At the front of the convoy, Beau drove the lead vehicle. Tessa rode in the passenger’s seat. Their truck rolled over dust-caked wooden floor boards. The silent motors hummed as light from their headlights painted the corridor ahead in pale gold.

  Behind them came the rumble of their convoy stuffed with militia soldiers. Each one held a woodcutter’s axe. It wasn’t a machine gun, but it was all they had and it would do the job. The axe became something of an emblem to the militia. Many of the soldiers tattooed the symbol on their arms and shoulders. It resembled their defiance in the face of great odds.

  Stuffed into the trucks, each militia soldier wore fresh-stitched dark blue tactical uniforms. Each uniform was adorned with a black bird on their shoulders, wings unfurled mid-screech. No longer were they residents of Paradise Dome 101. They were reincarnated as the Black Birds, a people united under one banner of survival and war against the insect kind. Soon they would spread their wings and fly away from Dome 101, but first they had to find a way out. They knew they couldn’t remain inside the facility. They needed a new nest to restart their lives.

  When they finally reached Dr. Randall Gerben’s master bedroom, the convoy fanned out with precision as Bea instructed them. The militia patrolled every corner of the massive chamber while researchers leapt into action. Some unloaded equipment while others climbed up the rope ladders where the laptop was. Once they reached the top, they developed a pulley system and lifted sensitive electronics to harvest data with.

  They also brought something else with them, created with the Dome 101 fabricator. She held up a sleek grappling hook gun. The researchers drew them with excitement. Their hooks hissed upward. They didn’t technically need them, but it was too good of an opportunity to test their new tool. The grapple hooks soared up into the air then looped around the iron decorative loops on the tabletop. Each researcher slid into a harness, then attached the gun to the harness with steel clips. They each activated a button on the grapple gun which lifted them skyward. One of the girls yipped with joy. Once they reached the top, they had been instructed to perform a deep data scrub of the laptop. Other researchers investigated Randall Gerben’s cellphone.

  While the researchers did their thing, Beau and Tess continued their general survey of the room.

  Beau’s eyes drifted upward. “We still need a way out of here. What do you think about the window?”

  “Let’s check it out,” Tessa said.

  They each grabbed harnesses and a grappling hook gun. They aimed up and fired. Their steel tethers sliced through the air as they arced toward the high window sill above. One hook wrapped around a golden trophy for scientific advancement. Another wrapped around a statue of a DNA helix. The cords snapped taught.

  Together, they clipped in, pressed the button, and ascended to the sound of a mechanical whirring, spooling the cable inside the gun.

  “You sure these will hold?” Beau asked, eyeing the high window sill. “If we drop, we’re dead.”

  Tessa smirked. “I tested these myself. We’re good.”

  Once they reached the top of the window sill, they unspooled their grapples. Then they approached the window. Beau grabbed the closed blind and opened it to get a glimpse of the outside world. Tessa did the same beside him. A rush of light flooded over them.

  Outside lay an untamed wilderness.

  The garden beyond the glass, once designed and pruned with suburban care, had grown wild in the absence of its gardeners. Moss clinged to marble statues. Ferns draped over rotting clay. Spiderwebs spanned gaps like suspension bridges. A monarch butterfly fluttered across the yard.

  A blackbird swooped down from the rooftop. Its wings slicing the air with startling force. It landed on the top of the wrought iron fence and peered toward Beau.

  Tessa stilled. “Thank God we’re on this side.”

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  The bird tilted its head. Then it shrieked and took off again. It vanished into the overcast sky.

  Beau exhaled.

  “So,” Tessa whispered. “Even if we find a way out…how do we stay alive out there?”

  “We deal with it when we get to it,” Beau said. He narrowed his eyes. “Our first step is getting through. We have to know if it’s even possible.”

  “You have an idea?”

  “Maybe.”

  Together, they descended back onto the bedroom floor.

  With a bit of scavenging and a little planning, and with Tessa’s help, they rewired a portable power source into an improvised electric trap. They zipped back up onto the window sill and placed the metal conductors against the glass. He hoped it would crack under the voltage. When the surge came, it left a faint scorch mark, but no crack. They tried it three more times. It was completely ineffective.

  Undeterred, he tried the next idea.

  He built a trip-hammer coil rigged to swing a rock into the glass. The trap worked flawlessly, except it had no effect on the glass. It simply bounced off.

  He tried the third idea.

  They built a stacked pressure system, basically a cannon, that launched a AAA battery at high velocity. It bounded off the glass like a pebble against tank armor.

  “This must be ballistic glass,” he growled. “Gerben really didn’t want anything getting in or out.”

  “He was clearly paranoid about safety,” Tessa said.

  She tried her ideas next. She concocted a chemical reaction using chemical solvents and battery acid, hoping to weaken the edges of the pane. The hiss and stink of melting plastic filled the air, but the window remained intact.

  “This isn’t working,” Tessa muttered.

  “Yeah. This window is a dead end.”

  Atop the window sill, something got Tessa’s attention. She grabbed Beau’s arm then pointed down at the bed of the truck. The dome’s militia had been hauling back items all day, mostly food found in Gerben’s drawers. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Woah. Do you think it’s fresh?”

  Tessa squinted. “Looks factory sealed. Years old, probably.”

  They approached the back of the pickup truck. A single plastic wrapped fortune cookie was stuffed into the bed. It was so big it was the only thing that could fit. Taking a small break from escape, they asked the driver to stop the truck. Together, they approached. Beau removed his axe and slashed open the plastic. He tapped the cookie with the head of his axe. It was hard as stone.

  “Hack and slash?” Beau said.

  Tessa unsheathed her axe and gave an evil smile.

  Together, they brought their axes down onto the fortune cookie. Again and again they hacked at the cookie until it cracked into chunks small enough to grip. They grabbed the piece of paper on the inside which held its secret fortune.

  “Score!” Tessa said.

  Shards of the cookie lay scattered around the bed of the truck.

  Tessa grabbed the gigantic slip of paper and pulled it free. She uncurled it carefully so they could both see it. She read the message.

  “What was once small may yet become monstrous.”

  They stared at the slip of paper.

  “I don’t like it,” Beau muttered.

  “Me neither,” Tessa replied. “Some fortune.”

  The room was quiet again. The light was brighter after opening the window blinds, but that made some of the shadows even darker and more pronounced. Beau swore he saw something shift in those shadows. Something flew high above. Beau aimed his flashlight up toward it. But he couldn’t find it. There was something up there, but for now it chose to ignore them.

  “Something wrong?” Tessa said.

  “I don’t know.”

  Somewhere in the mansion, there was something monstrous. Something watched them. Something waited for them. And soon, they would be forced to encounter it.