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operator.”
    The guard’s face suffused with color, and he shook his head.  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m going to have to ask you all to return to your seats.”
    He cast a meaningful glance at Stone as he said the word ‘all’.
    Jenny felt stunned.  The man had just witnessed Stone’s collapse, and still they couldn’t get an emergency ride out of the mines?  What kind of place was this museum?
    “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist,” Jenny said firmly, looking the guard right in the eye.  “He needs to get to a hospital.”
    The guard’s face darkened even more, and he reached over and rested a hand upon the gun in the holster at his hip, as if to draw her attention to it.  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist as well.
    “Now, wait just a minute,” Gilbert interjected, rising to face the guard and leaving Stone propped up against the wall with only Debbie to support him.
    Jenny was glad to see that Stone seemed to have recovered enough so that he didn’t slide back over onto the saltcrete floor.
    “There’s no need to threaten her.  She’s right.  Our friend needs medical attention. He needs to leave.  And, in fact, I think our entire group will be leaving now as well. I don’t like how we’re being treated,” Gilbert’s round face was red with angry color, and though he was several inches shorter than the guard, the guard took a step back at this exhibit of anger.
    Jenny was impressed at Gilbert’s courage.  The guard was still fingering his weapon, and Gilbert was yelling at the man as if the implied threat didn’t matter.
    Because of the close call she’d had with a violent aggressor, Jenny had spent hours and hours in self-defense classes, and she knew that the guard’s threatening manner did, in fact, mean something. As did his strangely nervous demeanor.  Something was not right here.
    Stone’s wheezing had lessened, and he now rose slowly to his feet behind her despite Debbie’s protests that he should remain seated.  His heavy hand came to rest on her shoulder and he stepped forward toward the guard, moving in front of both her and Gilbert.
    Jenny saw his eyes take in the guard’s stance, measuring the situation, then he sighed.
    “I’m fine.  Let’s do as the man says and return to our seats,” Stone said.
    Jenny saw relief flicker across the guard’s face and his nervous posture relaxed just a bit.
    Gilbert began to protest, but Stone turned and placed his other hand on Gilbert’s shoulder.  “I’m fine.  Let’s talk at the table.”
    Gilbert eyes widened almost imperceptivity, and then he glanced at the guard, then back at Stone.  Jenny could see the exact moment when he came to same conclusion that both she and Stone had just come to.  The guard would shoot them if he felt that he had to. 
    The question was, why? They’d only asked to go to the hospital.
     

Chapter Six
    Laramy Gray felt itchy and jumpy. His skin felt as if it were breaking out in hives under his clothing, but when he pulled up his shirt and looked for the telltale red bumps, there was nothing there.  His skin was smooth and white, just as it always was.  
    Every little sound in the dining cavern seemed amplified and too loud to Laramy’s ears.  He wasn’t usually so sensitive to sound.  At home, he frequently had his stereo blaring out his favorite tunes so loudly that his mother had to ask him to turn it down.  But now the noise seemed so intense that it was beginning to make his head ache.
    Laramy tried to pay attention to the dinner theater actors, but his throat had also begun to feel tight and he was finding it hard to breathe past the strange constriction in his airway.  
    Darn allergy pill I took must not have worked too well, he thought.
    He took several large gulps of his water to tamp down the urge to cough so that he wouldn’t interrupt the actors.  He was in enough trouble already without being disruptive.   His mother had been very upset with