Disclaimer: Most of the characters belong to Kenner and a bunch of animation studios. All I own is the situation, plot, backstory and some of the minor characters.

Author Note: If you're a M.A.S.K. canon purist, you may want to look away now. I'm playing a little fast and loose with one or two canon elements. I hope you can forgive me.

Story Note: This follows on from The Coming Storm and What It Takes. If you haven't read those, I strongly recommend you do as they sets up much of the back-story for this.

Estranged

Three

Gloria hurried across the UC campus. She was going to be late, that much was certain, but she could at least do her best to minimise it. How could she have been so stupid as to oversleep?

Just as she reached the steps that led up and into the fine arts building, however, her watch began to bleep.

For a moment, the sound puzzled her. She hadn't set the alarm – had she done, she wouldn't have been late for class! – so why was it bleeping?

The reality of the situation slowly dawned on her. It wasn't her watch alarm, it was MASK calling her into action. Dr McLean had warned her about it only the day before, when he'd formally inducted her as an agent. He'd said the call could come at any time, day or night and that she should be prepared to head out when it came.

She sighed and started back towards the parking lot. Looked like she wasn't going to make class after all.

Brad followed the realtor through the house and tried not to look bored. He had a feeling he wasn't all that successful, to judge by the growing hostility the realtor was showing him. It wasn't his fault this house looked almost exactly like the last nine he'd been shown. None of them had the slightest bit of character to them; they all looked as if they'd been assembled from a kit.

He hadn't figured relocating would be anywhere near this hard!

As the realtor began to drone about the high level of workmanship in the kitchen, Brad's watch began to bleep, providing him with the excuse he was looking for.

"Excuse me," he said, offering the realtor his best smile. "I seem to be late for my next appointment."

Then, before the realtor could object, Brad hurried out of the house and climbed into the sporty jeep he'd rented for his stay in Boulder. The summons might well mean he was heading into a life-or-death situation, but that had to beat terminal boredom!

Rhino was finally behaving, but Buddy was even more convinced that he was going to just rip out the big rig's engine and start over, and do it sooner rather than later. It had taken every second of the last hour to trace the problem – another burnt out section of wiring in the ignition system – and then fix it. Still, it was done and he was reasonably certain the rig would condescend to continue behaving.

At least Firecracker didn't need much work. The only order of business was to check the exhaust brackets. Buddy knew there was a suspicious sounding rattle, which had started up during his hasty drive back here the previous evening. Grabbing a wrench, he slid beneath the pickup to take a look.

Sure enough, one of the brackets had come free. He rolled his eyes and lifted his wrench, intending to start tightening it again. As he did so, however, his watch began to bleep. He jumped and instead of the wrench fitting around the bracket, Buddy found himself involuntarily raking his knuckles against the underside of Firecracker.

"Damnit!"

Buddy sucked his abused knuckles and glared at the watch. Lousy sense of timing. He acknowledged the call and debated for a second whether he was going to head to the control room now, or whether he had time to at least fix the bracket. On balance, he decided that it was better safe than sorry. For all he knew, they would be heading straight out after the briefing and he wouldn't have another chance to fix it.

I am so not risking the exhaust dropping off halfway to Colorado Springs, he decided, making another attempt to fix the bracket. Besides, it won't take long.

A couple of minutes later the bracket was fixed and he slid out from beneath Firecracker just as a badly tuned jeep pulled into the vehicle bay. Rental car, he decided with some disgust. Gotta be. He watched as the driver parked the car in an out-of-the-way spot and shut the engine off.

The driver, a dark-haired man wearing shades, bounced out, then did a double-take as he realised Buddy was watching him. "Buddy, right?"

Buddy smiled. "Brad." They'd met, briefly, once before, the day before Buddy's eighteenth birthday. That, Buddy realised, had probably been the day Brad was officially inducted into MASK, although given Brad hadn't been around for the ensuing chaos of Sarah's abduction, Buddy hadn't given the older man any further thought. "I'd say it was good to see you but--" He shrugged.

Brad lifted his shades off and tucked them into the top pocket of his jacket. "I know what you mean." Brad hesitated a beat, then added, "You know your way around this joint?"

"Sure." Buddy grabbed a rag from the hood of Firecracker and started to rub his hands. "Control room's this way."

Two steps in that direction and Brad suddenly stopped dead. "I'm not interrupting you, am I?"

