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CHRIS RAN, KNOWING THAT THEIR TIME WAS short as long as Alexia Ashford was alive, afraid that she might already have gotten to Claire. "Claire!" he shouted, banging his fist on every door he passed. It didn't matter, his shouting; if Alexia was even half as powerful as he suspected, she already knew where he was... and where Claire was. Please, please don't hurt her, he thought, the thought repeating itself as he ran down another hall, through a door, another hall, and another. He didn't know if any-thing could stop Alexia, but if he could find Claire and get them to the evac elevator, he meant to try and trigger the self-destruct system before leaving. Alexia was halfway to omnipotence and purely evil, she was an apocalypse waiting to happen, and she had to be stopped.

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Through a familiar hallway, another Spencer estate copy, through a door that opened into some kind of shad - owy prison, holding cells lining the walls. He had to find her, if he couldn't, he couldn't leave. He wanted Alexia dead, but he wouldn't endanger Claire's life, not for any-thing, and getting her out took absolute priority -

- and somebody was crying behind one of the closed doors. Chris stopped running and listened, trying not to breathe, tuning out the relentless banging of a virus car-rier locked in another cell. Another gasping wail...

Claire, oh, thank God you're alive!

He ripped open the door, ready to hurt anything even close to her- and saw her sitting on the floor, sobbing, her arms wrapped around a young man, his naked body bruised and pitiful. He was dead.

Ah, shit.

It could only be Steve, Claire's friend, and though he was sorry for the boy he'd never met, Chris's heart was breaking for her. She looked so fragile, so alone...... something else to lay at Alexia's doorstep. Chris had no doubt that Steve had died because of that crazy bitch. But as much as he wanted to sit down and comfort Claire, to hold her hand and let her grieve, he knew they had to get out. "We have to go now, Claire," he said, as gently as pos - sible and was relieved when she nodded, carefully lay - ing her friend down, closing his eyes with one trembling hand. She kissed him on the forehead and then stood up. "Okay," she said, nodding again. "I'm ready." She didn't look back, and in spite of everything, he was proud of her. She was strong, stronger than he would have been if he'd been asked to leave someone he'd cared about. Together, they ran back into the hall, Chris figuring that they had to be close to the southwest corner of the building, where he'd landed the jet and seen the emer - gency evacuation elevator. The self-destruct system was presumably close enough to the elevator to make a fast escape possible; if they could just get to that elevator, he'd check every floor on the way up. There were stairs at the south end of the hall, and Chris ran for them, Claire at his side. He could feel the seconds ticking past as they hurried up the steps, felt like time was closing in on them, that Alexia was finished playing. Through the door at the top of the stairs, running out onto a giant metal grid platform- and Chris laughed out loud when he looked behind them, saw the nondescript doors of the emergency elevator. "What?" Claire asked. He motioned at the doors, grinning. "That'll take us straight to the jet."

Claire nodded, not smiling but she looked relieved.

"Good. Let's go."

Chris had turned back to look at the wall across from the hit. "I've got to check something first," he said, wanting to take a closer look at the corner door, it looked Like a security door. "You go, I'll be right there." "Forget it," Claire said firmly. She walked after him, her eyes red from crying but her chin set and deter - mined. "No way we're splitting up again." Chris leaned down to look at the door's locking mechanism and sighed, standing back up. They were probably at the self-destruct system already; the lock was complicated and unique, requiring a key he didn't have. Besides which, to the right of the door was a locked-down grenade launcher of some kind, one he didn't recognize, the bar holding it down labeled emer-gency release only. Just as well, we should get out while we still can, he thought, but wasn't happy about it. How much more powerful would Alexia become before another chance like this one? "Hey, hey, wait a sec," Claire said, and began rum-maging through the small pack around her waist. Before he could ask, she was holding up a slender metal key, shaped like a dragonfly. There was no question that it would fit the lock. "I found it back at Rockfort," she said, bending over and pressing it into the indentation. It fit perfectly, the lock releasing with a solid metallic clink.

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"You're going to set off the self-destruct, aren't you," Claire said, not really a question. "Do you have the code?"

Chris didn't really answer, thinking that there were an amazing number of coincidences in life, and sometimes, they worked to one's advantage. "Code Veronica," he said softly, and pulled the door open, ready to take it all down, understanding that it was meant to be. pqdm.com