Revolution (Collide, #4)(59)

She must've gotten the same feeling as me because she looked up at me and smiled this gorgeously happy smile. "Don't you feel utterly normal right now?"

"It does feel weird," I agreed and laughed. I put my arm over shoulder and kissed her temple. "Weird in the best way."

And it was hard to not look around constantly for an enemy. Ellie, I knew, was keeping us safe from detection. I looked back at her for a second. She was still pretty shy with everyone except Ryan, but right then, she looked…giggly. She smiled and bobbed her head to the music we could hear from the club and bumped Ryan's shoulder as she did so, trying to goad him into playing. He bumped back and they both laughed.

When we reached the end of the lot and the back of the cars I casually kept going as if I knew right where I was headed. Ryan and Ellie followed and we reached the back door to the station. I looked up and followed the long line of the tower way into the sky. This had to work.

I remembered what Marissa had said about Lily being the key… No. This had to work.

The door was locked, of course, so I used my strength to take the door knob off. They'd know someone had messed with it, but that couldn't be helped. I towed Sherry up the stairs to the main hall. I had absolutely no idea which way to go, so we split up. Well, we split from Ryan and Ellie who took the left and we took the right. I wasn't about to let Sherry from my sight, and Billings followed us.

"Let's just try not to touch anything if we can," Ryan explained in a whisper. "I don't want them to think we're onto them."

I nodded. "Fifteen minutes and we need to get out."

He nodded, too, and then they were gone.

The building was dark except for security lights that paved the hallways. Just enough light for us to see. I wasn't sure what we were looking for. Some security panel or control room, I guessed.

"There," Sherry said and pointed to a door with a wide window. There was a wall of screens and a control board inside. I tried the knob and when it turned easily, we went inside.

"Ohh, looky, looky," Billings stated happily. "Gadgets."

"You know what these things do?" I asked.

"Course!" he scoffed. "If you can run a DVR, you can figure this stuff out."

I had no idea what he was talking about, but watched as he sat in the chair and began pressing a few buttons. There was a loud whirring, ringing sound and then every screen on the wall lit up…

And Cain's face was staring back at us.

He grinned and said, "Remind me to give Marissa a big kiss right on the lips when I get back."

Sherry gasped belatedly, shocked, and then hissed. "Cain! What…where are you? Are you ok?"

"We're at the state line. We've got a map here." His head moved off screen a little. Daniel was beside him and said something before Cain's face appeared again. "There's only three stations that span the state that'll run all the broadcasts. If we got all the stations going and online together, we could make a broadcast, easy."

"But there's no internet or cell service," Sherry argued. Ryan and Ellie came in behind us and gawked at the screens; twenty pictures of Cain's mug. "How will we get the stations to link with each other?"

"The stations are run on frequencies to each other, but they're also run by landlines for back-up. All we have to do is turn back on the connection of those cables to each station. They turned them off to keep word from spreading."

I frowned. "But what about the third station?"

"We're headed there now." He looked at his watch. "We've already accessed this station's panel and turned it back online. You do that there and we'll be at the other station by tomorrow night." He leaned closer. "Be back at the radio station tomorrow night with something to broadcast."

"But it's almost midnight?" Sherry argued. "Hardly anyone would see what we broadcasted at midnight anyway."

"We'll set up a transmission to play at a certain time. That way, we won't even have to be there when it's broadcasted. By the time they realize what's going on, it'll be too late to stop it."

I grinned. "It's good to see you, man."

"Sherry baby, I'm so glad you're ok. It's really good to see you guys," he spouted with a huffed breath. "How's Lillian?"

"Holding up," I said. "She's knows you're ok, but knowing and seeing are two different things."

He frowned. "Yeah, they are." He glared over at Daniel. "Let's hurry this thing up, huh? See you tomorrow night."

"We'll be here."

The screen clicked off and we all stood in silence. Everything seemed to be falling into place. Billings searched the wall for the 'core', he said. They needed a hard line that had nothing to do with wireless or radio frequency signals. He bent down and shoved his face under a table. When he said, "Aha," we knew he'd found something.

"Got it. The control panel is in the floor. All right, everything is back online." He pulled himself up. "Now if we just come back tomorrow, it should just be a manner of uploading the video and setting the program to a certain time. Easy, peasy."

"Let's hope," Ryan said and looked around.

"We have to go see Chesser," Sherry said. "Tonight."