Buddy offered a wry grin. "I was just on my way there myself." He tapped his watch in a meaningful fashion.

"Oh. Oh, I see." Brad looked mildly sheepish. "Sorry."

"Meh; it's not like any of this is exactly normal." Buddy smiled wryly again. "C'mon."

He led the way into the control room. Matt, Hondo, Alex and Bruce were already there. Then Buddy spotted a fifth person and he felt his mouth dry up with a mix of fear and anger: Duane Kennedy.

"Great," he muttered, sliding into his normal seat. "Like this day needed to get any worse."

Brad shot him a curious look, but didn't ask. Matt, too, eyed him with interest. Studiously, Buddy stared at the edge of the table and ignored them both.

There was a moment of awkward silence, then Duane cleared his throat rather ostentatiously. "Is this it?" he enquired.

"We're just waiting for one more," Matt answered, but even as he spoke, Buddy heard the control room door swish open to admit someone else.

Vaguely, Buddy wondered if the newcomer would be Dusty; then he remembered the Texan had gone home three days earlier, to help out on his father's ranch after his father had broken his ankle. Curious, he looked up to see a young brunette woman standing in the doorway looking nervously at the gathering.

"Gloria, take a seat," Matt directed, taking up his own seat at the same time. "There'll be time for proper introductions later. In the mean time, Duane?"

Duane cleared his throat again. This time, Buddy thought he could detect a certain nervousness to the statesman. As if whatever it was he was going to brief them on was about as bad as it could get.

"At oh-five-hundred hours, local time," Duane began, "the Pentagon lost contact with the Cheyenne Mountain facility. An unknown number of VENOM operatives were able to make their way into the base and take control of operations there."

Buddy stared at Duane in complete incredulity. How the hell could that have happened? he wondered. But the answer was obvious: Duane hadn't believed a single word he'd said the night before. Buddy felt a wave of anger pass through him at that realisation. How the hell could someone in Duane's position let personal prejudice get in the way?

"Our task's simple," said Matt. "We get into Cheyenne Mountain and kick VENOM out."

Matt's matter of fact statement jerked Buddy out of his thoughts. Distantly, he realised he'd missed most of Duane's briefing, but from the expressions on Brad and Gloria's faces, whatever the statesman had said had just confirmed this was proving to be a very, very bad day.

"There's just one snag," said Hondo. "The Cheyenne Mountain facility has security to make your eyes water."

"Why don't we nuke it ourselves?" asked Brad.

"Two reasons," Hondo answered. "First, there'd be no way to evacuate Colorado Springs and the surrounding area without alerting Mayhem. Second, and maybe even more important, the place was designed to survive a close to direct hit with one of the Russian's biggest nukes. You could let it off in the base parking lot and you probably wouldn't so much as spill a cup of tea inside."

Brad winced.

"Then how the hell can we get in and take back control?" Gloria asked.

"It's going to be tricky," said Alex, "but the chief thing we have in our favour is that we have some technology at our disposal that the VENOM team won't be expecting."

Buddy thought of Sarah's abduction and Hondo's idea of backup and guessed Alex probably meant more of that kind of thing.

"Also," Matt continued, "we won't all be going in. Not initially. The plan is for a small, three-person team to sneak into the mountain and release the lockdown. Once that's released, the rest of us can chase VENOM down."

"Wonder who gets to draw the short straw," Brad murmured, provoking a small smile from Gloria.

Matt smiled briefly. "Bruce, as our leading computer and electronics expert, you're team lead. Buddy, you're backup. Gloria, you're team security."

Buddy eyed Gloria again. Team security? Sheppard made at least six of her, and that was assuming it was just him. Throw in Rax, Mayhem and Dagger as well and-- Buddy stopped his train of thought there. Matt had to know a hell of a lot more about Gloria than he did. Presumably somewhere in that information was a reason he'd picked her to round the team out. Buddy was just going to have to trust Matt's judgement.

"There is," said Duane, dragging Buddy's attention back to him, "one last thing you should know: There's a time limit on this. We have to have this resolved by seven-thirty this evening, local time, or Russia and China are going to beat VENOM to the punch."

Buddy glanced at his watch and realised that gave them less than ten hours to complete the mission, and one hour of that would have to be taken up by travelling down to Colorado Springs.

