“Minji...” Alec growled.
“She’s in this, too, Alec.”
“We haven’t discussed this, Minji!”
“No, we haven’t,” she admitted. “But we need Simone.”
“We’ll find a safe place for her to hole up with Jake, Jesse, and the girls.”
“Alec, you know it’s not going to let me leave the girls behind. Why else would it knock everyone out so it could follow me earlier? It’s not going to just let me leave without Ava and Bailey. We need Simone to watch over the girls once we get there.”
“Minji, do you actually think it’ll just let her wait outside with the girls while we go in and deal with it?”
“Enough! No more discussion without giving me the details. I need an explanation. Right now.” Simone sh
ifted in her seat, crossing one leg over the other. Regarding Minji, she pointed at her and said, “You tell me.”
So Minji did.
By the time she finished, Simone hadn’t blinked for a few minutes. At last, she closed her eyes, and whispered, “Dear sweet Jesus.”
Alec didn’t say a word, but made a grunting noise.
“So you have the key cards to get in and the directions to close this doorway between worlds, then blow up the facility? From those rescue people at The Venetian?” Simone was obviously still processing this information. “But won’t it need, like, an eye scan or something to let you in?”
“Per instructions given to me when I awakened, I disabled the security system inside the building from my post, but we’ll still need the cards to get us in. The system that works the door is a bit older and separate from the rest of the building. The card allows one person in at a time,” Alec answered.
“But what about deliveries? That doesn’t seem like a good system if it only lets in one person,” Simone pointed out.
Giving her a surprised, yet pleased look, Alec said, “Deliveries were made via an underground tunnel from one of the old test sites. The tunnel is cut off from both the outside world and the facility with bulkheads built to withstand a nuclear blast. The only way to open that entrance is from within the facility.”
“That’s pretty paranoid,” Minji mused. “And you didn’t have a card to get in even though you worked there?”
Alec shook his head. “I was just a guard. I watched monitors all day. Everyone with a card was inside at the time of the event. That was one of the first things I looked for when I woke up. If one of the people with clearance had been outside the building, this would already be over. But, alas, that’s not the case. I was told to find the group from the second facility to get their access cards.”
“So the government couldn’t remotely shut the door to the other world, or blow up the facility?” Simone arched an eyebrow, reminding Minji of Spock.
“No. To prevent enemies from hacking into the system and committing an act of terrorism, the systems controlling the bomb and the doorway are self-contained inside the facility. There’s no way to hack in because they’re not connected to the outside world.”
“So the thing the scientists brought into our world is what’s...in...” Simone faltered, staring at Ava.
“It’s in all of them. All the mesmerized.” Minji glanced over her shoulder at Jake and Jesse. “It can see us through their eyes.”
“Watching you more than us, right?”
Minji ran her fingers through Ava’s dirty hair. The other within her daughter watched her in silence. “Yes.”
“But why you?”
Minji chewed on her bottom lip, then realized it was time to share her thoughts with the others. “It’s because I’m a mother. And it’s a baby.”
Simone gave her an incredulous look. “What?”
“It’s a baby. Or a small child. Remember when all the mesmerized were making those odd noises and moving their mouths in odd shapes?”
“Yeah...” Simone scooted around in her chair to peer at the two mesmerized men. “They’re not doing it now.”
“Because I finally understood what it was trying to tell me. When Arthur was bitching earlier about Bailey baby talking and you explained that she was vocalizing to learn to talk, it hit me. When the mesmerized made those noises it always seemed strangely familiar, then I realized it’s because I’ve seen it with both my girls. The entity was learning to talk.”