At Root's direction, Shaw steered the sedan off the highway in a tiny town called Seville. She turned north, drove through the center of town, which had three traffic lights, and turned right onto a road called Isidore Drive. Within a mile they were out in the country again. "Now what?"

Root leaned forward. "There'll be a turn off up here. A couple more miles." And then, several minutes later, "There."

Shaw turned the car and stopped in front of a high chain link gate. It was padlocked shut and topped with concertina wire. It also featured two large warning signs. Beyond the gate there was a crumbling paved road into the woods. There were no light inside the installation.

"Now what?"

"Now you get the gate open, sweetie."

"It says it's radioactive."

Root rolled her eyes. "That's to keep people out. It's fine. I've been here bunches of times."

"Then why didn't you make a key?"

"You want me to open it?"

"No. I'll get it." Shaw turned the car off and took the keys with her when she got out. She studied the lock for a minute, then bashed it with the butt of her gun. It broke on the second try. Shaw glanced toward the car. Her companion smiled brightly at her. Warily, Shaw pulled the gate open. The bright yellow and red radioactive warning signs were not very old.

Neither were the surveillance cameras mounted on both sides of the gate. There were no signal lights on them; maybe they didn't have power.

She pulled the car through, then made Root get out and close the gate.

They drove another four miles, along heavily wooded roads. It looked to Shaw like an abandoned Army base; there were cross roads and some empty non-descript buildings, all dark. But Root seemed to know where she was going. At one crossroad she suddenly pointed left. "That way."

There were signs warning of radioactivity on both sides of the road. A mile further, there was another gate. It swung loose on its hinges, so Shaw just nudged it open with her front bumper and drove through.

Half a mile and a dozen warning signs later, the road ended in front of a heavy concrete bunker.

Shaw noted with a little relief that the bunker was labeled RADIATION SHELTER AREA.

They got out of the car. "Is this where it is?" Shaw asked. "The … Machine?"

"Here?" Root laughed. "Oh, no. Well, maybe. But I doubt it. Come on. Let's get out of all this fallout."

"You said the signs were fake."

"Mmmm. Probably." Root practically skipped up to the bunker door. It was heavy steel and had a keypad security lock. The hacker confidently typed in numbers and the door lock clunked open.

"How'd you do that?" Shaw asked.

"I might have hacked the Pentagon once or twice." Root went into the bunker. "And I might have given myself a universal access code."

"That's not possible."

"Of course it is." Root tossed her head. "Well, okay, it's not quite universal. But it works for any place that doesn't get updated on a regular basis. Like this place."

Shaw clicked on the flashlight app on her phone. "You've been here before."

"I have. All this damp in here gives me terrible frizzies, but it's very private." She pulled the heavy door shut, and the lock clunked. "So," she said in the complete darkness, "how far behind us are they?"

"Who?"

"Sameen. Please. We both know they're following us. They gave us a head start so I wouldn't see them, but they're tracking you every step of the way." Shaw heard her smile in her voice. "Or they were, until we came in here. All these lead walls? They block everything. So – how much time do we have?"

"Three hours."

"Which means two. But that's fine. Plenty of time. Lights, please." The overhead lights glared on. and air handlers whooshed to life. The moving air smelled musty. "C'mon, I'll get us hidden for real."

Shaw glanced back at the door. Even if Control decided to rush the plan, these was no way she was getting inside this bunker without blowing that door off. And she wouldn't risk that. Not because she worried about killing Shaw, of course, but because Root was far too precious to be risked.

Whatever happened now, Shaw was on her own.

She nodded grimly. She liked it better that way.

She followed Root down the corridor.

"Ma'am?"

Control looked up, her face carefully composed. "You're about to tell me you've lost them."

The aide looked chagrinned. "Yes, Ma'am."

"You have their last known location."

"It's a mothballed arsenal in Seville."

"The nuclear waste site?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Well." Control stood up. "I suppose we'd better go take a look. Tell the team to mount up."

"Right away, Ma'am."