"When every moment is precious, a wise man does not waste the seconds he possesses," Bruce observed.

Out of the corner of his eye, Buddy saw Brad and Gloria exchange glances, but before either of them could ask, Matt said, "Good point, Bruce. We've done enough talking, we need to get on to the doing. Alex? Are they ready?"

"Just," Alex answered. "Although more time testing would have been of use. Are you sure--?"

"We don't have a choice."

Buddy wasn't sure what that was all supposed to mean, though Alex clearly did as he nodded in reply and got to his feet. "Buddy? Gloria? If you would come with me?"

Buddy got to his feet and followed on behind Gloria and Alex as they left the control room. As the control room doors slid shut, he heard Matt say, "OK, let's see if we can fill the holes in the rest of this plan before VENOM can figure them out."

"Is it always this insane?" Gloria asked.

Buddy shrugged and offered her a faint smile. "Maybe not quite this nuts, but it's usually pretty out there."

"So it's not just me?"

"Nope." Buddy grinned despite himself. "Welcome to insanity central."

"It's not quite as bad as Buddy's making out," said Alex, amusement ripe in his voice, "but the nature of what we do does lend itself to the direst of circumstances." He palmed open a lab door and waved them through. "After you."

The lab reminded Buddy of Bruce's lab, a little further along the hallway. The only difference between the two, as far as he could see, was the lack of clutter on the workbenches.

Resting on the central workbench were two objects. Buddy guessed they were masks, like Blaster, except that any resemblance between the three was purely coincidental. For a start, both the masks on the workbench were designed to hide the wearer's whole head, which Blaster certainly didn't. They were also much brighter in colour. One of them was a vivid green; the other a bright yellow.

"Not exactly camouflaged," he observed.

Alex smiled wryly. "I agree. But then again, that's not what they're for."

"What are they?" Gloria asked, frowning.

Alex waved his hand at the two masks in turn and said, "Aura and Penetrator," as if that explained everything.

"They're masks," Buddy supplied, seeing Gloria still looked confused. "They do stuff. Like shoot laser beams."

Gloria lifted an eyebrow. "Laser beams. OK." She shook her head. "Is it me or does this just sound like the most insane thing you've ever heard?"

"It's not just you," Buddy agreed.

"I've told you before," said Alex with mock severity, "I haven't gone insane. At least not yet."

"We've only got your word for that," Gloria muttered, prompting Buddy to grin. He was beginning to suspect he was going to like working with her. "So what to do these do and why are you showing them to us?"

"They're your masks," Alex explained. "Part of their function is to disguise you so that VENOM agents can't identify you and come after you. They have in-built voice changers for that reason. Any time you are on a mission for MASK, you will have access to your mask, unless that mission requires you to work undercover."

"Undercover sounds dangerous," Gloria muttered. "I wonder how they pull that off."

Buddy made no comment. Instead he looked at Alex. "Who's is which and what do they do?"

Alex waved his hand at the yellow dome of Aura and said, "Aura's chiefly a protective mask. It will emit an energy field that can block everything from microwave transmissions and radio frequencies to bullets and other solid kinetic objects. In theory, Gloria," and here Alex smiled ruefully, "you could also use that energy field to repel objects, but there hasn't been time to test that."

"Guinea pig, huh?" she asked, at Alex's answering nod, she shrugged. "Well I didn't figure this was going to be all hugs and puppies and you only get to live once."

"This from the woman who just said undercover work was dangerous," Buddy murmured.

Gloria grinned. "There's danger and there's danger. Undercover work's got way too much potential to go wrong for my taste."

Alex coughed and tried to hide his amusement. Gloria looked bemused. Buddy just shot him a half-hearted glare. "So what does Penetrator do?" he asked.

"Exactly what the name suggests," Alex answered, still looking far too amused for Buddy's liking. "When the Penetrator field is in force, you will, quite literally, be able to walk through walls. It's not an easy mask to use; in fact it's probably the one that requires the most concentration, otherwise," and Alex smiled ruefully, "you end up dropping through the floor."

"Sounds like personal experience," said Gloria.

"It is," Alex agreed. "We finished Penetrator's tests this morning."

Buddy nodded slowly. "What about anything I'm holding when the field comes on?"

"That would go with you. It wouldn't do you much good if it didn't."

