Page 131 of Dose

Theon opens the lower housing.

Two stainless-steel lines enter from the ceiling. One carries medical oxygen. The other runs from the V-series reservoir identified in the contractor plan. Both feed a nebulizer manifold above the children’s room.

“Automatic purge armed with the breach alarm,” he says. “Power loss will open the solenoids. We can’t cut it.”

“The emergency scrubber?”

He traces the return line. “Still connected. Valve labels have been reversed.”

Of course they have.

The commissioning records require a manual bypass so maintenance staff can depressurize the system without venting into an occupied room. Korte could alter the controls. She could not remove the bypass and pass the pressure tests that brought the equipment through Billings.

I find the two recessed valve stems beneath false caps.

“We turn together,” I say. “Yours isolates the reservoir. Mine routes the manifold into the exterior scrubber.”

“If the plan is still accurate.”

“If it isn’t, pressure rises here first.” I tap the mechanical gauge. “We stop before the red.”

The inner decontamination door opens behind us.

Korte walks through wearing tactical armor over gray field clothes. It sits on her like borrowed authority. Her silver hair is cropped close to her skull, and the steel-framed glasses are the same pair she wore at Ashford.

She holds a small transmitter in her right hand. Her thumb depresses a dead-man switch.

“If I release it,” she says, “the purge begins early.”

Theon turns toward her.

“Stay on the valve,” I tell him.

Every line of his body resists me. Then his hand returns to the stem.

Korte smiles.

“Still taking orders, Isla. You only changed the uniform.”

The timer reaches one minute twelve.

“Ready?” I ask Theon.

“Ready.”

We turn.

The stems resist, then give. The gauge jumps four bars.

“Hold,” Theon says.

We stop. The needle trembles beneath the red band and begins to fall as the exterior scrubber takes the diverted pressure.

Korte’s expression does not change, but her thumb tightens against the switch.

“Kessler sent me your reports for years,” she says. “Do you know how often the board discussed you? You were useful before you understood the word. I offered you permanent placement at Ashford. A laboratory of your own. Staff. A supply chain built around your work.”

Forty-eight seconds.