The 39 Clues: Unstoppable Book 2: Breakaway (16 page)

Nellie crouched in the weeds at the edge of the Trilon parking lot, looking up at the dark building. There were four labs with lights still on. She waited, legs cramping, until the lights went off one by one. Soon the straggling scientists left the building and got into their cars.

Nellie slipped out of the ditch and ran across the parking lot in a low crouch, doing her best to avoid the pools of light streaming down from towering steel poles. There was a security station just inside the main entrance that was manned 24/7, so that way was out. Luckily, she had the building’s schematics all but memorized. Nellie left the parking lot and came around the north side of the building, belly crawling underneath the first-floor windows just in case.

Nellie found the side door and pulled a set of lock-pick tools out of her back pocket. She eased the thin metal tools into the lock and closed her eyes as she dug around inside, judging her success by the vibrations coming back through the metal. She felt tumblers move out of her way one by one, but got stuck on the last. It slipped and slid out of her grasp and her hands went tense.

Nellie heard footsteps out in the dark. No doubt a guard on patrol. He was getting closer. Twenty feet away. Then fifteen. Nellie poured her whole concentration into the tools, twisting and turning them.
Come on. Come on.
A flashlight beam appeared. Nellie held her breath. Ten feet. Five. The final tumbler lifted and the lock clicked open. She threw her shoulder into the door as the guard appeared. She rolled inside, sticking out one hand at the last second to stop the door before it slammed against the frame. She held it there, listening until the guard was gone again. Nellie eased the door shut and then turned into the gloom of the building.

She was in a first-floor stairwell. To get back to the vending machine she needed to go up three flights and then wind through the corridors until she was on the far-west side of the building.

Nellie got moving, slinking up to the fourth floor, then peeking out the door until she was sure no one was coming. The hallways were half lit by safety lights, filling the string of labs and corridors with an eerie gloom. Nellie froze at every sound, her body going on high alert until she realized that it was simply the building settling or the air-conditioning cycling on. She had memorized the placement of the video cameras and took a long and winding route to avoid them. It felt like it took her hours before she finally ended up back at the dead-end hallway.

The snack machine glowed in front of her. As she approached it, the glass front picked up her reflection. Nellie’s skin went cold as she imagined the black machine was a huge mouth, poised to devour her.

Come on, Gomez, pull yourself together. It’s just your imagination.

Nellie’s hands shook as she pulled the stolen key card from her back pocket. She had definitely picked up a thing or two over the years. A subtle shoulder bump and the pharmaceutical rep she had seen outside of Dr. Callender’s office had been distracted enough that Nellie could swipe her card without being noticed. Nellie ran it through the reader. There was a click and one edge of the snack machine popped away from the wall.

Nellie peeked around the side of the machine. There was now a sliver of space between it and the wall behind. She slipped her fingertips into the crack that had formed and pulled. The snack-machine door swung open easily and without a sound. On the other side was a narrow concrete staircase leading down into darkness.

Nellie swallowed a growing lump of fear in her throat and stepped into the black, shutting the door behind her. She stood there in the dark, her heart hammering, until there was a faint hum all around her and a series of dim fluorescent lights cut on all along the staircase.
Huh
, Nellie thought.
I guess you can be evil and energy conscious at the same time.

Nellie descended the stairs, crossing switchback landings at each floor until she had descended five levels. There, she found a landing and a steel-jacketed door. The basement should be just on the other side. She swiped her A card in the reader by the handle and the door popped open.

Nellie peeked through the doorway. On the other side was a nondescript hallway with large picture windows running down its length. She didn’t see any people or hear any voices.

Nellie moved into the hallway in a slight crouch, easing the door closed behind her. When she came to the first lab, she flattened herself against the wall and peered over her shoulder.

The lab was filled with racks of computers, tables, chairs, and a chalkboard that was covered in a confusion of symbols. There was another lab next door just like it. She came to a third lab and found glass tanks filled with a thick green liquid. Odd, lumpy shapes floated in the green, while bubbles of air streamed past.

The serum
, Nellie thought with a chill. Her instinct was to bust inside and smash the tanks, but she needed to see the full scale of the operation. As Nellie started down the hall, a door swung open behind her and someone exploded out of an adjoining room. A hand fell over her mouth and she was yanked out of the hallway and into another room. Nellie moved without thinking. She spied a fire extinguisher on the floor and grabbed it and swung as hard as she could. There was a satisfying yelp of pain and her attacker crashed to the floor. She pulled the steel canister back for another swipe.

“Nellie! Please! Wait!”

Nellie stopped mid-swing. Below her she saw a tangle of black hair and dark eyes wide with fear.

“Sammy!”

The fire extinguisher clanked to the ground and Nellie dropped down beside him. He had fallen against a nearby table and was bleeding from his forehead.

“Oh, no. Oh, God. I can’t believe I just — are you okay?”

“I’m fine! But what — what are you doing here?”

Nellie grinned. “I’m your own personal cavalry. I’m going to get you out of here, but first, I need to see what Pierce is up to. Can you walk?”

Sammy nodded and Nellie helped him up. She put her back to the wall and peered out into the corridor. The coast was clear.

Nellie and Sammy moved down the hall. Nellie’s mouth went dry and the muscles in her legs quivered as she drew closer. Another window sat in the wall ahead, the biggest one yet. Nellie moved up alongside it, her back to the wall. She was surprised to find her heart racing. She turned slowly and looked inside.

There were no people anywhere that she could see, only a factory floor the length of a football field, filled with ranks of black machines. A conveyer belt ran along the room, connecting machine to machine. But what was on it? Nellie moved in front of the window and peered into a back corner. What she saw there made her blood go cold.

“He’s really doing it,”
Nellie said, struck dumb at the idea.

Along the back wall were three massive glass tanks, each one nearly three stories high. They were empty, but she knew soon they would be filled with the same thick green liquid she had seen earlier. Hoses ran from the bottom of the tanks to the machines that ran the conveyer belts.

“He’s mass-producing the serum,” Nellie said.

“But why?” Sammy asked.

There were hoses at the ready to squirt the serum into vials, and belts waiting to whisk the vials away. Nellie could see hundreds, maybe thousands of empty vials, just waiting for Pierce to press the button.

“Because,” Nellie said, her face grim, “he’s going to build an army.”