"Well if my name ain't Frank B. Parker…"

"Mr. Parker, I assure you-"

"Yeah, yeah, Olga, I know what I'm doing." He said. He lifted Olga's suitcase. "What do you have in here, bricks?"

"Souvenirs, actually." She said, smiling.

"How was the conference?" He asked. "Anyone I know?"

"It was fine. And if I did find anyone that you knew, you would be the first to know." She said, stopping in front of her door. "Thank you, Mr. Parker. How have you been?"

"Great. I've been great. Nothing major happened while you were away."

"I heard there was a mishap during a training session." She said, her expression turning to worry.

"Ah, Bradley told you. Nothing big, a few scrapes and scratches." He said, shrugging.

"Really?" She said. "Well I will see you later then, Mr. Parker." She said, smiling. "I've been flying all day, I doubt anyone wants to see me looking like this."

"You look great." He said.

"Well thank you." She said, closing the door. "I'll see you later."

"Yeah, uh, see ya." Parker said, but the door was already closed.

"Smooth one." Andrew said as he walked by.

"Don't make me hurt you, kid." Frank said, pointing a finger towards Hooter. He started walking after him.

"So is the sphere fixed?" Frank asked as he caught up to the young scientist.

Hooter shrugged. "More or less. We'll need to run a few more tests before we get it fully operational, but it's fine for a training session." He said. "As long as you don't backstep before we make the final tests, we'll be fine."

"Good, okay. I'll see you later, Hooter." Frank said, slapping him on the shoulder.

***

"Lani, I don't think we should do this." Carrie whispered.

"Don't be a chicken. I know they're doing something down here." Carrie slowly pushed the door open. She stopped abruptly when a creak started to form. She grimaced as the door creaked open.

"We're not supposed to be down here." Carrie whispered, pulling at her arm. "You know they'll kill us if they find us down here!"

"Keyword is if." Lani said. She held up her camera. "I'm gonna get the biggest story this school has ever had."

"Lani!" It was too late. Lani had slipped inside and disappeared into the dark room, leaving Carrie.

"Are you coming or not?" A voice muttered from inside. Carrie let out a small whimper and crawled in, shutting the door softly behind her.

"What is all this stuff?" Carrie asked.

"I have no clue." Lani said. She took a few more pictures, the flash momentarily lighting up the room. "None of the blueprints show this level even existed. It must've been a bomb shelter or something from World War I."

"But why would there be stuff down here?"

Lani shrugged, even though neither of them could see each other. "I don't know…" She coughed. "What is that smell?" She took another photo.

"Hey, check this out." Lani said, walking over to a bookshelf. She placed a hand on it. "Help me move this."

"What? No!" Carrie said urgently. "Leave it alone, come on let's go now."

"Wait a minute, there's something behind the bookcase." Lani rolled her eyes and handed her camera to Carrie. Pulling with both her hands, the bookcase groaned as it moved inch by inch away from the wall.

"What the hell is this?" She said. She shined her flashlight at the panel, which was dark and silent. A cobweb hung over it and the board was scratched and weathered. A few wires snaked down from the bottom of it, the connector for one section of the web. Half of the board was taken up by a dark screen.

"I don't know, I don't care. Can we go now?" Carrie pleaded.

"In a minute." Lani said. She tried to read the text on the panel, it was almost completely scratched off. "Caution: V…Quarantine...." She looked at Carrie. "Quarantine?"

"What?"

"It says Quarantine." Lani looked at the bottom of the panel and there were four slots, each having a switch under it. She read the text under each of them. "What the hell? Im…ter…quarantine, vel Quarantine," She frowned. " 100% ra-I think the next letter is a c…or a d?"

"What does that mean?" Carrie asked.

"I don't know." Lani said, shaking her head. She unzipped her jacket pocket and pulled out a small ziplock bag.

"What's that?"

"Some stuff Pete got for me from the dean's office." She said. "I think the cards that are in here-"

She pulled out a card. It was plain black, disguised plainly by "Eldridge University" on one side. The other side had a small square chip in it.

"It looks like it fits perfectly with these slots." She said. Her flashlight flickered and she tapped it against her palm. The beam strengthened and she put it back on the panel.

Holding the bag in her mouth, she pulled out one of the cards.

"You're not seriously going to do that, are you?" Carrie asked. "Let's go before we get into big trouble."

"I seriously am going to do this." She said. "Besides, look at all the equipment everywhere. It's all covered up, I don't think they even come down here. And look at this thing, it's all dirty and scratched up." She looked at the wires. "I'm just gonna see if it fits."

"It's a card." Carrie said. "It could belong to anything. It could be a library card."

"Well then we don't have a problem, do we?" Lani said, rolling her eyes. "Pick one."

"Me?"

"Yes, pick one."

"Uh…third."

Lani inserted the card into the third slot. Nothing happened.

"I think you have to flip the switch." Lani said.

"Me?"

"Come on, just do it." Lani said.

"You do it."

Lani rolled her eyes again. "Whatever." She placed her finger on the switch. She hated the feeling of the spider web brushing against her hand. She closed her eyes and pushed it.

In the distance, a cricket chirped, it's intermittent squeaking echoing through the halls.

"Okay, see? It doesn't work."

"Let's get out of here."

Suddenly, there was a beep and they both turned around to see the black screen flicker to life.

"What did we do?" Carrie said, about to cry.

"let's get out of here." Lani said. She tried to pull out the card but it wouldn't work.

"Forget the card!" She said. "Let's just go!"

Lani and Carrie raced out of the room and ran all the way down to the end of the hall. Carrie flung the door open and they both ran up the stairs, their shoes echoing against the walls and the metal staircase.

Down below, the screen they had left in panic had begun to scroll commands. Seemingly random numbers and commands rolled down, the board beeping once in a while. At last, the commands disappeared and the last line of command came. 100% elimination process selected and confirmed. Caution: evacuate premises in 20 seconds.

And with that, a number under it started to count down. 18, 17, 16, 15, 14….

"They're going to find out about this, Lani." Carrie said, lying on her bed. She couldn't make herself get up.

"I know. Tomorrow, we're going back down there and we're going to get that card back."

"Are you kidding? What if they're watching? They probably already know we were down there."

"Then it won't matter. If they already know it's us, then it won't matter if we go down again tomorrow."

"Forget it, you can go on your own this time."

There was a loud rumbling. They stood up and looked around.

And then in seconds, Eldridge University was engulfed in flames, each wing of the school was ablaze, everything instantly destroyed. Nothing was left as the last traces of the explosion rose into the air, smoke billowing out and over the trees.

And when it was over, there was the silence of death.