SOMEONE HAD BUILT A perimeter fence around the Chimera excavation site. Tall, chain link fencing attached to metal posts encircled the dark opening of the tunnel. Heavy metal gates barred the single dirt road that led to the tunnel entrance, and the excavation workers’ giant trucks sat inside the fence. The fence, gates, and tunnel roof were only small anomalies in the vast expanse of desert, but they were foreboding and entirely unexpected.
Zapata had to have seen them too, but his only comment was, “Do you want me to land inside or outside the compound?”
It was a compound, Cherry realized. The only reason for the fence was in order to protect something or some people within it. The citizens of Suddene must have relocated to the Chimera excavation site, hoping to avoid the biocide as lo
