Chapter 17: The
Twenty-four hours of rest. Then Cross showed up at the motel door with a metal briefcase.
“Time to go,” he said.
Marcus groaned from his bed. “I was having a dream about pizza.”
“You can eat pizza when the Protocol is dead.”
“You promise?”
Cross didn’t answer.
They drove to an abandoned warehouse on the edge of town. Inside, a circle of blue light pulsed on the floor. It looked exactly like the portal that took them the first time.
“This is the back door,” Cross said. “It leads to Floor Zero. But the core has moved. It’s hiding somewhere between floors. We’ll have to find it.”
“How do we find something that doesn't want to be found?” Pip asked.
Cross pulled out a small device. It looked like a compass but the needle spun in circles.
“This points to the strongest
