Moonlight from the window illuminates the room, and Declan and I walk toward the ghostly outline of the table. At night, the chandelier above us looks more like a net, waiting to fall and ensnare us, but Declan rushes forward.

"What are you hiding?" he mumbles to himself as he flips through the papers.

"Do you think it's something big?" I ask.

He pushes his glasses up the slant of his nose. "They don't trust many people, so it could be something stupid like a list of weapons. But you're right, something weird is going on. I think it could be something bigger." He points at one of the pages. "Aha! Like this," he says. "Blueprints of the bunker. Why won't they show us these?"

He lifts them from the table, and I follow as he scurries to the window. He turns his body so the moonlight shines directly on the blue pages, and sets them on the ground.

"You were in the bunker," I say, kneeling beside him, "so don't you know where everything is?"

"We were kept in specific areas," he says distractedly, so I join him in reviewing the prints, even though we've been running through the bunker in the immersions. I'm more interested in the blue light slipping through the cracks in the wall. How can we open the chamber?

"See, look," he says, pointing to a system of drains and air vents behind the walls of the bunker rooms. "Why aren't we using these? We could get into the bunker undetected if Mitchell disabled the security system, and probably save a ton of lives, you know? It's like... why don't they talk to me about this stuff?"

I forget the blue light for the moment, and focus entirely on the blueprints. All of the hallways and staircases stem from the main foyer, which I've seen in the immersions. There are five levels reaching into the earth, but the last two are for waste and recycling only. The first three include military headquarters on level one; a food management center, cafeteria, and the President's Quarters on level two; and the scientific laboratories on level three, including a room called "Command Center," a huge room called "Cryogenics Project," and a room simply called "Cryogenics."

The walls of all these levels are surrounded by an in-wall ventilation system for air circulation and a drainage system, probably in case of flood or accidental spillage or something. Being underground has its disadvantages.

"You're right," I say, running my finger over the ventilation system from the President's Quarters to the outside world. "We could easily slip in from the outer grate, and attack from inside. Why wouldn't the leaders want to use them?"

He groans and rolls his eyes. "Because they want to make an entrance. They want to show the President that we can send his empire tumbling down, you know? This isn't about what's smart. It's about what will make a bigger statement. What will get them remembered."

"By who? If we're all dead, no one can remember us."

He shakes his head and shrugs. "If they cared, we'd be using the drains and vents."

"We should do something," I say. "We have to tell someone."

"Like the leaders?" Then his eyes light up. "Wait... the General. We can tell General Sato at the refugee camp. We will just have to suggest it, and he'll agree it's the better call. He's an Army General. His word is final. He'll change the plans and we will train with the new scenario, and hopefully he will call Phoebe, Winston, and Alexander out on their irresponsibility."

"And you trust him?"

"He was one of the first people to leave the government. He was the first Deathless. He's always been kind to me and the survivors we've brought back to the refugee camp. We can trust him." He springs up from beneath the circular window, the blueprints in his hands, and returns to the table. "What else aren't they sharing? Where's the list?"

I leap up and rush to his side. The blue light can wait for now. These leaders are keeping things from us, and I want to know what. Declan shuffles through the stack of papers on the table, and finally lifts a stapled packet. He flips through the pages before his face turns white. "Oh my God," he mumbles to himself.

"What is it?" I ask, and he hands me a stapled set of papers from beneath a stack of files.

"The list," he says.

I scan the top sheet. It's an alphabetical list of names, and there, in the center of the B's, is Dad's name: Todd Blume.

"Declan, what is this?" I ask, more frantically this time.

He still looks like he's in shock, but he manages to say, "I think it's a list of survivors from the bunker. Mitchell must have hacked into the population data there. They have to keep everything current for oxygen level regulation."

If this is true, then I could have my answer now: Is Daniel still alive? I slide my finger down to the C's, and I can't control myself when I see it. "Daniel Crowley," I read, crying. But as I read on, I can't find any other Crowleys. Where is Eleanor? Where is Ben?

I'm practically gasping for air, but I finally stop the spinning in my head long enough to ask him, "Why wouldn't the leaders tell me my dad and Daniel were alive?"

"Why wouldn't they tell me Hugh was in the bunker?" he finally asks.

I flip to the Q's and read Hugh Quail right after Gunther's name. I look back to Declan and open my mouth to say something, but there are no words.

