She put her finger to her lips, and her eyes darted toward the living room, where Sergei and Rocko were snoring in perfect harmony. Then she set off down the hallway, pausing at the end to beckon him to follow. The door at the end of the corridor looked out of place with the rest of the building; it was metal, with an LCD screen embedded in the adjacent wall. “You have a situation room?” he asked. Dryden pressed her hand against the screen. It turned green, and the door slid open when she typed in the code. They descended into the basement. Dryden yanked a string dangling from the ceiling, and the room lit up. It was an impressive situation room for a rural, off-the-grid farmhouse. There was one whole wall of screens, each tuned to one of the UCC’s six telebox stations, and another wall lined with metal filing cabinets. Dryden plucked two folding chairs from a rack near the staircase and handed one to Thomas. “Sit,”
