The close, claustrophobic bunker had never seemed so endless. It felt like a nightmare with long, dark corridors running on to infinity. R.J.'s pounding steps didn't seem to be getting him anywhere. Oxygen deprivation attacked his lungs, tearing up the cells with burning pain, tasting of blood.

His only hope was how slow the portals operated. When you were in one, the heat and silence made the two-minute wait feel like hours. Now, it hardly felt like enough time to reach the OC and initiate the lockout.

None of this made sense. What did Miller and Bowman want with Amy? Why did they kill Kelman? How the hell did they get guns down here?

Every time he tried to examine the events and comprehend what was happening it was as though his mind hit a force field and bounced off. It was all just too insane to understand. Maybe this was a dream. Maybe none of this was happening.

But if it was real, he had to stop it.

He flung his body into the OC and stumbled over the raised threshold, sputtering his last few steps in a clumsy dance to retain his balance.

Luckily, the door had been left open. Aikman was still working, hunched over his computer and typing away. At the noise of R.J.'s entrance, he looked up.

"What's wrong?" He drawled the question, examining R.J.'s sweaty, red face.

R.J. gasped trying to suck air in so he could speak. "Amy's in trouble." It came out in a wheeze.

He staggered over to the control console. "Need to override the portal." He leaned onto the panel. The buttons and switches blurred before his eyes. Heavy drops of sweat splashed next to his unsteady fingers.

Where is the lock-out switch? Why can't I find it? It's bright red, goddamn it.

Aikman's chair made a whiny squeak as he stood up. "You can't do that."

"What are you talking about, Brian. Of course, I can. I just need to flip the switch."

He made a frantic sweep of the board that failed to register any details. Breathe, man. Breathe. It should be right here.

The seconds were running out. If he didn't get his act together quick, the electromagnetic locks would release, then there would be nothing for him to do but sit and watch.

"Step away from there. I really don't want to hurt you."

R.J. looked over at Aikman. He stood by his chair with a white chunk of plastic held in his hand like a gun. It was the same as the thing Miller had fired at him. Close up, it resembled a flare gun, like the ones stocked in a boat's emergency kit, but the barrel was narrower. The memory of the shot slicing past his head made the black hole of the muzzle look like the face of death.

Aikman waved the gun half an inch, gesturing for R.J. to step away.

"We don't want to hurt anyone. Just sit down and shut up and this will all be over soon."

It was as though a jigsaw puzzle had just been dumped out on a table in front of him and he was slowly picking up on the snippets of the picture and beginning to grasp what the pieces formed.

Aikman was working with the other two. He said they didn't want to hurt anyone, but it was too late for that. They had been willing to kill to get whatever they were after. And the thing they were after involved Amy— was Amy. Did they want to kidnap her? Set her free? Were they activists? Fortune hunters? Poachers? In cryptozoology, there was always the fear that the unscrupulous would get to the species first and wipe them out for sport or profit.

"What do you want with Amy?"

"I said, step away. Unless you want to do this the hard way."

"You're a goddamn computer programmer; you're not going to shoot me." R.J. tried to sound calm and confident. His own ears told him he had failed at it.

"Don't be too sure about that." He took a step closer. "You're life doesn't stack up with the new one that's waiting for me. If I have to step over your body to get away from the Agency, I will."

One hand still leaned on the panel. If his memory served him correctly, his finger was next to the intercom button. He pressed it without taking his eyes off of Aikman or the gun.

A sudden burst of static crackled from the speakers and fired like electricity through his nerve endings.

***

"Amy. You're in danger. You need to-"

A blistering pop sent a crackling reverb through the speakers, and they went silent.

Gravity pulled her from her startled trance. The weight of her book dragged itself through her fingers until the sharp edge bounced into her thigh.

Danger? How?

Her hand found the remote lying on the bed next to her. She switched off the music. The beating of her heart flooded filling the hushed void. Her ears strained to catch any sounds, but there was only the same dull nothingness that her steel cage fed back to her every day.

What did R.J. mean? She was the danger locked away to keep others safe. But he had been afraid. The panic in his voice had brought the robust odor of fear to her nose like a synesthetic response. What did he want her to do?

The boring bedroom was alive with possible dangers. Her eyes flashed from air vents to the window, to the door on either end. No one ever entered through the pen. If someone was coming, it would be by the main door. She leaped off the bed and raced to it. Her socks slid on the tiles making it feel like her feet were working against her. Amy placed her ear to the seam separating the door from the frame and ripped the socks off, while she waited.

There it was the first hiss. The slight wisp of air escaping as the seal on the door broke. In a second, there would be a click followed by a creak as the bolts released. She had heard it many times in the past. Times when she curled on the floor, dreading the arrival of people coming to drag her to the other room.

"Who's coming, R.J.? R.J.?" Amy yelled out, backing away from the door. But she knew there wouldn't be an answer. Something had happened to cut him off, something loud and something bad.

You need to...

Need to what? What could she do trapped in here?

Her tentative steps began to pick up speed. Her bare feet were sure on the smooth floor. Her toes gripped the cold tile with each step.

The pneumatic hinges began to move. Her shoulder blades hit frigid steel. There was nowhere else to go. She couldn't get any further from the portal than this. Whatever was coming would find her trapped, pressed against the door to her pen.

A thought slipped into her head like a wintery draft through a crack in a windowpane. Her spine arched with the chill. He wanted you to change.

"No," she said out loud. She would never change again. Ylva was buried in the forest world. The wolf was gone. She would never change again. She wouldn't.

The door cracked opened filling her room with the scent of death. There was an aroma of fire and sulfur-an acrid chemical smell not produced by any living thing. But there was also the smell of putrid meat coming from the widening gap—a sweaty, rancid, stench—primal in nature and as old as life itself. She had sensed it before. When? Where? What was it?

Her nose twitched. Something was hunting.

It's a predator. Instinct spoke inside her head with a voice much older than her own.

Amy's hands clawed at the unyielding metal at her back. It was a frantic, pointless act that didn't even brace her for what was about to come.

Gloved fingers appeared in the opening and a yelp escaped her mouth. The hand gripped the door and pushed it open, impatient with the slow progress of the mechanics.

The lights seemed to flicker as her terror sent a buzzing tremor over the surface of her body. The death she could smell on them was her own.

"I will not call to Ylva. I won't!" Amy screamed out the words to make them true, to try and counteract the fear that was eroded her resolve.

***

Author's Note:

So here ends the first of the three chapter conclusion to Book One. Is anyone not in danger? Did I leave anyone out?

Chapter 12 will begin on Friday, May 1. Yes, for the first time since starting this book I will be missing a posting. I will be in New Orleans next week for JazzFest and to eat myself stupid. Ordinarily, I would prepare a posting before I left, but the recent splurge of double postings and a minor touch of writer's block means I'm almost caught up and have very few rough draft scenes in reserve. By not posting, I'll have the chance to catch my breath and then push through until the end. Not to mention, I get some sick pleasure from leaving off on the biggest cliff-hanger of the book.

I already posted a song for this chapter (the titular "Lovely Day") but there's another one attached to this section. I've been looking for an opportunity to use a Galactic track (I'll actually be seeing them live next week—woot!) and this one's driving rhythm fits the chapter. As does the chorus of "Talk slow, move fast, look before you..."