"Kevin, can you come in, please?" asked Lauren, sitting upright in her straight-backed chair. Kevin opened the door, with a thin line of a mouth hat grew into a full-bodied smile when he caught Lauren's eyes.

"Hello, Lauren," said Kevin. "It's so good to see you, so soon."

"I know it might seem like this is a bit late to call you back in from Desert Bluffs, but I need your assistance."

"My assistance?" asked Kevin. "I thought that was what Daniel was for."

"Daniel," said Lauren, "has been put out of commission for the time being. Our plan may have been discovered, and I think that our interloper might be trying to break down all that we've been working for."

"You want me to deal with this interloper?" asked Kevin.

"I would like you to cease his meddling," said Lauren. "How is of no consequence to me."

"I'd be happy to," said Kevin, with an incredibly stretched grin.

"Kevin," said Lauren, "they mustn't be allowed to finish building the vaccine."

"The vaccine?" asked Kevin.

"We can't move up the infection date," said Lauren, "and the last time I checked in, the scientist had gone off to make a vaccine. Go to his lab, and cease his work."

"I'm on it," said Kevin, almost singing with glee. Lauren returned his grin, and watched as he left. There was a slight bump in the plan, but if she cast enough light on the bump, she could be sure that there would be no shadow.

"Here we are," said Cecil, leading Leon up the front steps of the radio station. There was only one car in the driveway, and it was a light orange compact car. "That's Lauren's car," he said.

"Lauren is connected to Stex, isn't she?" asked Leon.

"Yeah," said Cecil. "I am not a fan."

"Neither am I," said Leon, "especially with the latest plans of bioterrorism."

"Yeah, and we always have all of these creative differences for the show," said Cecil. Leon looked back at him. "Also all of the bioterror stuff, too. I'm not a fan of that, either."

"We're going to definitely want to avoid her until we get the warning message broadcaster," said Leon. "Then we can deal with her."

Cecil nodded, and they entered the radio station. T he place seemed to be empty, and all of the doors in the hallway were closed—including the station management door behind which the two had to assume Lauren sat. Leon nodded toward the broadcast room door, and Cecil led the way toward it. He put his hand on the doorknob, twisted, and pulled, but the door was locked shut. "Weird," said Cecil. He reached into his pocket and produced a key and a small utility knife. He placed the key into the door's keyhole and used the utility knife to cut open his fingertips to spill some blood on the wood of the door as he turned the key. He then tried again to open the door, but found that it still held fast.

"This is—weird," said Cecil in a half-whisper. "The door should open."

"Under what circumstances would it not?" asked Leon.

"If the master key—damn it!"

"What about a master key?" asked Leon.

"When the station closes for the night, the station automatically locks most of the doors, and opens them in the morning. Before Stex showed up, I'm not sure that Station Management ever even left the building, and I think it had something to do with them."

"So how do we get the door open?" asked Leon.

"We need the master key," said Cecil.

"Where is that?" asked Leon. "Lauren doesn't have it, does she?"

"No, I don't' think so," said Cecil, furrowing his brow. "It should be somewhere here in the station, though, for emergencies.

"Then let's get to finding it," said Leon. He turned to face the rest of the hallway. "Do you know if any of the doors will be unlocked?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," said Cecil. "Only the broadcast room door gets locked in that way." He shrugged. "Must be some sort of extra security measure, or something."

"Fine," said Leon. He took a step forward and stopped. "Before we start, I have one more question—have you had to find this key before?"

"No," said Cecil.

"So there are no traps in this building that you know of?"

"None that we should encounter, no, but I don't know the building as well as I should…" Cecil glanced around. "Plus, I'm not sure it always stays the same—the station might move itself around, like a natural defense system."

Leon almost questioned this, but instead he simply nodded. "Let's get to it, then."

He started to the room across the hall from the sound booth, and found it to be unlocked. He turned back to Cecil.

"Let's go." Cecil nodded and followed Leon into the room. The place looked much the same as it had when Leon had explored it earlier on. Leon stepped into the middle of the room and began looking around when the two men heard a door crack open behind them. Leon dove behind one of the couches and crouched down, so that he could not be seen from the door, which still stood open.

The door that had opened was the door to the station management's office, and out came Lauren Mallard, who only let her surprise at seeing Cecil show for the briefest of moments. "Oh, hello," she said. "Cecil. What might you be doing back here at this hour?"

"Oh," said Cecil. "I—wh…" He glanced around and saw that Leon had disappeared from view. "I just realized that I had left some—things—here, and look! I got them!" He laughed weakly and looked at Lauren while he wrung his hands.

"Well, Cecil, I was just heading out," said Lauren. She grinned, shooing a horrifyingly perfect set of straight white teeth. "How about I give you a ride home?"

Cecil glanced back into the room and then turned to Lauren. "I, wh…" He swallowed, hard. "Okay, sure, yeah." He stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him, leaving Leon alone.

Leon waited a moment, making sure that the two of them were not coming back into the room. He let out a sigh. "Okay…" he uttered aloud, glancing at the room around him. He hesitated for a moment, and then made up his mind. "I'll find the key anyway." There was no response from the room around him, but Leon knew that it was his best bet to find the key and then work to find Cecil to broadcast. It would be easier to find the key without Lauren hanging around.

He just hoped that she had only brought Cecil home, and not—somewhere else.