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Nate wanted to go to Debbie and Clive’s apartment right away, but he changed his mind after climbing the ladder and the two sets of steps that got him to ground level. Veek pulled his arm across her shoulders and helped him walk. He told her about the generators, the fault line, and the cutaway diagram they’d found.

Roger and Xela stopped at the first floor and both gave him ragged salutes and smiles. “Conquering heroes,” said Roger. Nate returned the salutes before continuing up the back stairwell with Veek. His legs were trembling.

“So,” she said as they stepped onto the lounge landing, “Xela’s not going up to her apartment.”

“Doesn’t look like,” he agreed.

They went up a few more steps. “Her and Roger,” said Veek.

He glanced at her. “I wouldn’t’ve pegged you as the jealous type, Velma.”

“Jealous?” She thought about it and snorted back a laugh. “Oh, yeah. That’s what calls to me. A guy who shaves once a week and doesn’t use articles or pronouns half the time.”

Nate had a follow-up question but exhaustion settled on him like a lead apron. He’d been eager to get back and see Veek’s face light up when he told her about the generator room. With that done, his body was shutting down. Every step took a major effort.

Tim was waiting for them at the top landing. “Didn’t think we’d see you so soon,” he said. “What’ve you got for us?”

“Big stuff,” said Nate. “Tons of pictures.”

“There’s a bunch of generators down there,” said Veek, “running off a fault line.”

Tim’s eyebrows went up. “How deep down are we talking?”

“About a mile,” said Nate. He tried to say something else and yawned.

“Dead on your feet,” said Tim with a nod. “Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

Nate had a response for that, too, but couldn’t remember what it was. He relented to the terrible weight of his eyelids for a moment. When he opened them he was in his apartment and his sneaker was trying to get off his foot. Veek sat on his steamer trunk with his right foot in her lap. The laces were undone and she tugged on the sole. It popped off in her hand.

“Oh, God,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “You’ve been walking for two days, that’s for sure.” She tugged off the sock with two fingers, held it like a dirty diaper, and set his bare foot down on the floor. The sock flew toward the bathroom and she picked up the other sneaker. The knot fell apart under her fingers and Nate realized he was stretched out on his couch with a pillow under his head.

“Just go back to sleep,” said Veek. She dragged a thin blanket over him. “Like Tim said, we can talk about it tomorrow.”

He was going to answer this time for sure. He even had a clever joke about her pulling his clothes off. And then he was asleep.

* * *

“This room was marked ‘control,’” said Nate the next morning. He’d been out for ten hours straight. He hadn’t slept that many hours in a row since college.

He turned in a slow circle. He looked at the towering walls and window of Clive and Debbie’s apartment. “It’s the control room.”

Tim looked up at the high ceiling. “Controlling what, though?”

“The building,” said Veek.

“Yeah, but what does that mean?” said Tim. “Is there something in here that controls the temperature or the water pressure or the power usage or...” He shrugged. “How do you control a building?”

“It’s got to have something to do with the walls in here,” said Nate.

Clive looked around his apartment. “The fact that they’re two stories tall or the fact that they’re wood?”

Nate eyed the tall planks. “I don’t know,” he said. “Yes? Both? This is the only place with walls that aren’t painted, so we know there wasn’t something written here. But we know it’s a special room because it’s built different than all the rest.”

“But they’re all different,” said Tim.

Veek nodded. “Right, but this is seriously different. It’s like apples and oranges and a cinderblock. So what’s in here that makes it special?”

“It’s got a chandelier,” said Tim.

“I’ve helped Oskar change bulbs on it twice,” said Clive. “If it was the big secret, I don’t think he would’ve let me get that close to it.”

“Unless he doesn’t know it’s the secret,” said Nate.

“I have a question,” said Debbie.

“Sure,” Nate said.

“Did the diagram say ‘control room’ or did it just say ‘control’? There’s a difference.”

“How so?” asked Tim.

“Well if it’s just ‘control’ then it might mean like a control
group
,” she said. “The one you don’t do anything to so you’ve got a baseline.”

“Like an experiment,” Tim said.

Debbie nodded.

Nate wished he had Xela’s pictures. “I think it was just ‘control,’” he said.

“Well, that’s a pleasant thought,” murmured Clive.

Veek’s lip twisted up. “What are you worried about? If that’s right, we’re the lab rats and you’re the one getting sugar pills.”

“Yeah,” said Debbie, “but all the rats get dissected at the end of the trials. That’s just the way it goes.”

Nate stood by the couch and studied the walls. “There’s got to be something else,” he said. “You haven’t noticed anything else? Anything at all.”

“Nope,” said Debbie.

“Nothing’s attached to them,” said Clive.

“Oh,” Debbie said. “Yeah, there’s that.”

Nate looked at them. “What do you mean?”

Clive gestured at their kitchen area. “Nothing’s attached to the walls. Anywhere. The counter, the sink, the cabinets—it’s all a big free-standing piece, like an entertainment center or something. There’s a five-inch gap between the counters and the wall.” He pointed down. “The outlets aren’t even in the walls. They’re all in the floor.”

“
You never told me that,” said Veek.

Debbie shrugged. “With all the things you’ve found, it just seemed like minor weirdness.”

Nate went to the counters, and stretched his arm in the space behind them. His fingertips parted cobwebs and brushed something that whisked away. The wood was lacquer-smooth behind the counter, too.

“There’s nothing there,” said Debbie. “I’ve dropped a dozen forks and spoons back there and had to go after them.”

“And a spatula,” said Clive. “It ended up dead center in the middle. Took forever to get that damned thing out.”

“Language,” said Debbie. “And I told you to just leave it.”

“Yeah, but then we wouldn’t have a spatula.”

“We could’ve got one at the Ninety-Nine Cents store.”