There were a dozen doors off the main corridor, all solid steel, all with keypads, none with any marking. But Root went without hesitation to the fourth on the left and keyed in a code. The door opened inward. Beyond was a sally port and then a second door. There was a window in the inner door, but the room beyond was dark.

"Come closer, sweetie." Root pulled Shaw all the way into the atrium. The outer door closed and locked, and a panel slid up, revealing a second keypad. Root covered it with her hand and keyed in a new code. "Lights and air, please." Beyond the window, there was what looked like a tech center, lots of computers on long desks, several big view screens, and a conference table with six chairs. "Oh, and boot up the computers, please."

"It's a SCIF," Shaw observed as they waited for the room to ventilate.

"Uh-huh," Root answered cheerfully. "It's way out of date, but it will work for us." She ripped the bandage and the chip off Shaw's arm. "We won't need these anymore."

"Aren't those what make us invisible?"

"They should," Root scoffed, "but I'm sure Control added something that makes them visible to her. No worries. I can re-write them. And as long as we're in here, she can't find us." A green light went on next to the door, and the lock clicked. Root twisted the handle and went inside.

The room smelled like oddly sterile, and the computers added an acrid electronic scent. Shaw looked around. There wasn't a spot of dust, of course. The room had basically been hermetically sealed. No rust, no dust.

Root selected a computer and sat down. "Be a love, will you, and make some coffee?" She gestured toward the back of the room, where there was a kitchenette.

Shaw went over and explored the provisions available. The tiny refrigerator was empty, which was certainly for the best, but there were MREs in the cupboard, and also individual snack packets of Oreos, Vienna Fingers and shortbread cookies, plus generic fruit snacks. There were protein drink packets, which Shaw knew from experience tasted like liquid shit but could keep you going for a week at a time. There were small bottles of Gatorade, blue and red. There were bottles of water. And there were foil packs of coffee ground.

Shaw opened one water bottle and rinsed the coffee pot. There was a sink, but she wasn't about to test the tap water; she knew Army-constructed bases usually didn't have the most safety-conscious plumbing. She set a pot of coffee brewing, then founds cups and rinsed them, too.

Root tapped on the keyboard, humming happily to herself.

Shaw paced the perimeter of the room. There were no windows, of course, except the one in the exit door. The task chairs were old, and the computers looked older. The conference table had multiple faded coffee cup rings. The walls were painted institutional blue-gray; the carpet was industrial beige and had no cushion to it. There was a single bathroom, with a toilet and a urinal.

She took Root a cup of coffee and a packet of each kind of cookie. Then she got herself a cup and a pack of shortbread and sat down two chairs away from her.

The coffee tasted exactly like Shaw expected: Hot water run over tin foil that had once held coffee beans. She'd had worse. She sipped it and nibbled her cookies slowly.

The psycho picked up her coffee with one hand and continued to type with the other.

Shaw wasn't sure what the woman was doing, and she didn't much care. It wasn't her job to care. It was her job to stay with Root until she led her to the Machine – if she ever did – or until Control picked her up again. So far nothing had happened that they hadn't anticipated.

"When do I get my money?" she asked casually.

"Hmmm?" Root paused, looked up at her. "Oh, right. Remind me after I finish reprogramming the chips. Don't let me forget."

"I won't. Believe me."

"Hush now. I need to concentrate. Whoever altered my programming for Control, they were surprisingly good."

Shaw grunted, finished her cookies, and washed them down with a few more sips of the mock-coffee. Then she leaned back, put her feet up on the desk, and closed her eyes.

She wasn't going to sleep, of course. But she could relax and conserve her energy.

Root tapped steadily on the keyboard, but it was mostly mindless. She watched her companion until the operative's body relaxed. Shaw wouldn't be fully asleep, of course, but that didn't matter. As long as she wasn't looking at Root's screen, that was fine.

