Fionna and Penny looked up at the three little kids - siblings, they believed, who were killed in a car accident - as they ran circles around each other, literally. The Adventures of Tintin was being projected onto the big wall screen, but the kids were having too much fun to pay attention.

"You mind if I turn on the lights?" Penny asked. "These kids clearly aren't paying attention to the movie, and I'd kinda like to get back to my book."

Fionna got up to turn the lights on herself. "You don't need to ask my permission," she said, glowering at the kids. "How typical. We put on a good movie for them while the city's on lockdown and they're trapped in here, and they're just acting like ungrateful little twerps."

"That's kinda out of character for you," Penny said, licking her fingers before opening up to her next chapter of The Vicious Deep, which she was reading on Fionna's recommendation.

Fionna sighed heavily, dropping her head into her hands. "I know. I'm just feeling pissed right now. I had a really sweet dream, and then it was cut off by the lockdown. Or 'cause Feathers was woken up on his end. Stupid whoever-it-is who's kidnapped him."

"Did you say 'kidnapped?'"

"And Kyle's not here, either," Fionna grumbled. "Which doesn't happen. And it really sucks, 'cause he's so much better with kids than either of us are."

"True," Penny said. "The only reason why we're dealing with these ones is 'cause we're the youngest people working here, 'cept for Kyle."

Fionna nodded glumly. As young people, she and the other Aqua Killer victims, and also Kyle, regularly found themselves on the receiving end of elderlies' expressions of pity. "The good die young" and all that. Kyle, Steve, and Fionna were particularly susceptible to this treatment, because they were still teenagers.

"Your attention please," Thompson's voice called over the loudspeakers. "Would Junior Librarian Lee report to the front desk immediately."

Penny raised her eyebrow at Fionna. "If you weren't supposed to turn the light on, I'll gladly take the blame for it."

"Nah, it's okay," Fionna said, stepping up to the door. "I'll take my own punishment, thanks."

"Suit yourself."

"You think you can handle these brats by yourself?"

Penny chuckled, fixing the children and their continued circle formations with a stink-eye. "Yeah," she said, adjusting her infinity scarf. "I'll be fine without you."

"Suit yourself," Fionna said, earning another chuckle from Penny as she left the theater. That was the official name of the room, anyway. "Lecture hall" would have been more appropriate. The front desk, where Thompson sat, was only fifty feet away.

"Ah, Miss Lee," Thompson said, elegantly rising from his chair and walking around the front desk. "Come with me. You're wanted in the basement."

Fionna swallowed as Thompson walked past the shelves, his gold-topped cane tapping on the tile floor with each step. "I...I didn't know we had a basement," she said, giggling nervously.

"Now you know," Thompson said. He rounded the corner past the last shelf in the sci-fi section at the end of the south wing, then switched his cane to his other hand as he typed a code into a keypad. Fionna was only able to get the shortest glimpse of the writing on the keypad's door - "KEEP OUT - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" - before the electronic lock clicked and the door buzzed open.

Thompson beckoned Fionna forward with a flourish, then he led her down a short but steep flight of stairs to another door, nearly identical to the one they had just passed through. It even had a keypad, on which Thompson was typing in another code.

But what really caught Fionna's eye was the message on this second door. Not professionally printed like the previous one, this one appeared to have been crudely hand-painted. Fionna laughed out loud as she read it, remembering how she and Alex had talked about the source of that particular memetic image during their latest dream.

"DON'T OPEN," the door read. "DEAD INSIDE."

Thompson cocked his head, then flashed a strained smile at Fionna. "My assistants have a rather dark sense of humor," he said. "Before you go in, however, I should warn you - what you see inside will give you something of a shock."

He opened the second door, allowing Fionna's ears to be hit with a guy's voice, yelling and ranting. "...and if you'd really done a nice, neat, thorough background check on me, you guys would know that I'm not only claustrophobic, but fucking dark-o-phobic, too!"

"I don't think that's the right word for it, but-"

Fionna blinked in surprise, then stepped into the room, looking at its two occupants in extreme surprise. One was Kyle - at least now she knew where he'd gone. And the other, the one who'd been hurling abuse, was a slender dark-haired guy with green eyes. A real cutie, especially with the ropy biceps visible under his hoodie sleeves. If Alex hadn't told her that Dani was no longer living as a girl, she probably wouldn't have guessed this guy was the girl with the Tris Prior haircut she'd met at the Smythes' cabin.

"Holyno fucking way," he said, his eyes blinking rapidly. "I'm...am I dead?"