Veek leaned over Nate and her phone shined white light into the space. He glanced up at her. “High-tech to the rescue?”

“Velma’s the smart one,” she said. “I don’t see anything.”

“Neither do I.”

“Told you,” said Debbie.

Nate slid his arm out and tapped his fingers on the counter. “If there was something to find,” he said after a moment, “if you were going to hide something, you wouldn’t put it down low.”

Tim nodded. “You wouldn’t want somebody stumbling across it by accident.”

“Right,” said Nate. “So you’d put it where someone could only find it if they were looking for it.” He pointed above his head. “And who’s going to stumble across something twelve or thirteen feet up?”

Veek already had eyes on the loft platform. “Can I look?”

“I’ll go with you,” said Debbie. They climbed the staircase and started to pore over boards around the bed.

“I looked at the walls a lot when I built the loft,” said Clive. “I’m pretty sure there’s nothing up there.”

“How sure?” asked Nate.

The other man shrugged. “I thought it was pretty amazing, all this hardwood,” he said. “And I know I checked it again when we moved the furniture up there. The guy I asked to help was a little rambunctious and kept hitting the walls. I was freaking out about how much it would cost to repair them if one of the boards got gouged or cracked.”

“And you never saw anything at all?” asked Tim.

Clive shook his head and shrugged again. “Not up there. And we’ve been up there every night for two years. Debbie even studies up there sometimes.”

The women took another ten minutes. “Nope,” Debbie called down. “We can’t find anything.”

“We’ve got to get out there and check out the rest of it,” said Veek. She gestured at the high walls. “We need a ladder.”

Roger had a collapsible ladder in his truck. He unfolded it in Debbie and Clive’s apartment until it formed an A-frame eight feet tall. It stood against the wall near their loft. “What am I looking for?”

Nate shrugged. “A hidden panel or switch or something,” he said. “Maybe something between the boards. Something that looks like it could be some type of control.”

“So...something weird?”

Nate smirked. “Yeah.”

“Yeah. Getting sick of that word.”

Over the next hour, Roger worked his way across two walls with the ladder. Tim took over for the other two. When they got to the end they reconfigured the ladder into a straight length and leaned it back up against the walls. It went up sixteen feet, well into the next floor of the building.

Veek looked up the ladder. “Not for me,” she said. “I’ve got a thing about heights.”

Nate glanced at her. “I thought you had a thing about bugs.”

“I’ve got more than one thing. It’s allowed.”

“You were okay up in the loft,” said Debbie.

“Because the loft is a nice big space with guard rails,” Veek said. “A ladder’s a flagpole with delusions of grandeur.”

“S’okay,” said Roger. “I’ll do the high stuff. I’m fine on a ladder.”

Veek coughed once. “So where’s Xela?”

“Working on something for a class tomorrow. A painting. She was excited about the big hike and forgot it was due.”

“When’d she remember?”

“Early this morning,” said Roger. “One of those things where she just opened her eyes and said, ‘Shit, I’ve got to do this thing.’”

Veek pursed her lips and nodded.

Roger caught himself halfway up the ladder and gave her a wry smile. “Didn’t hear that from me, though.”

Clive snorted out a laugh.

“Hey,” said Nate. He gestured at the walls. “Less bragging, more climbing.”

Roger went up a few more rungs and balanced on one near the top. He examined the seams between the planks. Nate felt pretty sure the rung below Roger’s feet said something along the lines of DO NOT STAND ON OR ABOVE.

Veek leaned next to him against the couch. “So,” she murmured. “Xela and Roger.”

Nate glanced at her. “For someone who’s not jealous,” he said quietly, “you keep bringing this up a lot.”

“I’m just thinking of you,” she said. “You’re not jealous?”

“Why?” said Nate.

“Single guy,” she said, “pretty neighbor...” She shrugged.

He shook his head. “A little envious, maybe, in that basic guy kind of way, but hey, good for them.”

Veek nodded. “Good. I don’t want you all mooning and heartbroken and distracted when we’re getting close.”

“Nope. Don’t worry about it.”

“Good.”

“Hey, check this out,” called Roger. He balanced on his left and leaned out past the ladder. His finger touched a black spot on one of the planks.

Nate tried to focus on it. Against the dark wood it was almost invisible. “What d’you got?”

“This isn’t a knot,” said Roger. “It’s a hole. A drilled hole. Looks like a coffin lock or something.” He leaned a little further and squinted at the spot.

“Seriously?” asked Clive.

Roger nodded. “Yeah, I can see the socket in there. Got an Allen wrench set?”

“Yeah.” Clive stepped away towards the oversized tool chest.

Nate tapped the ladder. “What’s a coffin lock?”

“Special latch,” said Roger. “Use ‘em when you want to have a low-profile connection you can undo real easy.”

“They use them in theaters to hold sections of the deck together,” added Clive. He held up a small silver rectangle for Roger to see and then lobbed it underhand up alongside the ladder. Roger snagged it in mid-air.

“The deck?” asked Tim.

“The stage floor,” Clive explained. “It’s called a deck.”

“Learn something every day,” said Tim.

“What,” said Veek, “that wasn’t in one of those books you published?”

Roger unfolded the Allen wrench set and slid one of the thicker arms into the small hole. “Not good,” he said. “Might be metric. Maybe custom, knowing this place.” He aimed a small flashlight into the opening. “Yeah, it’s kinda funky. Looks like two of the sides are longer. Diamond-shaped, like a jewel or something.”

“Can you make it work?” asked Veek.

Roger nodded. “Think so.” His face bent into a look of concentration as he worked the Allen wrench with his left hand and hung onto the ladder with his right. “Wrench is biting, but the lock’s stiff,” he told them. “Feels like it might be rusted or something.”