The chips did have a concealed tracking code, of course. Root would have been surprised if they didn't. But she was also quite sure that there were more tracking measures in place. The car, obviously. But more likely there was an additional tracker in Shaw's body, and possibly in hers as well. She needed to get somewhere private and take a good long look. But there were temporary countermeasures. First things first.

The problem with a chip that made a person invisible to automated surveillance was, frankly, that it made a person invisible. It would work just fine in some situations. A person walking down a street would not be noticed, nor would her absence be noticed. But a car going through a toll booth with no electronically visible driver was sure to attract the Machine's attention. At ATM dispensing cash to a customer the Machine could not see would be a red flag. Absence was as noticeable as presence.

Root wasn't sure how the chip had worked for Alicia Corwin. By rights it shouldn't have. But it had. So there had to be something about that signature that persuaded the Machine to disregard the invisible person was not there.

She had run the code a thousand times in her head, in her dark little cell. She didn't see what the Machine saw. She didn't understand.

If it wasn't something imbedded in the code, then the Machine was ignoring the invisible person for another reason.

Root knew that the Machine purposely hid Harry and his sidekick. Was there some reason she had also hidden Alicia Corwin? Although she hadn't been able to complete her research, so far Root hadn't found any link between Corwin and Harry; she was pretty sure they had barely known each other in the car that day Root had shot her.

If the Machine had hidden Corwin, could she be hiding someone else as well?

Root spent a little time re-writing her chip. She had the program all in her head already; it was just a matter of typing it out. She spent a lot of time writing a program that would look for an invisible person. Then she hacked into the controls of the SCIF itself and made some modifications.

She felt a little rusty, a little slow. But it was good to have a real computer and a real keyboard again. And soon, very soon, she would be back with her God again.

Root pushed back her chair and stood up.

Shaw opened her eyes. "Done?"

"Need to use the little girl's room. Is there more coffee?"

"If you want to call it that."

Shaw closed her eyes again, but listened intently. Root went into the little bathroom and closed the door. There wasn't any other exit from there, the operative knew. The psycho wasn't gone long enough to make her worry.

"Ahhh," Root said as she moved to the coffee pot. "It is so nice to pee in private! You have no idea how much you miss that until it's gone."

Giving up on her nap, Shaw put her feet on the ground and stood up. "You get my money transferred yet?"

"Aren't you a greedy thing?" Root returned to her computer, but remained standing, stretching her arms over her head. "I'll do that right now. Don't you worry."

"You got the chips fixed?"

"Yes. Here." She slip a chip across the desk top. "Oh. We need band-aids." She began opening and closing drawers.

"Some kind of regular tape would do."

"True. And it's so much kinkier." The psycho kept moving, searching.

Shaw joined in the search. It only took her a minute to find a first aid kit. "Here."

Root was holding a small black box in her hand. She turned it over and studied it, then tucked it into her back pocket.

"What's what?" Shaw asked.

"Something that might come in handy later. Are there band aids?"

"Yeah."

Root sat back down. "Then let's get you your money." She rubbed her hands. "Deutsche Bank? They're good for hiding money."

"Sure."

The psycho typed. Shaw affixed her re-coded chip to her arm, and stuck Root's on her. "Thank you, love," the hacker answered absently.

Shaw got her cold coffee and dumped it in the sink. Then she ducked into the bathroom. She left the door half-open.

When she came out, Root was gone.

"Fuck." She turned to the entryway.

Root was outside the door, grinning her psychotic grin through the window. Shaw walked over slowly. "So I'm not getting my ten million?"

"Sorry, sweetie," Root chirped. "But if it's any comfort, I really did enjoy our visits. You were the best part of a terrible incarceration."

"So glad I entertained you." Shaw noted that the psycho had one of the SCIF laptops wrapped in her arms. Security breach. Petty theft. Least of her troubles.

"Well. You could have entertained me so much more if you're put your heart into it." Root sighed. "Still, I'll always treasure the memories."

"She won't let you get away, you know."

"Control? I'm not worried." Root put her palm flat against the glass. "Good-bye, sweetie."

