As soon as Sarah stepped foot back on the train, Wolf informed her that Admiral Jax authorized him to tell her where Jake's escape pod had landed. "On Saturn's moon, Titan," he said. "We don't know how he got there or why his pod veered off course, but that's where he is."

She kept a straight face but never took her eyes off Wolf. "That doesn't shock me. It only confirms the suspicions I had back at the Observation Facility."

"What gave it away?"

"It was the video. The moon's surface had a yellowish tint to it, and Jake had to wear thermal protection and not a pressure suit. Titan is bitterly cold, but it has about the same surface pressure as Earth, thus the thermal suit. Of course, how he survived there for the last thirty years is another matter."

Wolf shrugged. "He's alive. You should be happy."      

"I am," Sarah replied. "Somehow, he figured out how to sustain himself all this time. He must have stumbled upon a well-stocked habitat and maybe found some sort of food source on the moon. That's not taking into consideration the medication he had to take to counter the older version of the serum the admiral gave him. He had to have a good supply of the inhibitor drug with him when he crashed landed, or he found a ton of that stuff in the habitat on Titan."

"Anything's possible."

"I know he had a small supply with him on the space station. But he was going into cryo and was expecting to restock when he reached Earth, which he never did." She shook her head and sighed, then grew silent as she considered it all.

Of course, the fact he was in this predicament didn't sit well with Sarah at all. As their journey to the TXP Facility dragged on for hours, she found it harder to deal with all the new information the admiral had thrown at her. After Wolf left her to her thoughts, exhaustion set in, but she couldn't sleep. All she could do was sit in the recliner and stare out the window.

A vibration rattled a glass of water on the sink countertop—the only evidence Sarah sensed of The Bullet's deceleration—except for the endless sand dunes scrolling by the cabin window. The computer-generated scenery coincided with the movement of the train, slowing to a crawl before coming to a complete stop. Earlier, she would have thought they were in the middle of the Sahara Desert. But now, she suspected they were somewhere in the central United States. Kansas. Nebraska. South Dakota maybe... if they had stayed on course due west, as Wolf had said. Regardless, the landscape in the viewing window had no bearing on their location or even the time of day or night.

Wolf had left her alone in the cabin for the simple reason of self-preservation, because she told him if he didn't leave her, she would kick his nose in again. Too many of the wrong emotions dominated her right now. Anger: She seethed on the inside, wishing Wolf had stayed, so she could use him as a punching bag. After all, it was his fault she wasn't in her apartment, wrapped up in the comfort of her sheets. Heartache: Seeing the video of someone she believed to be her husband, a billion miles away, on the surface of another world. That sucked royally. But the crucial question was why was her husband there? And who was to blame for his banishment? Was it a mistake? An error? Or something else? Then there was Despair: A weight of depression like a boulder crushed her soul. A heavy burden she couldn't shoulder alone. However, there was one thread of hope that offered her solace. If she could perfect the serum, get to Jake, rescue him, then maybe she could cure him of the previous serum's side effects before it was too late? Maybe she could smile again? Love again. Laugh again. Enjoy the life she had, no matter how long it lasted.

Being kidnapped could be the miracle she had been searching for, because if Jake was alive, she wasn't alone in this world, or at least in this solar system.

One thing she had learned in her time on this Earth and elsewhere—what a person did with their life—that's what mattered most. It was a sobering thought. But the news about Jake being alive and somehow surviving on Titan couldn't overjoy her. Why? It might not be him. The admiral had ulterior motives. He said as much. The person on that clip could be anyone, a man or a woman. And if it was Jake, it would take years to reach him, and she had to redevelop the serum before they allowed her to leave. Way to squash what little hope she had.

Wolf rapped on the door and poked his head inside the cabin. "We're here. Let's go."

Sarah said nothing but followed him down the bright hallway. They passed cabin doors on both sides—the walls were two toned—metallic silver at the top and charcoal gray from the waist down. They came to a passage, entered, and approached The Bullet's exit doors.