Buddy nodded again. Matt's basic plan suddenly made sense: If you could walk through walls, it didn't matter what security was in place. Then the full implications of the plan hit him. He was going to be the one responsible for getting the team into the mountain. Oh crap.

"OK; let's suit up and mount up," said Matt, drawing the briefing to a close. "We hit the road in fifteen. Any other holes in the plan, we can plug between here and Colorado Springs."

The comment provoked a scraping of chairs as Hondo, Brad and Bruce stood up. Matt moved to follow them out of the command centre, but Duane stopped him. Matt lifted an eyebrow.

"Duane?"

"Are you sure about having Hawks on this mission?"

Matt leaned back in his seat and gazed at Duane levelly. "This isn't the time, Duane."

"I disagree." Duane folded his arms across his chest. "This isn't a matter of whether or not I think he's trustworthy – hell, he demonstrated just how wrong I've been with what he handed over last night. This is about what you're asking him to do. He's the same age as Marcie, for God's sake."

"Younger, actually."

"And you're asking him to play a key role in a tactical assault that Special Forces think would end up as a blood bath for all sides concerned." Duane shook his head. "And that's not to mention Vanessa Warfield's involvement in this mess."

"I thought you said it wasn't a matter of trust," said Matt dryly.

"It isn't," Duane answered, removing his glasses and rubbing his face tiredly. "It's a matter of whether what you're asking him to do is right – or fair. You're asking him to go up against his only family."

"Fair or not," said Matt, standing up, "we don't have a choice right now. Buddy is the man for the job."

Matt has got to be crazy, Buddy decided as he got changed. There's gotta be someone better for this than me. For the first time since joining MASK, he felt intimidated by the level of trust Matt was placing in him. Surely someone like Hondo, with his Special Forces background, or Alex, with his electronics knowledge, would have been a better back-up for Bruce. And surely Hondo or Alex would have been better suited to the responsibility of getting the team into the mountain in the first place, wouldn't they?

From his locker he withdrew the jacket of his 'uniform' and pulled it on. The uniform reflected his place in the team. It was designed so that he could blend in with a crowd, where necessary, with the jacket offering some rudimentary protection against bullets and knives although Buddy hoped that wasn't something that would ever need to be tested. The one thing the uniform was lacking was gloves, which was something Buddy planned on correcting just as soon as he could. The last thing he wanted to do was drop fingerprints anywhere VENOM was likely to pick them up.

"I can't decide," said Brad as he fastened the collar of his jacket, "whether yellow bike leathers are a good or a bad thing."

"You'll never have to worry about someone not seeing you coming," Buddy replied, fixing the collar of his own jacket. "Guess that'd be a plus."

"But is yellow my colour?" Brad wondered.

"It is now," said Hondo, a grin on his face. "Time we were hitting the road, kid," he added. "You ready?"

Buddy nodded. "As I figure I'm going to be."

Hondo's grin modulated into a supportive smile. "You'll be fine, kid."

Buddy wished he could believe Hondo as he followed the black man out of the locker room and into the vehicle bay. Brad tailed on behind them and made a straight line for Condor.

"Oh, baby, I have been wanting to give you a test ride," he murmured, prompting Buddy to grin despite himself. "She looks like a sweet ride."

"She is," Buddy confirmed, making for Firecracker. "Though she gets kinda twitchy once you're above a hundred and twenty."

Brad nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."

Buddy reached Firecracker and automatically went to climb into the driver's seat. Hondo cleared his throat. "Other side, kid. You drive like my grandma, remember?"

Buddy sighed. He should have realised Hondo was going to say that.

"Besides," Hondo added, holding his hand out for the keys, "figure you could use the drive down to catch a few zees."

"But I--"

Hondo gave Buddy a long look. "You look like you didn't get more than an hour's sleep last night. So quit arguing, hand the keys over and we'll get going." Meekly, Buddy handed over Firecracker's keys. Hondo nodded. "Better."

As Buddy walked round to the passenger side of the truck, Matt and Gloria entered the bay, closely followed by Bruce and Alex.

"Let's move out, people," Matt called. "Rendezvous at Peterson Airbase in Colorado Springs."

Buddy hauled himself up into the passenger seat as Hondo started Firecracker's engine.

"Ready, kid?"

"Do I get a choice?"

"You'll be fine, kid," said Hondo. "Now let's kick Mayhem outta that mountain before he gets any more bad ideas."