"Bye, Root."

Root keyed the pad, and the lights in the SCIF went out. For a moment light came through the window. Then Root went out the outer door, and there was only darkness.

"Damn it," Shaw said. She pulled out her phone and keyed the flashlight. She knew the door was locked, but she tried it anyhow, just as a matter of training. Then she tried to call Control. Of course the cell got no signal in the SCIF.

She went back to the desks and picked up a landline. There was no dial tone, no power.

"Fuck," Shaw said again.

She sat down. Control and her people would be here shortly, she knew. It sucked that Root would have so much of a head start. And she'd taken the computer, so they wouldn't be able to learn exactly what changes she made to the chip. But there was a second chip in the big muscle over Root's shoulder blade, implanted while she was sedated for tube feeding. They'd catch up to her.

Shaw was mildly annoyed at having to be rescued, but this had always been one of the possibilities. If Root thought she was out clean, all the better.

Once she'd led them to the damn Machine, Shaw would be free of her.

She clicked off her phone and sat on the complete darkness to wait.

There was a subtle hiss in the otherwise silent room. Air handler, Shaw mused. The rest of the power had been cut off, but the air handlers still functioned.

And then, belatedly, Shaw realized that the SCIF was being placed in mothball status again. That the air handlers were not providing ventilation, but removing air from the room to prevent dust or contamination.

That Root had locked her in and left her to die.

She reached for her phone to check the time, then stopped. Her training told her that she and Root had been in the facility a little less than three hours. She had lied about how much leash Control would give them. It would be another hour before anyone came looking for her.

It would be ten minutes before she suffocated.

More out of habit than out of hope, she slowed her breathing as far as she could. She lit her phone again and moved quickly to look in each cupboard and drawer, but there were no oxygen tanks. There was a small tool kit, but she knew nothing in there would help her break the window.

With grim resignation, she went to the coffee pot and chugged half a cup of the evil, cooling coffee.

She hurled the coffee pot at the window. It bounced off with a gratifying slosh, but didn't even chip the polymer.

"Fuck!" Shaw shouted.

She slid to the floor and lay flat. The unpadded carpet was rough, and the concrete beneath was cold. She slowed her breathing again, this time with greater intention. Then she pulled out her mental manual on SCIFs and reviewed it for weaknesses. The keypad beside the door, maybe she could guess the code – except that it had no power. Remove the panel and try to hot-wire it? Again, no power; the power was activated from the sally port panel. The SCIF was designed to be absolutely secure, and even an older version like this one had precious few vulnerabilities.

Still, it wasn't in Shaw to just lay there and die.

She stood up and grabbed the fire extinguisher from the kitchen. She went into the bathroom, propped her phone on the sink as a flashlight, and slammed the base of the extinguisher against the tiles around the toilet pipes. On the third blow they cracked, and by the sixth they crumble away.

Behind them was reinforced concrete.

Shaw glared at the gray stone. She was panting, both from exertion and because the air was noticeably thinner.

Air handlers, she thought. She grabbed her phone and went back to the main room, then glared up at the ceiling vent. It was fifteen feet above her. She climbed onto one of the desks, then hauled a desk chair up after her. She locked the wheels and tried to block it with the edge of a computer monitor.

She was dizzy.

She climbed up on the chair and reached up. It was still too high for her to reach. And she'd forgotten to bring any tools with her to try to pry the vent cover off. But it didn't matter, because she couldn't reach it.

She looked around. She could stack another chair on this one. And get a screwdriver from the tool kit. That might work.

Shaw half-turned to climb down from the chair. The ancient wheel locks broke and the chair rolled. She lost her balance, flailed backward, and fell. The back of her head cracked against the edge of the desk, but she was still half-aware when she hit the damn thin carpet again.

She was conscious long enough to remember Root's stupid cheerful face, smiling through the window as she left Shaw to die.

She hoped that Control would kill her slowly.

She was sorry she wouldn't be there to see it. Or to help.

"Fuck," Shaw said, one last time.