If you have any questions, contact me immediately.
Salt-and-pepper mustache opened his mouth to lodge some kind of protest — Marla knew the wounded-pride look all too well — so she spoke again before he had the chance.
“You’ll notice this is written on Corwin’s personal stationery,” she said, tapping the letterhead, “and I’m sure you recognize his handwriting. But if you still have any doubts, you’re welcome to call him right now. I’ll wait.”
He looked at her murderously, glanced at the note once more, then stalked off. She didn’t catch every word he mumbled as he went, but the few that she heard were unrepeatable in polite company. Under other circumstances, she might have been amused. Instead, she refolded the note and put it away, then sat down on the steps and wrote another blog entry:
I have now been stopped by a ninth person telling me I’m not allowed to take pictures, and once again the note from Corwin saved the day. The photo I was taking at the time is attached here. The shape in the image appears to be a giant chunk of the damaged reactor.
She sent the post into cyberspace, then ran up to the top floor — the twelfth — and pulled back the reinforced steel door, revealing a narrow corridor, dimly lit by caged bulbs. Pipes ran along the ceiling, but there were no signs of any kind, not even the WARNING or DANGER cards that seemed to be posted everywhere else in the facility. A buzzy, high-pitched hum came from all around.
Taking a quick photo, Marla entered the hallway. She passed several doors labeled in black press-on letters — ELECTRICAL and CUSTODIAL and, in one case, the cryptic AG-144E. Although curiosity danced along every track of her nervous system — a curiosity that, she believed, was programmed into every decent journalist’s DNA — she didn’t bother with any of them, as the probability of finding something worthwhile seemed low. When she reached the door at the other end, she opened it without hesitation.
The shriek that came from her immediately thereafter echoed symphonically throughout the corridor.
The security guard facing her had to be at least six-five or six-six. His monstrously large arms hung from a massive torso, his short-sleeved shirt straining to contain biceps that bulged like balloons. His mouth was disproportionately tiny, as if it hadn’t grown with the rest of him. Bright green eyes bore malevolently into Marla’s while a muscle in his cheekbone twitched — his only visible movement.
His polyester guard’s uniform, navy blue below and sky blue on top, was flawlessly pressed, the matching navy cap affixed in perfect symmetry. But it was the weapon that held Marla’s gaze — a nine-millimeter short in a nylon holster. The strap was Velcroed in place, but that didn’t provide much comfort since the man’s hand, which was large enough to palm a dinner plate, hung next to it.
The name tag above his shirt pocket read T. ELLERTON, and she found a tiny measure of reassurance in that he wasn’t trying to hide his identity. It could just be a pseudonym, her petrified mind pointed out.
“Excuse me, please,” she said, taking a small step forward, hoping he would give way. “I need to—”
He blocked her path. “Ms. Hollis, would you please come with me?”
Like the tiny mouth that spoke these words, the voice didn’t seem to match its owner. A little high, it was soft and gentle.
“I’m sorry?”
“Would you please follow me?”
Marla’s hand plunged into her pants pocket.
“Here, look at this. Just look.” She unfolded Corwin’s note. The guard didn’t even glance at it. “Nine other people have tried to stop me today,” she went on. “Nine. And I’ve told them all to go blow. Now I’m telling you. You cannot—”
“Ma’am, please.”
“Who are you, anyway? Part of some secret police they’ve got around here?”
“My name is Ted Ellerton.”
Taking two steps back, Marla put the note away and pulled out her phone. “Okay, Ted Ellerton, mind if I take a picture of you and write an entry in my blog about how you’re refusing to let me do my job? Maybe we can call Corwin and mention it to him, too.”
Ellerton’s superhero-sized hand came up to block the camera.
“Don’t, please,” he said.
“Oh? And why not?”
“Just don’t.”
As she lowered the phone, he took it from her with a gentleness that was surprising from someone so large. It reminded Marla of the way she used to remove books from her grandmother’s hands after the woman had fallen asleep in her easy chair.
“I want that back now!”
“Ms. Hollis…”
“There are millions of people waiting for my next blog entry. If I don’t post one, they’ll know something’s up. I’ve already prepped them for that possibility.”
“You were looking into the NRC audit from 2012,” Ellerton said, raising his voice a bit. “Is that correct?”
Marla’s mouth snapped shut, then dropped open again.
“What did you say?”
“The NRC audit from 2012. You thought there was something suspicious and you were going to write about it in one of your columns but had to let it go because you couldn’t dig up enough verifiable information.”
“How do you know that?”
Ellerton looked at her phone, comically toylike between his giant fingers, then back at her face.
“Just please follow me…”
He turned and walked away, through the open doorway and down a flight of steel-grated steps.
When he was almost out of view, she started after him.
Ellerton led Marla through a section of the plant she’d never seen before and did not recognize from any of the floor plans she’d studied. It was yet another warehouse-sized space used mostly for storage, judging by the varied containers, the passive lighting, and the lack of live machinery. When they reached the bottom of the stairs — Marla realized they were back at ground level — Ellerton took her to a recessed, unmarked door. He had to use two keys from a ring of dozens, plus a magnetic card, in order to open it.
Beyond were another set of steps that terminated in an unpainted concrete passageway with numerous breaker boxes mounted on the left side. The laser-printer smell that had been lingering through the air since the explosion was completely absent here; Marla only detected the scents of dust and dryness and the suspension of time. The distant buzzing that was previously omnipresent had also vanished, creating a powerful feeling of isolation and detachment. It was as if the carnage outside was now galaxies away. This feeling was further compounded when she noticed that the tiny security cameras, perched high along the wall in regular intervals, had all been turned off. Her heart began pounding as a squirming unease coiled inside.
The hallway ended in a large open area lit by low-wattage fluorescents that cast a subtle, nightclub glow over what looked like another storage space. Marla moved reluctantly into the dimly lit room. Unless the guy was the worst shot in the world, he could bring her down easily enough if she tried to run. She looked around, trying to spot something she could use as a bludgeon — a length of pipe, a large wrench or hammer — but there was nothing.
Ellerton stopped outside a chain-link cage and pulled out a jingling key ring. The tin sign next to the door said CLEANING SUPPLIES and the plastic shelves inside held bottles of bleach, neatly folded towels, boxes of detergent, and spray bottles containing liquids of various colors. A rolling mop bucket, the mop leaning against the wall next to it, sat in one corner.