Page 191 of The Vigilante's Lover

The inside of the lobby is like any other. I glance at Jax as we enter the room. Red sofas are clustered around a large planter filled with flowers and leafy trees. A round marble desk holds a typical-looking security guy in a blue uniform. He blearily watches a few small screens.

It doesn’t look anything like a silo or Vigilante stronghold, which I guess is the point.

A long desk ahead is manned by three receptionists, all young women with sleek hair and headsets.

“What happens now?” I ask.

“Those are Phase Fours behind the desk,” Jax says quietly. “They’re letting the others know we’ve arrived.”

“What about that uniformed guy?”

“Phase Ten fighter,” Jax says.

Really? “He doesn’t look it,” I say.

“Isn’t meant to. He’d give me a run for my money, though,” Jax says. “He might yet.”

The man looks over at us.

“Should we talk to someone?” I ask.

“Let’s see how far we can get,” Jax says. “Up here where they try toappear normal, we can make our way safely, at least for a little while.”

He leads me over to a bank of elevators, then thinks better of it and moves toward a stairwell.

“What’s wrong with elevators?” I whisper.

“They are all fitted with gas,” Jax says. “Let’s not get trapped in our first sixty seconds.”

A scanner blinks as we approach the door. “I think I should go first,” I say, remembering how the Missouri silo worked. I had free run. “If it picks you first, you might get a dart.”

He grins, and I can tell he’s pleased with the way I’m working things out.

The lever on the door turns beneath my hand, and we go through.

“The War Room is several floors down,” Jax says. “I have no illusions that we’ll get anywhere near it without being stopped.”

“It’s just a question of what will stop us,” I say. “People or the security system itself.”

He points up. “Darts, cameras, the works.”

I peer at the ceiling. There are a number of ordinary-looking gadgets. A camera with its wide glass eye. A sprinkler head. I suppose you could hide all manner of tech in those.

We hurry down a flight. The next door is locked tight. “Open it with the pass key or go on?” I ask.

“Let’s go down,” Jax says. His eyes are everywhere, watching the walls, the ceiling, the corners of every turn.

We head down the next flight. Nothing about the environment changes. No alarms sound. No warning lights flash. No darts fly at us.

The next door is also locked.

“Isn’t the War Room six floors down?” I whisper.

Jax nods.

I take his hand and he squeezes it tightly. I have no idea when we’ll hit our first roadblock. Or what I’ll do if they dart Jax. Or me.

As we go down the third flight, the walls start to change. A clearacrylic covering sheathes the plaster. Jax stops us. “They’re going to ID us now, like when we walked into that first silo.”