Sarah had seen no actual windows on the train. There was no need for them when you were traveling through the heart of the Earth. She tapped her toe, waiting to see what the TXP Facility was looked like. She eyed Wolf. He eyed her. With her arms crossed, Sarah drummed her fingers on her toned biceps, a nervous habit she needed to kick, one she had battled all her life since she was a child.

The doors opened to a brilliant sun.

Sarah threw up a hand and blinked against the blinding light. "Why didn't you warn me about that?"

"On the off chance you might run once you saw a hint of freedom."

"Like I'd bolt. We have a deal, remember? And I have a motive to keep it. Besides, you'd have a dart in my backside before I got ten yards."

Wolf nodded. "More like five yards. But who's counting?" He exited the train.

The sun hung in the sky like a fiery yellow orb, setting in the west. Sarah made that deduction by taking into consideration the direction the train was pointed, and that Wolf had told her they were headed west. Other than that, Sarah didn't have a clue. She had lost track of time. As for the weather, the temperature felt more like the breaking of spring than the dead of winter, even though snow capped some of the tallest peaks in the distance. It was difficult to get her bearings after all that had happened to her in the last twenty-four hours. But she would manage. She always did.

Sarah trailed Wolf, stepping out onto an expansive concrete platform. A cool breeze brought gooseflesh to her forearms and a slight shiver to the core of her body. The air smelled fresh, like the snow-covered peaks filtered impurities from the sky. To her right, three tunnels bored into the side of a mountain, appearing like giant caverns. The Bullet used the two outer tunnels, exiting one hole, looping around the far end of the platform, and then re-entering the mountain again on the other side.

The middle entrance was the largest of the three, with a set of double doors swung open, each as big as a house and at least a meter thick.

The train track was no ordinary railroad. The builders had constructed it of metal plates, half-moon shaped, cupping the bottom of The Bullet. It looked like someone cut off the top half of a steel pipe and laid it out, supported by steel struts. It amazed Sarah the train had no wheels—it hovered inches above the track—its segmented body allowing it to navigate around curves and descend or climb as needed. The entire setting seemed surreal, like she was on the set of a doomsday movie. In fact, the TXP Facility looked like a place humanity would run to when all hell broke loose on Earth. Of course, the government would just lock them out and watch them perish.

As they walked toward the facility entrance, the barren mountains stretched as far as she could see in all directions. "Like I could run, anyway," Sarah said. "Where are we?"

"The Rocky Mountains. I think somewhere in Colorado. It doesn't pick up on my cell phone's GPS. There's no signal out here. I don't think they want us to know where we are. It's top secret, I guess." He winked while shielding his dilated eyes with a hand.

"Of course."

Sarah glanced behind her. The end of the platform furthest from the mountain turned into a roadway tunnel that dipped below the rail system. Then she saw why. A semi-truck rose into view, its chrome pipes exhaling a mirage of exhaust into the clean mountain air, climbing an incline she couldn't see from her vantage point. The diesel rumbled toward them and passed them, entering the giant hole in the middle of the cliff face. She assumed the truck was delivering supplies to the facility. Possibly Food. Tools and equipment. Weapons. Who knew?

Sarah and Wolf continued along the side of the platform until they reached a standard doorway that led into the sprawling complex.

"This is how you get into the facility itself," Wolf said, gesturing inside. "Stick close. You could get run over by a tractor trailer out in the open or get shot for not having the proper clearance out on the main floor."

"But I'll get credentials?"

"You'll get everything you need. Right now, you're piggybacking with me."

"Fair enough."

Inside the mountain, they entered a small chamber with a craggy ceiling of earth. When Wolf shut the door behind them, the sounds from outside faded to near silence. On the far side of the chamber, they walked under an archway in the rock wall. Across this new room, two elevators awaited them with a pair of black plates mounted on the wall at chest level, each the size of a hand. To their left, opposite the shiny doors, was another archway that led into a larger chamber. Beyond that passage, the semi-truck Sarah saw earlier turned around and backed up to a dock.

"You coming?" Wolf said, his hand motioning toward the open elevator.

Sarah nodded. "This is quite a place."

As they stepped inside, he said, "You know what they say about an iceberg. Ninety percent of it is beneath the surface."