Page 172 of Storm Caller

“What’s the code?” Fisher asks, looming over him from behind.

“It’ll do you no good,” Mowry says. “It also requires a scan of my face.”

“So, you planned to give us the location, but we couldn’t have accessed it without you?” Henry asks.

Mowry nods, his anguish transforming into guilt. “Not without someone who has clearance.”

“Who has clearance?” Justin asks.

“Only those who are strictly necessary.”

“Necessary for what?”

“As I said, you’ll see.”

We all share a look, wondering why he’s being so damn cagey.

He reaches out, his hand shaking so badly he has trouble punching in the correct numbers.

A few beeps, and then a green light scans his face.

A hiss, and the door opens.

He takes a deep breath, and I sense something shifting in that moment.

This isn’t just about a cure.

Something else is down here.

When they started kidnapping people and allowing anyone to join the Extinguishers, Rook was sure they were hiding something.

When they locked Edward up, it was because he’d discovered something they didn’t want him to see.

Dr. Mowry is about to change everything.

The secret they’ve all been keeping.

A window into the lies they were trying to protect.

We enter a massive room, the ceiling stretching overhead.

I blink a few times to make sense of what I’m seeing.

Cylindrical tanks. About seven feet tall. A few feet across.

Hundreds of them glowing with purple light.

And floating inside every single one is a human body.

60

We all stand in a row, each of us too stunned to speak. My eyes jump around the space as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing. The concrete floor. The walls. The wires running up from each tank, then along beams and poles stretching overhead.

It’s then that I recall Edward’s words from when we first broke him out of that cell.

We brushed over it at the time because we were too focused on the cure and we didn’t know what it meant.

A network. A power source.