“I wouldn’t know!” shrieked Gray. He gulped and drew the oxygen mask back over his face.

Bester was like a man possessed, ripping out panels in the ceiling, on the floor, in the storage bins, and the 

bathroom. He occasionally had to grab a mask for a hit of oxygen, but he never faltered from his task. Finally, in the panel above the water dispenser, he found what looked like a pair of old-fashioned levers.

“Manual override,” he panted. “Undocumented feature. It’s amazing what you learn when you read people’s minds all day.”

Bester took one more breath of oxygen from a nearby mask and reached over the water cooler to grab the levers. His normally coiffed hair was plastered across his forehead in dripping ringlets, and the sweat drooled off his chin. The Psi Cop braced himself to give the levers a forceful jerk.

He needn’t have tried so hard, because the levers moved easily in his grasp. There was a comforting clunk, and the car shuddered on its overhead track. One second later, the car flew into reverse so quickly that Bester was dumped on his backside. Gray considered himself fortunate that he was still strapped in.

Bester sat up groggily and staggered like a drunk into a seat, any seat. He strapped himself down, reached for a gas mask, and gratefully sucked oxygen.

Gray suddenly realized that he was a quivering rag of sweat, too. He tried to remain composed, but it was difficult with the dark hotel and its gaping wound in his direct line of vision. That was when the voices, the screams, and the agony grew louder! Gray put his hands over his ears and shrunk down into his seat.

“Don’t give in to them!” growled Bester. “Block it. You can’t help them now.”

The assured words helped to calm Gray and give him some control, which he used to push the voices into the background while he tried to concentrate on his home in Berlin. His home was a grim little apartment, on the second floor, with stark furnishings and one window with a flower box that looked down upon a koi pond. He loved it. Gray had just gotten the apartment a few months ago, and he was very proud of it, even though he had only spent a handful of nights there between assignments.