"Very well. Are you ready?"

Jack planted his feet firmly against the ground and loosened his shirt at the back. "Ready."

An instant later he was nearly knocked off his feet as the dragon leaped upward from his back, his front paws shoving down hard on Jack's shoulders for momentum as they passed. Before Jack could even flail for balance the dragon's rear paws thudded down in the same spots, giving himself an extra push upward. Jack grabbed for the edge of the window in front of him, nearly putting his hand through the plastic in the process, and looked up.

Draycos was hanging by his front paws from the third-floor window ledge. For a moment he peered inside, his tongue flicking through the gap to taste the air. Then, working his snout into the opening, he pushed upward, levering the window all the way open. A quick pull, a lunge of golden scales, and he was inside.

Jack turned and looked at the silent woods and the darkened buildings half-seen through them. With Draycos gone, he suddenly felt a lot more exposed out here. He hoped the dragon would hurry.

Too late, he also hoped the Edge hadn't loaded their headquarters with hidden security cameras. Getting Draycos recorded on videotube would be all they needed.

The light touch that brushed across his shoulder was like a high-voltage electric shock. He twitched violently, nearly wrenching his back as he twisted around, half expecting to see Sergeant Grisko grinning at him over the muzzle of a gun.

It wasn't Grisko. It wasn't a gun, either. It was, instead, the plug end of an electrical extension cord.

He looked up. Draycos had reappeared in the window, the cord dangling from between his front paws. "A change of plan," he whispered down at Jack. "It may be safer to stay on this floor."

Jack took a deep breath, sternly ordering his heart to start beating again. "Right," he muttered. Getting a grip on the cord, he started to climb.

Between his climbing and Draycos's pulling, he made it up and through the window in record time. "It appears to be an assembly area," the dragon suggested as Jack peered around at the long tables stacked with electronics gear.

"Probably maintenance," Jack said, his nose wrinkling at the faint stench of burned insulation. The smell was probably why whoever worked here had decided to leave the window open overnight. "I don't see any computers, though," he added, closing the window back down to its original crack.

The dragon's ears twitched toward the closed door. "I hear no movement outside."

"Good," Jack said, heading toward the door. A gray plastic bag caught his eye as he passed, and he scooped it up. "Hold it a second," he added as Draycos reached for the door handle. "They may have cameras out there."

He slid his hands into the bag, stretching the heavy plastic taut. "Here—you've got the claws in the family," he said. "Cut me a couple of eye holes, will you?"

Draycos's neck arched and he extended a claw. A couple of quick slashes, and he had a neat slit visor carved into the plastic. "Will that do?"

"Let's see," Jack said, wincing a little as he slid the bag over his head. He'd seen those claws slice grooves in solid metal, and they'd come a little too close to his hands just now. The positioning was perfect. The bag settled onto the top of his head with the slit directly in front of his eyes. And unlike the eye holes he'd asked for, the slit even allowed him some peripheral vision. "Perfect," he told the dragon. "Get aboard and let's go."

The hallway outside was dark and silent. Jack stayed close to the wall, trying to ignore the rustling of the plastic bag in his ears. The main offices would probably be on the first and second floors, but with luck one of the rooms up here would have the computer link he needed.

He struck gold with the second room he tried. Not only were there three terminals in the center of the room, but two of the walls were lined with file cabinets.

"Bingo," Jack murmured as he closed the door behind him. "Looks like we've found the main file room."

Draycos's head rose from Jack's shoulder, his green eyes glittering in the dim starlight filtering in through the window. "We have found old records," he corrected. "The labels on the cabinets indicate the information is over five years old."

Jack felt his lip twist. So much for hunting down the right tube and studying it later in the safety and convenience of the barracks. "Well, we can't expect them to just hand it to us," he said philosophically, closing the door and heading for the computers. "You want to keep watch?"

Draycos dropped to the floor from his sleeve. He opened the door a crack and pressed his ear to the opening. "Do not take too long," he warned.

"Thanks," Jack said dryly, turning on the computer. "I wouldn't have thought of that."

"Will there not be code-locks?" the dragon asked, ignoring the sarcasm.

"Like cold on ice." "Pardon?"

"They'll be all over the place," Jack translated. "But Uncle Virgil taught me a few tricks."

For a few minutes he worked in silence. The sewer-rat approach, as Uncle Virgil had called this technique, was nearly always effective with human-designed computers.

Trouble was, it was also pretty slow. Jack could feel sweat gathering on his forehead beneath his mask as he punched the keys. Sooner or later, he knew, the patrols out there were going to get tired of their search and come home. The computer chugged on, the sewer-rat code words chewing away at the defenses.

And then, abruptly, Draycos stiffened. "Footsteps," he hissed. "Someone is coming."

For a second Jack hesitated. To give up now, when they were so close ... "Where?" he hissed back.

"On the stairway at the near end of the corridor," Dray-cos said. "Moving slowly upward."

"Which floor?" Jack asked. "I mean, are they coming from first to second or second to third?"

Draycos's other ear twitched toward the cracked door. "First to second," he said. "And there is only one person."

Jack chewed at his lip. A single person implied a night watchman making his rounds. If he went through the second floor before coming up here to the third, there might still be time to find and pull the records he needed.

And then Draycos's tongue flicked out. "There is an odd odor," he said. "It tastes ... unpleasant."

Frowning, Jack crossed to his side. "Let me smell," he whispered. The dragon moved away, and Jack took a careful sniff.

One was enough. "We're out of here," he muttered, closing the door all the way and heading for the window at the far side of the room. As he passed the computer, he shut it off. "Come on."

"What is it?" Draycos asked, hurrying to catch up with him.

"He's laying a sopor mist ahead of himself," Jack said, looking around. Unfortunately, this room hadn't come equipped with any handy extension cords. "A few more whiffs and you and I would have been snoozing blissfully away. You see anything to climb with?"

"No need," Draycos said, stepping to the window. With forepaws and muzzle he slid it open. "I will jump first and stand below. You may drop onto my back."

"You must be kidding," Jack growled, going back to the desks. The computers themselves were standard fold-top portables, with a whole spaghetti mix of cables connecting them to printers and scanners and other equipment. "I'd break your back. Or else miss completely and break mine. Help me get these cables loose."

Two minutes later, Jack had the cables knotted together. "It will be too short," Draycos warned, running an eye over the makeshift rope.

"It'll be close enough," Jack insisted, carrying the lumpy coil across the room and feeding one end out the window. "Here," he added, handing the other end to the dragon. "Hold tight."