobby and its parking garage. Kevin stood there, considering them.

“What are you waiting for?” Luna asked. “You heard Ted, we need to get to the bunker.”

Kevin nodded. He’d heard. There was only one problem.

“What happens to our parents?” he asked.

He saw Luna’s eyes widen.

Outside, he saw aliens coming around the corner, all of them moving toward the elevators with perfect synchronization.

“If we go to the bunker, who’ll save our parents?” Kevin asked. He couldn’t just abandon his mother to become an alien. He couldn’t.

So as the alien-controlled scientists started to rush forward, Kevin pressed the only button he could.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Kevin could only stand there as the elevator headed up, toward the lobby. The seconds seemed to stretch out, and with every one that passed he could imagine the scientists running through the building, grabbing more people and breathing the vapor on them, or just waiting while it spread through the building, maybe beyond.

The elevator rumbled up, the lights flickering in a way that suggested something was happening elsewhere in the building; something violent.

“Do you think they’ll be able to stop this?” Luna asked. She actually sounded scared. As scared as Kevin felt, right then.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, and not knowing was one of the worst parts of it. He had no idea what was going to happen, or if this could be stopped, or how.

Slowly, the elevator ground to a halt, the doors opening to reveal the lobby beyond. Kevin and Luna crept into it silently, not daring to take their masks off as they hurried through it.

One look at the floor told Kevin that it was the right thing. He could see vapor trailing along it like mist on a cold morning, pouring out from under the doors and spreading, caught by the breeze outside. He couldn’t see it as it touched the protesters, but he could see the effects as they breathed it, could see them going still one by one, staring up as if waiting for something.

“No,” Luna said, and Kevin could hear the horror in her voice. “No, it can’t be spreading this quickly.”

Kevin swallowed back his own fear. How could the vapor be doing so much, so fast? But he knew the answer to that: it had been designed to all along, and that was the most terrifying thought of all, because it meant that the people outside were just the start.

Kevin couldn’t work out how they were going to get past them, but it seemed that Luna had an idea. She was already leading the way out of the institute, heading for the parking lot there.

“What are you doing?” Kevin asked her.

“If we’re going to get home in time, we can’t take the bus,” Luna said. “We need a car.”

“So you’re going to steal one?” Kevin asked. “Can you even drive?”

It seemed inconceivable to him that anyone their age might be able to, but Luna seemed pretty confident.

“Not steal, borrow,” Luna said. “And yes, I can drive. Probably. One of my cousins let me drive his truck once. It’s not that hard.”

They went into the parking lot, staring at all the cars there. Kevin wasn’t sure what it would take to steal one of them, or how long it would take to do it. He wasn’t sure that they had a lot of time. Already, he could see some of those outside the facility’s fence turning toward them.

“Um… Luna?” he said. “I think we need to hurry.”

“There!” she said, pointing. Kevin recognized Dr. Levin’s compact city car immediately. “She gave you all her keys, right?”

“I’m not sure,” Kevin said. He took them out. “She gave me the one to the elevator, but…” One stood out immediately. “Does this one look like a car key?”

“It does,” Luna said. She snatched it from his hand, moving to the car and opening the doors. Glancing back, Kevin could see the people the aliens controlled advancing now, moving toward them and toward the facility in a single, synchronized group.