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Germans were not prepared to divulge their
results, and Chal returned to the United States disappointed. Her
disappointment was tempered by her belief that the Germans had not
succeeded, and that was why they had been reluctant to speak about
their results. Or so she thought.
    ***
    Now, as she watched
Dr. Fielding twitch nervously in his chair, these memories sprung
back into her mind and she realized that the military, for all their
resources, had not done their homework before beginning this project.
    “Which paper
was that, exactly?” Dr. Fielding asked.
    “There were
several,” Chal said, directing her attention to Lieutenant
Johnner. She was sick of watching Dr. Fielding’s weaselly face.
“You’ve wasted quite a bit of time if you’ve been
trying to wake up prototypes in a room while attached to a bunch of
machines.”
    “I think we’ve
been wasting time listening to you,” Fielding said. He stood
up. “Telling us we’ve done everything wrong–”
    Chal interrupted
him, her attention still on Johnner. She had dealt with bullies
before and found that ignoring them worked wonders.
    “You’ll
have to set up a new room. No bright lights, no machines. A sensory
deprivation tank would be best.” She ticked off the
requirements on her fingers.
    “Anything
else?” Lieutenant Johnner asked.
    “I can’t
believe you’re listening to this!” Fielding cried. He
made no attempt to leave the room, but the tic jumped wildly at his
lip.
    “Make sure
that the floors in the lab are padded,” Chal continued. “The
walls too. We don’t want any loud noises.”
    Johnner turned to
Dr. Fielding. “How long will it take before you can get this
set up?”
    Fielding stood
silently. His body was nearly trembling with anger that he had to
answer to Chal. Finally he turned his hateful gaze away from Chal. “A
couple of hours, maximum.”
    “Do it,”
Lieutenant Johnner said.
    Dr. Fielding swiped
his ID across the keypad and strode out of the room. Chal felt the
tension in the air ease.
    “Well,”
Lieutenant Johnner said, “I guess we can both grab a couple
hours of sleep then.”
    ***
    Johnner walked with
Chal down the hallway to her quarters. Right next to her bedroom, at
the end of the hallway, was a large metal door with a wheel attached
to it.
    “Where does
that lead?” Chal asked. It didn’t seem right to have
another sealed lab so close to the living quarters.
    “That’s
one of the escape exits,” Lieutenant Johnner said.
    “Escape
exits?”
    “There is one
on every level on the south side of the structure,” Johnner
said. “Even during an emergency, the elevators should still
work off of generated power. Just in case.”
    “A backup for
a backup.” Chal noticed something. “There’s no
keypad for that door.”
    “Wouldn’t
be a great backup if you couldn’t open it during a power
outage, would it?” Johnner said. “In case even the
generators fail.”
    “But,”
Chal said, “isn’t that dangerous? I mean, couldn’t
anyone just pass through without going through decontamination?”
    “The doors
don’t open from the outside,” Johnner said. He seemed
unworried about it. “The wheel locking mechanism seals it from
here.”
    “But someone
could open it from the inside,” Chal said. “Or they could
steal equipment and then leave.”
    Lieutenant Johnner
seemed amused at her insistence. “An alarm is set to go off if
anyone so much as cracked one of these doors open,” he said.
“All of the labs and living quarters lock down–from the
outside, not the inside – and security is alerted at the
entrance.”
    “Someone could
still escape,” Chal said.
    “Sure,”
Lieutenant Johnner said. “But where would they go?”
    Chal shrugged.
Anywhere, she supposed. Again, Johnner answered as if he were reading
her mind.
    “To get here,
you have to drive for hours through the desert. Anyone who escaped
from here would have a hard time finding their way back to
civilization. There isn’t