"He was there the whole time," Declan continues, his nostrils flaring in an anger I've never seen in him. "Hidden in the cryo chambers, probably, and he's still there now." He takes a moment before he speaks again, his eyes glistening in the dim light. "We are telling General Sato, and then you and Beatrice will get our loved ones back, and then we can break away from all of this. I'm sick of being kept in the dark. I'm done with these people," he says.

I return my focus to the wall, a faint blue glow around the edges, and my anger propels me forward. "Then let's confront them," I say, striding to the wall. When I reach the brick, I press my hand to as much of the surface as I can. There has to be a lever or a button or something hidden here somewhere, I think, but I find nothing. I move farther left, where I think I remember Phoebe standing when she heard Mom scold me.

"Isla, we can't. They can't know we know any of this, otherwise they will plan to get to General Sato first, destroy the blueprints, who knows what else."

But now the fury and curiosity are too tightly intertwined that I can't stop myself. I brush my hand over a woven tapestry on the wall, and run my fingers over a metal plate of some kind. "Here it is," I say to myself.

"Isla, we need to go," Declan urges behind me, but I don't stop my search. There are so many lies floating throughout this tank that I might suffocate if I don't open this wall.

I lift the tapestry and find a keypad protected by three metal sides. There has to be a code to get in. A code I don't know. But then I remember Nate's insistence on me remembering a series of three numbers. 3-5-8. I take a deep breath, and enter the numbers.

The lights blink red. That's not the code. Did I remember it wrong? Maybe it was 3-8-5, I think, and Declan pleads for me to stop. I try the altered code, and the lights blink red again, only this time they are accompanied by a shrieking alarm that shatters the silence.

Declan screeches, and I spin around in shock. He is straightening up the table, trying in vain to make it look as it did before, until he gives up. He throws the rest of the papers down and races out of the room.

I hold my hands to my ears in an attempt to block out the screaming alarm before I realize that I need to get out of here too. I run for the door, when I hear brick scrape against the floor again, and this time, a different door is opening.

I panic and dive beneath the table, my heart nearly exploding from my chest. Maybe whoever is coming in won't notice me in the darkness behind these bulky chairs.

A shadowy figure bursts from the wall and types in a code: 6626. I was way off. The alarm stops, the second opening closes, and the chamber entrance begins to slide open. In the flooding blue light, I see who it is. Alexander. He peers around the dining room before walking through the doorway in the wall, allowing it to swallow him up in light.

I decide I won't sneak out until my heart steadies, until Alexander leaves the room, or until my ears stop ringing; but after a few minutes without change, I become impatient and can't wait any longer. I pick myself up and tiptoe to the door. But that light... the blue light that illuminates my path now. What is it?

I decide I will lie, even though I'm not a particularly good liar. I open the door and close it with a little more strength than is needed, pretending I'm entering the dining room instead of leaving. "Hello?" I ask demurely.

I approach the open passageway in the wall to find a hallway, at the end of which is another door. The originating light shines out from around the door frame. Is this the chamber? I have to know what it is. Like Declan, I'm sick of being kept in the dark.

"Hello?" I try again, but there's no answer, so I continue slowly down the hall. As I near the next door, my eyes adjust enough to see there is a sign on it. It reads PRESERVATION.

I reach for the handle. As I slowly crack the door open, blue light floods the hallway, and I peak my head into the room to inspect it.

That's when I see Winston and Phoebe. There are three long, cylindrical tubes filled with the blue light and white smoke, and they are standing in the center of two of the tubes.

Where is Alexander?

The two standing scientists stare at me, and I brace myself for the scolding of a lifetime; but they don't move. I open the door all the way, and when they remain motionless, I approach the tubes to get a closer look.

Phoebe's eyes are frozen open, and ice crystallizes around eye lids. Her lips are a frosted shade of blue, her skin a snowy shade of white, and she doesn't move at all, not even to blink.

My heart starts racing. Did someone put them in here? I move to check Winston. His face is frozen, just as Phoebe's is, covered in a thin layer of ice and stained blue with cold.

Fear bubbles up from my gut, and escapes from me in a shrill scream. I bang against the glass to try to wake them, but there's no response. There's a keypad beside each of the tubes, but I don't know what to do or what to press. I try 6626 again, but they don't open. I just stand there stupefied, panting in fear and staring at the numbers helplessly.

That's when I hear footsteps behind me, and before I can turn around, a hand presses against my mouth, holding back my cries.