Page 40 of Evolved

Knox closes the tunnel door behind us and takes my hand carefully in his, leading me from that door to another.

This one leads to a stairwell, a tight spiral stairwell, grated metal steps, concrete walls, emergency lights gone dark, and an unlit exit sign pointing upward.

“It’s like leaving one circle of hell for another,” I whisper.

He tucks my hand into his waistband, tugs out a second flashlight, and up we go.

One flight.

Two.

Five.

Ten?

It feels endless.

So many flights I start to think we’ve come to the wrong place. This can’t be the White House.

By the end, even Knox is breathing heavily.

At the top, we hit another door, and this one is made of wood, a heavy door, old and paneled and painted with a big brass handle, and a strip of soft light reveals itself along the edges when we turn our flashlights off and stow them in Knox’s backpack.

Noise hits my ears first.

Laughter.

A woman speaking.

Applause?

It sounds like an award ceremony or a gala.

Trading a wary glance with Knox, I carefully turn the handle.

The door’s hinge squeaks quietly, and we step out into the empty main hall.

I know this door.

I know this floor.

This is the Cross Hall, just off the main entrance.

Light, as if from a hundred candles, pours across the polished taupe-and-ivory checkerboard floors from the direction of the State Dining Room.

The smell of food hits my nose. Nothing elaborate. Moremacaroni than filet minion, but it’s still palpable, thick in the air, as is the sound of a woman’s voice, projected loudly enough as if she were addressing a crowd.

“We’re free of all the things that held us back in the past—greed and bureaucracy, hate and division, oversight, red tape and even speeding tickets—it’s all gone.”

She pauses perfectly.

And I know those words.

I wrote those words.

But I didn’t write them for whoever is saying them.

The voice isn’t Gran’s.