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I’ll show you.”

SIPHON
    T hat night I came to know why they called it the Hive.
    I’d drifted off to the sound of humming and awoke to a whisper.
    “Johnny, wake up.”
    Birdy was crouched down beside my cot, whispering into my ear. I don’t know how long I had been asleep, just that the room was dark and his hand was on my chest. It took me a few seconds to gain my bearings.
    “Let’s go,” he said.
    I ran a hand over my tired face and was about to get up when he pushed me back down.
    “Don’t get up. Roll off the cot onto the floor.”
    This kid was strange. I rolled and dropped into a press-up position. Both of us were lower than the cots themselves. The tiled floor felt grimy and smelled of bleach. His eyes swept back and forth.
    “What are we waiting for?” I whispered.
    “Hold on.” His eyes were fixed on the entrance.
    I heard the sounds of boots. Beneath my cot I saw the glow of the corridor lights and then a security guard doing rounds. He glanced inside the room for a moment, cutting the darkness with the flashlight and then continuing on his way.
    “Stay low.”
    Birdy began crawling forward across the floor like a spider. I followed him doing my best not to make any noise. All that could be heard was the sound of snoring and a hum. There was always a constant hum in this place like the back of a refrigerator. I wasn’t sure if it was the fans or something else but it was pissing me off. I’d seen a number of large ventilation grids around the facility, some had fans inside that groaned and flooded the hall with air.
    We passed by Ben. He was gone to the world. Elijah peered over his pillow.
    “Where are you going?” he asked in a hushed voice.
    “Shhhh,” I replied before hustling to catch up with Birdy. This kid could move fast. He was like an insect. Once we made it over to the other side of the room he peered out into the corridor. Our backs were pressed up against a wall.
    “You want to tell me where we are going?”
    “Just keep up. It’s all about timing in here.”
    He counted down with his fingers. Three. Two. One.
    “Let’s go.” We dashed across the corridor until we found ourselves in another. It didn’t matter how fast I went, he was always ten steps ahead. I hoped he knew where he was going as I didn’t have a clue, it was a complete maze of criss-crossing hallways. We reached an intersection and he was hesitant to continue.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “There’s no way to get across this without showing up on their monitor. We’re going to have to hope they are busy jerking off or playing cards.”
    “Then why would you bring me out here?”
    He was breathing hard, shaking slightly.
    “You need to see this for yourself.”
    “See what?”
    I was beginning to regret leaving the warmth of my cot. The Hive might have not been the Ritz but after having lived in a constant state of fear outside, it was nice to be able to lay my head down without the threat of a Z chewing me apart.
    Now whether he was convinced that we could pass over that intersection without being spotted or he really didn’t care about getting caught, he tapped me, gestured forward and that was it. He was off doing a one-hundred-meter sprint. Against my better judgment I raced behind him. I was waiting to hear alarm bells or find myself being shocked into submission by an overly eager security guard but that wasn’t to be.
    At the end of the corridor we stopped and he swiped an access lock with the card. The door hissed as it slid apart. The moment we entered, motion detector sensors illuminated the room in a fluorescent light. He continued moving fast down the next corridor until he stopped and put his hand back.
    “Shit,” he muttered.
    “What?”
    I peered over his shoulder and saw a security guard standing about thirty feet down the corridor. He was talking to another one.
    “He’s not meant to be here.”
    He started muttering to himself a series of numbers. He looked again and they were