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dulled. She closed his eyelids.
    Raul looked up, as though to speak, but his mouth froze. Laurel followed his gaze and saw a shadow shifting overhead.
    A whine and clicks. Laurel closed her eyes, grief welling in her chest. Bastien’s candle had worn down and guttered into darkness. Now it was time for the man they had come to spring from this hell.
    It was time for Russo.

chapter 7
     

     
    17:59
    Mocking the immutable laws of science, time became softer—stretching into a distorted reality, viscous like molasses. Liquid air transformed unconscious breathing into strenuous labor. Lukas stared at the red digits framed high over the control panels: 17:59. They hadn’t moved in hours. With glazed eyes, he queried the frozen numerals, his tongue pressed against his teeth. Hard lumps dug into his belly. Under his belt, the envelopes seemed to have lost their padding, and his usually tame bladder screamed for release.
    Lukas lowered his gaze to the angry red line blazing on his screen. Once more, the program supplied by Donald Duck had done its job. No alarm had triggered, and it was obvious nothing had shown on the screens of the operators outside his office. As the drama unfolded at tank 913, he’d watched, transfixed—not with anxiety but with detached calm. The man … what was his name? Bastien. Lukas had spotted his metabolism flatline as it happened. The man had died of heart failure. To the pair battling to revive their friend’s corpse, it was an inexplicable piece of bad luck, but Lukas knew better. Cardiac arrest was a common event when undergoing reanimation. Naturally Hypnos had kept the plethora of side effects hidden. Full return from torpor, unlike partial periodic arousals, needed supervision by expert medical personnel with an awesome array of revival equipment at their disposal. Technical wizardry and human intervention ensured that the casualties remained at a reasonable two percent. But outside a surgical theater and in the dreary conditions of the platform surrounding a tank, Bastien’s chances were almost nonexistent. If the plan was thorny to start with, nowit was almost impossible: The woman, however well trained, couldn’t replace a strong man, and Lukas was no match even for her. But there was no going back now.
    Lukas forced his gaze back to the clock. Suddenly the light grew to flood the control center in blinding clarity, sound thundered in his ears, and the slothful numbers dimmed to configure a new reading: 18:00. Then whatever machine had caused the time warp meshed into gear and time raced. In a blink, the clock moved to 18:01.
    Holding on to his desk to buttress his shaking legs, Lukas stood to glance at controllers leaving their posts for their short break while the computer entered the backup routine. A haze of fear threatened to void his bowels. Lukas made it to his office door, carefully dried his sweaty fingers on his lab coat, offered his finger to the lock for a full biometric scan, and exited to the corridor.
    “Hi.” Sandra’s voice had a cheerful ring. “I thought the old guy was gonna croak on the spot.”
    Lukas fought an impulse to check his watch and stopped beside Sandra. A few paces farther on and leaning over the guardrail of a fire exit corridor girdling the tank blocks, Frank, another controller, dragged on a misshapen cigarette.
    “New look?” She nodded to his feet. “I’ve never seen you wear sneakers before. I like it.”
    “You did a great job with that old guy.” He made a face of dire discomfort and nodded to a door opening thirty feet ahead. “You mind? Tacos for lunch. Went right through me.”
    Sandra nodded in understanding.
    He strode toward the salvation of the door, repressing an urge to break into a run.
    “Do you want anything? A cup of tea?” Sandra asked.
    “Yes, please.” Without turning his head, Lukas slammed down the handle and hurtled through the door to the echo of Sandra’s laugh.
    Past four doors opening right and left, each