“I’m in the hallway outside,” said Jordan. “I don’t see any more of those things.”

“Wonderful,” squawked Graves through the walkie-talkie. “Don’t you think you could have waited another forty seconds and simply come into the lab?”

“I wanted you to be expecting me.”

“I was already expecting you! Now stop babbling and cover the last fifteen point seven-two meters to your destination!”

Jordan gritted her teeth. “I told you before, Dr. Graves, I’m sick of your attitude.”

“And I told you before, Ms. Avery, that your feelings on the matter are strictly incidental. You should be grateful that I need a tool in accomplishing my ends; otherwise you’d have been left to rot with the rest of them.”

That was it, Jordan decided. When she met Graves, she was going to kick him directly in the stones. She’d had enough of his bossy, disembodied voice.

The lab door had been locked from the inside; it opened as she approached. Inside, she saw a walkie-talkie held in one of the lab’s manipulator arms, positioned next to a mainframe terminal speaker. Dr. Graves lay in a heap on the floor, with deep red marks around his neck.

“Surprise,” the terminal said.