Cassidy frowned heavily at the balance sheet. That measly two cents were still steadfastly missing and that was despite having recalculated every figure on the sheet twice. In disgust, she pushed away from the desk and flipped the radio on. Maybe a little music would help, but there was no music. Instead, the announcer was saying, "We're now going to go live to Washington for a special press conference from the President, William Strauch."

"Earl!" Cassidy called. "You'd better get in here!" Special presidential press conferences seldom meant anything good – and usually meant some form of serious trouble.

Earl appeared in the office doorway just as the president began speaking. "What--"

Cassidy waved him quiet and pointed at the radio. "Listen." And she turned the volume up.

"…fellow Americans and fellow citizens around the world. Today, we stand together on the brink of disaster."

"At seven o'clock this morning, an unknown number of terrorists forced their way into one of the US military facilities in Colorado and have threatened to turn the weapons housed there on not only this great nation, but on the nations of our allies, our trading partners and on the citizens of the entire free world."

Strauch was pale and sweating beneath the lights focussed on him. Or was it the news he was delivering that made him look so unwell? Carol shifted the whimpering Scott from one hip to the other as she watched the press conference and tried to decide which it was. With a horrible certainty, she knew this was what Matt was mixed up in and for the first time in her life, she wished she'd remained utterly clueless about her son-in-law's line of work.

"In making such a bold move, the terrorists have shown that they have no respect for anyone or anything. That they wish to threaten the whole world and hold it to ransom shows that their greed knows no bounds. That they believe we will meekly sit back and accept this action demonstrates that they really don't know this great nation well."

Carol kissed Scott on the temple. "Daddy's a brave man," she murmured. "If anyone can fix this, he can." I hope.

"In making this attack here on US soil, the terrorists have sought to bring down this great nation, but all they have done is further strengthened our resolve. We will not cave in to terrorism.

"The international community is standing at our side. Neither they, nor we, will tolerate attacks such as this. We will stand firm against this strike and use all force necessary to bring this situation to an end and we will do this with all due swiftness."

"Kill the feed," Mayhem ordered, as the president concluded his speech. "I've heard enough."

The babble of reporters begging for a moment of Strauch's time suddenly died as Gorey did as ordered. Unconsciously, Vanessa shivered. Just what had they gotten into? From the sounds of that speech, there wasn't a chance in hell of them seeing a single red cent of ransom, and presumably there was a good chance that – as Malloy had predicted – sooner or later someone was going to come and try to kick them out of the mountain.

"Vanessa! Take Dagger and Private Malloy and go investigate Malloy's exit plan."

Mayhem's order made Vanessa start.

"Why?" Rax demanded. "Not like they can do anything to us in here; we're all locked down."

"And for the president to make that speech means he's either bluffing or he knows something that we don't," Mayhem snapped. "Vanessa, get going."

"Yes boss," Vanessa answered. She got to her feet and crooked a finger in Malloy's direction. "Come with me."

As she led the Australian out of the command centre, she heard Mayhem give Gorey a new task. "I want you to pick out a second round of targets. Once they're logged, I want you to put another call through to Washington, promising them that if they don't withdraw their threats, we will make smoking ruins of those new targets."

Beneath her mask, Vanessa gulped.

"Kid?"

Buddy jerked upright, pulled out of the light doze by Hondo's call. Blinking owlishly, he looked around and realised that Firecracker was now parked in a small aircraft hanger. He blinked again. "We're here?"

Hondo offered a grin. "Been here nearly twenty minutes, fixing the last details."

"You should have woken me sooner."

That just got a shake of the head. "You needed the sleep, kid. Besides, did you really need to hear me chewing out the base commander?"

Buddy struggled up out of the seat. "But--"

Hondo just shook his head again. "You needed the sleep." He grabbed Blaster from the space behind the driver's seat. "Showtime."

After a moment's hesitation, Buddy followed suit, retrieving Penetrator from under his seat. At the back of his mind, it occurred to him that there had to be a better way of storing the masks so that they were ready and easily accessible. Maybe he could have a chat with Bruce about that later, when this was all over – assuming there was a later, of course. He shuddered.

"OK, kid?" Hondo's voice sounded concerned, although his expression was impossible to read.

"Yeah." Buddy signed. "Guess I have to be." He fitted Penetrator's green shell over his head and sealed it, bringing the mask online with a soft hum. "Let's go do this before I get an attack of sanity."

