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“How high?”
“One hundred percent,” Lily said blandly.
“So you don’t know where they migrate to?” I asked, finding myself getting kind of into the question, despite my previous interest in birds being limited to avoiding getting pooped on.
“Sort of?” Was Lily’s answer. “They’ve been observed down south—South America, Chile mostly, and South Africa. But only individually. Which could be because there aren’t many of them,or could be because they’re gathering somewhere else we haven’t found yet.”
“And you do the bird calls with Hardcastle,” I said casually.
“Yeah, though honestly, I’m not convinced of the value,” Lily replied. “It’s not a funded project, just his pet thing. Him and Kapoor. I’ve heard them play the tapes after hours sometimes.” She kept talking, but I was listening to something else entirely.
Music. It wasn’tsinging, not precisely. More like humming that might break into song at any moment.Almostwords, but almost tuneless enough to dismiss as the hum of some machine.
“Do you hear that?” I asked.
“Oh, the music?” Kenny asked. “Kinda freaky, but it’s just the wind in the rocks.”
“That’s not wind,” I said. “Wind whistles. It doesn’t hum.”
“Careful,” Lily warned. “This far out from civilization, it’s really easy to scare yourself. People have had nervous breakdowns working at the LARC, and it’s notentirelyDr. Kapoor that causes them. This guy Rivers, he—”
“Can you try Liam on the radio?” I asked, worry squirming through me. I shouldn’t have let them go off without me.
Lily hesitated. “Look, if thereissomething going on between you and Liam and Abby, I don’t want to get into the middle of it.”
“It’s not that. I swear,” I said. “I’m just worried about them. Please.”
She stared hard at me, analyzing my face. The trouble with lying all the time is that when you’re telling the truth, you still have to fake it, because you’re so used to training your expression into something other than what you feel. Those are the momentsthat trip me up. But she grabbed the yellow plastic walkie-talkie from her belt.
“Liam, this is Lily. Just checking in. Over.” Silence. She frowned. “Liam, stop making out and answer, over.”
More silence.
“They’re probably just dicking around,” she muttered. “Liam, answer the damn radio.”
And then—a burst of sound. Static, a metallic rattle, and a swell of that not-quite-song, and then an electronic squeal and silence. We all stared at the radio.
I started sprinting up the hill.
“Wait! Where are you going?” Lily called.
“I’m just going to go check on them. You stay here,” I hollered back, hoping she’d follow my advice. I glanced over my shoulder long enough to see the two of them looking at each other like they were trying to decide which would get them in more trouble if they abandoned it—the equipment or the intern. I didn’t wait for them to decide.
But then Lily puffed uphill behind me. “Hold up,” she said.
“You should go back to work. I’ll find them,” I said.
“If something’s wrong, I should help,” Lily said. “I have first aid training, if anyone’s hurt.” The way she said it sounded more likeif anyone’s done something stupid.
There was no reasonable way to put her off. “They were going to the bunker,” I said.
“The bunker? It’s welded shut,” she said. “To keep people from blundering in and getting tetanus or bubonic plague or something.” Her tone suggested that “people” absolutely includedidiotic lovestruck teenagers. She sighed. “Let’s go, then.”
I let her lead the way. She was in much better shape than me, with a runner’s quads and sure steps. The exertion made me pant, so out of breath my vision seemed to shimmer.
“I thought you said it was welded shut,” I said as we came into view of the bunker. The door hung wide open. The music, I realized, had stopped abruptly as we came into view. The first staccato thrill of apprehension tapped its way down my spine.
“There’s no way they went in there,” Lily said. “Iswearit was welded shut.”
