“You always did think you were faster than everyone else, Rowan,” she said.

She stepped closer, her heels clicking against the concrete.

“But you are out of exits.”

She gestured to the guard standing over me.

He reached down and pulled the plastic drive from my vest pocket.

He handed it to Tessa.

She held it up to the light, her eyes gleaming.

“Is this what you risked your life for?” she asked.

I did not answer.

I watched her thumb slide over the blue rubber edge of the drive.

“You should have stayed away,” she said.

She dropped the drive onto the concrete.

She raised her heel and brought it down hard.

The plastic casing shattered with a sharp snap.

“Now,” she said, looking at the guards. “Take them both to the holding cells.”

Before the guards could grab my arms, the lights in the generator room suddenly flickered.

A low, deep groan rumbled through the floorboards.

It was not thunder this time.

The backup generators began to whine, their pitch rising rapidly.

The computer console near the double doors began to beep frantically.