"Malloy, how the hell much further does this go?" Vanessa demanded. They'd been descending stairs solidly for twenty minutes and still seemed to be no closer to the end.

"Another hundred yards or so, I guess," Malloy replied laconically. "Never measured it."

Vanessa rolled her eyes. "Some emergency exit."

"We shoulda taken the elevator," Dagger complained.

"There is no elevator," Malloy retorted. "It's an emergency exit."

"So?" Dagger shrugged. "Still shoulda taken the elevator."

Malloy shot Vanessa a bemused look. "He's not too smart, is he?"

Vanessa shrugged. "How many brains do you need to hit things real hard?"

"When you put it like that…"

Abruptly the stairs finished and Vanessa found herself walking along a short level section of hallway with a handful of doors leading off it. Most of the doors were to the left and clearly just led into rooms within the mountain complex, but one, fitted directly ahead, was a clearly sealed exit hatch.

"This it?" she asked.

"Yup. Door right ahead leads you out into a valley at the foot of the mountain. You're still on DOD land once you get out but it's easy enough to slip away from there."

"You've tried?"

"Guy's gotta get a drink someplace." Malloy shrugged. "You Yanks don't keep your bases properly stocked up."

"What about these other rooms?" Vanessa asked, ignoring all bar the first part of Malloy's comments.

"Emergency control room and bunk room. You know, just in case some team of terrorists manages to get into the base and isn't thorough enough about rounding up all the staff." Malloy smirked. "The luuu-tenant was gonna try to make for here – at least he was until your friend pinned him to the wall. Pity those dart things didn't pin him by more than just his uniform."

"Pity," Vanessa agreed, privately thinking that it was nothing of the sort. "All right. What does it take to get that exit door open?"

"Just a bit of muscle. It's not on the main lockdown circuit." Malloy smiled humourlessly. "If I can open it, your big lug can get it done in half the time."

"Hey! Watch who you're calling a lug," Dagger whined.

Malloy didn't look remotely abashed. "This work for you, love?"

Beneath her mask, Vanessa grimaced. "It's not too late for you to get left behind, Malloy." She turned and started back up the stairs. "C'mon. Mayhem wants a report and he wants it now."

Buddy stared at the rock wall in front of him. "You expect me to believe there's a door there?"

"It is kinda hard to believe," Gloria agreed. She gripped his right arm. "But I figure we have to believe it or else this is gonna be the shortest mission anyone's ever done."

"There is that." Buddy hoped his voice sounded steadier than it felt. "Br--er, Magic? Ready?"

"Every journey begins with a single step," Bruce answered enigmatically even as he took hold of Buddy's left arm.

"Guess it does," said Buddy, judging the remarks probably meant 'yes'. "Here goes nothing. Penetrator – on."

Buddy wasn't sure what was going to happen, and for a few seconds, at least, he was left wondering if the answer was actually going to be "nothing". Then the world started to haze and fade and shift. The colours leached out of what he could see and were replaced by blue-grey shadows – as though the world had stopped being real. Buddy felt his stomach give a lurch at the unsettling effect. Then it lurched again as he realised that he – and by extension, Gloria and Bruce – were slowly slipping down through the ground.

"Focus," advised Bruce.

Buddy swallowed. It was easy for Bruce to say! He wasn't the one whose last meal was threatening to make a second appearance. He swallowed again and concentrated. The slide stopped and it suddenly felt as if he was standing on solid ground again. OK. Ground solid. Wall not solid. He swallowed a third time. "Ready?" This time he knew his voice was shaking, but both Gloria and Bruce were too kind to mention it. Instead, Gloria just gently squeezed his arm and Bruce offered a nod – something that Buddy sensed more than he saw. "All right. Guess we go forwards."

The first step was a little awkward as Buddy found himself half dragging Bruce forwards and half being dragged by Gloria. The second step was better. The third step took them right up to the rock wall. This is it – time to see if this works, he thought, swallowing hard. He stepped forwards again – forwards and into the wall. Darkness pressed in on all sides like a thick, heavy shroud. Buddy felt his heart hammering against his ribcage. This was insane. What if it failed right now? What if they were wrong and the secret door was somewhere else? What if--

Buddy forced himself to take a fifth step forwards and they were through the wall and into the hallway.

TO BE CONTINUED