It was a nice bomb, too. He continued to check the subbasement and found what looked like an actors' green room, filled with people dressed as orderlies and so forth drinking coffee, wondering how much longer this shoot was going to take.
    "I can't believe they rehired some of these people," one commented.
    A second shrugged. "Project got funding again, project got funding again. This is a weird place for a shoot, though."
    "No weirder than last time."
    "Yeah, I guess you're right." This kept up for a while. Interesting.
    He had used about a third of his hour and covered half of this floor. He guessed that the hospital set was on the second sub-basement, that the third floor was entirely dedicated to making the second work. There was definitely a drop ceiling holding more mysterious equipment between the two floors. Bits and pieces looked like what he had seen on the blueprints of the new stuff they were supposed to install at base soon, the virtual reality equipment.
    He found an area he could not breach, covering about a quarter of the floor. It was very well sealed, with heavy doors which would undoubtedly make a noise if he tried to open them.
    He returned to the generator and looked at the bomb. Having a sudden thought about set design, he checked to see if the generator was really producing power, or if it was a decoy. It was real, as far as he could tell. The bomb was channeled to explode up, where no doubt it would set off secondaries which would bring everything in upon itself. Sending a tendril closer to the generator, he noticed something peculiar. For one thing, the generator itself was a highly advanced, possibly Plovian-based fusion device. If it were to go, it would probably leave a very large hole and next to no radiation. Next to it was a cluster of natural gas canisters to provide an easy explanation for anyone who came to investigate the explosion. Nice and neat.

    Phoenix looked for stairs to the lower levels, trying to look as if he knew where he was going. He passed another maintenance guy and got a good look at him. He looked exactly, eerily like the man he had met in the bathroom. Cloning. A security guard bumped into him, glanced at him, was distracted as someone called to him before he could complete the thought that this guy didn't look like the rest of them.
    Stairs. Now. That would be good. That had been a little too close.
    He found the stairwell a few moments later. It had a computerized combination lock and a scanner set at chest level. Damn. He passed by the door and started pretending to work on another machine while he thought about how to get down there.
    Someone set a toolbox down next to him.
    "What's the matter with this?" the man asked.
    "Caps are out," he ad libbed madly. "At least that was the report from upstairs, I dunno, it looks okay, there's been weird things happening all night."
    "Caps're out, huh?" He poked his head under the panel and took a look. The obvious temptation called to Phoenix, who resisted it nobly, stood up and left. The man glanced up as he was going, about to ask a question. "Wh—oh, fine. I'll take care of it. Caps're out.... Are there caps in this thing?" he asked himself suddenly. "There are no caps in this thing, he must've had the wrong machine."
    There. Someone coming up the stairs as Phoenix passed by. He slipped through the locked door before it could close. There was another lock on the inside. And on the doors to each of the three underground levels. Damn, damn. He walked down the empty stairwell, down to the bottom. No one entering or leaving. He walked back up, still avoiding the cameras. No one. He couldn't keep that up, someone would notice on the monitors. He lifted himself up against the bottom of one of the stairwells near the door to the second sub-basement, braced himself there on the underside and waited.

    Forty minutes, Lucky noted. About a quarter mile away she saw something moving, a dim violet light at ground level and something almost invisible shimmering slightly as it descended toward the light. She gnawed her lip, wishing she dared leave her post to investigate, and radioed Reilly to let him know about whatever it was. He told her they'd keep an eye on the area.

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